Footsteps in Time (34 page)

Edward’s soldiers had tethered David
to a post at least ten feet from the rest, his hands tied behind
his back. The tent flaps were closed and David could see nothing of
the camp outside. Carew stared at his feet, unable to meet David’s
eyes.

“
You should have run, my
lord,” Bevyn said.

“
I wouldn’t have gotten far
and you know it,” David said. “Besides, we’re not dead
yet.”

“
You fought well.” Bevyn’s
grudging admission almost made David smile.

Still, he didn’t
regret his decision not to abandon his companions. Exhausted, David
slid down the pole and sat with his back against the post and his
feet splayed in front of him. He leaned his head back, trying to
relax, and found himself replaying the fight in his head.
What should I have done differently? How am I
going to salvage this situation, without losing my life or the
lives of my men?
The light outside had
faded during David’s fight with Edward, and now the candles
flickered, close to going out.

Soon it was full dark, with a single
candle guttering in its dish. The wind gusted outside, but no other
noise penetrated the tent. At one point, the changing of the guard
caught David’s attention. One of the guards left, and the second
was replaced by a third man.

Then, Carew spoke. “I
didn’t betray you, my lord.” In his agitation, he had reverted to
French, and David answered in the same language.

“
I thought it only for a
heartbeat, Carew,” David said. “I apologize for thinking it at
all.”

“
I underestimated their
hatred of you,” Carew continued, not really hearing David. “I never
seriously considered that Edward would seek to murder you in his
own pavilion. What would King Alexander of Scotland think of that?
No ruler would ever trust him again. That is why a king doesn’t
kill a king, my lord. It’s not out of honor that he refrains, but
because the price he pays, even if he succeeds, is too
high.”

“
That hasn’t stopped the
English from killing us before,” David said. “Cadwaladr ap Seisyll
is a case in point.”

“
Yes.” Carew
sighed.

“
And English kings have
hanged Welsh captives when they outlived their usefulness or as
punishment for their father’s deeds.”

“
Yes,” Carew said, “but
never the son of the Prince of Wales.”

“
There’s always a first
time,” David said. “But I swear to you that prince will not be
me.”

“
You should have let them
kill me and won free yourself,” Carew said. “Now we will all
die—”

He broke off. David’s
attention had wandered and Carew followed David’s gaze. The soldier
at the entrance to the tent was conversing with someone outside the
flap. The soldier gave an abrupt nod before he closed the flap,
turned toward David, and pulled a knife from his belt. David tried
to scramble to his feet but the bindings hindered his movement and
he managed to reach only his knees. Eyes wide, David watched the
knife come towards him. Beyond, Carew’s face showed what David
could only interpret as pity.

“
My lord, it’s time,” the
soldier said.

Then he leaned down and cut
David’s bonds.

“
I’m sorry, my lord,” the
man said. “I would have released you sooner, but you were safer
inside the tent. But now it’s time to move.”

“
Who are you?” David flexed
his hands. They throbbed as the blood rushed back into
them.

“
Samuel ben Aaron.” The
soldier cut through the rope that held David’s feet and turned to
do the same for Carew.

Free, David ran to Bevyn.
“Tell me you have a knife up your sleeve.”

“
Of course, I do,” Bevyn
said. “Bloody maddening that Edward’s lackeys were upon me before I
could reach it.”

David slipped it out.

Samuel spoke again. “You
must leave here at once. I’ve strapped your weapons to your horses,
which are tethered just outside. Hurry!”

“
Where are our guards?”
David said. “Are they drunk?”

“
A great sickness has
overtaken the camp,” Aaron said. “Everyone is ill.”

Before David could ask for more of an
explanation, Bevyn put a hand to his arm, listening hard to the
sounds outside. Carew doused the candle, leaving them in darkness.
David lifted a corner of the flap and peered outside. Proof of
Samuel’s words lay before him.

Chaos reigned in the camp.
What David had heard as wind was actually a chorus of moaning men.
Whatever the source of the sickness, David wasn’t going to waste
this chance. As one, he and his companions, Samuel among them,
threw themselves on their mounts and spurred them to the exit. As
David rode the last yards to freedom, a soldier reached for him in
supplication. David didn’t stop.

They pounded across the
grass towards their camp. “Sentries!” Bevyn’s voice rang out.
“Prince Dafydd returns!”

“
My lord!” Ieuan ran to
catch David’s reins. “What’s happened?”

David dismounted in front
of him. “It was a trap. Edward never intended to make peace with
us. We’ve spent the last hours bound, but Aaron’s son released us.”
David gestured to Samuel, who pulled up and dismounted.

“
I recommend we don’t
dally,” Carew said.

“
What sickness is this?”
said Aaron, his question for Samuel.

Samuel shifted from one foot to
another. He glanced at David and then back to his
father.

“
Tell us,” David
said.

“
I was among those who
patrolled the exterior of the camp this evening. My shift ended
after you arrived. I reported to my commander, intending to seek
out my dinner, when Moses waylaid me. He insisted that I dine with
him and Uncle.

“
I’d never dined with them
before, seeing as how we disguised the intimacy of our acquaintance
as a matter of course. I was shocked that he wanted to draw
attention to our relationship by having me eat with them. But Moses
told me that Uncle Jacob desired that I come to his tent and argued
for it most insistently.

“
So I joined them. Having
fulfilled his obligations to Edmund as food taster, Jacob arrived a
few moments after I. We ate our meal and conversed over our wine
for a time, but it was not long before Jacob became ill.

“
Moses stood over his
father as he retched on the ground. I asked what was wrong and he
said, ‘Open the flap. See what’s happening in the camp.’ I did as
he asked. The camp...well,” Samuel gestured helplessly. “You saw
it. One man crawled to Jacob’s door. I bent down to hear his words
and he said, ‘the King...the Earl...ill...please help
them.’”

Samuel paused. Aaron and he stared at
each other. “Finish it, Samuel,” Aaron said.

“
Jacob poisoned everyone.
He used every poison in his collection: water hemlock among the
parsnips, belladonna in the wine, Herba Paris in the stew,
foxglove, henbane, nightshade, mandrake, monkshood...none could
withstand it. The combination would look to those who come after
like plague.”

“
Yet it’s not plague,”
David said.

“
No,” Samuel said. “But it
kills just the same.”

Carew took a step towards Samuel. “The
King is dead?”

Samuel nodded. “The King is
dead.”

* * * * *

The next morning, Carew and David
stood at the edge of a copse of trees and looked toward the English
camp, some two hundred yards away. As they watched, the Scot force
galloped into the valley and across the meadow. They reached the
English camp and, noting the absence of sentries, milled around in
confusion before one of them dismounted.

The camp was silent, and David could
practically feel the uncertainty coming off the Scot cavalryman.
Then, a tent flap inside the camp swung up and a man
appeared.

Aaron hissed from behind
David. “I know you told me to stay with the ship, but I had to see.
Forgive me.”

The Scot spoke to Moses. The
conversation was short. The cavalryman backed away, calling to his
men. He mounted his horse and his entire company galloped back the
way they’d come, the dust kicked up from their horses’ hooves
hovering in the still air behind them.

“
The story will spread as
quickly as men can tell it,” Carew said. “Soon, the English will
notice their king is missing, and someone will send a force to the
camp. It will probably not happen today, however, and by the time
it does, any trace of Jacob’s work will have
disappeared.”

Once the Scots were out of sight,
Moses left the camp.

“
Your father will call it
murder,” Aaron said.

“
It was murder,” David
said, “but he’ll feel no dismay at Edward’s death either. My Uncle
Dafydd, however...” David trailed off. Uncle Dafydd had betrayed
his brother too many times, but his death was still not going to be
easy to encompass.

Aaron nodded. “Please
excuse me, my lord.” He headed down the hill to intercept
Moses.

“
And what do you say?”
Carew said when Aaron was out of earshot.

David hesitated, and then
decided to trust Carew with the truth. “Even now, this constant
killing is something I find hard to accept. I fear for my own soul,
and the soul of every man who marches with me. To take another’s
life becomes easier the more one does it and I ask myself what kind
of man I will be when it begins to come more easily. Yet, I fear
that I cannot become the kind of ruler I need to be, unless it
does.”

Carew reached out a hand and gripped
David’s shoulder. “You worry needlessly, my lord. There are none in
Wales who share your fears. They see only a son, who walks in his
father’s footsteps and fills them.”

David looked once more upon the
devastation in Edward’s camp, and then turned Bedwyr towards the
village of Poulton and the boats.

“
Come,” David said. “Let’s
go home.”

The End

Author’s Note

Llywelyn Fawr, the great
Prince of Wales, had two sons: Dafydd and Gruffydd. Dafydd became
Prince when his father died in 1240, but died himself in 1246.
Gruffydd had already died in 1244 while attempting to escape from
the Tower of London where King Henry had imprisoned him. That left
Gruffydd’s four sons to split power in Wales: Owain, Llywelyn,
Dafydd, and Rhodri. Of those four, only Llywelyn was both old
enough, determined enough—and free—to step into his uncle’s
shoes.

By 1282, when the
events of
Footsteps in Time
take place, Dafydd had grown from the eight year
old boy he was in 1246, to a forty-four year old man who’d spent
half his life supporting Llywelyn, and half his life fighting him.
Dafydd grew up in the Tower of London, a close companion to Edward,
King Henry’s son and the future King of England. Only a year apart
in age, their love never wavered, and the hate that grew between
them after Dafydd revolted in 1282 was a product of two powerful,
egotistical, arrogant men on opposites sides in
war.

Dafydd rebelled against
Llywelyn’s rule three times: first in 1255 when he allied with his
eldest brother, Owain, and was defeated by Llywelyn in the Battle
of Bryn Derwin; second, in 1263 when he defected to England for no
apparent reason any historian can discern; and thirdly, in 1274
when he conspired with Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn of Powys and his son,
Owain, to assassinate Llywelyn. The timely intervention of a
snowstorm averted the attempt. Dafydd, as in 1263, fled to England,
and to Edward.

Each time, Llywelyn either
forgave Dafydd outright, or was forced by the terms of a peace
treaty with the English to accept him back in Wales. That Dafydd
started the war against Edward in 1282 only reveals his fickle
nature. Dafydd’s betrayal wounded Edward to the point that he would
never forgive him. Instead, when the English finally captured
Dafydd in 1283, Edward had him hanged, drawn, and quartered, and
dragged through the streets of Shrewsbury, the first man of noble
standing to achieve such a death. Edward was practicing,
apparently, for William Wallace.

As to the fate of
Llywelyn,
Footsteps in Time
is a work of fiction. In our history, Llywelyn
died on December 11, 1282:

And then Llywelyn ap
Gruffydd left Dafydd, his brother, guarding Gwynedd; and he himself
and his host went to gain possession of Powys and Buellt. And he
gained possession as far as Llanganten. And thereupon he sent his
men and his steward to receive the homage of the men of
Brycheiniog, and the prince was left with but a few men with him.
And then Edmund Mortimer and Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, and with them
the king's host, came upon them without warning; and then Llywelyn
and his foremost men were slain on the day of Damasus the Pope, a
fortnight to the day from Christmas day; and that was a
Friday.

─
The Chronicle of the
Princes, Peniarth Manuscript 20

At Llywelyn’s death, Wales
fell to English rule. Edward declared his own son, Edward II, the
new Prince of Wales.