Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (21 page)

Dad scoffed. “You ask me this question, but
it is no less than what I have been asking myself.” He pressed his
lips together for a moment, thinking. Then he said, “Taking Rhys’s
circumstances first, I never meant to bicker with either him or his
cousin, Wynod. In the early days of my rule, when I was trying to
conquer all of Wales and hold off the English at the same time, I
gave more land to Wynod’s father than to Rhys’s. Rhys’s father
abandoned me immediately. Wynod’s remained faithful—for a
while.”

Dad sighed. “It was a purely political
calculation, and one I believed at the time I had to make, though
clearly we are harvesting its fruits now. Twenty years later, Rhys
surrendered to Edward early in the 1277 war. Wynod did too, a
little more rapidly than I might have hoped, though he’d had little
choice, given the enemies that surrounded him. He returned to my
side in 1282, however, and I forgave him his lapse.”

“
Didn’t Mom say that in our
old world Wynod stood by Wales after your death?” David
said.

“
He was the last to
surrender after Dafydd was captured,” Dad said. “Your mother has
also told me that even Rhys regretted his allegiance to Edward
before the end.”

“
And that is why you were
more lenient with him,” David said, comprehension dawning. “You
hoped that by returning his lands to him, you could mend the rift
between you.”

“
Obviously, my attempts
have failed in that regard,” Dad said. “I won’t take lands from
Wynod to augment Rhys’s, and he cannot forgive me for
it.”

“
What about Madog?” David
said.

“
His is a different
situation entirely,” Dad said. “His father sided with my brothers
against me at Bryn Derwin in 1257, and I deprived him of his lands
as a result. He refused to swear fealty to me, lived off the
largesse of King Edward until his death, and Madog himself was born
in England. I didn’t even know that Madog spoke Welsh until he
showed up at Brecon in the company of Rhys last year.”

“
Could be that Rhys is
using him,” David said.

Dad guffawed. “If Madog doesn’t realize
that, he is a fool.”

Then Ieuan came through the door to the
great hall and strode toward the dais. “Whenever you’re ready, my
lords.”

Ever since the company had arrived in the
early hours of the morning, messengers and scouts had been flowing
in and out of Aber in a steady stream, some confirming information
Dad already knew, others adding to it, and a few correcting bits of
misinformation. One of the most important tidbits had been brought
as a by-the-way from a villager who’d fled from Carndochen to
Dolwyddelan in the night. Dad’s castellan there had sent a pigeon a
half hour before, reporting that the vast majority of the men in
Madog’s army were from southern Wales. For all Madog’s claim that
he was fighting for his ancestral lands, Madog’s supposed people
hadn’t flocked to him. They were flocking to Dad instead.

“
We’re ready now.” Dad rose
to his feet, the map still in his hand, and headed for the exit. On
his way out the door, he handed the map to Ieuan.

“
What’s this?” Ieuan said
to David as he stopped beside him, watching Dad tromp down the
steps to where his horse waited.

“
It’s a way to secure the
peace, once we’ve won the war,” David said.

Ieuan didn’t open the map, just tapped the
parchment against his leg, observing the men with David. They
looked as ready as they could be, especially given the short
notice. “It’s the war I’m concerned about,” Ieuan said. “It may be
that Madog has no men of his own, and his father’s people haven’t
rallied to him, but that means we’re facing bowmen from Deheubarth.
They don’t miss.”

Welsh archers were renowned throughout
Europe for the power and accuracy of their bows. Archery,
unfortunately, was not a skill that David had mastered in the nine
years he’d lived in the Middle Ages. His father had believed
wrestling and sword fighting were more important. David could pull
a bow, but that was all that could be said for his skills. Ieuan,
on the other hand, like David’s wife, was a master.

“
I am reluctant to fight
other Welshmen too,” David said. “It would be my preference to give
them the chance to defect back to us before this war gets more out
of hand.”

Ieuan didn’t quite roll his eyes, but his
mouth twisted. “They are traitors, my lord.”

“
They go where their lord
points,” David said. “Many may feel that they don’t have a choice
but to fight for Rhys and consequently for Madog. But I’m not
interested in making any more permanent enemies. Nor is my father.
We always have to make peace out of war, and it’s never an easy
task.”

“
It hasn’t been so bad in
England since Valence’s death,” Ieuan said.

“
True, but he was a
foreigner to the English in the first place, many of the men who
fought with him this last time were from Ireland, and his Norman
peers didn’t like him much either. He’d lost the war before it had
even started, though none of us knew it at the time.”

More rebellions like
Valence’s—and Rhys’s—were precisely the kind of threat that could
derail David’s plan for a united Britain before
he
even started. He could handle the
messiness of democracy. He didn’t need to be the King of England,
provided nobody else was king either. Madog and Rhys, however,
wanted to carve away their little slices of Wales for their own
benefit and set themselves up as absolute rulers.

Wales’ problem had always been a lack of the
administrative infrastructure that any government needed to
maintain itself. When it had a strong king, all went well. When he
died, however, either his sons fought over the carcass or, even if
the transition went smoothly, the new ruler might not be as capable
a leader as his predecessor. The history of both England and Wales
was riddled with such instances.

Having a Parliament helped, but it didn’t
solve the problem. If an idiot sat on the throne—and had the
traditional power of the throne—he could wreak all sorts of havoc.
King George III, the man who lost the American colonies, was
certifiably insane. That wasn’t any way to run a country.

Nor, quite frankly, was this.

When the former Soviet Union broke up, it
was because Russia had conquered its neighbors and held on to them
by force. It wasn’t any surprise that when change came, their
colonies wanted to rule themselves. The same was true for Scotland
and Wales in that other world. They’d been conquered and held by
force. In the world David came from, even after seven hundred
years, many Welshmen resented English rule.

But a democracy was different. When a region
agreed to abide by the law of the land, it couldn’t throw a fit or
threaten to take its bat and go home when things didn’t go its way.
When that happened, things got nasty (e.g. the American Civil War).
If Rhys and Madog objected to Dad’s rule, they should have gone to
Brecon and made their case before Parliament. Because they hadn’t
done that, Dad was going to have to put them down instead.

So it was that Dad and David rode out of yet
another castle. The ranks of men had swelled to three times their
original number. Every man in North Wales who could ride a horse
had ridden it to Aber. The rest marched. They couldn’t make the
full distance to Maentwrog today, but if the weather remained fine,
they could reach it by tomorrow. And then Dad would see about
taking Harlech back.

At Bangor, the company would turn southwest
and take the road to Caernarfon. A small motte and bailey castle
that a Norman had built centuries ago lay eight miles from Bangor
and defended the western end of the Menai Strait. Dad planned to
rest there. No Norman had controlled the castle since before the
time of Owain Gwynedd, and Dad had shored it up since 1282, taking
advantage of its prime location. It was after they reached
Caernarfon that Dad and David would go their separate ways: David
to take the more southwestern road to Criccieth, and Dad to travel
due south to the muster at Maentwrog.

David still didn’t like it. He still thought
it was a waste of his skills and men to send him to Criccieth. He
spent most of the journey to Bangor organizing his reasons as to
why he should ride to Maentwrog too. David had actually opened his
mouth to voice them when a scout burst from the trees to the south
of the road.

“
My lords! My
lords!”

They reined in. The scout’s horse danced and
spun as he struggled to get the animal under control. Ieuan
dismounted and caught the bridle, putting a hand on the horse’s
forehead to calm it. The others gathered around.

The scout took in a breath. “Sire, I bring
information of Madog’s movements in the south. He has split his
force and has left just enough men at Harlech to maintain the
siege. He marches even now towards you.”

“
He’s looking to confront
us directly?” David said.

“
We should have known that
we couldn’t catch him by surprise,” Carew said.

“
And he should know that he
can’t catch us by surprise.” Dad’s brow was heavily furrowed. “What
is he thinking?”

“
Madog can’t maintain the
siege if we come behind him,” Ieuan said. “It makes sense for him
to challenge us if he thinks he can stop you before your army has
fully gathered.”

“
He marches with many men,
my lord. More than I see here.” The scout gestured to the cavalry
behind them. “He has passed Maentwrog and continues north on the
road to Caernarfon.”

“
He marches through
Beddgelert?” Dad said. That was the same road south that Dad had
intended to take from Caernarfon.

“
My lord.” Carew lifted a
hand to Dad, who nodded at him. “If Madog chooses the ground and
the timing, and has more men than we have, I can understand his
daring. If he meets us on the road to Maentwrog, we will have only
cavalry and whatever footmen can catch us by the time we reach his
position.”

“
We should go around,”
Ieuan said. “Take the western road.”

David scoffed a laugh. “Or we could all ride
to Criccieth and relieve Harlech by sea.”

“
Or we could end this
tonight,” Dad said.

There was a moment’s pause.
David saw the eyes of some of the others shift from Dad to him.
They were waiting for him to speak.
Cowards.

David sighed. “Which is exactly what Madog
would expect you to decide.”

“
Good.” Dad’s eyes lit. “We
shall be utterly predictable … except where we’re not.”

David studied the expressions on the other
men. Cadwallon looked eager for anything, but that was his normal
state. Justin tugged on one ear. He would go wherever David pointed
and not question what he asked of him. Samuel’s face was impassive.
His father had taught him to keep his feelings to himself.

Ieuan and Carew, however, had years of
experience in battle. Ieuan was rubbing his jaw, thinking hard,
while Carew tapped rhythmically on the hilt of his sword with his
left hand. Nobody was leaping about with enthusiasm at Dad’s
suggestion, but neither were they arguing with it.

“
We need to keep our eyes
on the goal,” Carew said. “Is that Harlech or—”

“
Defeating Madog is the
goal,” David said, “just as defeating Dad is his.”

Dad looked at David, eyebrows raised. “So
you do support confronting him?”

“
Isn’t it my job to play
devil’s advocate?” David said. Some of the men frowned, perhaps not
sure of that particular phrase, so he hurried on, “You are right
that we can deal with the army in front of Harlech at our leisure
once Madog is taken care of. I’m just concerned that he has all the
advantages. We need to create some for ourselves.”

“
We would need eyes and
ears,” Carew said.

David turned in his saddle, gazing around
him at the trees that encroached the road. They were only a few
hundred yards past the crossroads at Bangor where three paths had
met: the first led back to Aber and was the road they’d taken to
get here; the second, the road they were on now, led to Caernarfon;
and the third headed south into the mountains, to Dolbadarn, Dad’s
fortress in western Snowdonia. The decision they made in the next
few minutes would determine which road they took—and possibly the
course of the future of Wales.

What was happening right at this moment was
very similar to what David had faced with every war he’d fought in
the Middle Ages: he had access to hours-old information about the
movements of his enemies and no way to communicate with his allies
in a timely fashion. David had never grown used to it; it was a
stupid way to fight a war, but in the Middle Ages, it was the only
way. They were going to have to decide what path to take—right
here, right now—and live with the consequences of that
decision.

Dad nodded. “I need to know where they are,
how many men they have, and as much as possible about what they’re
planning.”

“
We need to know who Madog
has left at Harlech, too,” David said.

Dad looked at him. “What are you
thinking?”

“
If Madog does this
right—no guarantees, of course—he will have left his tents and
pavilions in plain view, so Evan will have no idea that the bulk of
his army has left the field,” David said.

Justin nodded. “Evan won’t know that he
could sally forth and break through those lines.”

“
He could relieve his own
siege—” Ieuan was nodding too. “We have to get a message to
him.”