Uneasy Lies the Crown

by N. Gemini Sasson

“What does go on there? Is it as we have all heard?”

  Young sighed and nodded. “With the years, Charles falls further and further from sanity. His queen does little to hide her affection for Orleans. I myself saw them kiss, open-mouthed, in his very presence. She is with child again.”

  Owain arched an eyebrow. Young didn’t need to speak the implication. The child’s parentage was questionable, no doubt. The French king was both mad and a cuckold. “Charles sends us gifts—opulent, useless frivolities—and more dribbled promises of military support, but at this stage I would be even madder than he is if I believed one whit of it. So we must look to the future. Are we secure in relying on Orleans’ support?”

  “We are.”

  “And what of the Church in France?”

  “So long as you stand by Pope Benedict of Avignon and against Rome —”

  “I was never against Rome. I was against the notion that Rome would deny Wales the right to a separate Church, apart from the control of English bishops. I know how reluctant Byfort and Trefor were for me to sign the letter at Pennal in support of Benedict. It puts their privileged station in jeopardy.”

  “Trefor has always been your man, Prince Owain.”

  “But Byfort?”

  “His heart may yet lie with Rome, although I do not think he’ll betray you.”

  “Think? In that case, all I can be sure of, given his piety, is that he’ll not stab me in my sleep. Bishops, monks, churches, popes... it is its own entire world, the workings of which I would not dare pretend to understand.”

  In one long swallow, Owain emptied his cup. “Do you know something, Griffith? I never knew God while sitting at Mass, listening to Latin verse. But I saw God in the height of the clouds and the color of the sunset while sitting in the Berwyns in my youth. I have heard the voice of God in the waves lapping at the shore below Harlech. And when I saw my first son being born... I could feel God beside me... felt that I knew him. God for me is not imbued in holy relics. He is in every stone and drop of water around us. Does that make me a druid, Griffith? A heretic?”

  “No. I think it makes you a truer believer than most men.”

  Owain grinned. “But we must learn to balance truth with impressions.”

  “The impressions we make upon men do not matter in the eyes of God and the after-life.”

  “Maybe so, Griffith, maybe so. But impressions lead to beliefs, and beliefs to actions, and actions become the course of history.”

  Young tilted his head in thought and then gave a small bow. “You will have your place there, my prince. Of that I have never doubted. It is an imposing task to —”

  “Like bloody hell I’ll wait!” Rhys burst through the door. “Jesus! Do you think I would ask to see him for —?”

  “Rhys.” Owain rose and met him halfway across the room. He waved off the two flustered guards scurrying after Rhys. “Is there trouble?”

  “Your pardon.” Rhys nodded toward Chancellor Young as Owain approached and lowered his voice. “I rode through the night to get here. You must come at once, Owain. She is ill at heart.”

  “Nesta?But why?” Owain motioned Rhys toward the door on the far side of the room. He waved the guards out into the corridor and gently closed the door.

  Rhys glanced briefly at Young. “She delivered you a son.”

  It should have been joyful news to hear those words from his lips, but there was something terribly wrong in the way Rhys had forced his way in to see Owain. Ice flushed through Owain’s veins and nearly stopped his heart cold. For the moment, he forgot all about Chancellor Young being in the room. He put a hand on Rhys’s shoulder. “But the child was not due for another month. Will he... will he live?”

  “Not long.” Rhys clutched Owain’s hand. “Owain, you cannot save the boy, but... she needs you.”

  Owain nodded. “I’ll go.”

  How could he not?

  Within minutes, Owain’s horse was saddled and waiting. He and Rhys were slipping their boots into their stirrups to mount when Margaret exploded into the courtyard.

  “Wait!” Margaret grabbed at the bridle of her husband’s horse. Breathless, she searched his face. “Where are you going?”

  Rhys sat silently on his horse, not daring a word.

  For a tense moment, Owain met her eyes, but the tally of unspoken accusations was too many for him to confront just then. “There is no time to explain. I will return soon. Now, please, let go.”

  Margaret clenched the bridle tighter. “Are you going... to be with her?”

  A bolt of shame ripped through Owain’s chest. He jerked on the reins. The horse lurched forward and Margaret’s hands dropped away. He steadied his mount. “This is important. Do not press me on this.”

  Crossing her arms, Margaret looked down. “I see. Then go.” She raised her smoldering eyes. “And stay gone. Your bed here has long been cold.”

  As fast as she said the words, she flew up the stairs to the gatehouse and was gone.

  Aberystwyth Castle, Wales — Summer, 1406

  The boy child was dead long before Owain arrived. He held Nesta’s hand, tried to comfort her, but she did not even bother to acknowledge him.

  “I am so sorry, Nesta,” he said, stroking her hand. “I know how much you wanted to give me a son.”

  Slowly, she turned a blanched face toward him. “Would it have mattered to you if I had?” Then she averted her face again and went silent.

  After a long while, fraught by an odd helplessness that he was unaccustomed to when in her company, Owain ordered his horse saddled up for the return to Harlech. He went to the courtyard, where his mount was brought to him. Rhys stood there, his feet braced wide, his countenance glum.

  As Owain pulled himself up into his saddle, he said to Rhys, “Tell her if there’s anything I can do for her, I will. She has but to breathe the word and I’ll come back.”

  “No,” said Rhys.

  “What?”

  “I said ‘no’. Leave her be. Let her get on with living. No more of these fleeting trysts and off again for months and months.”

  “Stay out of this, Rhys. ’Tis not your place.” Owain steadied his eager mount by stroking its mane.

  “Ah, not my place. I see. So what is my place? Five steps behind you, as you face a Welsh parliament debating on your right to wear a crown? Beside you, as French generals quibble over your every stratagem? Before you, as Flemings hurl spears at your head? Perhaps my place is beneath your feet, lying face down as you trample on my daughter’s honor?”

  “Rhys, this is not the time to flare in anger. You asked me to come. To be with Nesta. Do not make a poison of my name to her. Or the girls. I will come back, as soon as I —”

  “No. Enough of this Owain. You have thought of no one but yourself through it all. You divide yourself between Margaret and Nesta and pretend that all is bliss. Have you never thought of what either of them feels or thinks when you leave them?”

  “If you were not who you are...” Owain gathered his reins, gripping them tight. “You are like a brother to me, Rhys, but do not proclaim yourself my judge.”

  Owain kicked his horse in the flanks and flew through Aberystwyth’s gate without a backward glance.

  Iolo Goch:

  Even if he had wanted to, Owain could not have visited Nesta. The English had descended on Aberystwyth. For summer’s length, Rhys Ddu held the castle against the zealous attacks of Prince Harry. Then, with the arrival of cannons, the siege began in full.

  During the previous year, the border of Owain’s realm had begun to collapse in on itself. First Anglesey fell, then Gower ceded, and later Rhys Ddu’s own Pembrokeshire threw its lot with England.

  How much can change in so short a time...

  49

  Aberystwyth Castle, Wales — September, 1407

  It seemed to Rhys, as he watched Harry’s gunners heft their colossal stones into the wide-mouthed cannons, that perhaps the notion that Wales was a country unto its own existed nowhere anymo
re but inside the walls of Aberystwyth. For months now there had been no contact with the outside world. Every day, from the breaking of dawn until the sun set over Cardigan Bay, he watched in desperation for Owain’s dragon banner, snapping in the sea breeze, and a host of Welsh soldiers rending the air with the battle cry of liberation. And always the night came—a sweet, too short reprieve from the hammering of guns, the searing smell of sulfur, the barrage of firepots exploding in the bailey. Each morning brought yet another empty horizon, the far-off outline of the mountains etched naked against a broad sky.

  With the substantial garrison that was kept at Aberystwyth, supplies had dwindled rapidly. Water was the most valuable thing to any man there; a soldier would not have given a cup of his water rations for a pile of gold. Money meant nothing to a man withering from thirst. Tauntingly, English soldiers beyond bowshot would dump casks of water over their heads and splash in the puddles. It was the least of their cruelties. Derisions flew from both directions, though, along with arrows.

  On the wall-walk, Rhys sidled up to a scowling archer, who was twirling one of his last two arrows between his fingers. “What is the count today?”

  “Twelve shots... so far,” the soldier grumbled. He spat over the wall and leaned out to see how far it would go. Then he suddenly pulled back to safety and crouched beside a jar of oil. “No wind. And another coming.”

  The bellow of a gun shook the air. The stones beneath their feet trembled. Instinctively, Rhys honed in on the source. It was the middle cannon—the ‘King’s Gun’, it was christened—a fire-belching beast dragged all the way from Nottingham. Harry had spared no expense or resource in his determination.

  The great fist of rock hurtled through the air and crashed into the battlements not twenty feet from where Rhys stood. A cloud of mortar and stone fragments exploded. The deadly stone slammed through three Welsh soldiers, crushing their bones as it rumbled on its way, not slowing until it impacted itself on the inner wall. Then it rolled sluggishly through the outer bailey and finally came to a halt. Cautiously, Rhys and the archer peered out at the enemy as cheers rose up from the English ranks.

  An armored figure rode out before the lines of English, the scarlet plume of his caparisoned horse bobbing as it galloped along. Prince Harry came to a halt before the big cannon, a thin trail of smoke still wafting from its black orifice. His chest plate gleamed in the low rays of a deep red evening sun. He plucked off his helmet and bowed to his gunners from his saddle. They cheered again as Harry urged his horse closer to the castle.

  Harry halted a safe distance away and called out, “My gunners take pride in their work! Soon your walls will crumble and I have others eager to play their part. A parley, Rhys Ddu! A parley... and you walk unscathed from here, your honor intact! Cannons will cease for now! At daybreak, they will commence—unless you grant me cause to order their silence!”

  With a subtle cue of his knees, Harry’s warhorse reared up and then spun about. “Daybreak! I shall be waiting!” he shouted over his shoulder. “God and St. George be with you!”

  Rhys flew down a narrow set of stairs and emerged in the outer bailey, pausing as he passed the litter of broken bodies arranged in grotesque fashion in the stone’s trail. As cruel a thought as it was, he was happy to see them all dead. Better a quick, unforeseen death than the prolonged torture of starvation.

  “Cadogan!” he bellowed.

  An ogreish giant appeared before him. A thick mat of hair covered the man’s bare arms, unencumbered by mail or plates of armor. Cadogan tucked his great axe into his belt and jerked in a bow.

  “Have someone...”—Rhys flapped a hand at the bodies—“take care of these men.”

  Cadogan rattled off orders to a gathering of onlookers. His bushy eyebrows jumped up and down as he spoke. He turned back to Rhys. “Gawkin’ like they never saw a dead man. Anything else, my lord?”

  “Yes, Cadogan. Where is my daughter?”

  “Storeroom of the far tower. Far from the fuckin’ guns as she could get herself and the babes.”

  Rhys raced off, through a door into the inner bailey and into the tower. His knees, weak from being famished for so long, wobbled beneath him. When he arrived breathless at the door of the storeroom, he stumbled, catching himself with his hand upon the latch. With the heel of his calloused palm, he pounded against the door. Empty silence answered his urgent drumming. He threw his shoulder against the timber of the door. It would not yield.

  Rhys pressed his whiskered cheek to the door. “Nesta! Please, let me in!”

  A few moments later, the bar slid. The door swung open with a groan of its rusted hinges. He swallowed Nesta in his arms. Myfanwy and Gwenllian were wailing in fright. He let go of Nesta, then swept the girls up. Myfanwy buried her face in her grandfather’s thick neck, while Gwenllian, fingers in mouth, blubbered, spittle and tears mixing on her chin. She had her father’s dark blue eyes and golden ringlets—the resemblance was haunting.

  “Ah, little ones, you’re safe here. Safe, I promise.” Rhys looked at Nesta. She was guarding the flame of her candle, which flickered against the draft from the doorway. He hugged both girls harder against his chest. His paunchy belly had diminished to a barely noticeable bulge. “They’re so frightened, dear things.”

  “Frightened of the dark.And hungry. Although they’re no longer afraid of rats. I think they’ve named one or two,” Nesta said cynically.

  Rhys lowered the girls to the floor, although Myfanwy clung fiercely to her grandfather’s neck and had to be pried off. She wrapped herself around his knees, while Gwenllian tottered off and climbed up on one of the few remaining sacks of flour. Her dress was in sore need of mending, but for want of thread and needle it had gone undone.

  “I came to ask your heart,” Rhys began, “and whatever you say, I’ll abide by.”

  The failing light of the candle painted weak shadows on Nesta’s hollowed out cheeks. She would often make sure her children had enough to eat before allowing herself the first bite—although there was not that much of Nesta to be wasted. The lice had reduced her radiant veil of black curls to a wiry mop fit for scrubbing pots.

  “Ask then,” she muttered with dull interest. Starvation had so robbed her of strength that she spoke only when necessity demanded it. She had not sung, not even to her children, since the day the siege began.

  Rhys breathed deeply. Only Nesta could give him the strength he needed. Reason to do what must be done.

  The standard that marked Prince Harry’s tent was emblazoned with the red roses of the House of Lancaster. Rhys regarded it momentarily, then held his breath as he ducked inside. Four well-armed guards blocked Cadogan from entering, which left the giant ranting outside, issuing visceral threats of ripping the soldiers’ heads from their shoulders and swallowing them whole.

  Harry rose from his chair, smiling with unusual civility. With an open hand, he offered Rhys a seat opposite him.

  “The terms are generous. You will see,” Harry said, sitting again.

  Rhys had not bowed before the prince when entering. He had not even as yet addressed him. Regretfully, he took the seat across from Harry. The prince was barely twenty-two, Maredydd’s age, but already a seasoned and successful general. He had the finer features of his mother’s ancestry—graceful limbs, a slender neck, and a face so endearing that even Rhys, who owed the misery of his last few months to him, could not with full conviction hate the man.

  Harry slouched in his chair. “It should all be very clear, but read it twice if you must... just to be certain.”

  Rhys did take his time. So much so, that Harry finally prompted him.

  “Well?”

  “Why?” Rhys asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Full pardons? You were not so forgiving at Conwy.”

  Leaning forward with his elbows on the table, Harry scratched at the crown of his close-cropped head of hair. “Yes, you’re quite right on that. Hotspur begged me to show some measure of mercy, ah, but I was a st
ripling then. Rash and hungering to be feared. I thought men would respect me if they feared me, but that’s not nearly so, is it?” He plucked up a goose quill and dipped it in the inkwell. “We all change, Rhys Ddu. Times change. Circumstances change. I want your castle. You want your freedom. It’s really not so complicated.”

  Harry signed his name at the bottom, royal titles included, and handed the quill to Rhys.

  Rhys took the quill in his stubby fingers. He tried not to imagine what Owain’s reaction might be as he lowered the pen to the parchment. Neither his shield nor his sword had ever felt so weighty, so condemning.

  “Now,” Harry began with relief, as Rhys angrily scratched his name, “we will take the sacrament together to seal our agreement. I understand you are not a, uh... a man of rigorous religious practices, so I will tell the priest to make it short.”

  Short? Rhys laid the quill down beside the document that shouted to the world his failure. Short, long, in between—the length of some drummed up ritual mattered not. He wasn’t likely to hear a word of it anyway.

  Harlech Castle, Wales — October, 1407

  Prince Harry kept his word. He withdrew to Hereford, leaving a force at nearby Strata Florida. The truce was to last six weeks, during which time the Welsh could come and go at will. If the castle was not relieved by the 24th of October, Aberystwyth would be surrendered to Harry. In return, Rhys and his entire garrison would be given full pardons and allowed to walk free. But if a Welsh relief force did arrive, the promise of pardons was null and void and Aberystwyth would again become a fair target for English cannons and siege engines.

  Rhys did not immediately go to Harlech. He was too tormented. There were arrangements to be made for Nesta and the girls. A few days later, when he finally went, it was a long, slow journey up the coast. It was the weight of his heart that delayed him so, the dread of what Owain would say to him.