“No! The one had naught to do with the other!”
“You cannot stop lying, can you? Even to yourself!”
“I’ll say this once more, and only once. You were not the target, not this time. Whatever mistakes I’ve made in the past, I know full well who the enemy is. Not you, Llewelyn… Edward!” Davydd spat out the English King’s name as if it were a curse, and striding to the window, jerked back the shutters. “Those bodies down in the bailey…you saw them?”
“They were hard to miss.”
“Jesú, how quick you are to judge! I did not give the command to spare none. I would have, but there was no need for it. For nigh on five years, my men have been cheated and mocked and treated like aliens, like intruders in their own homeland. They had years of abuse to avenge, avenge it they did, and who can blame them? For certes, not me. That is what we should be discussing, Llewelyn, not our rivalry—their rage. This is not my war, it is theirs, and we both know it. I may have been the one to strike the first spark, but flint cannot ignite without tinder. The kindling had to be there, awaiting that spark, and it was, in abundant measure.”
Llewelyn was silent. He had stepped into the wavering range of the rushlight, and such exhaustion showed now in his face that Davydd could almost believe he was bleeding from a hidden wound. But the hollowed dark eyes threw back the light like splinters of ice; they held such a glazed, unforgiving glitter that Davydd felt a stirring sense of disquiet. Llewelyn was proving to be harder to placate than he’d expected.
“Who else, Davydd? Who helped you to stoke this fire?”
Davydd was quite willing to reveal the rest, for he was proud of the breadth and reach of his conspiracy, a masterwork of timing and forethought and clandestine communication. “Our cousins in Powys were my first converts. Llewelyn Fychan and his brothers and your constable, Madog Goch, were to assault Oswestry this morn, to coincide with my attack upon Hawarden. Gruffydd ap Maredudd and the men of Ceredigion are allies, too. We came up with a strategy for taking the King’s castle at Aberystwyth, and he’ll soon put it to the test. Rhys Wyndod wanted to throw in with us, but not without you. Once he hears that you are now with us, he’ll be right eager—”
“What makes you think I am willing to fight your war?”
Davydd blinked. “You cannot be serious,” he said warily. “Of course you’ll be with us. That was always part of the plan.”
“Your plan, not mine.”
Davydd moved hastily from the window. “You do not mean that, Llewelyn. Blame me if you will, but we cannot win this war without you!”
Llewelyn did not answer. Davydd’s words hung in the air between them, even as Llewelyn turned away. As Davydd watched in disbelief, he walked out and did not look back.
“But why? Why must you involve yourself in this madness? Davydd began this war, not you. Let him be the one to fight it!”
“Ellen, I cannot do that. On the ride back from Hawarden, I sought to convince myself that I could, but I knew better, knew I had no choice but to make Davydd’s war mine.” Llewelyn silenced her protest then by grasping her shoulders, compelling her to look up into his face.
“My love, you must listen,” he said. “I have sworn allegiance and fealty to Edward as my King and liege lord. Once he learns that Wales is in rebellion, he will summon his vassals to put down this rising, and he will expect me to be amongst them. English law gives him that right, and he will exercise it. But do you truly think I could answer that summons? That I could fight with Edward against my own people?”
Ellen’s throat had closed up. She shook her head mutely, leaned for a moment within his embrace, resting her cheek against his chest. “No,” she said, almost inaudibly, “of course you could not…”
Llewelyn held her close for a heartbeat or two. “You’d best sit down,” he said, thinking that Davydd deserved damnation for this alone, for the look on his wife’s face.
His solicitude usually amused her, for she’d been unable to convince him that a pregnant woman was not made of gossamer and glass, likely to break if breathed upon. Now, though, she needed his support, and let him lead her toward a chair. “What if Edward did not summon you to aid him, Llewelyn? Surely he’d rather have you remain neutral than allied against him. If he could be made to see what he risked, mayhap he’d be willing to let you be…”
“He would not, lass. Even if he did, how could I stand aloof whilst Wales went up in flames? If I played no part in the war, and the Welsh lost, they would blame me for that loss—justly so. And if Davydd somehow managed to defeat Edward, who, then, would have the better claim to be Prince of Wales? Do you not see how much is at stake? A lifetime’s travail and the legacy I would leave my son…mayhap even the survival of Wales. For if Edward wins this war—”
He stopped, looked sharply down into her averted face. “Ah, Ellen, do not weep,” he entreated, “lest you break my heart. I know how much you fear for our child, but you must be strong, you must try to understand. Cariad, I cannot fight you and Edward both.”
“I do understand,” she whispered. “That is why I weep, because you are right. This war must be won, and you are the one man who can win it. I’ll not deny that I am afraid. But I have faith in you, faith in the Almighty, and I know you will prevail.”
Llewelyn tilted her face up to his, kissed her tears, and then her mouth, with sudden urgency, with passion indistinguishable from despair. “I promise you,” he said, “that I’ll be with you when our babe is born.”
He left her then, as late as it was, for he had much still to do before he could sleep. She knew his writs would soon be going out across Wales, summoning men to fight the English King. To fight his brother’s battle, she thought, dry-eyed now, bitter beyond words, for never had she hated anyone so much as she hated Davydd ap Gruffydd at that moment. She supposed she ought to go to the chapel, offer up prayers for her husband, her son, and Wales. But she could not find the energy to move from the chamber, from the chair.
“How did you do it, Mama?” she murmured. “During that last dreadful year, you never once lost faith, you never begged Papa to seek safety in France. You never asked him to choose between his honor and his life. Where did you get the strength?”
She paused, then, almost as if she were expecting a ghostly response. She already knew the answer, though. Her mother had never doubted that Simon would win. How often she’d told him what Ellen had said to Llewelyn just moments ago, that right would triumph, justice would prevail. “But you truly believed it, Mama,” Ellen said softly, “whilst I… I lied….”
The Wiltshire castle of Devizes had long been a favorite fortress of the English Crown. Situated on a hillside just west of the town, it possessed spacious living accommodations, formidable defenses, and the most powerful lure of all, a pallisaded deer park. It was at Devizes that Edward had planned to celebrate Easter, and it was at Devizes that he learned of the Palm Sunday attack upon Hawarden Castle and the town of Oswestry.
April was an unreliable escort, heralding spring’s approach one day, signaling its retreat the next. The sun seemed to have caught the same contagion. For more than a week now, its appearances were hesitant, fitful, each flash of blue sky soon clouding over, every sunlit interlude followed by brief, drenching downpours. This Saturday of Easter Week was no different, for it had begun in drizzle, hinted at clearing skies, then reneged with clouds gathering low upon the horizon, sweeping in from Wales.
It was mid-day, but the great hall at Devizes was already lit with torches, wall rushlights, and an overhead candelabra. The hearth was ablaze, too, as was the temper of England’s King. Edward was striding back and forth, dictating rapidly to a harried scribe. The man’s task was a thankless one, for Edward was too angry to frame his thoughts in coherent form, and it was up to the scribe to capture the gist of his King’s outpouring, then recast it into the conventional, formal mold used for letters, even a letter such as this one, going to the King’s brother, Edmund, in France.
It had taken ju
st three days for news of the Welsh rebellion to reach Edward, and he had acted with his usual dispatch, swiftly establishing three military commands to contain the rising until he could take the field himself. The war-lord for mid-Wales was now slouched in a window-seat, watching his sovereign with alert interest, guarded amusement, and some degree of wariness.
Roger de Mortimer was not an easy man to impress, and a crown alone did not bedazzle him, for he’d grown up during the haphazard reign of Edward’s feckless father. The de Mortimers had been a power in the Marches for generations, had clashed with one king after another, wheeling and dealing with impunity, for their family had been blessed with an abundance of audacity and a dearth of scruples. But the rules of the game had changed in the years since Evesham. A man played such games with Edward at his own peril, and de Mortimer had thought it prudent to hasten to Devizes and pledge anew his loyalty, lest Edward cast a jaundiced eye upon his erstwhile alliance with Llewelyn ap Gruffydd.
For the same reason, de Mortimer did not confide his own suspicions, that this war was not of Llewelyn’s doing. It did not make sense to him that Llewelyn should launch a war until he’d accomplished the aim of their alliance, the elimination of the threat posed by Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn. De Mortimer had a strong hunch that any hunt for blame would lead to Davydd’s door, for Davydd thrived upon double-dealing, and this would have been a rare temptation, indeed, a chance to impale Edward and Llewelyn upon the same lance. But de Mortimer kept these speculations to himself, for rage against the Welsh was running high at Devizes, and angry men were often quick to imbue even innocuous words with sinister significance.
Edward had not yet begun his letter to Edmund, having interrupted himself to greet John Giffard, newly arrived for the morrow’s council of war. There was but one topic of conversation at court these days, the perfidy of the Welsh, and although de Mortimer caught only an occasional word, it was easy enough to fill in the blank spaces. At a burst of particularly vigorous and vivid cursing from Edward, he concluded that Davydd was the one under discussion, for he had noticed that Edward reserved his most scathing condemnation for his one-time ally. For Llewelyn and the Welsh people, Edward employed such stinging terms of contempt as “disloyal, lawless, faithless, and false.” But Davydd was more than a traitor, he was an ingrate as well, and whenever Edward began to blister the air with “misbegotten, treacherous son of Satan” and “accursed, fork-tongued Welsh Judas,” de Mortimer knew Davydd was the likely target of Edward’s wrath.
De Mortimer agreed wholeheartedly with Edward’s vitriolic assessment of Davydd’s character, and he was entertained, as well, by Edward’s colorful turn of phrase. But he was puzzled by the genuine echoes of indignation in Edward’s voice. To hear Edward tell it now, he’d welcomed Davydd at his court out of sheer Christian kindness, moved by pity for Davydd’s woeful plight. It amused de Mortimer enormously to hear Davydd described as an orphan of the storm, instead of a sword leveled at Llewelyn’s throat. It was true that Edward had shown Davydd considerable favor. It was also true that Edward would have let Davydd starve by the roadside had he not been so useful a weapon to the English Crown. So why then, did his outrage sound so sincere when he decried Davydd’s ingratitude?
De Mortimer was willing to wager his hopes for salvation that self-interest was the one drink no man refused, but he had never understood why most men must sweeten it so lavishly ere they could swallow it. It seemed, though, that even a King had need of sugar, and he felt a faint flicker of the contempt that weakness of any kind always aroused in him. But he took care to keep such dangerous thoughts safely buried in the back of his brain, for a king could afford the luxury of lying to himself—if he was also the greatest soldier in Christendom.
Dismissing Giffard, Edward turned back to his patiently waiting scribe. “This next letter goes to my brother, the Earl of Lancaster. You add his other titles. I believe he is still at La Ferté Milon. The usual greetings. Say then, that I would advise him of recent happenings in Wales; he already knows of their Palm Sunday treachery. Tell him that two days afterward, the Welsh lured the constable of Aberystwyth Castle away, under the pretext of inviting him to dine with them. Instead, they seized him, and then attacked the town, killing English citizens and taking the castle. That same week—Holy Week it was, too, for the Welsh are as impious and ungodly as even the Jews and Saracens—the Welsh captured castles at Llandovery and Carreg Cennen. And on Good Friday, they attacked Oswestry again, left it in flaming ruins.”
Edward paused, staring past the scribe with blind, inward eyes. The man squirmed uneasily under the intensity of that blue-white gaze, and Edward eventually came back to the moment, back to the hall.
“Tell Edmund that I have called upon my vassals and the shire levies. I have also engaged fifteen hundred Gascon crossbowmen, and I shall be laying claim to the services of the ships of the Cinque Ports. Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn has vowed to hold fast for the Crown, and I have received pledges of loyalty from Rhys ap Gruffydd, Rhys ap Maredudd, and the least of Llewelyn ap Gruffydd’s brothers. But the rest of Wales is rallying to Llewelyn. And their treachery has so far been rewarded with unholy success.”
Edward had begun to pace. “Davydd ap Gruffydd now holds Ruthin and Dinas Bran as well as Hawarden, and indeed, his bloody forays took him almost to the gates of Chester itself. He then hastened south to stir the flames of rebellion in Ceredigion. Llewelyn is said to be commanding the sieges of my castles at Flynt and Rhuddlan. They will not fall to him, though. They cannot be taken by force, nor can they be starved into submission, for when I built them, I made sure they could be victualed from the sea. So they ought to be able to hold out until I can raise the sieges.”
Edward paused again. This letter to Edmund, when done, would be full of facts, but it would offer no glimpse into his mind, his heart. He would to God Edmund was here now, for with Edmund, he could be honest, with Edmund, he could reveal more than rage. Eleanora would try to understand. He knew that. But as much as he loved his wife, he did not think women could comprehend issues of honor. Moreover, she had always looked upon Davydd with loathing; it would never even occur to her that his betrayal could hurt. Edward’s jaw muscles clenched, for Davydd’s very name tasted foul to him now. He’d been fair to both brothers, more than fair. He’d not sought Llewelyn’s destruction, offered terms, instead, let the man keep his crown and Ellen, too. As for Davydd…what had he not given Davydd? Lands in Cheshire, royal favor, a rich wife, and she his own kinswoman, even his friendship. And they repaid his generosity with treason.
He’d not realized how long his brooding silence had lasted, not until he glanced up, saw that they were all watching him. “Pick up your pen,” he told the scribe. “End the letter thus. Say that the Welsh are an accursed, willful, and vexatious people, enemies of the King’s Peace, shameless violators of God’s Holy Truce. Again and again they have rejected English laws, disavowed their sworn oaths, and spilled the blood of innocents. But no more. They shall pay and pay dear for their latest treachery, for Scriptures say that those who sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.”
Edward was no longer speaking just to the scribe. His eyes were sweeping the hall, moving from face to face. “There can be but one writ recognized in this isle of ours, one government, one sovereign lord. I know that is God’s Will, just as surely as I know this turmoil and defiance must cease. This is not the first war English kings have had to fight with the Welsh, but I swear, upon the surety of my soul, that it shall be the last.”
31
Taunton Castle, England
April 1282
Amaury’s memories of the years he’d passed in English prisons were blurred, grey, and indistinct. But his seventh year of captivity had begun in a blaze of brightness, with word of his sister’s pregnancy. His own future had seemed more promising, too, for Pope Martin IV had sent a papal nuncio to England, charged with one task—securing Amaury’s release. He had been well received by the English clergy, and on February 5th, an assembly of
Bishops was convened at London, where the Bishops earnestly entreated their King on Amaury’s behalf. So insistent were their voices that Edward reluctantly agreed to consider Amaury’s fate when Parliament met on April 2nd.
Amaury kept his hopes tethered, though, afraid to let them soar. And his caution served him well, for in March, Wales was engulfed in flames. Ellen had kept her wits about her, dispatching a letter within hours after learning of Davydd’s treachery, a letter that reached him before the castellan of Taunton Castle knew Wales and England were at war. Amaury was rereading it now, wondering bleakly when he’d get another one. How would he even know when her babe was born? How would he know if evil befell her?
He’d left a window unshuttered, as was his habit. Taunton Castle had been a pleasant surprise, not at all the remote and foreboding moorland fortress he’d been dreading. Rising up on the south bank of the River Tone, this ancient castle built by Bishops overlooked the Augustinian priory of St Peter and St Paul and a thriving small town that traced its beginnings back to the Saxon kingdom of Wessex. Even the persistent April rain could not diminish the beauty of the Somerset countryside, and Amaury often spent time at the window, gazing out upon the emerald-green tranquillity of the Vale of Taunton. But today his thoughts and his fears were focused far to the west, upon Wales and his pregnant sister’s peril.
Amaury had often heard that the blind were compensated for the loss of their sight by the enhancement of their other senses, and he’d come to believe that it was true, as well, for prisoners. Never had his hearing been more acute, and he heard the footsteps long before they approached his door. He was on his feet, waiting, when it opened and John de Somerset entered.
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