Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four) (31 page)

“While I know the name of the one responsible for each of these acts, it does me no good to accuse the guilty, nor us to accuse one another. Everyone here has plotted and planned, schemed and devised. Each seeks to raise himself higher than his peers. Some of you have even sought to raise
me
higher.”

 “My lord, surely you sell yourself shor—”

Again I cut Peckham off. “So you say,” I said. “I’m getting to that.”

As I gazed around the room, looking from face to face, I saw that these barons believed me when I said I knew the truth. They feared what I knew, the power I might wield, and the men who had pledged their loyalty to me. It was an odd feeling, and not one I enjoyed. But I would use it if I had to. “What England truly needs to affect justice is a king.”

Kirby raised a hand. “Justice, mercy, and faithfulness. We have been entrusted by God to rule with these virtues, and we have forgotten them.”

I was surprised at him, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been. “Matthew 23:23,” I said. “Thank you, Kirby.”

Valence wasn’t having any of it. “What is this? Mercy towards murderers. Bohun—”

“No, Valence,” I said. “How can there be justice when the men meting out punishment are also the guilty? It is an impossibility. When we choose him, justice will be the jurisdiction of the King.”

Valence snapped his mouth shut. “I don’t have to listen to this.” He glared at me and then turned on his heel to pace down the hall towards the doors.

I let out a sharp breath. I hadn’t expected him to abdicate so quickly—if I’d allowed myself to hope for it at all.

The other barons watched Valence’s progress towards the doors and murmured among themselves, equally surprised. “Of what did you accuse him?” Bohun said in my ear.

“I will not say,” I said, “though I meant what I said. He is as guilty as any of us. As guilty as you.”

 Bohun swallowed hard. “My lord—”

“I know who killed Eleanor,” I said. “Do I need to say her name here? Is that what you wish?”

“No, my lord,” Bohun stepped two quick paces away from me. I had the sense that he couldn’t leave my side quickly enough. Clare took his place.

“You’re letting Bohun go, too?” Clare said. “If you know the truth, you should speak—”

“I know lots of truths.” I turned my head. “Would you like me to speak of the other night when you met with Carew and Edmund Mortimer in the chapel?”

Clare froze beside me. “My lord, we never—”

“You’ve let Kirby get away with his forged papers because it served what you saw as my interests,” I said. “I say the same to you as I said to Bohun and Valence. It is only the king who can dispense justice.”

Clare bowed his head.

“My lords,” Peckham raised his voice to call everyone’s attention to himself again. “As Prince David has asked, it is finally time to discuss our future… and the man we will crown King of England.” He gestured with his right hand towards me. “He stands before us.”

Clare prodded me in the small of my back. “No, Clare,” I said.

Peckham didn’t hear me, and wouldn’t have taken no for an answer if he had. “If you would come forward, my lord David.”

Roger Mortimer coughed into his fist while Kirby smiled beneficently. “Given that your mother is the daughter of our beloved King Henry—” Kirby said.

That got me moving when nothing else could have. “No.” I wondered how many times I could cut off one of these barons before he overrode me. It hadn’t happened yet.

“My lord—” Peckham said.

“This has gone on long enough,” I said. “We must dispense with the mythology of my mother’s birth now.”

“But your mother was—” Kirby tried again.

“You can believe that her father was King Henry all you want, but it isn’t true.”

“The people believe it,” Peckham said, managing to finish a sentence.

I shook my head and gestured towards the door, miles away down the hall. “The people of England believe something else of me entirely.”

It had been impossible to miss the gathering that had begun outside Westminster with the dawn. Many of the men around me had passed through their ranks to enter the palace. The Londoners had been quieter before the meeting, but now I could hear them, calling to one another and clamoring for news.

And for me.

I didn’t want what they wanted, but I couldn’t just walk away either. I could hear my father’s words, said to me on the balcony at Chepstow a lifetime ago, echoing in my ears:
You could be that strong king
.

Archbishop Peckham’s eyes crinkled in the corners, as if he could read my thoughts. It irked me that he saw me as some kind of protégé, someone he had brought along until I could stand before a council of men and display my power over them. That’s not why I had come.

And yet, it was Kirby’s expression that interested me more. In him I saw curiosity, as if I was someone entirely different from the man he’d imagined me to be, and he was interested in finding out what exotic thing I might do next.

I decided to oblige him. Peckham had been slapping the roll of parchment signed by King Henry in the palm of his hand. I grabbed it from him and waved it in the air, not specifically at Kirby, but so everyone could see it. “Someone was paid to create these so-called proofs. When was he to come forward and reveal me for a fraud? At the crowning? At the opening of Parliament? Or was the plan to blackmail me to ensure that I did what he wanted, under threat of exposure as a charlatan?”

Two dozen barons, holding the highest stations in England, gazed back at me with various degrees of surprise and consternation. “Prince David—” Clare had come up behind me. His voice held a gentle warning. I’d done well so far keeping my temper contained. It wouldn’t be wise to pull a Valence.

“You need to decide what it is that you want. What you see here—” I held up the papers again, “—is ephemeral—a fictive right of birth. You hold that dear, I know. All your power and titles and strength are based on the family into which you were born.”

In two strides, I reached one of the tall candles that lit the room and thrust the parchment into the flame.

“My lord!” William de Bohun leapt towards me and batted the parchment from my hand. It hit the stones and continued to burn until another man, one of the Bigod cousins, stomped on it.

I’d shocked the barons. I could see it, but short of running me through, there was no stopping me now. I’d been wanting to speak my mind for years, and I was going to take my chance, whatever the consequences. I didn’t need this crown. I didn’t need the power that they thought to hand me so blithely. They had to know now that if they crowned me King of England, I wasn’t going to be controllable.

I met my father’s eyes. He nodded his encouragement.

“William the Bastard took this land by force,” I said. “It took him four years to subdue the people who were here first. I speak to you today in French because many of you barely speak their language, and yet you claim lordship over the English by right of birth? It’s by strength of arms that you sit atop your pyramid of power. And those people out there?” I lifted my chin. “They accept it not because of your birth, but because they fought your ancestors and lost.

“The Bastard’s line has wavered at times, threatened to be rent asunder by civil war, but never failed. Not until now. These past three years, I imagine many of you have envisioned yourselves on his throne.”

A half dozen men shifted from one foot to another. Others stood solidly, impassive. And a few shared Peckham’s expression—a crinkling in the corners of their eyes and lips.

That amusement which Edmund Mortimer never seemed to quite suppress rose to the surface. “Young pup!”

He elbowed his way through the crowd and came to a halt in front of me, inspecting me up and down. He bowed his head, and then turned to look at his fellow barons. “We must bring order to the chaos that has engulfed England. Without a strong king, we fight among ourselves, jostling for power, rending the countryside asunder in our quest for ascendancy. Do I want to fight Bohun or Bigod or my own brother every time we have a dispute about our borders? What would that gain me and how much would I lose? As Prince David has said, without a king, we have no justice.”

Clare moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Edmund. He threw out a hand. “Who among you would take the throne?”

Silence
.

“Who among you believes that Arthur has arisen in this man before us? Your people believe it. Do you believe despite yourself? Or does your pride intervene?”

Too late, I realized I’d lost control of the council meeting.

Clare turned to face me. “By right of birth or not, by the right of Arthur or not, I acknowledge you as my king.” He went down on one knee in front of me and bowed his head.

Carew, Edmund Mortimer, William, and my father followed immediately, along with Humphrey de Bohun (never a sure thing) and the Bigod cousin whose name I didn’t know. Others followed, though at least half hesitated before capitulating.

I shook my head. I could see the steps that had brought me to this point, to the barons of England bowing down before me, but how could I accept what they were offering?

Peckham caught my arm. “Come with me.” He tugged at my elbow and after a second of silent struggle, I went with him down the long hall. Though I didn’t look back, I could feel the other barons processing behind me. Dad appeared on my other side. It was a long walk on a wounded leg. Neither of us spoke. As we reached the doors, Peckham flicked a hand at the two men who guarded them and they flung them open. Beyond, hundreds of people thronged the courtyard and the street, which I could see because the gates to the palace were open too.

At my appearance in the doorway, a roar went up. Mom and Lili had been hovering nearby and Peckham made room for them on either side of me.

“These are your people,” Peckham said. “They believe in you. Will you deny them what they need: your leadership and the crown of England upon your head?”

I closed my eyes. This really was too much to ask of any man, but hadn’t I known when I entered the hall today that this could happen? And I’d gone anyway, maybe still not believing, but willing to believe. “Live more lightly, isn’t that what you said, Mom?”

“I did,” Mom said.

“I’m thinking about calling their bluff,” I said.

“What?” Mom said. “David—no—they don’t understand what they’re asking of you.”

“But I do, finally, I think.” I turned to Peckham. “All right. You win. I’ll do it.”

Peckham’s eyes lit but Dad grasped my arm. “Dafydd—”

I turned to my father and spoke in Welsh so I could shut Peckham out. “Isn’t this what you wanted? We’ve discussed it dozens of times.”

“Yes … no!” Dad backtracked. “It’s what I thought I wanted, but Dafydd—” he shook his head “—now that it comes to it, I don’t want this for you. Not with the way it’s come about, not if you have any doubt at all. You are my son, and I love you. If you accept this crown, your life will never again be your own. You fought me so you could marry Lili, and you were right. You fought me on this, and you were right. We’ll figure something else out.”

I grasped Dad’s shoulder, the weight I agreed to take onto my shoulders already lighter. “I can’t tell you how much I needed to hear you say that, but it’s you who were right this time. Wales does need me to take this step. God knows why any man in England thinks this is a good idea, but this one act on my part will protect Wales for generations to come. I do need to do it. Right, Lili?”

Lili had squeezed between Dad and me and stood with both arms around my waist. I stretched my arm across her shoulders and pulled her closer. “You’re crazed if you think I’ll make a good Queen of England,” she said.

“The fact that you don’t want it makes you the best woman for the job.” I lifted a hand to the crowd and waved, and God help me, the people roared their approval back at me.

* * * * *

That evening, everyone was in a state of shock, me as much as anyone. Even with the celebration and the adulation of the barons seated at the table with me and throughout the hall, I had one last question I needed to ask—one last person with whom I needed to speak.

Near the end of the dinner, I rose to my feet and pushed in my chair. Lili had already gone up to our rooms, but Dad looked up at me. His cheeks were pink—from the warmth and the wine—and he was smiling. I thought his face was fuller and more healthy-looking than I’d seen it even as far back as last August. “Son?”

“I have to do something,” I said.

Dad’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t stop me or question me further, just nodded. I walked off the dais and came up behind Bevyn, who sat on the far side of one of the long tables further down the hall. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Come. Walk with me.”

I’d kept an eye on him all evening, trying to keep track of the number of times he’d had his goblet refilled. I’d lost count at six. I found it oddly poetic that it was I who was putting a stop to the drinking tonight.

Bevyn stood, though he didn’t meet my eyes, and followed me through a side door near the dais, down a long corridor and out into one of the numerous courtyards at Westminster Palace, and then to the top of the curtain wall that overlooked the Thames.

I took in a deep breath, allowing the cold air to wash over me. We had no stars or moon to light the sky, but London was a city and a pioneer in light pollution. Lambeth Palace lay across the river, lit to the heavens as the Archbishop prepared for my coronation.

Bevyn came to rest beside me, his forearms on the flat top of the wall and his back hunched over them.

“Did you hear me speak to my father at St. Paul’s about his possible role in all this?” I said.

“I did, my lord,” Bevyn said. “I assure you, he told the truth.”

“I know,” I said. “But you have lied by omission, haven’t you?”

Bevyn didn’t answer at first, and the silence dragged out until he finally said, “If I have displeased you in some fashion—”

“I need you to answer this one question, Bevyn,” I said. “I trust you with my life. You would never harm me. But you are smarter than you let on, and devious, and you
believe
in me in a way I can never understand. If you love me, tell me the truth.”