“It must have been Moses,” I said, picturing him with his father. “He had all night to arrange the bodies as he saw fit.”
Ieuan rubbed his hands together in gleeful expectation. “What mischief you could make, my lord, now that you’re dead!”
I ignored that. No more Cadwaladr! No more Robin Hood! “I’ve been so focused on Edward’s death, that I’ve given little thought to the death of all the others: Edward’s brother, Edmund; Robert Burnell; the Mortimer boys”—Ieuan made a ‘hooray!’ sound at that—“Gilbert De Clare; John Gifford, not to mention my Uncle Dafydd. What will happen now?”
Ieuan swept a hand through his hair. It had come loose from the thong that normally held it at the nape of his neck. “Hereford,” he said. “He’s all that’s left.” Humphrey de Bohun, the third Earl of Hereford, Lord of the March.
“He’s ambitious and clever,” I said, “much like Edward, in fact. What will he make of these deaths?”
“Nothing good,” Ieuan said. “Worse, news of your death will spread and your father may hear of it before we can reach him.”
I tried to picture it: Edward had tried to kill me on the evening of July 31st. The next morning, Carew, Aaron and I had observed the Scot encounter with the camp’s sole survivor, Aaron’s nephew, Moses. At the news of Edward’s death and the supposed plague in the camp, the Scots had turned tail and run the other way as fast as their horses could carry them. We’d departed from the fishing village of Poulton shortly thereafter.
“We docked at Annan on the evening of August 2nd, only two days after Edward’s death. Tonight is August 3rd.”
“It’s less than eighty miles from Lancaster to Carlisle. A man can ride that distance in a day if he pushes his horse,” Ieuan said.
“Hereford could have arrived in the camp with the Archbishop of Canterbury within hours of our departure. He’s two days ahead of us; he’s had two days to plot something we’re not going to like,” I said.
“First, he would have ridden as hard and as fast as he could to London,” Ieuan said. “Edward II is only sixteen months old. The deaths of Edward, Edmund, and the others, leaves a huge whole in the power structure of England that Hereford will be only too glad to fill.”
“He has few allies in England,” I pointed out. “His loyalties have been to himself, far more than to Edward. Other men know that and won’t trust him.”
“He’ll play that down, especially as so few men remain to gainsay him. Watch,” Ieuan said, “they’ll name him regent within a week.”
“He holds one of those ‘Great Offices of State’ doesn’t he? What’s his—the sixth highest in England?” I said.
“He’s Lord High Constable. That makes him fifth, though at this point, he’s probably moved up because at least a couple of the men in front of him are dead.”
I slid down the wall until I sat on the floor, my knees bent in front of me, and placed my chin in my hands. “We’ll see what develops tonight,” I said. “Right now Falkes is too busy with the news of Edward to worry about us.”
“So we can hope,” Ieuan said.
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Footsteps in Time Page 26
