Uneasy Lies the Crown

by N. Gemini Sasson

  Some might have feared to sleep at all with such an onslaught of nightmares. But the actuality of death had been her life since the rebellion began. And that she had survived it, even to this wretched existence... that was her victory.

  Margaret dreamed of houses burning. She could smell the smoke. Taste the ashes on her tongue. Panic pounding in her chest, she rubbed her eyes and sat up. In the wavering orange glow, she saw a face. The face of a man just entering his prime, with a straight aquiline nose, narrow chin and sharp cheekbones. Below angled eyebrows were wedged a pair of clear, commanding eyes.

  She tried to focus. Beneath her blanket she dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand to test whether this was real or a dream. The sting on her flesh confirmed that she was lucid. Her two disagreeable guards flanked the man at either shoulder. They gave up their rushes to the sconces beside the door. With a slight nod, the noble dismissed them.

  He studied her in pensive silence, not at all lecherously, but carefully, as if weighing what he would say. As if his words held some importance.

  Margaret was intensely aware of her disheveled state. Once a week, a mute girl would come and brush her hair and bring her a bucket of water and a cloth, but undoubtedly it did little to improve her appearance. Why that mattered to her at this moment, she didn’t understand, but for once she was thankful to not have a looking glass. She raked the hair from her face and gazed down at the floor. A roach scampered from the light to disappear in a crack in the wall.

  “Who are you?” Margaret asked.

  He tilted his head, topped with shining locks of darkest auburn, and gestured to the stool. “May I sit, my lady?”

  A simple request, yet put forth with the utmost respect. Margaret nodded and drew the blanket across her chest, as if to hide her dismal attire.

  “You will be moved to a more fitting apartment. One with a window. Would you like that?”

  His rings glittered so much as he laid his hands across his knees that they awed her. She had never seen such ornamentation on a man, not since King Richard.

  Cautiously, Margaret raised her eyes, taking in every detail of his dress. Leather riding boots that buckled on the outside of each leg were snug against his legs up to mid calf. Above his yellow hose, he wore a long purple houppelande, sewn with stripes of velvet and satin. His shoulders were padded, to make him look larger than he was, for he was perhaps shorter than average, and his sleeves were slightly billowed and perfectly gathered at the cuff.

  “I don’t know.” Margaret eyed him directly. “I think I would prefer a pig sty, even, to this. Wouldn’t you?”

  His gaze dropped. “Yes, that was perhaps one of the most stupid questions I have ever asked. I’ll see that some amends are made.” Then he stood and shifted on his feet, stalling, as if needing but not wanting to say something. “Your son, Gruffydd —”

  Margaret shot up from her bed, abandoning the shoddy blanket. She touched him on the hand. “Gruffydd? How is he? May I see him?”

  “It is impossible, he —”

  “But why?”

  “He... I’m sorry. He died, this morning. The plague.”

  She pulled back from him. “You’re lying. You all lie.”

  “I assure you, my lady, he is dead and if not for the nature of the malady I would take you to see his body.”

  “If he is dead, then... then you have killed him.”

  “No.”

  “Then Owain still lives, otherwise you would have either killed me or set me free by now.”

  With that accusation, some hole opened up in the noble’s purpose. It was plain in his face.

  “Tell me,” Margaret delved, “tell me who you are. Or else I have no reason to believe you. For all I know you are some dog sent by the king to torture my mind.”

  He drew his shoulders up to full height. “King’s whelp, perhaps. I am Henry, Prince of Wales. Or as your people would call me plainly, Harry of Monmouth. Or should I say your husband’s people, as you were born very much English?”

  Margaret raised her hand to slap him, but he snagged her wrist and wrung it tight. She spat into his eye with remarkable precision.

  “Is that the reason you keep me here? Because I married a Welshman?”

  Prince Harry released her and wiped at his eye with a sleeve. “I see Sir Owain took as his wife a woman with a will to match his own.”

  He could have called for his guards then, Margaret realized, but he simply regarded her with greater caution. She felt like a wild animal kept for amusement.

  “To answer you—yes, he lives. Where or how, I know not. But every once in a great while, he emerges from his secret lair to remind us we never completely succeeded in bringing down the dragon.” Prince Harry walked toward the door. He knocked twice. “You will be moved to your new quarters on the morrow, given clean clothes, bathwater and decent fare. You will receive a visitor then, one named Adam of Usk.”

  As the door opened, Prince Harry glanced over his shoulder at Margaret. “So you know my intentions—I do not seek to destroy Sir Owain. The time for such squabbles is past. I have other plans, ambitions if you will, than continuing to war on Wales and Scotland. And I would rather have him and his men fighting beside me than against me.”

  “He will never agree to that.”

  “Sadly, I think you’re right.”

  Harry turned away and slipped through the door. It shut with a boom behind his swirl of clothing. She melted to the floor in a puddle, mindless of the filth and stench. An all too familiar itching caused her to rake her fingernails across her scalp. Lice. A spider scampered across the floor, stopped in front of her and retreated. They had forgotten to take the torches away. There would be light, for awhile.

  It was not until three days after Prince Harry’s unexpected visit, that Margaret was moved to her new room in the Tower. It had a real bed, a pillow and a down blanket—although none of them delighted her half as much as the window. She bathed in the sunlight more than she did the fresh water that was brought to her. As the hours dragged on while she combed through her hair, the man that the prince had referred to, Adam of Usk, failed to appear.

  On the fourth day, she awoke, golden light spilling in through her barred window. But when she tried to lift her head to gaze with some small appreciation at her spacious quarters, her muscles were already burning with fever. She put a hand to her forehead and felt the fire there. She rolled over to watch the door and as she did so, an odd pain, a lump beneath her armpit brought a groan from her throat.

  “No. No. How can it be?” she whispered. “Why does the plague now come to me?”

  Margaret buried her hands in her face and wept hard. Even as a man entered her room and moved toward her, she did not hear him or the bar on the outside slide into place. When he touched her on the top of the head, she startled.

  “Your pardon, my lady. I waited at the door some time, but you did not seem to notice me. I am Adam of Usk.”

  Simply dressed in a long overtunic of dark green and a tight black cap that hugged his skull, Adam bowed. “I have been abroad these past years, but I’ve followed your husband’s doings whenever I could get news of them.”

  Sweat now pouring from her face, Margaret wiped it away with her sleeve, pretending it was only her tears she sought to banish. It was with great effort that she sat upright. She could not let on that she was ill or he would fly from here without another word. “I was told you would be here three days ago.”

  Adam hung his head and shrugged. “The Prince of Wales questioned me. When he was done there were more men. More questions.”

  “About what?”

  “About Owain Glyndwr, of course.” He walked to the window. “You can see a good part of the city from here. Did you know? Not the better parts, unfortunately, but the guts of the town.”

  She felt a surge of energy, but it faded as quickly as it came. “Then he lives? You have seen him?”

  Turning back toward her, Adam nodded and lowered his voice. “I
have.”

  Margaret sank back into her pillow. “Then tell me all you can about him. Will you see him again?”

  “I doubt I shall.” Adam approached her. “Our meeting was purely business. King’s business, although I do not boast of that. While I was in Brecon, I was given seven hundred marks by John Tiptoft the constable and was told to deliver it as payment for the ransom of a man called Davy Gam, who once tried to kill Sir Owain. I was able, with great pains, to find Sir Owain himself. He brought about the release of Davy Gam, but the money I tried to give him... he instructed me to carry it to Bleddfa Church in recompense for his having burned it many years ago.”

  Adam paused. His eyebrows twisted in a puzzled look. “He would not take a penny of the ransom. He said... that he wanted it to go to those who had need of it—that he had no more soldiers to feed. When I returned to London, it was no wonder they questioned me. I was even asked if I had taken the money for myself. I do believe they were discussing whether or not they should put me on the rack and wring the truth from me. My scholarly bones would have snapped with the first pull. But heaven watches over me, I believe. This morning a letter arrived from the priest of Bleddfa in thanks and I was finally permitted to come here.”

  His words came to Margaret in a thick fog. It took time for her to sift through their content. Most of it made no sense at all to her. She knew, as sure as her bones flamed from within, that she would not see Owain again in the flesh. But as Adam’s words took form in her mind, she was reminded of gentler, more hopeful times... and harder ones as well. She remembered Owain on that dark night above the walls at Harlech, looking at her as if he knew their parting was final. She had watched him descend the rock, watched the silvery waves racing toward the shore, wanting to call him back and yet knowing that their life together had ended. Their children being born... dying. A circle that could not meet its own end properly. A maze of injustice. Something begun with so much love and trust—all gone awry. So much loneliness and pain in her life. Yet some good must surely have come of it all? Surely.

  “Is he well?” she asked, trying to lick her lips, but as she did so it felt as though her mouth would split all the way from its corners to her ears.

  “Well enough to ride after Davy Gam, after the scoundrel broke an oath to do no harm to him. Gam attacked Owain and a few of his followers and in turn Owain burned the ingrate’s house down.” Smiling, Adam touched her hand. His eyebrows plunged as he did so. “You are consumed by fever, my lady. I shall have them fetch a physician.”

  Margaret tried to smile in thanks. They would not send a physician for an unwelcome prisoner. Even if they did, it would be in vain. She would die soon. She knew. And oddly, she welcomed it. No more prison walls or sickening food or long days of boredom to make the mind think insane thoughts. She would let go. Let the angels take her. Wait for Owain. Find him. However far away he was. She closed her eyes and heard Owain’s voice:

  “May God, who knows full well the hell we have endured while we have been apart one from another, reward us with heaven when we meet again.”

  She swam through a sea of cobwebs. At her fingertips was something heavy and solid. A crack of light showed through, running from floor to far above: a door, slightly ajar. She pushed against the door and it swung open freely. There was her love, sitting in his favorite chair by the hearth in the great hall in Sycharth, his boots dusty from a long ride. At his side stood Gruffydd, barely big enough to keep his father’s sword from dragging the ground as he held it worshipfully in both hands before him. Owain’s face was brown from the sun and his hair glittered like a river of gold. Sweetly, he smiled at her and then rose to his feet, arms wide.

  Owain! Owain! I have come back! I knew you would be here. Hold me. Don’t let go. It has been awful... awful without you. I could have endured anything with you beside me. It was like death not knowing anything about you. I cried so many nights, my love, not for myself, but for want of you.

  59

  Westminster Palace, England — 1411

  “I came as soon as I could,” Harry said. As he entered his father’s bedchamber, which was lit by a hundred candles, he was struck by the solemnity of the scene before him. King Henry’s features were lifeless: the nostrils almost pinched shut, the lips like wax, skin thin as paper, the lesions on his face now dry and pale. His heart pounding in his ears, Harry drifted toward the bed.

  At last. Can it be that I am king at last?

  “How long ago?” Harry eyed the glittering crown that rested on a pillow of satin on a bedside table.

  Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester and the king’s half-brother through John of Gaunt’s long-time mistress and last wife Catherine Swynford, bent over the king to listen for his breathing. He stood and shook his head solemnly. “Just now, I think. My condolences, my lord.”

  Harry hung his head to display a son’s grief. “Will you grant me a few minutes alone with him?”

  His uncle nodded and, with hands clasped beneath his long robes, retreated through the door.

  Harry brushed at his father’s cheek with his knuckles. Cold as ice. Quickly, he checked that the door was shut tight and then went to the bedside table. He stretched out his hands, took the crown and kissed one of its many jewels. Then, he lifted the crown above his head.

  Ah, Harry, this was ever long in coming. But oh so deserved. How my uncle Richard would smile if he could see—as much that you are dead, dear Father, as to see me come to this. He favored me... and yet despised you. I wonder, how do you justify murdering a king, or any man for that matter? Does it matter whether you placed your bare hands around his throat yourself... or looked the other way while some nameless slave dripped the poison into his drink?

  You will be forgotten sooner than you are buried. I shall go on to greater things.

  He closed his eyes and settled the crown upon his head, felt its power, its majesty, its burden.

  Just then a sharp rasp arose from the king. As Harry whirled around, the crown tumbled from his head. He caught it in quivering fingers and swallowed back his heart, sending it plummeting down through his bowels as the realization gripped him that his father was not at all dead.

  The king breathed shallowly and glanced toward the empty pillow.

  Briefly, Harry looked away. Then, with stinging regret, he returned the crown.

  “M-my l-lord,” Harry stuttered, collecting himself, “your brother told me you were dead, although plainly you are not.”

  “So eager. Tell me, was the fit good?” Yellow candlelight flickered in the king’s pupils.

  “One day, the kingdom will one day belong to me.”

  “True.” The king clutched weakly at his blanket and gazed up at the canopy above his bed, poised there like the dark cloud of mortality waiting to sink down on him. “Do as you see fit, my son. And pray that God has mercy on me... for I had so little for others.”

  Every muscle and vein in Harry’s face and neck went taut.

  A curse on you to keep lingering like this and delaying what is best for England and for all of Christendom.

  Iolo Goch:

  A large host of lords convened at England’s next parliament. Bishop Henry Beaufort, the king’s own blood, demanded that he abdicate the throne in favor of his son. But upon hearing it, Henry flew into a rage and thereafter made a miraculous recovery. To show he was far from being dead or incapable, the king traveled throughout the land, although his public appearances were brief and his sojourns at various castles were notably lengthy.

  For nigh on two more years, the king’s health vacillated. Matters being quiet on the borders, Harry spent much of his time tending to the business of the realm that would have been his father’s duty, had the king been in a competent state.

  Then on the 20th of March, 1413, King Henry collapsed in prayer at Westminster Abbey. He was carried to the Abbot’s House and laid in a room called the Jerusalem Chamber, where countless prayers were whispered above him without avail.

  For fourteen
battle-fraught years, Henry of Bolingbroke, son of the powerful John of Gaunt and grandson of the mighty Edward III, had reigned. Now, he was king no more.

  A hasty month later in Westminster Abbey, the crown alighted on Harry of Monmouth’s head.

  One of Henry V’s first acts was the issuance of pardons. Among those who seized the opportunity at a fresh beginning was Gwilym ap Tudur, Owain’s cousin. The young Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, was released from prison and the estates of the Percys were restored to Harry Hotspur’s son.

  Pardons being an issue of immense compromise, there was one yet to come. One which Harry thought long and hard over. One which he finally, humbly, conceded to offer—to Owain Glyndwr.

  60

  Kentchurch, Herefordshire, England — September, 1415

  Alice Glyndwr, near bursting with the child that was due any day now, loosed her flaxen hair from its pins and re-tidied it in a tight knot. The orchard trees of Kentchurch manor stood in neatly pruned rows, their limbs weighed down with their bounty, ready for harvest. She stretched an arm for an apple, dangling in crimson perfection above her. When her eager fingers could not grasp it, she attempted to leap, but her extra weight prevented her from claiming the prize.

  “Your mother was the same,” came a voice from two rows away.

  As Alice turned around, she stumbled over the basket of apples she had already collected. Without looking up, she at once began to pick them up. “John, you startled me,” she said, thinking it was her husband, Sir John Scudamore, returned from business.