Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four)
Read Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four) Online
Authors: Sarah Woodbury
Children of Time
A Brief Guide to Welsh Pronunciation
Book Four in the
After Cilmeri
Series
Children of Time
by
Sarah Woodbury
KINDLE EDITION
Copyright © 2012 by Sarah Woodbury
Cover image by Christine DeMaio-Rice at Flip City Books
Children of Time
November 1288. Bereft of a king or rightful heir, England hurtles towards civil war for the second time in a generation. When David, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Lili, travel to London to attend the wedding of William de Bohun and Princess Joan, they have no intention of involving themselves in local politics.
But as infighting leads to murder, David and Lili find themselves at the center of a far-reaching conspiracy. Trapped between history and legend, they must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice to save not only their own country, but the people of England as well.
Meanwhile, back in Wales, Llywelyn and Meg discover that time is no barrier to either adventure or trouble …
Children of Time,
book four in the After Cilmeri series, continues the story of Llywelyn, Meg, and their children in the medieval kingdom of Wales.
To my sister
(who is nothing like Meg’s sister,
even if they live in the same house)
Books in the
After Cilmeri
Series:
Daughter of Time (prequel)
Footsteps in Time (Book One)
Winds of Time
Prince of Time (Book Two)
Crossroads in Time (Book Three)
Children of Time (Book Four)
Exiles in Time
The Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mysteries:
The Bard’s Daughter
The Good Knight
The Uninvited Guest
The Last Pendragon Saga:
The Last Pendragon
The Pendragon’s Quest
Other books by Sarah Woodbury:
Cold My Heart: A Novel of King Arthur
A Brief Guide to Welsh Pronunciation
c
a hard ‘c’ sound (Cadfael)
ch
a non-English sound as in Scottish "ch" in "loch” (Fychan)
dd
a buzzy ‘th’ sound, as in “there” (Ddu; Gwynedd)
f
as in “of” (Cadfael)
ff
as in “off” (Gruffydd)
g
a hard ‘g’ sound, as in “gas” (Goronwy)
l
as in "lamp" (Llywelyn)
ll
a breathy “th” sound that does not occur in English (Llywelyn)
rh
a breathy mix between ‘r’ and ‘rh’ that does not occur in English (Rhys)
th
a softer sound than for ‘dd,’ as in "thick” (Arthur)
u
a short ‘ih’ sound (Gruffydd), or a long ‘ee’ sound (Cymru—pronounced “kumree”)
w
as a consonant, it’s an English ‘w’ (Llywelyn); as a vowel, an ‘oo’ sound (Bwlch)
y
the only letter in which Welsh is not phonetic. It can be an ‘ih’ sound, as in “Gwyn,” is often an “uh” sound (Cymru), and at the end of the word is an “ee” sound (thus, both Cymru—the modern word for Wales—and Cymry—the word for Wales in the Dark Ages—are pronounced “kumree”)
Cast of Characters
The Welsh
David (Dafydd)—Prince of Wales
Lili—Ieuan’s sister, David’s wife
Llywelyn—King of Wales, David’s father
Meg (Marged)—Queen of Wales, mother to David and Anna
Anna—David’s half-sister
Math—Anna’s husband; nephew to Llywelyn
Cadell–son of Anna and Math
Gwenllian—daughter of Llywelyn
Ieuan—Welsh knight, one of David’s men
Bronwen—American, married to Ieuan
Bevyn—Welsh knight
Nicholas de Carew—Norman/Welsh lord
The English
Edward I (deceased)—King of England
Eleanor of England—Edward’s daughter
Joan of England—Edward’s daughter
Humphrey de Bohun—Regent of England
John Peckham—Archbishop of Canterbury
William de Bohun—Humphrey’s son
Maud de Bohun—Humphrey’s wife
Edmund Mortimer—Lord of the March
Gilbert de Clare—Lord of the March
Chapter One
15 November 1288
Meg
“
Y
ou know what you need to do, don’t you?” Llywelyn said.
Llywelyn and David faced off on the balcony that overlooked the Wye River, while Goronwy and I watched from a few feet away. The sun had fallen behind the castle, not that we’d seen much in the way of sunlight on this gloomy November day.
I glanced at Goronwy, looking for help, but he refused to meet my eye, knowing better than to get involved in this argument. Llywelyn and David had come to a blessed agreement since Llywelyn had agreed to David’s marriage to Lili. Especially now that Lili was pregnant, Llywelyn approached life with a certain smug satisfaction. But sometimes their conversations still gave me a tickling sensation in my stomach that wasn’t my baby kicking or fluttering its hands. It told me that neither man quite trusted the other yet. It was as if the memory of those bitter months of estrangement, even if the original disagreement was resolved, continued to hover over their future.
“I need to see William and Joan off to a good marriage,” David said. “That is why we’re going to London. That’s the
only
reason.”
“We could do more,” Llywelyn said. “Even with marriage to one of the royal daughters off the table, all is not lost. You could be more, and by doing so, protect Wales from a time when England again has a strong king.
You
could be that strong king.”
Dreading the repeat of this argument, I glanced towards the water roiling below us, heading towards the Severn Sea. Chepstow Castle had been built on solid rock above the Wye River. The storms of the last week, coupled with the tidal surge that had churned upriver in the last hour, had caused the water to run high. At the moment, it lapped only forty feet below the bottom of the castle wall, instead of the usual seventy. England lay on the opposite bank. It was something that nobody at Chepstow Castle could ever forget, even if, at present, England and Wales were at peace.
What hurt my heart most was that Llywelyn was right. I knew what the future might hold for Wales once England found itself a strong king. We had been lucky that England had lost King Edward at the very moment of our ascendancy. In my old world, the few times that Wales had managed to overcome or withstand English invasions had been when it had a strong leader, like Llywelyn, and when it had the support of England’s enemies. The last Prince of Wales, not Llywelyn but Owain Glyndŵr, had fallen in the end because once his allies had deserted him, the English king proved stronger and more agile, with better access to men and munitions. Wales hadn’t stood a chance.
David folded his hands in front of him and rested them on the wall. I wanted to reach out, to touch him, but stopped myself. He was a grown man, and this was his decision.
In order to reach the balcony on which we stood, we’d come through the kitchen, down a set of stairs, and into a wine cellar. The reason Roger Bigod, the original owner of the castle, had installed the balcony in this location was not for the beautiful view, or the quiet, but to allow fortification and provisioning of Chepstow from the river in times of war.
We used it now to speak in absolute privacy, and had gone so far as to clear the cellar and stairs of companions and guards. David had even excluded Evan, who shadowed him everywhere he went since David had promoted him to captain of his
teulu
. Only Goronwy stayed with us, silent in the shadows.
“I know what you want, Dad,” David said.
“Do you?” Llywelyn said. “Why can’t you see how a claim from you to the English throne could change the course of Wales’ future forever?”
“I can see it,” David said. “But on what basis would I make such a claim, and who would I have to betray in order to make it? Humphrey and William? The Norman barons who have allied themselves with us?”
“It wouldn’t have to be that way,” Llywelyn said. “Everyone knows that the English crown is in doubt and the kingdom in disarray. None of the barons has the support of enough of his peers to make an outright claim, and even those who ally with Valence can’t envision him—or one of his lackeys—on the throne.”
Valence was the Norman lord who had incited the war against us in August. He hadn’t gone away in the intervening months, despite a loss of face at his stunning defeat in the Severn Estuary. Both David and Llywelyn were in agreement that they couldn’t count on that same luck a second time, were Valence to contrive another plot against Wales. Thus, Llywelyn’s entreaty that David throw his name into the hat for the English crown.
“I have no royal blood, Dad. On what grounds could I possibly rule?”
“As High King—”
David gave a mocking laugh, not letting Llywelyn finish. “But I wouldn’t be High King. We’re not talking about uniting England and Wales under my rule—at least not today. We’re talking about a claim from me to the throne of England.”
Llywelyn tried again. “I admit that’s true for now—”
“Even if a claim to the English throne held any water at all with the people of England, how would my rule of them be any different from what we’ve suffered for centuries under the Norman boot?”
“You can’t seriously be comparing your potential rule to King Edward’s,” Llywelyn said.
“In the mind of the English, how would I be any different?” David said. “Welsh rulers who have reached too far, who have stretched their hand over the lowlands of England, more often than not have died fighting in wars to the east, over land none of our people have cared about since the Romans left.”
“Those lands were ours, once.” Llywelyn said.
“They were,” David said, “but this isn’t the dark ages and I am no Arthur, no matter what the people say.”
“And I say you are. It isn’t about the blood in your veins,” Llywelyn said. “You
are
the rightful High King of Britain—”
“Please don’t say that—” David stepped closer to his father, his hand out.
“—and it is Arthur’s spirit that runs in you, even if half your blood comes from another world.”
David made a disgusted noise in his throat. “Dad—stop—you know talk of Arthur makes me feel like a fraud.” David scrubbed at his hair with both hands and then dropped them.
“I know,” Llywelyn said. “I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. It shouldn’t.” Llywelyn glanced at me.
I interpreted his look as a request for support and closed the distance between us. “It’s an explanation for your difference that the people can understand and accept,” I said. “That’s why we haven’t discouraged it. It’s been to protect you.”
“It doesn’t feel that way to me,” David said. “I’ve long since given up on letting my people know about where we came from, but I’ve striven to be myself, regardless of how odd it makes me.”
“It’s not that you’re odd, Son,” Llywelyn said. “You’re different from everyone else because it is that difference that Wales needs. That’s why you came to me six years ago. That’s why your family is so special. England needs you now, too, to prevent a civil war from tearing the country apart for the second time in a generation.”
Llywelyn was talking about a repeat of the Barons’ War, which for a time had deposed King Henry in favor of Simon de Montfort, his brother-in-law. Llywelyn had allied himself with Simon, and ultimately married his daughter, who had died while birthing their daughter, Gwenllian.