Footsteps in Time (9 page)

Prince Llywelyn held
David’s eyes as he spoke, though it seemed as if he saw not David,
but the past. Anna kept glancing from the prince to David. David
tended to be unforgiving when other people fell short of his
expectations, even Mom. And this was so out of character for her.
As far as Anna knew, she hadn’t dated
anyone
after their dad died. Or
rather
her
dad
died.

“
Your mother stayed with
me for less than a year, almost until your birth, Dafydd. Then one
day I awoke to find her gone and Anna with her. None claimed
responsibility for her leaving or had seen her go.”

“
She left? Just like
that?” David said.

“
We ransacked the castle
and searched the surrounding countryside for her to no avail. She
left me as quickly as she had come.”

“
But how do you know that
I’m your son?” David said. “You’ve never seen me before, and I am
with Anna, not my mother.”

Prince Llywelyn smiled. “It
is obvious to anyone with eyes. You, of course—” He turned to Anna,
“—look just like your mother. I’m sure others have told you that
many times.”

Anna nodded. It was true.

“
And you, Dafydd, look much
like my father, Gruffydd, and my older brother, Owain. My men
noticed it as soon as they saw you standing in the clearing at
Cilmeri—thus the rumors which have spread about your
identity.”

“
I heard of these rumors,
just today in the solar,” Anna said to David, not able to render
this in Welsh. “I thought Prince Llywelyn was arranging a marriage
for me.”

“
Whatever you have to tell
me about the fate of Wales,” the prince continued, “I already know
through Marged. She warned me of the treachery at Cilmeri. She knew
of Edward’s deeds and that with my death the dream of an
independent Wales would also die.”

“
But why didn’t you do
anything about it?” David said. “If not for us, you would have
died, just as our history books say.”

“
It’s one thing to know
something, it’s another to avert the course of the future,” Prince
Llywelyn said. “These last fifteen years I’ve worked to shore up my
castles and consolidate my power—and resist the advances of the
English. But each time I tried to do something that seemed to lead
toward a different future, others who knew nothing of what I knew
would move to ensure that my efforts failed. My own kin betrayed me
more than once.”

“
That doesn’t explain your
presence in that meadow,” David said.

“
In early November,”
Prince Llywelyn said, “The first rumors reached me that the
powerful Mortimer family might consider defecting to my side. On
the eighth of December, after our great victory at the Menai
Strait, I received a note suggesting exactly that. They offered a
meeting outside of Buellt. Your mother had warned me against the
meeting, but still, I couldn’t pass it up.”

“
So, you went to the
rendezvous,” David said.

“
Yes, and found it a trap,
and one which I allowed them to spring on me,” Prince Llywelyn
said. “I did not, however, bring my entire army with me to the
south, even though the English thought I did. This small thing I
could and did control. The men you met that first day were my
entire party, save those who died on the hill before you arrived.
The bulk of my army has now reached my brother Dafydd at
Dolwyddelan Castle. If Edward chooses to sweep down the valley of
the Conwy, he will find a larger force than he expects prepared to
stop him.”

Anna had been leaning
forward, hanging on the prince’s every word, and with that sat
back, heaving a sigh of relief. “At least you could do something to
change the future.”

“
If you hadn’t appeared
when you did, I don’t know how much difference it would have made,”
Prince Llywelyn said. “I felt I had to take a chance with the
Mortimers, despite your mother’s warning. Unfortunately, I was as
unprepared this time as in your world. That’s the reason, however,
that when your chariot appeared in the meadow, I knew you, even
before you gave me your names.”

He looked at David. “So,
Dafydd, may I greet you as my son?”

David sat frozen to his
chair and then sprang up. He met the prince half-way around the
table. The prince lifted him off his feet and hugged
him.

When Prince Llywelyn
put David down, he looked at Anna.
“Do you
remember anything of your time in Wales?”

“
My first memories aren’t
until David was a baby, except—” She paused, thinking hard, “—did I
know Goronwy then?”

Llywelyn smiled. “You did.
And you called me Papa. You liked me to put you on my shoulders.
You would grasp my hair with your fists to hold on.”

Anna
gazed at him through several heartbeats. “I don’t
think you want to carry me anywhere, but I will call you Papa
again, if you’d like.”

“
Yes.” He smiled. “I’d
like that.”

Then she skipped back to what he’d
said before and jumped to her feet, unable to sit still. “Wait!
Wait!” she said, in Welsh, of which she’d understood more in the
last five minutes than in the previous five weeks. “You’re saying
that Mom and I lived here for a time and then disappeared. Could
that happen to David and me? Could it happen to Mom
again?”

“
When I was with her, we
talked about it,” Prince Llywelyn said. “She had no idea why it had
happened in the first place, much less how to make it happen again,
or how to prevent it.”

“
And now it’s happened to
us,” David said. “That’s an amazing coincidence.”

Prince Llywelyn looked from
David to Anna, amused. “Do you believe in coincidences? I confess,
I no longer do.”

Chapter Six

David

I
am Prince Llywelyn’s son. I am
Mom’s
and Prince Llywelyn’s
son
. David awoke alone—suddenly alone—in
his own, solitary, single, never-to-be-shared-with-anyone room in
the castle, and found himself choking on semi-hysterical laughter.
No longer the son of a man he’d never met, and whom hardly anyone
in his family remembered much about or spoke of, he was the son of
the Prince of Wales.
I
am
a Prince of
Wales!

Admittedly, one of
David’s first actions upon entering the room was to throw himself
upon the bed, spread-eagled, and rejoice in the comfort of the down
mattress. Then, he imagined himself going up to Fychan and
mentioning, offhand and casually, that he was late for sword play
today because he’d just left his father in his office where they’d
discussed important business. His
father
.

Despite his fantasies,
dinner the night before had been the most awkward meal of David’s
life. Anna had joined the high table too, sitting between him and
Goronwy. She’d seemed completely relaxed and had talked animatedly
with Goronwy, whose usually severe expression had been transformed
by his joy that Anna remembered him.

David, for his part,
hadn’t known how to act. He didn’t know how to
be
a son; how to
be
a Prince of Wales. Prince
Llywelyn—
Father—
had
asked David to sit beside him, and he’d done so, but he’d knocked
over his water glass, dropped parsnips down his front, and
generally made a fool of himself within the first five minutes.
Father had then grabbed David’s arm as he was reaching for his cup
and held it.

He’d smiled, though his
eyes were serious. “Are you a different person from this morning,
son?”

“
No,” David had said, “and
yes. I don’t know how to be a prince.”

“
Don’t think of it that
way,” Father said. “Just be my son.”

“
I don’t know how to be
that either,” David said. “I’ve never had a father.”

“
Then be
the man you were this morning,” Father said. “That man
is
a Prince of
Wales.”

That was an oddly comforting thought,
other than his use of the word ‘man’, which was still taking some
getting used to. Then Father spoke again. “When your mother
returned to your world, she didn’t marry?”

Anna stilled beside him at the
question.

“
No,” David
said.

“
Ahh,”
Father sat back in his chair. Then David thought he heard him
mutter under his breath, “Good,” but he wasn’t sure.
Did he still think of her too, or was it just that
now I was here, he was thinking of her?
He
had married someone
else.

Anna poked David’s leg
under the table and leaned closer. “His whole life, Wales, and the
Middle Ages is what Mom studies! She talks about him all the time
and nobody suspects a thing!”

“
There’s no way we could
have known,” David said, “but it feels like we’ve been
blind.”

“
It was your heritage,”
Anna said, “but she couldn’t tell you anything about
it.”

“
And how does it make you
feel?” David said, suddenly concerned. “We’re only half-siblings
now.”

“
I’m still your older
sister,” she said, starch in her voice. “Don’t think just because
you’re the Prince of Wales that it makes any difference to
me.”

Father overheard. “You’re a
princess, my dear. I’ll not hear otherwise.”

Anna ducked her head and
focused on her food.

Ha!
“Accept it, Anna,” David said, leaning close
again. “It might get you out of some sewing.”

She didn’t say anything after that,
but she was smiling.

* * * * *

The next morning, David was pulling on
his shirt, knowing he’d slept far too late, when a tentative knock
came at the door.

“
Come in!” David
said.

Owain and four of the other boys from
David’s contingent pushed open the door and stood hesitating in the
doorway. David straightened and they studied each other for a long
ten seconds.

Owain was the first
to speak. “My lord,” he said, and David felt that the words came
awkwardly to his lips. They felt awkward to
hear
. “Sir Bevyn requests your
presence at the practice ring.”

David raised his eyebrows. “Is that
what he said?”

Owain shifted from one foot to
another. “Um, no, my lord.”

“
So what he really said was
‘tell his lordship to get his noble ass out here right now or I’ll
make him wish he’d woken earlier, Prince of Wales or no Prince of
Wales.’”

Despite themselves, everyone laughed.
David laughed with them and waved them into the room. He’d tried to
do Bevyn’s accent and gruff voice and gotten it nearly right. Now,
with the tension broken, the boys spread out. One stoked the fire
in the grate, another sat gingerly upon the mattress.

“
I think we’ll sleep with
you from now on,” a boy named Gruffydd said. “This is much nicer
than the barracks.”

“
Why
didn’t you tell us you were Prince Llywelyn’s son?” Owain said.
Everyone stopped moving. David looked up from pulling on his
boots—no longer the twenty-first century ones, but a new pair the
cobbler had finished last week.
What a
question!

“
I didn’t know,” he said.
“My mother never told me.” David and Llywelyn had discussed how to
respond to this before they parted after dinner and had decided
that they’d hit as close to the truth as they could.

The boys looked nonplussed. “Why
not?”

“
I can’t ask her,” David
said. “All I know is that she sent me here to be with the prince,
and he waited to tell me until he thought the time was
right.”

“
No
wonder you’re so smart.” That was Owain again. David didn’t want to
hear that, though, because dwelling on their differences would only
create a bigger barrier between them and him. They were all noble
too, but there was the nobility—and then there was the prince’s
son. David might have been a prince for only twelve hours, but he
knew enough about it to know
that.

Bevyn waited for them in the
courtyard, his hands on his hips, and a distinct smirk on his face.
If David was expecting deference, he didn’t get it.

“
You’re late,” he
snapped.

“
I’m sorry, sir,” David
said. “I’ve not slept by myself here before, and didn’t realize
that I wouldn’t wake in time.”

“
You missed mass and
breakfast,” Bevyn said. “Here.” He threw David a roll. “Come,” he
said.

“
Thanks,” David said to
his back. He inspected the food and saw there was both cheese and
meat inside. As always, Bevyn treated David with a complicated mix
of causticity and muted affection.

“
Where are Fychan and
Dai?” Gruffydd said from behind David.