Uneasy Lies the Crown (2 page)

Dark blue irises, like sapphires sparkling in the bed of a mountain runlet, gazed in adoration at Elen. His left fist, with fingers barely broad as a spike of sedge grass, opened up and kneaded at her blue-veined breast. All the while, his bright eyes never strayed from his mother’s worshipful face as he studied every detail there.

Faintly, Elen smiled. He winked, or so it seemed, and curled his strong digits around her thumb. Elen crooked her neck to place a kiss upon his salty knuckles, and her tousled auburn hair brushed against his skin. Deep in his throat, Owain gurgled in delight.

“There now... tall and strong he’ll be,” Elen beamed, then added with a mother’s vain pride, “and charming as a fresh born lion cub. Small and helpless this day. A danger to those who would cross him later.”

“Lion indeed.” Rhiannon tugged at a heap of blankets to cover her lady. “He’s a babe and soon to take chill if you don’t cover him.”

Children were born every day. But he was no common child, this smiling little Owain ap Gruffydd Fychan. He had noble blood and much of it. His father had inherited two rich lordships through his descent from the princes of Powys Fadog. His mother’s house traced its lineage from Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Gwynedd, and Lord Rhys, last Prince of Deheubarth.

So much greatness to be realized. So little matter as he clutched his mother’s thumb, anchoring himself in a world that was new and full of wonder for his glittering eyes to behold. An infant yet, he knew nothing of freedom... or what it meant to be without it.

2

Glyndyfrdwy, Wales — 1370

A cascade of sunlight danced like hand-flung jewels upon the River Dee in North Wales. On its twisting banks, two boys eyed each other with grave concentration, wooden swords gripped fiercely in their blistered hands. They might have passed for twins, but for a slight difference in height.

“Tudur, think... just once,” Owain, barefooted and stripped to the waist, said to his brother. He stepped backward and lowered his weapon as he drew himself up to full height to accentuate the authority that two more years had afforded him. “How do you reckon David beat Goliath? He was not bigger or stronger. He did not batter him to death or dizzy him into unconsciousness. Think now. How did he win?”

“You’re no Goliath,” Tudur protested between ragged breaths, his fingers flexing on his splintered hilt. “We’re close to evenly matched, don’t you think? Besides, Owain, how else am I to make myself stronger if I don’t fight hard? It’s good practice.”

“Agh. Have you ears?” Owain tucked his sword into the hemp cord that held up his hose, turned his back and sauntered away, whistling a made-up tune.

Tudur squinted at the target before him, and then lunged toward Owain as his blunt weapon parted the air with a whoosh.

Barely glancing over his shoulder, Owain whipped his sword free and deflected the blow, sending Tudur’s sword hurtling end over end. It landed with a dull thud on the far side of the bank, stirring a cluster of violet-crowned teasel into an abrupt dance. The river between gurgled in mockery.

“Will you ever learn?” Owain admonished.

Tudur rubbed the sting from his hand. “That wasn’t fair.”

“And you rushing at my back was? At least you knew an opportunity when you saw one, I’ll grant you.” Owain planted a fist on his hip as his brother’s lip began to quiver. “Oh, not that. I suppose you’ll start to cry now.”

Tudur clenched his fists. “I will not!”

“Good.” Owain returned his sword to his belt like a seasoned warrior and pushed back a yawn with his fingertips. “Leave me be, then. I’ve had enough of trying to teach you what you refuse to learn or even think about and my whole head hurts from the effort. I feel like I’ve been beating a stone against my own forehead. If you would only listen better to Father when he’s about.”

Beneath the flickering shade of a willow, Owain plopped down on a bed of wild oats. Below, the trickling water of the Dee chimed a lullaby. If not for the stir his brother was causing, he would have fallen asleep as fast as his cheek nestled against the pillow of his forearm. One eye propped open, Owain watched in lazy amusement.

Intent on retrieving his honor, Tudur hopped over the slick stepping stones that bridged the river and plucked up his weapon, entangled in its grassy bed. As he returned along the slippery path, his balance failed him. Arms flailing, mouth agape, he tumbled backward into the swift waters. Moments later, he emerged in an explosion of curses, his sword lost to the taunting current, and struggled up onto the bank. He wrung out his shirt with a grumble and flung it onto a jagged tree stump, then collapsed, cross-legged, beside his gloating brother. He sniffed and bit his lip hard. An easy silence settled between them.

A long time later, the sun warming his skin, Owain pushed himself up on one elbow and gazed across the river. His eyes skipped over an argent glint on the water’s rippling surface.

“Tudur—a pike,” he whispered, touching his brother on the knee through soggy breeches.

But Tudur took no notice. Instead, he stared down wistfully at a shiny green beetle clinging upside down to a blade of bent grass. He flicked it to the ground and then pummeled it beneath his fist.

“Will Father be home soon?” Tudur asked thickly.

“Today... or tomorrow.” Lies were not so easily put upon one as hopeful and fragile as Tudur. Yet what Tudur lacked in confidence or conviction, he more than made up for in his devotion to his older brother.

They were seldom apart, Owain and Tudur. Although Tudur hovered in his brother’s shadow and always let Owain lead the way, he did not seem to reflect much of his brother’s quickness in learning, whether at swords or books. Where Owain was brave and reckless to a fault, Tudur always gave voice to better judgment. Owain may never have admitted it, but Tudur, in some ways, was wise—wise enough to know better when to yield to caution. Together, they invented stories and explored, turning over rocks at the river’s edge and climbing to the highest boughs of the forest groves.

Their home for most of the year, through winter dark till sodden spring, was Sycharth. It was only during the height of summer that their mother, Elen Goch, daughter of Thomas, Lord of Treffgarne, preferred to retreat here to the cool glen of the Dee. Glyndyfrdwy—meaning glen of the River Dee—was perched on the pastoral slopes of the valley like a nesting eagle. Somewhat smaller than Sycharth, it was a perfect place from which to launch hunting parties in the nearby fields and forests.

They had last laid eyes on their father, Gruffydd Fychan, a year and a half ago at Sycharth. Father’s umber beard then had been patched with new gray at the chin and there was a hitch in his once steady gate from a deep slash to a calf muscle he had received at marshy Auray. What little they had seen of him then was mostly a man too weary to talk, too absorbed with long overdue business to teach or mold his children in any way. What little they knew of him was formed in fleeting snatches—a hastily scribbled letter that all was well, an obligatory kiss on Elen’s cheek before leaving once again. All but for that one last winter. Tudur, moon-eyed with awe, and Owain, his forehead tight in concentration, had sat many an evening that rare winter at their father’s knee barraging him with questions that only children could invent. They knelt humbly at the feet of their idol. Every word was a nugget of gold. In the company of their father, they were rich beyond belief.

“Du Goose-ling, is he a giant?” Tudur wrinkled his nose and swallowed a yawn.

“Du Guesclin, a giant?” Gruffydd scratched at his beard, chuckling. “Eh, he’s no giant. A pugnacious bastard, maybe. A burr in old Edward’s arse. A crafty one at that. But no more a giant than you, Tudur.”

Owain peered at his father, who was growing more ragged with battle scars every year, frayed about the edges like a piece of parchment carried too long. “Why has Edward failed?” he asked, his lips pressed in a serious line, curious to know more about this King Edward of England, third by that name.

Gruffydd touched Owain’s golden brown locks. He shifted forward and grimaced at the hard frame beneath the thinning cushion of his chair. “King Edward is far from done where the throne of France is concerned.”

“But what right has he, Father, to another king’s crown?”

“It’s not about right, my boy. It’s about revenues garnered from Bordeaux wine.”

Tudur was by then lost from the ring of conversation, his cheek pressed against his father’s shin and sleep dragging down his lids.

Owain inclined his head quizzically. “To deepen his purse, then?”

“Ah.” Gruffydd nodded, one side of his lips curled up in amusement. “You understand the English already.”

Then Elen came to hover at her husband’s shoulder, her face shining as she looked on at her two fine sons. Her slim fingers gently kneaded Gruffydd’s neck. She hummed a lover’s tune and slipped her arms around him.

“Promise me,” she begged in his ear, “promise me you’re here to stay.”

He pulled her around to him and down into his waiting lap. “Yes,
cariad
. I’ll tell the king my wife wishes me at home. One less soldier. What would he care, anyway?” He winked at her, sending oaths of delight in his strong gaze. In a lingering moment, their lips came together.

That was how Owain would choose to remember them. When peace and family and love were God’s undeniable gift. When all was as it should be. His mother there in his father’s arms and he and Tudur at their knees.

But such are children’s dreams.

A fortnight later Father was off again, summoned back to duty as Charles V of France swung his operations toward the English in Gascony. Every time Gruffydd Fychan left his wife, she became a puddle of worry. But this last time, as the months dragged on, even as word spread that the king’s son Prince Edward was returning, her hope had withered like daffodils that have bloomed before the final frost and must suffer winter’s cruel kiss.

Now the two brothers lay groggily beside the river, wondering when they would see their father again so they could hear more of his stories.

“He’ll make knight soon,” Owain assured Tudur. Another lie, Owain knew it even before the syllables sprang from his lips. Welshmen were seldom granted such accolades.

Tudur’s eyes brightened. “Perhaps he has already been knighted on the field by the Black Prince himself.”

“The very day he cut through fifty French soldiers.”

Abruptly, they both fell silent, aware they were only giving breath to wishes, and turned their faces to the sinking sun, now a hand’s width above the horizon.

Tudur stretched out his knobby-kneed legs. “Time to head home.”

“If I were invisible I could catch that pike.” Owain rolled over and crawled on his belly until he dangled from the lip of the bank. He dipped his hand in the clear, cool water, watching minnows dart from his grasp in broken shards of silver.

“Time to head home,” Tudur dully repeated.

Owain shrugged. “Go on. I want to wait here.”

“Ach, try to catch him. Invisible or not, you won’t catch anything but a scolding.” Tudur snatched up his shirt. Before he set foot on the path that wound homeward, past the wild cherry and gooseberry and beneath a cloud of flowering rowan trees, he dared one last glance, and then sulked off alone.

Time forgotten, Owain scrambled onto a slab of rock jutting out over the riverbed and perched there like a proud captain standing at the prow of his ship. There he waited, for nothing in particular, watching the serpentine ribbon of the Dee darken as the silhouette of the Berwyns purpled beyond.

3

Glyndyfrdwy, Wales — 1370

That he had not the springing feet of a hare, Owain was certain. Already as large as any full-grown man’s, they were more like the plodding hooves of an ox: steady and sure at a measured pace, dreadfully clumsy if forced to a trot. Before he made it home, his path lit only by a scattering of stars, he had fallen twice and his knees were sore and bloody. And while racing Tudur earlier that day to the top of a hill, he had caught his sleeve on a bramble bush and now it dangled from his left shoulder by only a few threads. If he could manage to charm Rhiannon, he could have his clothing mended before his mother ever took notice. He grinned at his own resourcefulness.

Above the broad, rolling fields that surrounded the manor of Glyndyfrdwy, a patrol of yew trees loomed on a bulging ancient mound. From one of the higher boughs, a sentry could see nearly all the way to the ruins of Dinas Bran. The small, slate-roofed manor denied the vastness of Gruffydd Fychan’s holdings, but in the many outbuildings and animal pens that clustered about it there spoke its riches. A bleating cloud of wool, ewes twitched their ears when Owain sprinted past. Unconcerned, they ambled to the nearby sheep cote and tucked their legs neatly beneath them to bed down for the night.

Owain bounded up the steps to the upper level three at a time. Assaulted by flies, his dinner sat untouched on a soggy trencher of bread at the trestle table’s end. No doubt his mother had ordered it left there to serve as a statement: that he should suffer mutton on the verge of turning rancid and a congealed bowl of leek soup in castigation for his tardiness. Weak punishment for a boy who loathed the dark taste of mutton anyway.

He crept toward his father’s chair at the head table and carefully inched it back. The stout legs groaned against the floor planks. Owain flinched. His mother had forbidden anyone to sit in his father’s place, but every night Owain had slipped down to the hall when all was still and silent. He would climb onto the tattered cushion and sit there with his fingers curled around the arms of the chair, imagining the resonating boom of his father’s voice, the chink of his spurs, his arms spread wide in greeting. Owain closed his eyes and pulled his knees up to his chest.

“Your father often falls asleep in that chair,” Elen said softly.

Owain’s eyes flew open as he tumbled from his post.

His mother floated across the empty expanse of the hall, each step releasing the scent of mint and rosemary sprinkled among the golden rushes. The plait of her auburn hair was frayed and the front of her light green skirt soiled from an honest day’s work. That day alone she had probably overseen the beehives, the milling, the brewing of ale, nursed a sick lamb, collected eggs, and embroidered for endless hours while she rattled off the rest of the day’s duties to her collection of servants. Lady Elen was like a hummingbird—never at rest, never weary.