Prince of Time (25 page)

Tudur still didn’t look at me. “You speak of this as if it’s a Sisyphean task. Wales is stronger than you think.”

“We are stronger when you are with us, Tudur, than against us,” I said.

“I am with you, my lord,” he said.

I nodded. “You may go, Tudur, and may God go with you.”

He stood and bowed. “My lord,” he said, picking up the sack containing Cadoc’s head as he left the room. The door shut behind him. I closed my eyes.
Tired.
I forced myself to my feet and walked to the door that separated the office from my father’s room.

I poked my head around the doorframe. Lili sat beside my father’s bed, his hand in hers. They both gazed at me, their eyes bright.

“You heard?” I said.

“Yes,” my father said.

I leaned against the frame, and studied them. “You can’t believe everything you hear,” I said, “especially while eavesdropping.”

“I’ll take my chances,” said Lili.

I entered the room and sat down on the bed next to Dad, opposite Lili. His face was gaunt, but he’d been awake since dawn and the fever had gone.

“You told Tudur you are from the future,” Lili said. “Your father confirms it.”

“
A
future,” I said, “not
our
future.”

“What does that mean?”

I shrugged, giving in. “It means, Lili, that the choices we make today are still our own. What we do today, we do for the first time, and no matter what happened in the world in which I was born, it has no bearing on what happens in
this
world.”

“Which is why you let Tudur go,” Dad said. “Whatever he did in that other world, he doesn’t have to do the same here.”

“No,” I said. “And it appears he knows it too.”

“I trusted him,” Dad said. “His father was like a brother to me—closer, in fact, than my own brothers, who routinely betrayed me.”

“We all trusted him,” I said. “I still don’t know if that trust was misplaced. We may never know, provided he continues to work with us.”

“You walk a narrow rope across a canyon, my lord,” Lili said. “Any misstep and you, and all of Wales, plunges to our death.”

Dad patted Lili’s hand. “It’s not as bad as that,” he said.

I wasn’t interested in exploring that topic any further.
I’m so tired of that topic.
“What happened when you got shot?”

Dad sighed. “I needed the exercise and you know how important it is to mingle with one’s men, so I rode with a patrol. We hadn’t gone far, having stayed on the western side of the Wye, when an arrow flew from the woods and hit me in the ribs. That’s all there is to it.”

“But you, Tudur, or Goronwy sent men to find the culprit,” I said.

“Goronwy led the search personally, following the trajectory of the arrow. He found no one. If it was a lone man, however, he could’ve easily slipped through our fingers and been a mile away within a few minutes of shooting me. The Welsh have used ‘guerilla warfare’ as you called it once, to great effect for a thousand years. It’s impossible to guard against a lone assassin.”

“And he probably
was
Welsh,” I said.

Dad turned to Lili. “Would you fetch me some wine, my dear?”

“Of course, my lord.” Lili stood and sketched a wave to me, before leaving the room.

I looked at my father, waiting.

“I almost died,” he said. “Are you ready?”

“I’ll never be ready,” I said. “And you didn’t die.”

“How many close calls can one man survive?” Dad said. “I’ve already lived longer than most men.”

“Mom will not be happy with that kind of talk,” I said, “especially because where she comes from, many people live well into their eighties.”

“Save me from such a fate!” Dad actually laughed, though he cut it short abruptly with a hand to his side. I eased him down further in the bed and grabbed another pillow to hold against his ribs. “I would rather die before I lose all my teeth and am bent double with age, barely able to stagger from the bed to the dinner table and back!”

He sobered and held out his hand to me. I leaned forward and he kissed my forehead and then each cheek. “You are my beloved son. Whenever my end comes, you will be ready, whether you realize it or not.”

His words made me lightheaded, with tears behind my eyes. I had to breathe deeply to fight them back. “I’m not as strong as you. Nor as wise.”

“You are young and not as alone as I was at sixteen.” Dad looked down at his hands and I waited, wondering what was coming and if this was really why he’d sent Lili away. “I need to know, son. Why did you come back? You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” I said, relieved that the question was so easy. “It was my choice. I wanted to come home.”

“But you jumped not knowing if it would return you to your time or end your life.”

“With the English bearing down on me, Dad, my life was over. Ieuan’s life was over. It wasn’t just a risk I
had
to take, I didn’t even view it as a risk at the time. All my choices had narrowed to two: die on an English sword, or jump.”

Dad squeezed my hand. “I have stood on that cliff many times, son. Thank you for coming home. Thank you for saving my life again.”

“Everything happens for a reason, Dad. Even if I’d died there, it would have been for a reason. You pray, you try to make the right choice, the moral choice, and then you let it go, and it’s amazing sometimes how things turn out.”

Dad laughed lightly, containing it so as to not hurt his wound. “I would have to agree, Dafydd. Since you and your sister arrived in Wales,
amazing
is a word of which I’ve grown very fond.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bronwen

“
M
mmm,” I set the plate of doughnuts on the table in front of Ieuan and sat down.

“What are those?” He gingerly picked one out with his thumb and forefinger. “They look like lumps of dough that have been fried in lard.”

“Exactly.” I grinned. “Except that the dough is sweetened with more honey than usual, and we let it rise once instead of twice.”

Ieuan took a bite and his face took on a quizzical expression. “Good. What do you call them? Dough lumps?”

“Doughnuts, or rather ‘doughnut holes’ which makes even less sense if you think about it,” I said. “Until I came to Wales they were one of my four main food groups, the others being diet cola, onion rings, and coffee.”

“I have no idea what you just said. Is coffee what you have there?” Ieuan pointed to the cup in my hand.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve had a headache on and off since the day after we got here, and I’m hoping this will help.”

Ieuan took the cup from me, sipped it, and grimaced.

“I know. It doesn’t taste very good, does it? I put in lots of cream, but no sugar, as there is none. I’m going to have to give it up, I think.”

“Prince Dafydd had three sugar packets,” Ieuan said, popping two more doughnuts in his mouth and talking around them. “I asked him to bring them here from the hospital. I would give them to you, as part of my betrothal gift, to put in your final cup.”

“Ieuan.” I kissed him on the cheek. “That’s so sweet.”

“Isn’t it?” He looked pleased with himself.

I took a doughnut. They were rather good. One of the things I’d found when I’d traveled the world with my parents was that the memory of certain foods created a longing that was only sated by that particular food. Then, once you had that food again, it not only was no longer a desperate need, but it never tasted as good as you imagined.
I don’t think this is the case with doughnuts, though.

Now onion rings—I was going to try those next. They should be easy.

“You all right, lass?” Ieuan said.

“I think so,” I said. “How long have I been here, in Wales?”

“Six days?” His mouth was full again. “Something like that.”

“So it’s August 14
^th
,” I said. “I’ve known you for ten days.”

“A lifetime, really,” he said.

I laughed, because he was right, and then sobered. “I’ve begun my life completely over.” I started up from the table at the thought, feeling panic rise in my chest. “Is my professor at Penn State worried about me, or have they already given my office to someone else? Ieuan! What if Elisa didn’t find my letters? My friend, Kate, must be frantic!”
What was I thinking? Why do I never think?

My heart raced as the thoughts tumbled over each other in my head.

Ieuan was staring at me, his mouth half-open. “Lass? Bronwen?” he said, a doughnut half-way to his mouth.

“What have I done?” I sat, moaning, and laid my head on the table.

“You’ve saved the life of the Prince of Wales,” Ieuan said.

Suddenly, it was as simple as that. I raised my head. “I did, didn’t I?” In the space of a single second, I understood what David had been talking about, back at his aunt’s house. What had he said?
This is so much bigger than I am; so much more important that I am. I would be a blind man not to see it.

“We are, each one of us, here for a purpose, lass,” Ieuan said. “You know that.”

“I guess I do, at that.”

Lili appeared beside Ieuan and said, without bothering with a greeting, “Can we talk?”

Ieuan and I glanced at each other. “Let’s go where we were before, Ieuan,” I said.

Privacy was remarkably hard to come by in a castle. There were too many people in too small a space, but Ieuan and I had found a private spot in the kitchen garden where we’d sat late last night before going to bed. There was a bench, screened by a lattice. It had been quiet there.

We left the hall and passed quickly through the kitchen. The workers looked up as we went by, but Ieuan waved them away and they went back to their work. The kitchen garden was a walled enclosure, protected from the wind by a high wall all around it. Many of the vegetables were harvested already, or would be ready soon, but there was nobody inside when we walked in.

“This way.” Ieuan led us down a side path to the bench. Lili and I sat and he leaned against the wall, still behind the lattice, but to the left of us.

Lili began, sounding ill at ease, which contrasted sharply to the confidence I’d seen in her so many times before. “I need...can I ask you? . . .” She stopped and tried again. “A moment ago, I overheard Prince Dafydd speaking to Lord Tudur of the land from which he came.” She spoke faster as the words started to come more easily. “You told me, Ieuan, that he was from the land of Madoc, but he said he was from the future. Prince Llywelyn confirmed it.” She stopped.

I kept my voice gentle. “Did you speak to Dafydd about this?”

“Just now, but I...I couldn’t ask him. That’s why I’m asking you, because you’re from that land as well and you’re a woman so . . .”

I looked up at Ieuan who was regarding his sister. “Prince Dafydd knows that you know?”

“Yes,” Lili said.

“Then I don’t see any harm in talking about it.” Ieuan sat beside Lili so we flanked her. “He took me there, Lili. The English were upon us and would have killed us both, but the Prince lifted me in his arms and jumped off the edge of a cliff and brought me into his world—Bronwen’s world.”

Lili clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “And you forsook your world to come here, to marry Ieuan?”

I met Ieuan’s eyes. They twinkled at me, obviously amused.

“Yes,” I said. “I did.”

“Prince Dafydd chose to leave, and then chose to come back. You too, Ieuan. Why? That world must be wonderful beyond imagining.”

“But it doesn’t have you in it,” Ieuan said.

Lili had recovered enough to sneer at him. “You’re not serious. That’s no reason.”

“It’s reason enough,” Ieuan said.

Lili turned to me. “Could you take me there?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, nonplussed, “and even if I could, I wouldn’t. It isn’t like a door that just open and closes—one minute you’re there and the other not. It’s dangerous to go—and I think you have to be in great danger to go there.”

“Why, Lili?” Ieuan said. “Why do you want to go, other than to see the wonders there.”

“Because I want to be like Bronwen,” Lili said.

I was confused. “Why would you want to be like me?”

“Have you noticed, Ieuan, how she walks differently from any other woman you know?” Lili said. “She holds her head up, like a queen, or I imagine a queen would, and strides like men do. When she healed Prince Llywelyn, she ordered you about. She talks to you as if she believes herself equal to you—as if she is equal to you. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her. I can’t tell if she even knows what effect she has on those around her. If she does, she doesn’t appear to care.”

“Now I really don’t understand,” I said.

“She acts like a lord, yet she’s a girl,” Lili said. “I want that for myself.”

“But you do act as I do,” I said. “You wear breeches, and shoot a bow. When we first met you were about to take Prince Dafydd’s head off with your knife.”

“Defiance is not confidence,” Lili said. “Bravado is not courage.”

“At fifteen, most girls in my country are not confident in themselves either,” I said. “You are still very young.”

“But girls must see other women like you all the time? You’re not unique in your country?”

“I suppose I’m not at that,” I said. “I’m no different than a hundred other women I know, yet I understand what you’re asking. Girls in my country learn from the cradle to walk and talk and
be
as I am. I can’t help it. Our confidence comes from believing, down to our very core, that we are worthwhile people—smart, capable, educated, confident.”

“Can you teach me that?”

“Maturity is a matter of learning to live up to your own expectations,” I said, “whether you’re a man or a woman. I wouldn’t want you to become something other than the beautiful person you are, but we can certainly talk about it, and I think I know some other women who can help too.”

“Princess Marged,” Lili said. “Princess Anna.”

“I imagine that what you want for yourself is exactly what they want for all the women of Wales,” I said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they have some ideas as to how to achieve it.”