Footsteps in Time (20 page)

Mom’s and Papa’s wedding
was set for a Sunday, after a noon mass, but Papa decreed that the
assemblage of nobles should meet in the great hall on Friday. Two
years before, when the nobility of Wales had assembled, the war
with the English had been less than a year old. Now they gathered
again, more confident and secure in their power.

Unfortunately for David, he had to
participate in the conference. For once, Anna wasn’t sorry to be a
woman if it meant she didn’t have to sit through an all-day
meeting, which David later told her consisted almost entirely of
pontificating by one baron or another.

Mom, however, had
wanted to attend but hadn’t been able to defy convention enough to
do it. “It isn’t that I object to being a woman,” Mom said as she
and Anna crossed the courtyard, heading back to her room, “it’s
that I don’t really enjoy being a
medieval
woman.”

“
You don’t have much
choice, Mom,” Anna said.

“
I don’t
have
any
choice,”
Mom said. “I believed, in the first hours of my walk along
Hadrian’s Wall, that I could control my destiny. Yes, I was a
woman, but I was educated and intelligent, and had struggled and
survived on my own in the twenty-first century with two children.
Surely this would make a difference? It was appalling to realize it
made no difference at all.”

“
What do you mean?” Anna
said.

“
Sir John knew that I’d
saved his nephew, that I could read and write, but did he offer me
a job as replacement for his thieving steward? Of course not. He
sent me to the convent in Armathwaite.”

“
I can’t picture you in a
convent, Mom.”

Mom smiled. “As far
as Sir John was concerned, it was the perfect solution for me—it
would get me out of the way, yet be a place for me to stay while I
waited for a safe method of travel to Wales. He didn’t even
consider
that I might be
useful to him and could earn my own way. I was a woman, and thus
needed to be taken care of.”

“
Why couldn’t you stay at
the castle?”

“
Because he thought I was
only twenty! Do I look twenty? I tell you ...” Mom paused, shaking
her head. “Women age so quickly here. He looked at my relatively
unlined face and soft hands and refused to believe I was
thirty-seven and the mother of two grown children.”

Actually, Mom had often been mistaken
for a college student at home too, particularly when she wore
shorts and put her hair in a pony tail. Still, if Anna thought back
to the peasant women with whom she’d dealt in the past year, many
of them had aged before their time. She remembered one woman in
particular who’d given birth to her first child at fifteen, had
nine children by thirty, and at thirty-three, when Anna met her,
could easily have passed for fifty.

Is that to be my fate,
then? How many children will I have before I’m thirty?

“
Mom,” Anna said. “I’ve
something to tell you.”

Mom stopped and turned to
Anna. “Oh, sweetie,” she said. “I’ve wanted to ask if you were
pregnant, but didn’t want to invade your space if you weren’t ready
to tell me.”

“
I’ve been working up the
courage to talk to you, and you already know!” Anna said. “How do
you know?”

Mom took Anna’s face in her hands and
kissed her nose. “Because I’m your mom,” she said. “It’s my job to
know these things. I’m happy for you and Math.”

“
And scared too,” Anna
said.

“
Petrified,” Mom agreed. She pushed open the door to the living
quarters and they both sighed.
Warmth
. “We need to see about a
midwife. When are you due?”

“
Early July, I think.” They
shared a look. “I don’t want to lose another one,” Anna said in a
low voice.

“
It happens, sweetheart.”
Mom hugged Anna to her. “Even in our world, all we can do is
pray.”

Anna eased back. “Can you
tell me, when you came to Wales the first time and met Papa—can you
tell me what happened with you? Papa explained it from his
perspective, but—”

“
Llywelyn rescued us from
the car, and from then on he was my entire world,” Mom said. “He
couldn’t have been more different from your father—successful,
decisive, thoughtful, intelligent—sorry, but there it is—and I
loved him.”

“
But he didn’t marry you
then,” Anna said.

“
I wasn’t of noble birth,”
Mom said. “It wasn’t possible. Not in the Church.”

“
Have you talked with David
about it? About ...” Anna paused, trying to think of how to ask her
question without judging.

“
About the fact that King
Edward would look down on him for being illegitimate?” Mom
said.

“
Yes.”

They reached Mom’s rooms
and entered, shedding their cloaks. Gwenllian, so grown up now at
two and half, napped in a trundle bed in the far corner. Mom went
to her first, her hand hovering above the blonde head, before
returning to a seat in front of the fire. “David can be a bit
judgmental.”

“
Not to mention hard on
himself and others,” Anna said.

“
That too,” Mom said. “He
certainly doesn’t regret being born and nobody regrets his
existence. What was hard for me was being forced to leave Llywelyn;
what was hard was raising him by myself. I also know—and assured
David—that Llywelyn would have acknowledged him in an instant had
he been born in Wales. We were married in our hearts, even if the
politics of the time forbade it.”

“
And what did he
say?”

“
He was glad that Fychan
could no longer humiliate him,” Mom said.

Anna laughed. “I told him once that
even if we were home, and he lived perfectly every day of his life,
he’d still need to learn tolerance for others when they fell short
of his expectations.”

“
What did he
say?”

“
He said he was
trying.”

“
As Prince of Wales, he
needs that skill,” Mom said.

Chapter Four

David

S
omething was wrong. David could tell from his father’s stance,
and from the solidity of Goronwy, as if he’d grown roots and was
prepared to stand forever at Father’s shoulder. The members of the
council were waiting in the great hall. If Father’s absence
continued any longer, they’d know something was wrong. But still,
neither of them moved.

“
You said we’d take a
short break when the messenger came in, but it’s been an hour.”
David closed the door of his father’s office behind him. “What is
it?”

Finally, Llywelyn turned. His face
showed more lines than David had seen in his face in a while—not
since Cilmeri. David’s presence had rejuvenated his father. Mom had
rejuvenated him, but the spark was gone.

“
Dafydd,” Father said. The
word came out as a croak.

David moved closer and put his hand on
his father’s shoulder. He wanted to grasp him, to hold him up. He
seemed so weak.

“
Not you, Dafydd,” Goronwy
said. “Your uncle.”

Christ!
“What’s he gone and done?”

“
He’s left us; defected
again,” Goronwy said. “To Edward.”

“
But ... but ... that’s
insane!” David said. “Why would he do that?”

“
Why has he done it in the
past?” Father said. “Why did he try to kill me once? It seems he
can’t help himself.”

Goronwy and David settled Llywelyn
into his chair; then Goronwy turned to David. “Your uncle Dafydd
may be irrational, but I’ve noticed an unhappiness brewing within
him these past months as our peace negotiations with Edward have
progressed.”

“
It’s me, isn’t it?” David
scrubbed at his hair. “My presence steps on his toes.”

“
Your uncle Dafydd is no
longer your father’s heir,” Goronwy said, “and with every month
that passes, you prove yourself more capable of stepping into your
father’s shoes. Your people will follow you when he is
gone.”

“
So by returning to Edward,
he hopes to change the balance of power such that Edward defeats
Father entirely?”

“
And then places Dafydd
himself on the throne of Wales,” Goronwy said. “That is my guess,
yes.”

Crap
.
That’s
not going to happen
.

Father took in a deep
breath and straightened his shoulders. “Right. What’s done is done.
This changes nothing for me. It gives Edward no more leverage
against us than he had before. My people will not defect to Dafydd
any more than they would follow Edward.”

“
I agree, Sire,” Goronwy
said. “Edward’s negotiators might try to use this to subvert the
peace process, but as far as I’m concerned, Dafydd can rot in
England for the rest of his life. Edward can keep him and good
riddance.”

Father nodded. “Both
previous treaties required me to take him back if Edward was to
sign them. When you speak to the Archbishop next, Goronwy, you tell
him that giving Dafydd back his lands in Wales in exchange for
peace is off the table. He has abandoned his lands and his people
twice already. He will not play us for fools a third time. My
patrimony will not be held hostage to his treachery.”

“
Yes, my lord.” Goronwy
bowed.

The wedding festivities weren’t quite
as jubilant after that, though the lords who attended were as
adamant as Father that this act of Uncle Dafydd’s was the final
straw: no peace treaty with Edward was going to include Llywelyn’s
brother ever again. Many had followed Uncle Dafydd on and off over
the years; even those who hadn’t thought much of him had cheered
his rebellion back in 1282; and even more had re-evaluated their
views later when Llywelyn took the reins of Wales again.

“
But Llywelyn’s cause was
never your Uncle Dafydd’s cause.” Mom twitched her skirt to adjust
its fit.

“
Can’t you talk about
something else?” Anna straightened Mom’s train, which she’d
described as a ‘rich blue’. “You’re getting married in five
minutes!”

David ignored his sister,
though he had to admit that his mother looked very nice. “Uncle
Dafydd thought only of himself; Father, though prideful—”Anna shot
a scowl at him, although David knew this to be true, “—thinks first
of Wales.”

“
Who’s the English lord
who sent that nice note congratulating you?” Anna said. “Nicholas
something?”

“
Sir Nicholas de Carew,”
Mom said. “He has a big castle along the south coast of Wales in
Deheubarth.”

“
He saw the writing on the
wall,” David said, “and appears to have interpreted it exactly the
opposite from Uncle Dafydd.”

“
It helps that he’s the son
of a Welshwoman and married to another,” Mom said.

“
Leastways, he’s promised
to hold the south for Father,” David said. “I want to believe
him.”

“
Llywelyn—and probably
you—” Mom eyed David, “—will have to see for yourselves come
spring. Your uncle was privy to Llywelyn’s strategies, his plans,
the disposition of his men and the horses at his disposal, and his
vision of the future. All of which he has given into Edward’s
hands.”

Footsteps sounded
along the corridor and Goronwy poked in his head. “Are you ready?”
He caught sight of Mom and his eyes widened, and then he smiled.
David wasn’t sure if he’d
ever
seen Goronwy smile, except maybe at Anna—and
especially not like that.

Mom nodded. David, for his part,
wouldn’t ever forget the conversation he’d overheard—by accident,
he swore—the night his mother returned:

“
I have chosen you,”
Llywelyn said. “And that should be enough for every one of my
subjects. It is certainly enough for me.”

“
Are you sure, Llywelyn?
Really sure?”

“
I love you more than I can
possibly tell you.”

Mom wrapped her arms around
Father’s waist and pressed her face into his chest. “Sixteen years
is a long time to wait. But I waited.”

“
God put you in my path and
has swept you along with me for a reason,” Father said. “I will
never turn my back on what He has given me.”

* * * * *

In April, with the onset of spring,
David and Llywelyn made plans for a new campaign which would
combine two aims: the need to patrol the kingdom and Llywelyn’s
desire to more fully establish David as his heir, with his own
authority, out from under his shadow. David would start by making a
circuit of Gwynedd, including stops at Dolwyddelan and Dinas Bran
where David would leave the increasingly pregnant-looking Anna.
Math was already there, having taken charge of the rebuilding of
the castle after the English had tried to destroy it back in
1282.

While David held the north
for his father, as Llywelyn had once asked Uncle Dafydd to do,
Llywelyn would travel south along the coast of Wales to Deheubarth
to see for himself the progress the lords there were making in
ridding Wales of the English. After joining Carew and the other
power there, Lord Rhys, Father would head east to gauge how the war
was going closer to England, in the March.