Crossroads in Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  Chapter 11

  26 August 1288

  Brecon Castle

  Llywelyn

  Llywelyn had absorbed all that Dafydd had to tell him with a few blinks and a curse, but he’d been expecting this, hadn’t he? Hadn’t they all?

  While the Welsh exchequer was healthier than it had been in a century, since the time of his grandfather, that didn’t mean that each outlay for men and weaponry for a war as yet unfought hadn’t seemed a waste of resources at times.

  Not anymore.

  Dafydd had shown Llywelyn what they could achieve, given enough men, money, and time. Llywelyn had given his approval to everything Dafydd had sought. And now they were going to use what they’d created. All of it. They would have an early start in the morning.

  But what Llywelyn hadn’t given his approval for was the one thing Dafydd really wanted: he wanted Lili. From the looks the pair had exchanged in the courtyard, Dafydd was determined to have her, regardless of what his father said. He and Dafydd had danced around the issue all afternoon, pretending that the looming wall between them wasn’t really there. Llywelyn hadn’t tried to breach it, coward that he was. Who would have thought that one of the greatest challenges of his reign would come in a matter of the heart—his son’s heart, no less.

  Dafydd’s news had prompted immediate action: Llywelyn had ordered half of his cavalry south as soon as Dafydd had detailed what he knew of the coming war. Llywelyn had also sent word to every good Welshman within ten miles of Brecon that he was needed. Messengers had ridden to every cantref between Brecon and Aberystwyth to rouse the countryside and to probe how far the English menace had spread.

  Llywelyn and Dafydd, however, had determined that they must delay their journey south to wait for their people to gather at Brecon. Llywelyn didn’t have a standing army, and thus, it was peasant and nobleman alike who mustered for war. To give this venture the best chance of success, his people needed to see Llywelyn before they started, so that he could explain to them what they faced, and the cost to them and their country if they failed to throw the English back into the sea. To have their king ask for help directly could inspire the necessary courage in every heart to leave home and hearth to march forty miles to fight in his service.

  After a long day, Llywelyn and Dafydd sat late into the evening, conversing quietly together for the first time in months. They spoke of Norman barons, of Bohun and William, and of the coming war. As Dafydd talked, Llywelyn studied his son’s face. The fire in the hearth lit it and turned his face aglow. At times, Llywelyn could barely focus on what his son had to tell him. How had he let their argument fester for so long?

  Dafydd turned to stare into the fire. It crackled and popped in the silence that fell between them, now that their talk of politics had ended. Nothing in Llywelyn’s life had given him as much joy as this boy. Dafydd, for all his intelligence, was raised in another land and couldn’t possibly understand what it had been like to stand in the clearing at Cilmeri, knowing that his life was ending, only to see his son and daughter appear to save him.

  Llywelyn loved Anna—God only knew how much—but Dafydd was his son. His son. No Prince of Wales had needed a son more than Llywelyn, and this one had proved himself to be more than Llywelyn could ever have hoped, from that day beside the riverbank when Meg had told him that she carried his child.

  And that meant he could put it off no longer. The wall had to come down. And since he was the elder of the two of them—the father—it was he who had to do it. Llywelyn cleared his throat and lobbed to Dafydd his first attempt at peace: “I never meant for things to turn out this way.”

  Dafydd picked up his cup of wine that had been sitting on the table between them, and took a sip. “It didn’t have to.”

  Llywelyn’s lips turned down at that. Dafydd’s anger shimmered in a halo around him. And yet, could Llywelyn blame him? Llywelyn remembered what nineteen had been like for him. He and his father hadn’t seen eye to eye on anything.

  “So your mother has said.”

  Dafydd shifted in his seat, gazing into the fire and not looking at his father. “Has she? She counseled me patience.”

  Llywelyn’s heart warmed at the thought of Meg, even as he berated himself for causing her grief and forcing her to choose between her husband and her son. He let out a sharp breath. When Meg felt something strongly enough to chastise him for it, he had already lost the argument, even if it took a long while for him to admit it. He’d been fighting a rearguard action for two years. Had he become so used to always getting his way that he’d forgotten that sometimes a man needed to retreat, in order to fight another day? It seemed so.

  “I called you stubborn,” Llywelyn said.

  Dafydd snorted into his cup. “What did she say to that?”

  “He’s your son, as you may recall.” Llywelyn barked a laugh.

  Dafydd actually smiled. “I am your son, Dad.”

  Llywelyn took in a deep breath and let it out. He sent up a prayer of thanksgiving that Dafydd was willing to discuss this and hadn’t gotten up from his chair and left the room. “Then Meg said, your son loves you, my lord.”

  “Oh no,” Dafydd said. “When Mom starts my lording you, you know you’re in trouble.”

  Llywelyn swallowed down a laugh. The wall was thinning to the point he thought he could see through it. “And then she said, he loves Lili. Let him have what he needs.”

  For the first time since Llywelyn had broached the subject of their disagreement, Dafydd turned his head to look at him. “And you said, he’s so damned righteous—”

  “I wouldn’t have you any other way.” Llywelyn gazed directly into Dafydd’s eyes. “That same stubbornness will make you the greatest king Wales has ever known.”

  Dafydd rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and clasped his hands together, putting them to his lips. “Many times, you have said that the needs of the crown—”

  “Are paramount,” Llywelyn said. “Yes, I know. I shouted those words at you last we spoke. Your mother reminded me that you are the crown. You are my son. I had good reasons for denying your request to marry Lili, but they pale in comparison to my relationship with you. I forgot that you were a grown man, not a boy who must follow my every direction.”

  “Lili and I have your permission to marry, then?”

  “You do.” The moment the words were out, Llywelyn felt a huge weight lift from his shoulders.

  When he’d told Meg that he was rethinking his refusal, her response had been, thank God. He’d left Caerphilly the next day for Brecon and before he mounted his horse, she’d hugged him tightly. Thank you, thank you, thank you, she’d said. It was worth shifting course to know that he’d reached an accord with his wife and his son in one fell swoop.

  “Did you really think I would change my mind?” Dafydd said. “That I would walk away from Lili?”

  “I never imagined you’d walk away from her,” Llywelyn said.

  Dafydd sat as he’d been, preternaturally calm. Llywelyn had hoped that he’d at least punch the air, or better yet, stand up and hug his father. But he did neither of these things. “You thought I’d take her anyway,” Dafydd said. “Hoped it, even. And hoped that I would be satisfied with that.”

  “That is the usual way of princes, yes.” Llywelyn shrugged. “I don’t want to argue about this anymore. I’ve never wanted to argue with you about anything.”

  “We’ve only ever disagreed about Lili,” Dafydd said.

  “Exactly. And that disagreement is over. You have my blessing. Marry your girl, if that’s what you want to do.”

  Dafydd still hadn’t moved.

  Llywelyn tried again. “I can’t bear the distance between us another hour. I may not agree with this choice, for the reasons I’ve explained, but I trust you.”

  Finally, Dafydd moved, but not towards his father. He got to his feet and began to pace before the fire, one hand on the hilt of his sword, watching his feet as he strode from one end of the mantle to the other.
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  “What is it?” Llywelyn said. “Why aren’t you pleased?”

  Dafydd glanced his way. “Oh, I am pleased … it’s just that the last time I spoke to Lili of marriage, she said that she’d decided not to marry me even if you gave us permission. She sent me away.”

  Llywelyn studied his son. “She’s a woman, Dafydd. They all do that at one time or another.”

  “Even Mom?” Dafydd said.

  “Even your mother,” Llywelyn said. “I had to bide my time until I could convince her that I wasn’t a madman, much less that I loved her. I don’t know that she fully believed in my love for her until she returned to Wales four years ago. If not for you, she may never have believed in me.”

  Even after they’d spoken words of marriage to each other in secret, Meg hadn’t trusted them together, not with the scars from her first husband still healing over. He remembered the day she told him that she was pregnant. He’d seen a touch of reserve there—of fear—as if he might not be happy with the news. Llywelyn couldn’t blame her. Her first husband hadn’t responded like a man should when Meg told him that she was carrying Anna. Even after all these years, Llywelyn hands fisted as he considered the man Trevor Lloyd had been.

  “I’m going to have to think about how to approach Lili,” Dafydd said. “You may be right, but she seemed very certain that it was over between us.”

  “She’s with you now,” Llywelyn said.

  “Only because she had no choice,” Dafydd said. “It was her duty to find me and tell me of the attack on Buellt.”

  “She could have stayed there, once you’d taken back the castle.”

  Dafydd chewed on his lower lip. Llywelyn had never seen him so uncertain—or at least not since he’d been a strip of a boy in those first months in Wales. Even then, he’d had a confidence that shouted Prince of Wales to any man with functioning eyesight. Llywelyn had marveled at his son then, been proud many times, and thanked God for him every day since.

  Llywelyn stood. “Let it be for now. You’ve said that everything happens for a reason, isn’t that right?”

  “It does, Dad,” Dafydd said. “I just wish I didn’t care so much about how it turns out this time.”

  Chapter 12

  27 August 1288

  Brecon Castle

  Lili

  The wind had blown hard from the west all night long—not unusual in Wales—and the morning had brought cloudy skies, and then rain. Lili stood upon the gatehouse tower, in the shelter of its roof, and gazed into the downpour. Puddles had formed in the bailey of Brecon Castle and drops staccatoed on the front steps.

  “I heard that you ordered your horse saddled.”

  Dafydd braced his shoulder against the frame of the doorway to the stairs that led down to the guardhouse. He leaned into it, not touching her but only inches away.

  Lili kept her eyes on the mountains beyond the battlements. She hadn’t wanted Dafydd to seek her out; she had wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Now that he was here, however, she had to tell him the truth. “I will return to Buellt. It was wrong of me to come with you this far when my people need me. They look to me when Ieuan leaves and I’ve abandoned them.”

  She had hoped that it would be a simple matter to slip away, while Dafydd and the king were busy with their troops. By sunset yesterday, men had started to gather in the fields to the west of the castle. She could see them now, huddling with one another against the rain. It was better to look at them than at Dafydd, whose gaze bludgeoned her with its intensity. She didn’t want him to read anything in her eyes that she didn’t want him to know.

  “What about Bronwen? She will think you have abandoned her.” Now Dafydd did touch her. He stroked the back of her hand with one finger, and then enveloped her whole hand in his.

  She bit her lip. “Dafydd—” She couldn’t resist looking up at him, but as soon as she did, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. She stared at him, drowning in him, really. The entire world receded but for his face and she couldn’t hear anything but a rushing in her ears. Still, she managed to swallow her emotions. “No, Dafydd. Let me go.”

  He dropped her hand and straightened. “You can’t go to Buellt alone and I don’t have the strength of numbers to send any men back with you. Your choice is to come with me to Caerphilly, or to stay here.”

  “I don’t need an escort—”

  “Lili—”

  “One man will do. I asked Math if one of the stable boys could be spared.”

  The wrenching up of the portcullis silenced them both. Its movement vibrated the stones beneath their feet. In unison, they looked towards the bailey to see a boy leading a horse from the stables for Lili, along with a second one for himself. Math had been reluctant to accede to her request, but she’d told him that she would not go with Dafydd, no matter what he said to convince her that she should. If Math wouldn’t let her leave the castle in plain sight, she’d stay at Brecon and ride away after Dafydd left. Math had given in. But he hadn’t told Dafydd about it, apparently.

  Dafydd looked away and took in a deep breath. “I thought things were better between us. I love you, Lili.”

  Lili gritted her teeth, not wanting to answer with what was in her heart, else it break again. Because the real truth was that Lili did love him. She loved him with her all of her heart. But he deserved to live out his life with someone better.

  Lili knew now that she’d run from him because deep down, she’d rather live without love than risk loving him and losing him. Lili’s mother had died giving birth at an age only a few years older than Lili was now. Her father had left them not long after. These losses had burned themselves into Lili. It had made her afraid of giving her whole self to Dafydd as he deserved.

  She’d lain awake half the night, her mind a jumbled mess of regret, recriminations, and despair. She needed to get away from Dafydd to clear her head. One moment, hope welled within her and she felt sure that all would be well, and the next, she knew that there was no way it could be.

  Dafydd cursed under his breath and turned towards the stairs, just as another rider appeared in the doorway of the stables. Instead of clip-clopping sedately, however, as the other two had, he raced across the bailey towards the gatehouse. It was William.

  Dafydd leaned over the balustrade. “Stop! Damn it, William. Stop!”

  “What’s he doing?” Lili said, but she spoke to Dafydd’s retreating back. His feet clattered on the stairs and Lili flew after him, coming out into the area under the gatehouse. William had ridden through it and turned east, heading to England. He was already disappearing around a bend in the road.

  “William!” Dafydd ran to the spare horse that had been intended for the stable boy and threw himself on its back, all the while cursing William under his breath.

  Lili mounted her horse just behind him, and although Dafydd gave her a look that told her he was against her riding out the gate with him, he didn’t stop her. He didn’t have time to argue with her if he was to catch their wayward charge. Dafydd spurred the horse after William and Lili followed.

  The road had become a sea of mud and the horses’ hooves churned through it. Dafydd had to slow to navigate a particularly large puddle, allowing Lili to catch him. She called across the few feet that separated them: “This is a really stupid idea, Dafydd.”

  He shot her a grin as they picked up speed again. “At least the rain is at our backs.”

  His good humor got her attention. He was enjoying this. At first she couldn’t figure out why, and then she realized that he was without a guard for the first time since he’d left his men behind in Scotland three years ago and returned to his time. Of course, that adventure, coupled with the time he was abducted from his own encampment, was why he always had a guard.

  Dafydd and Lili were alone. Truly alone.

  William had a head start, but as they raced along the road, Lili caught sight of him at times. It felt like they were gaining on him, but as the road began to wind among the hills,
they seemed to lose ground. When they reached the crest of a low hill and saw a long straight stretch before them, there was no sign of William. They descended into a valley, crossed it, and then the road narrowed as it cut through a gap between two hills, forcing Dafydd to slow. Neither her horse nor his could maintain his headlong speed beyond the initial rush down the road.

  Lili urged her horse beside Dafydd’s. “I didn’t think William had that great a head start.”

  “I didn’t either,” Dafydd said. “We know where he’s going, though, don’t we?”

  “I imagine, to England?” Lili said.

  “Where else?” Dafydd said. “He’s going after his father. Hay-on-Wye lies fifteen miles ahead of us. Paths lead from this road, to both north and south. There’s nothing to prevent him from taking one, but I don’t see that we have a choice but to continue as we have been.”

  “Have you ridden this road often?” Lili said. “It isn’t that far south from where I grew up, but I’ve never been here before.”

  “This is the region in which we raided before Lancaster,” Dafydd said.

  Oh. Dafydd had spoken to her of those days, and not with fond memories.

  Time went by as the sun—if they could have seen it through the cloud cover—rose higher in the sky. Lili grew more concerned with every mile that passed. What would they do if they had to make a decision as to whether to continue into England, or to stop and leave William to his fate?

  “Where is he?” she said. “Did he go to ground until we passed by?”

  Dafydd just shook his head and kept on riding. They came over a rise and saw the town of Hay, nestled in a bend of the Wye River. Dafydd put out a hand to slow Lili and trotted his horse to the side of the road and under the trees that lined it.