Uneasy Lies the Crown

by N. Gemini Sasson

  When Owain glanced at Le Borgue, he detected a twinkle in that one dark eye and a suppressed grin. Behind his back, Owain clutched his hands. The bulk of his armor made it nearly impossible to do so. He recalled the days when he used to turn somersaults in full plate armor. How very long ago that was. Blasted eternity. He should have been an old man sitting by his hearth now, singing to his grandchildren and teaching them how to catch trout in the Dee, just as he and Tudur used to do.

  Oh, Tudur... you always gave voice to the doubts that I never dared to. There were times I should have been more cautious, but if I had I would have gained nothing.

  “Our men are hungry, Marshal de Rieux,” Owain said, echoing the leonine rumble in his belly. He paced back and forth, his thumbs circling one another behind his back. Abruptly, he halted and shoved a hand up through his tangle of sweat-soaked hair. “Rhys, have Gethin cut out the remainder of their baggage train before it reaches the hill. He is an expert at that.” He smiled at Rieux and then wider at Le Borgue. “Tomorrow, we will see how willing the English are to treat with us.”

  Rieux grimaced. His patience was obviously being pushed to the edge. “But, my prince, why not end this, now?”

  Rhys spat at the ground. “We may be a crude lot, Marshal, but we aren’t idiots.”

  “Idiots, no. But you hesitate.” Rieux stretched his neck and a stream of sweat rolled from beneath his beard and down his throat. “Opportunity is in our very hands. Seize it. Do not be blind.”

  “Blind?” Rhys said.

  “Oui... blind.”

  “I’d rather be a blind Welshman than a pompous, teat-sucking Frenchman.” Rhys stomped closer. His rotund chest heaved as he jabbed a finger at the marshal. “You can’t even control your own bloody soldiers. You didn’t have the discipline to take Haverfordwest properly. You don’t need wine. The smell of blood makes you drunk. Pitiful bastards. The only reason you’re still in this godforsaken country is that you didn’t have the ships to take you back to Brest. Worcester was a bloody shame. A bloody fucking shame. You watched while Le Borgue and his men unpenned cattle and sent them stampeding down Smock Alley, trampling little children. Innocents dying in the name of revenge. Is that your idea of reviving the legend of Arthur? Chivalry. What do you lusty, drunken Frenchmen know of it? God damn son of a —”

  “Enough!” Owain flared.

  “— French whore!” Rhys roared over him, his hands flailing.

  Owain grabbed Rhys by the throat, cutting his air off. “Shut up! Do you hear me?”

  Rhys’s cheeks blazed red, and then went purple as he struggled to breathe. His feet left the ground as Owain pushed upward. The hand on his windpipe tightened. His head bobbed backward. Owain unclenched his iron fingers. Stumbling, Rhys doubled over, grabbing his knees, great gasps for air rattling in his throat like a broken down mare with the heaves. While he gathered himself, the marshal ranted in French, his hands flying in furious gestures, slashing through the heavy air.

  The soldiers on Woodbury Hill turned to gawk at the squabble unfolding in their midst. Rieux’s voice pitched in indignation, drawing Hugueville, Master of the Crossbowmen, and other Frenchmen into the heated ring. Le Borgue tried to calm the marshal, but soon enough Rieux was arguing with him, too.

  Raising a pair of watery eyes, Rhys looked up at Owain.

  “Your sense of timing is reprehensible,” Owain chastised lowly. He hoisted Rhys up by the arm and jerked him aside.

  “What is he blathering about?” Rhys croaked.

  “You don’t want to know.” Owain dragged him through the ragged lines of soldiers who were wilted from days of scorching sun. When they arrived at Owain’s tent, Maredydd came rushing forward, his features slack with worry. Owain spared formality altogether. He shoved Rhys ahead and through the tent flap, then turned to his son. “Send Gethin to cut out what he can of their supplies. Now!”

  Without detailing anything to Maredydd, Owain stormed into the tent. He kicked at a stool and sent it flying into a pole. The whole thing shuddered and Rhys threw his arm above his head, as if it were going to crash down and bury both of them.

  “Imbecile!” Owain blared so that they must have heard him halfway down the valley. “For years I have struggled to bring them to our shores, to raise arms with us against the English! With us, by God. And you insult them and attempt to enlighten them to their own faults? You are more hotheaded than they are, Rhys Ddu. What the French did at Worcester was no different than what Prince Edward did at Limoges. Or you yourself at Ruthin and a dozen other places. And do I have to remind you that there were as many Welshmen, your men, cutting down the English in Worcester? It’s true. Admit to it. War makes savages of us all. Even those of us who deem ourselves compassionate and just. You are not so different. Just turn your own eyes inward and take a good, hard look.” He paused only long enough to glare at Rhys. Then he commenced his berating. His bellowing hammered against the cloth walls.

  In the stuffy confines of the dark tent, Rhys looked as though he had been tied to the stake and the fire had been lit. He slipped his puffy fingers beneath the leather straps that secured his arm plates and scratched. Without warning, he swooned forward.

  Owain caught him under the arms. In a moment, he drew Rhys toward the stool and righted it with one hand. Still holding on to him with the other, he gently lowered him. Owain popped outside and called for a bucket of fresh water and a cloth. Moments later he was sponging Rhys’s head.

  “Are you all right?” Owain asked in a softer tone.

  “It’s a God damn inferno in here.”

  “Yes, well, it was just as hot out there with Marshal de Rieux.” He handed the cloth to Rhys, who buried his face in it.

  “I’m sorry,” Rhys mumbled. They weren’t words Owain could ever recall him saying before.

  “You needn’t be. You were every bit right.” Smiling, Owain crouched down on the balls of his feet before his friend and put a hand on his knee. “Listen, I had to do that. You understand? Foolish as they are, we need them. Now,” he said, rising, “come outside. We’ll see what Gethin can manage.”

  “If you don’t mind, I need to crawl out of this armor first. The unlucky Englishman who gave it up to me was a size smaller.” He winked at Owain, who nodded and reached a hand to part the tent flap. Rhys stretched his legs and fumbled with one of the straps that secured his greave. “Owain?”

  “Yes?”

  “One thing.”

  “Say it.”

  “In the future, when you need to feign a quarrel with me, could we work out a signal? If it would keep you from crushing my windpipe again, I can fake an injury amazingly well.” In an instant, his eyes rolled up inside his skull. Rhys’s neck bent at an odd angle and his jaw dangled, spittle dribbling from the corner of his mouth. Owain bolted back inside, but just as quick Rhys was alert and laughing. “Hell, I’d even bleed for you. Just ask, will you?”

  Owain looked at him a moment and nodded. Drawing aside the stiff canvas, he strolled out into the lavender wash of twilight to gaze at his enemy.

  Dawn’s fingers crept lamblike over the Herefordshire hills and rubbed the sleep from the eyes of weary soldiers. Sunlight poured over the green valley, burning brighter minute by passing minute. On Abberley Hill, the English stood at attention. It took all their strength to do so. They were short on sleep, worn to the bone, and had been harried relentlessly by their commander. York had been a sour disappointment for Henry—the whole ordeal over before they ever arrived. Then news of the French landing came to bring them slingshotting back south again.

  In his tent, Henry swirled a cup of flat ale and picked at his morning meal. Sir John Greyndour shuffled in and bowed low.

  “Anything yet?” Henry asked dully.

  Greyndour moved reluctantly closer. “The scoundrels absconded with over half our baggage train.”

  Too weary to be angry, Henry found some amusement in their misfortune. “Only half? Ah, Gethin strikes again.”

  “I did my
best, my lord.”

  “You did, certainly.” The king stabbed at a hunk of meat and devoured it. Plucking up a linen handkerchief, he pushed his tongue around his mouth and then probed his teeth with his thumbnail to dislodge a piece of food. “An inconvenience. Send to Worcester for more provisions.”

  “That cannot be done, sire. They burned it on the way.”

  Putting down his knife, Henry leaned back on his stool. He thought a moment, and then nodded. “A wise move on their part. The French or the Welsh?”

  Greyndour shrugged. “According to reports, let’s just say that Glyndwr didn’t stop the French.”

  “Humph,” Henry mumbled. “Hereford?”

  “I can have supplies sent from there. It will take longer. We’ll have to swing out behind the Welsh rather far.”

  “Whatever you can manage. We won’t be here long.” Henry scooped up his cup and doused his throat. “Where is Harry?”

  “At the front. Shall I summon him?”

  “No, no need. He is where he serves best.”

  “Any orders, sire?” Greyndour seemed anxious to get on with this.

  To Greyndour’s dismay, Henry shook his head and attacked the rest of his plate. “No orders. We will wait for Glyndwr to yield. And he will.”

  By noon, nerves were fraying. French knights straddling their puissant coursers began to heckle the English. Hugueville’s crossbowmen checked their weapons repeatedly and counted their bolts. They elbowed each other and laughed. The Welsh pikemen, who had been propped against their weapons, even though they understood not a syllable, grinned and rustled with anticipation.

  Woodbury Hill began to awaken. Gethin, never to be omitted when there was rabble-rousing to be had, unsheathed his sword and struck it against his shield in measured beats. He nudged his mount in the flanks and wove through the tangle of men-at-arms.

  Within minutes, the entire hill throbbed in rhythm. The heartbeat of Wales pulsed over the English countryside, declaring its existence, daring to be defied.

  At the base of Abberley Hill, Harry took to his own horse. With upraised blade, he sailed back and forth, rallying his troops. Infinitely pleased by his son’s capacity to resurrect his dispirited army, Henry emerged but briefly from his tent.

  “So it begins,” Henry muttered. Then he disappeared back into his oasis of shade.

  The clamor intensified and so did Marshal de Rieux’s temper. Owain, surrounded in his tent at a table by his generals—Rhys Ddu, Edmund and Maredydd—glanced up from a long roll of parchment as Rieux blustered in. Several tight-faced Frenchmen clipped at his heels.

  “Welcome. Please sit,” Owain said, indicating a single stool opposite him.

  Rieux snorted and stabbed a finger northward. “You waste time. Strike now!”

  Edmund, who held a white plumed quill in his hand, finished his last stroke. “Done,” he proclaimed, studying the document before him. The Welsh stared intently at the lines of black, as if willing them to march from the page and achieve their purpose. Their trance was not broken until Rieux ripped the document away and the inkwell went toppling into Edmund’s lap. He shot back from the table, ink seeping between the links of his mail.

  Clutching the parchment in his hand, the marshal shook it at Owain. “Explain! What is this?”

  Silence swallowed everyone inside the tent. The din from the troops had quelled, strangely punctuating the very moment. A long, gaping second later a single shout of ‘Cymru!’ arose from ten thousand throats and the clamor went on as it had for hours. Owain rose. He circled the table, brushing past Hugueville and Le Borgue. When he halted before the marshal, their difference in build was apparent: he was a head and a half taller and twice the muscle.

  “I did not come here seeking blood,” Owain said. “And don’t fear that I have betrayed you. Far from it.”

  A blank stare met Owain’s revelation. Then Rieux laughed. “You are a fool! Bolingbroke’s men... they have been marched to death. You stole provisions. Who has the advantage here? I say it is not him.”

  “Advantage? What advantage? This is English territory we’re in. All Henry has to do is wag his finger and the next village will dump their grain and kegs onto the back of a wagon for him. Those supplies were meant to sustain us, if need be.” Deeply fatigued, Owain sighed and glanced around him—at Edmund, dabbing at his armor with a kerchief, at Maredydd, studying his father with great care, and at Rhys, dampening his anger toward Rieux in deference to Owain. “We have no advantage. None. This is a stalemate. At best, we’re equally matched. But only as we stand now. If we leave the hill to sally forth and attack, it is the English staring down on us, spears poised and aimed at our very hearts, arrows snug against their strings. Henry is a cautious commander. And no more or less a fool than me. So deem me the fool if you will. ’Tis that other fool watching us I have great respect for.”

  “Respect?For your enemy?” His chest plate heaving, Rieux clenched his teeth. The words slid out from his pinched mouth. “They have just marched thirty leagues! Their tongues—they drag the ground. Their horses are soaked with sweat. They are weak and they have come to you, mighty prince. Is this not what you have waited for? You begged my king for an army—on hands and knees! And now we come and you will not move from this hill?”

  Owain’s eyes met with Rhys’s. For a moment, he faltered in his will. It was true what Rieux said. Any leader with a sliver of ambition would have seized at it. The English were drained. Victory on the field today—would mean an end. A final, irrevocable answer to years of passionate prayer. A deliverance from centuries of unjust oppression. From slavery and thievery. Freedom called out to him, but its price was heavy. There were too many doubts in his head chasing each other, chanting. On the opposing hand, a defeat—and all would be for nothing. If they were vanquished at the point of English swords here and now, the cause was gone forever. Sucked into some great void. And then, the misery of Wales would fall upon Owain’s head.

  A hundred years too early? Had Hopkyn interpreted the prophecies wrongly? Perhaps he was not Y Mab Darogan after all.

  Owain’s tongue slid over parched lips. “King Charles has played this game shrewdly all along. How sincere was his commitment I have more than often wondered, but never spoke of until now. He has sent me enough of an army to make a show, but far from enough to do the job resoundingly. In the meantime, while we have dashed about from cave to hilltop to forests thick, we have learned a thing or two about those bloody Englishmen whose ankles you have come to bite at.” Hands locked behind his back, for it was the safer place for them to be, he looked at the marshal squarely. “Fatigue has never hindered an English army. Hotspur assumed it would and Shrewsbury was —”

  “My prince!” Gethin shot into the tent and plunged at Owain’s feet. Excitement gleamed in his eyes. “He will hear your terms.”

  In slow motion, Marshal de Rieux laid the parchment out on the table. Le Borgue and Hugueville swarmed to peer over his low shoulders. He scanned through the demands, and then stepped back. “You think that Bolingbroke will agree to any of this?” He beckoned to his men. “Fool... and coward,” he admonished as he strode from the tent.

  45

  Near Worcester, England — September, 1405

  When the terms were read to King Henry by Greyndour, his left eyebrow arched upward. He might not have believed Glyndwr’s outlandish arrogance, except that he had dealt with the man for too many years already. The Welshman was cunning, if not a bit insane. “My silver wash basin and a candle—lit, please.”

  Beneath the treasured shade of a tree, Prince Harry and the English commanders watched as a soldier held the tarnished silver bowl before the king. Henry curled a finger at Greyndour, who still cradled the document in his hands.

  Holding the lit candle at an angle so the hot wax would not drip on his hand, the king passed it beneath the parchment. The edge blackened. In moments, a hungry orange flame began to devour the page. Sir Gilbert Talbot received the candle and blew it out. The as
hes gathered in the bowl. As the fire licked closer to Greyndour’s fingers, he relinquished the document to the silver bowl.

  Sweat poured into Henry’s eyes and he blinked away its sting. With a soaked palm, he pushed his hair off his forehead. Then he took the bowl and held it aloft with its smoking contents. “Deliver my answer.”

  Talbot took the bowl from the king’s steady hands and draped a kerchief of red silk over it, smothering the fading fire into a pile of cinders. Once Greyndour was mounted and helmeted, Talbot gave the bowl to him.

  As Greyndour and a small party of knights rode down into the valley, the king turned to his son and touched him on the shoulder. “We shall see if it’s a fight he wants.”

  “Is that what you want?” Harry asked, glancing at his father’s mottled fingers.

  The king pulled his hand away. “When the time is right, I shall welcome it.”

  “Sooner would be better.” Harry’s eyes flicked skyward. “No storms today. Unless our Welsh wizard is brewing up a pot of snakes’ bellies and newts’ eyes as we speak. Today, at least, would seem to be in our favor.”

  Harry cast a long accusing look at his father. The boy liked to challenge him. Had he been so impetuous in his youth?

  On the whole of his left side, Henry suddenly felt a numbness spreading rapidly. He grabbed his left shoulder and pressed with his bare fingers against the unyielding armor. The fingers of his dangling hand prickled with heat. He gasped and quickly glanced down, but there was no fire consuming his skin, only a white burning from within that flared at his fingertips and shot up his arm, to his shoulder and into his heart. He battled for a breath, eyes clenched, until the flood of pain ebbed away. In a voice so strained and dampened only his son could hear, Henry said, “When you are king... you may decide... when to call the charge. Until... such time...”