Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four) (8 page)

“I am honored to welcome you here, too, my lord,” Aeddan said.

His addendum had a genuine laugh rising in my chest. Aeddan had been awestruck over Bevyn’s appearance. Me, he could take or leave
.
I stopped in front of Huw. At the sight of his bright eyes and smile, I let the laughter show. I ruffled Huw’s hair as I had when I’d seen him last. But then I dropped my hand as I acknowledged that he was nearly as tall as I and two years a man. “What are you doing here at Chepstow?” I said.

“We’re merchants now, selling our wool at the market in the village,” Aeddan said, with obvious pride. “This is my uncle’s house.”

“He’s out visiting,” Huw said.

I turned to look at Bevyn. “How did you know they were here?”

“We’ve kept in touch ever since your abduction when you were sixteen,” Bevyn said.

His words made me suddenly ashamed. I hadn’t asked about Aeddan and his family, not once. I’d hardly thought of them again after that summer, except vaguely in passing, and only then because the memory of my vulnerability still ate at me. Aeddan must have read regret in my face because he bowed his head. “You’ve had many things on your mind, my lord.”

Which was true, but not necessarily an excuse. How many others had I left behind in the last six years? How many had I used and then forgotten in the immediacy of daily life as a Prince of Wales? Rather than my rescuers, it was Dai, my surviving abductor, whom I’d later tracked down, only to find that he’d lost his leg below the knee as the result of a riding accident. I’d left him as he was, unable to find it in me to punish him more than fate already had.

Bevyn clapped me on the shoulder. “No use going from an angry drunk to a maudlin one. I didn’t bring you here for that.”

I blinked at him, my head clearing. “Then for what?”

“Let’s settle in first.” Bevyn nudged me towards a stool near the central fire and when I sat, Huw handed me a bowl of broth. I sipped it, feeling the salty warmth fill my stomach and glad to have it inside me instead of mead. Bevyn went to the doorway, spoke a few words to Evan who had remained in the street, and then closed the door. He approached the fire. “The men stand guard and the town is quiet. We may speak freely now.”

I took another sip, studying Bevyn over the rim of my bowl. I raised my eyebrows in expectation of an explanation for all this. So far, I’d done everything he’d asked. It was time he enlightened me.

But now that it came to it, he seemed to have trouble knowing where to begin. He opened his mouth, closed it, glanced at Aeddan, who nodded, and then tried again. “There have been … some complications with this journey we’re taking tomorrow,” Bevyn said.

I really wished I hadn’t drunk all that mead. Between it and the heat from the fire, I was having a hard time focusing and I could tell from Bevyn’s hesitation that this was important. I rested my elbows on my knees and took another sip of broth. “Tell me.”

It was Huw who spoke, after a glance and a nod from his father. “It was only this afternoon that the message from London reached us. Bevyn was to speak to the king this evening, but …”

“He is not available,” I said. “You’ll have to make do with me. What is it?”

“Our contacts in England are worried,” Bevyn said. “Everyone knows that you are coming to England for the wedding of William and Joan, and many believe it is a ruse to draw you out of Wales. To draw you to your death.”

This was more like the Bevyn I knew. I rubbed my chin. “Do you believe that it is Humphrey de Bohun himself who plays us false, or someone else?”

“Not Bohun,” Aeddan said. “In fact, we haven’t heard anything from that quarter other than that he welcomes you to England. Others, however, do not wish you well. For example, the son of Owain Goch, Hywel, still plots with Valence to unseat your father.”

Owain Goch was my father’s older brother, whom he’d imprisoned for most of his life and who died in 1282, before I came to Wales. Valence had trotted Hywel out as a challenge to us last summer, because under Welsh law, Hywel should have a right to lands in Wales comparable to my father’s. “That I knew—”

Bevyn held up a hand. “Let him finish.”

“Meanwhile, Valence has allied with Alfonso of Aragon, who seeks a quick marriage to Princess Eleanor,” Huw said.

“Eleanor is the eldest daughter and has first claim to succeed her father, were the barons to consent to that,” I said. “She’s nineteen now. How long can the barons deny her right to rule?”

“As long as they can,” Bevyn said. “Both Valence and Alfonso are in London and will attend William’s wedding.”

“Thus, Alfonso strives for the throne, even if no baron wants to see a Spaniard with the crown of England on his brow,” I said. “It would be as horrifying to them as a Frenchman.”

“Alfonso has made no secret of his intention,” Bevyn said. “Whether he thinks he can control Valence instead of the other way around isn’t clear. Valence views Alfonso as his puppet.”

“Valence prefers to work behind the scenes. That’s been his pattern.” I studied my companions. “What is the nature of the threat against me?”

“Ambush on the road,” Aeddan said.

Delightful. “As if I haven’t had enough of those,” I said.

“We are looking into it, my lord, but without specifics of time and place, only rumor …” Aeddan said.

I nudged Bevyn, who’d come to sit beside me. “Then you’ll just have to keep me safe.”

Bevyn bowed his head. “As always, of course.”

“You spoke of news from London,” I said to Aeddan. “I hope you have more. We’ve had some difficulty distilling truth from falsehood these last few weeks. What of Kirby, the other regent?”

“He didn’t support Valence’s attack on Wales, and is working to reform the Treasury,” Aeddan said.

I almost said,
borrrring
, but didn’t. I understood the power Kirby wielded. Edward had appointed him Lord Treasurer in 1284, making him upon Edward’s death the nobleman with the highest standing. Now, in addition to regent, he was also the Bishop of Ely. Although his demeanor was mild, he had stepped into the middle of difficult disputes with aplomb. For example, before King Edward’s death, he’d summoned the mayor of London and his alderman to the Tower of London to discuss disorder in the city. When the mayor had resigned in protest of the summons, Kirby had refused to appoint another and had ruled London himself since then.

“Okay. What else?”

Aeddan cleared his throat. “Questions have been raised as to whether or not the death of Prince Edward, the last remaining son of King Edward’s body, was a natural consequence of disease, or he was … helped along the path to Heaven.”

“London is rife with rumor and suspicion,” Huw said. “The barons are reluctant to crown anyone in Edward’s stead, for fear that the one they choose committed regicide to get there.”

Bevyn scoffed. “Such a man wouldn’t be the first king to murder his predecessor. Still, there’s more to it than that. Right now, we have two rivals to the throne: Alfonso and William, with their respective betrothed princesses, Eleanor and Joan. However, neither Alfonso—or rather, Valence—nor the Bohuns have the support of enough barons to actually
take
the throne. Everyone wants a third candidate and they’re all jostling among themselves to determine who that’s going to be.”

“Gilbert de Clare has my vote, though if he ultimately betrays us and turns against Wales, he would prove as difficult an enemy to counter as King Edward,” I said. “Still, none of this touches on me. I pose no threat to anyone but Hywel.”

“Perhaps,” Bevyn said. “You have power in your own right, however, and the Norman lords know it. Whichever side you come down on could influence other barons. Wars have been started for less.”

“Are we really talking civil war?” I said. Dad had said as much earlier in the day. “Has it gotten that bad?”

“We fear it,” Bevyn said. “War in England can be good for Wales, but much depends upon who wins.”

“So we’re back to Valence again?” I said. “Or is it Vere or Bigod’s heir who most concerns you?”

Bevyn growled. “All of them.”

“Roger Mortimer has been freed from the Tower,” Huw said.

That
wasn’t good news. “Edmund Mortimer remains in London, doesn’t he?” I said. “He is still our ally, along with Clare?”

“Yes,” Aeddan said. “That is true as far as we know. We’ve not heard differently.”

I eyed the shepherd-turned-trader, finally taking note of Aeddan’s continual use of the word ‘we’.
In the three years since Wales had declared itself independent from England, Math, my father, and I had cultivated circles of informants—spies—to help us make sense of what was happening in England as well as in our own country, listening to anyone high and low who had news to give us. We wanted to know of a threat to Wales
before
it happened. The survival of Wales was a problem my father and I faced every day. It was immediate, constant, and distracted us from more important things—like improving the daily lives of our people—or a working telegraph, for that matter.

And yet what kind of life would they have if we failed and Wales fell under the Norman boot?

Despite our efforts, we’d failed to hear of the gathering of Bigod’s forces at Bristol in preparation for his attack on our southern coast last August. That we’d learned of it first from Humphrey de Bohun still galled me.

Even with that failure, Tudur, in particular, had become skilled in weighing one bit of information against another. His seat at Chepstow was a gathering place for information from the whole of south and mid-Wales, and the March. Aaron’s Jewish connections had given us another network of information, Math’s connections with the Welsh in England provided yet a third. I looked from Aeddan to Huw to Bevyn. Was this a fourth source I hadn’t known about?

“Who do you mean by
we
?” I said.

The three men looked down at their feet. Their instinctive and unintentional sign of uncertainty let me know that this was something I didn’t know, that they didn’t necessarily want to talk about it, and that Aeddan’s ‘we’ included Bevyn.

Bevyn cleared his throat. “The Order of the Pendragon.”

I licked my lips. I was already sure I wasn’t going to like this. “Why have I never heard of it?”

“You weren’t meant to,” Bevyn said.

“Am I to understand that the Order of the Pendragon is a … a secret society?”

“I’m not sure what you mean by that, exactly,” Bevyn said, “but if you are asking if we are a group of like-minded men who seek to protect you in any way we can—who are willing to give our lives for you, then yes. That is the Order of the Pendragon.”

I found myself torn between anger, awe, and laughter, and was tempted to check my forehead for a lightening-shaped scar. “How many of you are there?”

“Nearly one hundred, at present,” Bevyn said.

One hundred! Sweet Jesus.
“How long has this been going on?”

“Since your father acknowledged you as his heir,” Bevyn said.

“Six years, you mean? You’ve been part of this group for six years?” I couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d hit me on the head with a cast iron pan. “Who are they? Where do they come from?”

“From all walks of life,” Bevyn said, “and from all over Wales and England, the better to serve and protect you.”

I let the silence drag out as I considered the implications and the planning required to pull something like this off. “You trust every man in the Order?”

“Yes,” Bevyn said.

“That means you know each and every one of them?” I said.

“Yes, my lord,” Bevyn said. “Every man was either personally recruited by me or by someone well known to me.”

“You did this yourself, you mean?” I said. “You’re the leader?”

“Leadership in the Order is more fluid than that,” Bevyn said. “More complicated.”

“Is it, now?” The question had come out dry and semi-sarcastic. I couldn’t help it.

Bevyn closed his mouth. I eyed him for a long moment before prodding him, even though it was clear he didn’t want to say more. “Meaning what?”

“We have no status, no titles, no fixed station for any member in our Order,” Aeddan said. “Each member is his own man, but we all look to Bevyn for guidance.”

“Lord Carew joined us very recently,” Huw said. “He’s proven his worth in your service many times over.”

I couldn’t argue with that. It was no less than the truth, which was why Dad and I had included him in the party traveling to England tomorrow.

I scrubbed at my hair with both hands and didn’t say what I really thought, which was that they’d all run completely amok. They had stated point blank that my life was more important than theirs, and had backed up their belief by creating a secret society whose sole purpose was to protect me. I found myself growing angry again. I wanted to tell them that they had no right to lay this burden on me, no right to build their lives around
me
. But I didn’t chastise them—
God help me, I couldn’t.

“We’re putting every man we have on full alert during your trip,” Huw said. “You will be well protected, and if you need anything at any time, we’ll see to it.”

I closed my eyes for a second, and then opened them. I was defeated. “Thank you.” What else could I say?

We spoke among ourselves for another few minutes, small talk mostly. I asked about Aeddan’s wife and other children, and tried not to convey to them anything but my gratefulness. It would do no good to complain, and as I sat by the fire, I wasn’t sure I had a right to my discontent.
Live more lightly
, Mom had said. To which I could only reply,
How?

Bevyn and I said our goodbyes, and I promised Aeddan that his family would be welcome in any castle in which I was staying, anywhere in Wales.
Bevyn and I walked back to the castle through another cloudburst. Evan kept his men ten paces behind us as he had on the way to Aeddan’s house.

“Why did you bring me to them?” I said, once we left the village behind.

“To sober you up.”

“I’m sober, believe me,” I said. “I’ve been sober every day since I was fourteen years old and my sister drove my aunt’s van into that clearing and saved Dad’s life. I’ve been nothing
but
sober.”