Uneasy Lies the Crown (42 page)

Margaret hustled the children out the door and into the care of one of her handmaidens. Soon, she was at Catrin’s side again, her hand kneading her daughter’s shoulder.

When Sir Edmund Mortimer had come to Owain Glyndwr’s house, it was as a servant of the English king and a captive. Owain had impressed Edmund with his leniency, intellect and leadership, but it was Catrin who had been the victor of his heart. It was she who had converted him to the cause of the Welsh, not by persuasive argument or extortion or threats, but by the innocent grace of her smile. He had gambled his lands and his birthright, if only to be by her side. Owain had placed in Edmund as much faith as any Welshman and in turn Wales had gained a champion.

But now, like so many others before him—Madoc, Tudur, Hopkyn, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Harry Hotspur and young Tom who once carried Owain’s banner—his beliefs, his actions, his very life had all led him to this inconspicuous end. Men who had risen with passion burning in their souls to fight gloriously, to live completely for but one single thing, an idea, were all in the end reduced to this: a hollow shell of flesh and bones, without breath or heartbeat.

Silent tears slid down Catrin’s pale cheeks. She rubbed Edmund’s cold hands and squeezed them hard. “Oh Edmund, the years were hard, but happy. And yet, too few. My father will return. He will deliver us—save our children. One day they will live in peace. He will free Wales. You always believed so. And so it will be.”

As Catrin tucked her chin against her chest and threaded her fingers through her beloved’s hair, Margaret backed herself against the wall. What she was soon to do, she knew Catrin would never forgive her for. Before his escape, Owain had named a date and told Margaret that by the time that day came and went if he had not arrived to relieve Harlech and freed them all, or if he had tried and failed, that she was to use her soundest judgment to decide whether to hold out... or to give in.

She had lost count of the number of dead. As of that morning, only four soldiers were stalwart enough to keep watch and defend the castle. The rest were ill or injured. Little Angharad was waning by the hour. There was enough food to last them all a day by normal standards—if they fed the sick ones, that is. Three days if they fooled their bellies with vinegar water.

She must lay her pride down before her, because to her back there was only a crumbling wall.

When Harry strode into Harlech at the reluctant surrender of Margaret Glyndwr, he could not say he was surprised to discover that Owain was not to be found within its wasted walls. He now had in his possession the last great stronghold of Wales—and was that not what he had come for? Wales was his, as it should have been all along. The Glyndwr family, or what was left of it, was herded into the great hall. Without laying eyes on them, he ordered Sir Gilbert Talbot to escort them to London where they would be locked up in the Tower for as long as it would take for Owain Glyndwr to give himself up.

The rebels of Wales were vanquished, Scotland had been put to bed with the capture of its young king and France was consumed with its own squabbles. Only a few years before, England had been assaulted on every front. Now, it was never more secure.

57

Somewhere in Wales — Late Summer, 1410

In the year and a half since he had escaped from Harlech, Owain had aged two decades. The once great warrior prince wandered the land in over-mended clothes. His hair was thinning and silver-gold. The glorious mane was now cropped at chin length and the neatly trimmed beard replaced by coarse stubble. That he had changed in appearance echoed the man within.

After Dewi’s death, Maredydd had broached the subject of trying to raise troops with his father, either in Wales or abroad, but Owain had defeated every suggestion, dug up some gaping flaw in it and pitched his son’s resourcefulness aside. He had forbidden Iolo to sing any ballads that spoke of the glory of his house or his fight against the English. Ballads of romance were limited to only the older, well known ones. The restrictions left his friend nearly mute, for Iolo was always proudest of his own creations and not an imitator of others.

Sometimes, on rare days when he would accompany Rhys about the hills in search of game, Owain would talk with him about better times. Whenever the talk brought up Margaret’s name, Owain’s shoulders sank, his eyes went distant and he grew suddenly quiet.

“Are you going to blame yourself forever?” Rhys tethered his horse to a fallen tree branch and claimed a spot in the shade. It was one of the first warm days of summer and already at midmorning the heat was building. They hadn’t spied so much as a hare and knew it would be another day of porridge for them all if their luck didn’t change.

Owain plucked at his bowstring as he settled himself on a log. “Do I have any sway over the sun? Hardly. I don’t blame myself for what others have done... or failed to do. I am a prince without a people. A people who could not, would not, call themselves as one. What am I, one man, to do about that?”

“So all that talk at Machynlleth,” Rhys said, sitting beside Owain to look out over a meadow crowded with yellow-faced daisies, “about churches and universities was a pile of dung?”

“No, not that.”

“The parliaments, the alliances, letters to kings and popes, the army you built that won back everything from border to seashore... what was that for? Why was it that I stretched out my neck on bitter cold nights, days drenched with rain, snow up to my ribs —”

“Point made.” Owain pulled an arrow out of his bag and fitted it to the string. “I’m old, Rhys. We’re all old. Look at us. Harry is the rising sun. We are the pack mules who can no longer carry our load.”

“I see.” Rhys reached beneath his shirt to scratch at a rash. “Harry is the greater man. And us? Just a couple of fusty arses sitting on a stump in the middle of bloody nowhere, gibbering about our aching bones and poor eyesight and how long it has been since we’ve tupped a wench and... What are you doing with that?”

A small, black cloud erupted from the grass fifty paces away. Owain squinted, pulled back and let the arrow fly. The arrow smacked the bird down with a twang.

“Grouse tonight?” Owain chimed as he rose from his seat and went to claim his prize.

“Oh, so it’s just my eyes that are failing.” Hobbling, Rhys followed on his heels.

Pierced cleanly through the breast, the grouse that Owain picked up was not full-grown. He swung it by its feet. “Not enough to go around.”

“Pity. First sign of fur or feather we’ve seen all day.”

“Or perhaps we will have had no luck at all today?” A small, crooked smile lifted one side of Owain’s mouth. “Flint?”

“Never without,” Rhys said, digging in the pouch at his hip.

They retreated back to the shady spot they had left and Rhys went to work breaking up the dead branches around them for a fire, while Owain plucked the bird. They both knew if the others found them out that this little private feast would not go over well.

After they had devoured their meal in famished silence, Rhys licked the fat from his fingers.

“Do you think,” Rhys mused, “that you’ll ever see Margaret again?”

Owain sighed. “I don’t see how. She’s in the Tower. Not in our best days could we have freed her from there. I have nothing to give up for ransom. Henry might take me in her stead, though.”

“Would you do that?”

Scratching in the dirt with his knife, Owain gave his companion a sideways glance. “She would not want me to. And she was right in what she said to me before I left her. So long as I live, there is hope. Besides, if I were in Henry’s hands, he might just execute me and my whole family all at once. My pride, as well, prevents me from giving myself up. Do you actually think I would give that devil the satisfaction?”

“Not likely.” Rhys’s gaze went distant, his thoughts obviously roaming. “Nesta is in Ireland with her mother’s family.”

An abrupt switch in the course of the conversation, Owain narrowed his eyes at Rhys. “Then I take it she is well. The girls?”

“Don’t know. News travels not at all in these parts. But... I have been thinking... thinking of joining her. Her mother’s family has some land where they mostly tend to sheep. It would be a lot like home. Owain? You and Maredydd can come with me. Iolo, too, if you want. I imagine the house is small, but —”

“And what of Gethin and Phillip?Rhys and Gwilym? No, it is too much to ask and we would just as easily be found out there, as well.” Owain tossed a thighbone onto the remains of the fire. “I want to die on Welsh soil, not in some land not my own. You understand?”

Rhys stretched his legs and yawned. “I do. If I was going to die—and I haven’t yet decided I’m ready to do that—then I want it to be while fighting the English.”

“We don’t have any army to fight the English.”

“Yes, but we don’t have to fight the whole damn English army. Remember when we used to raid their towns, just a handful of us, and come back with armloads of bounty? We weren’t many then.”

Owain scraped a small pit into the earth at his feet, tossed the bones and entrails of the bird there and then covered it over with dirt and a few rocks.

“Only a few,” Owain echoed. He smiled at Rhys as he stood, suppressing the groan aroused by stiff joints, and collected his bow and bag of arrows. “The spark that started an inferno.”

Rhys cocked his head in contemplation. “There’s still plenty of tinder about.”

“And Harry to douse us.”

“He hasn’t stepped foot on Welsh soil since Harlech. This is a dull life, Owain. One I was not born to. Neither were you.”

Owain shrugged and turned along the path back toward their humble dwelling in the mountains. He could never forgive the English their arrogance. Least of all could he forgive them for the deaths of his children and for taking away his sweet, beautiful Marged.

Ah, Marged, all of Wales must think me dead, I have been so quiet, so timid. How do I give them hope when I cannot find it myself? Do they dare speak for themselves? For certain they would never have faith in a coward. Is that not what I have become?

Near Welshpool, Anglo-Welsh Border — October, 1410

The first gold of the harvest season tinged the fields below the mountain ridge. To the east lay gluttonous England. To the west, wild Wales.

“We would get richer if we robbed Welshpool,” Rhys hinted, looking down the valley at the town a mile away. “Money, wine... a few extra horses. We’ll need those things.”

“You and what army?” Owain said, glancing over his shoulder at the dozen faithful followers gathered on horseback. They were lightly armed, just like they would have been a decade ago—a weapon or two apiece and not a link of mail among them. At first Owain had resisted his own idea of a raid into the borders—an idea sown time and again by those around him. Maredydd with his gentle insistence and bright hope, Iolo with his odes of more glorious days, Rhys with his prodding to action... even blind Gethin, who bemoaned his lost purpose in distant snatches. They were only a few, but the dream was still there in their hearts, or else they would not have clung to this wandering existence. They could have taken their pardons and lived in peace. Instead, they were here, surveying this pastoral scene.

The ground was yet wet from a storm the night before, but the sun had come forth in triumph, not yet ready to yield to the slate-gray clouds of October. Dotting the valley was a healthy herd of cattle, grazing in unsuspecting tranquility.

Rhys raised a hand to shield his eyes. “Since our supper will not come to us... I suggest we go get it.” He gathered up his reins and looked at Owain with hungry anticipation.

Owain signaled with a single finger and Rhys nudged his horse in the flanks. While Owain and the rest waited, Rhys ap Tudur and Philip Scudamore, a brother-in-law to Owain’s daughter Alice, followed close behind Rhys Ddu on their horses. At an easy canter, they swung out wide around the slumbering valley in the direction of Welshpool to cut in behind the herd.

“We’ll cover the south.” Gwilym brought his mount up beside Owain’s. “There are other pastures there and the cows will want to go that direction because they know the way.”

“Take your time, Gwilym,” Owain said. “If we can take them quietly we’ll get much further along without alarm.”

“And if the farmer discovers us?” Philip Hanmer added from behind them.

“Whatever it takes to silence him.” Settling back in his saddle, Owain watched Rhys and the other two men move past a stand of woods.

Philip Hanmer and Gwilym took up their reins.

“Wait,” Owain said lowly, squinting. “Something’s wrong.”

From out of the woods around Rhys, poured a host of mounted men.

“English,” Maredydd muttered.

“How many?” Owain said, relying on his son’s youthful vision.

Maredydd peered intensely. With the sun in his eyes, it took even him some time to assess the situation. By then, the rattle of weapons and the shouts of their commander carried across the valley.

Finally, Maredydd turned to his father. “Well over a hundred.”

The others pulled on their reins. The bits of their horses jangled.

Twisting in his saddle, Owain glared at them. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving,” Gwilym said.

Owain drew his sword, prepared to fight. “But what of Rhys and your brother?”

Gwilym simply threw his head around and with a shrug spurred his horse. All but Maredydd followed.

With sinking heart, Owain braved one more look into the distance. There had been no chance of retreat for Rhys. The English had already dragged him from his horse without him ever raising his sword in defense. A stream of soldiers raced across the valley toward Owain and Maredydd. At their head was a detachment of thirty riders in light armor.

“Father, please,” Maredydd pled, his voice strained.

Owain heard the wild drumming in his ears. It was several moments before he realized that it was the sound of English hooves bearing down on them and not his heart.