Uneasy Lies the Crown (7 page)

“No.” Owain stepped closer. “All is not gone, my lord king. Go not to Conwy. Stay here at Sycharth. Many Welsh would come to your calling. I can send word —”

“You are already in grave danger for having befriended me,” Richard warned. “If you were to speak on my behalf, they would disparage your name and connect to it all manner of lies. And they are such fantastic experts at concocting lies, you would not believe it. If you were to raise an army in my name, they would level every paltry village hereabouts. To house me, they would burn your home for it. Cleave to your family, Glyndwr. In the end, it is the only thing truly your own.” Pilfering a loaf of white bread, he tossed a glance at Gruffydd. Then he trudged toward the door and without so much as a cordial nod of farewell, shoved it open, tripped down the stairs and pulled himself up into his saddle. With a scant few dozen guards and archers, King Richard departed for Conwy.

Gruffydd expelled a sigh of relief, but in the very next breath his shoulders and arms were locked with tension. The king’s visit, however unplanned, meant trouble. His father may not have been one to seek out confrontation, but he was not one to let injustices go unanswered, either. Gruffydd feared his father would let himself be drawn into a fight that was never his to begin with.

With obvious trepidation, the guests began to filter back into the hall. Madoc, so generally soft-spoken and observant, sidled up to Gruffydd and tapped him on the shoulder. “Who was that?”

Gruffydd rose from his seat to watch the last of the king’s company disappear over a hill. “
That
, Madoc, was Richard, King of England.”

In the circle of Owain’s fingers rested a cup of flat ale. The log in the hearth of their chamber glowed weakly at its core. He had been sitting on a small stool there for over an hour, thinking about, wondering, even dreading what news would come.

Margaret knelt at her husband’s feet and put her chin on his knees. She looked up at him with her great brown eyes, the last of the fire glimmering in her pupils. “I would tell you to come to bed, but I know you wouldn’t sleep. You’d only keep me awake with your tossing and turning.”

“I fear for him, Marged.” He swirled his cup, then tossed its contents onto the diminishing fire. “I fear for us.”

“So bar the door. Throw away the key,” she teased, running her soft hand over his thigh. Then she raised herself up on her knees and circled her arms about his neck. “Everything we need is here. In this house.”

“Would that were true,
cariad
.”

“Owain, what I’ll not have you doing is dabbling in king’s games. What’s done is done. King Richard has made his own bed. You don’t take from men what is rightly theirs without paying recompense eventually.”

Setting his cup aside, he pulled her hands down to his chest and held them tightly. “I still think he could have been a good king. He’s a peace-loving man... and generous.”

Margaret scoffed. “Generous at the expense of others. Leave it be, my love. ’Tis not your quarrel.”

“It’s more than a quarrel. More than that. Far, far more.” He shook his head and gazed again into the fire. “Ah Marged, but you are right. You always are. There’s little to be done. Richard must crawl to Henry and beg bloody forgiveness for all his transgressions. He’ll be a king in name only. A tethered animal. A baited bear.”

“He hasn’t the claws to be a bear.” Tenderly, she turned his hands over and kissed his palms. “Come to bed, won’t you? If you can’t sleep, it’s no bother—truly. I’m not tired, either.”

A faint grin crept over his mouth. Longingly, he reached for her. A shiver rippled through her. He curled his fingers around one of her ears and pressed something cold and hard against her earlobe. Drawing his hand back, he revealed the glint of an old Roman coin, its surface speckled with the patina of many centuries.

“What is that?” she asked in amazement.

“My magic trick. But sadly it’s the only one I know.” He shrugged with the innocence of a young boy caught playing pranks. “I promised you, remember? That day in the market, when we first met, that as we grew older I would amuse you with my magic tricks?”

“I do. A cart full of squawking chickens rumbled by. I bumped into you. My hair was full of feathers. You plucked them away, one at a time, as you told me all the times until then that you almost spoke to me, but didn’t.” She pulled him to his feet and led him away from the fading fire. “I remember every day with you. Every day.”

Invitingly, she turned and sat on the edge of the canopied featherbed, the temple where each of their eleven children had been made and brought into the world. “Every hour.” Lying back as he approached her, she gazed up at him, sharing with him the memory of each laugh, kiss and tear of seventeen years. “Every moment.”

9

Near Ruthin Castle, Wales — Summer, 1399

Concealed in dewy bracken, Gruffydd peered through the gray blending of forest shapes. In the boughs far above, a tawny owl bemoaned an unfound mate. He kept his eyes on the trail until they were so strained and weary he fought to keep them open. It was well past midnight... and his truelove was late.

The moonlight that had so charitably lit his path to this secret place was now hiding shyly behind a thickening bank of clouds. A sluggish breeze rustled the undergrowth and brushed gently at his cheeks. Below where he hid in a grove of oaks, a lazy brook murmured its lullaby. He closed his lids for only a moment...

A gasp turned to a squeak. Gruffydd poked his head above the bracken to determine its source.

Elise’s slippered foot plunged from a stepping-stone into the brook. As she threw her arms out to catch her balance, her skirts fell into the water. By the time Gruffydd rubbed the sleep from his eyes and scurried forth, she was standing at the rivulet’s edge, a dark, knee-deep waterline marking her yellow skirt and a scowl as convincing as any snarling dog’s on her mouth. Her bosom, quite ample for a maiden of merely fifteen years, heaved with indignation. Gruffydd drank her in and braved a step closer, dying to press his hungry lips against hers.

Before he was within arm’s reach, she shushed him with a forefinger to her plump lips. Motioning for him to follow her behind the shroud of oak columns, she snatched up her wet skirt. No need for further convincing, Gruffydd stumbled through the waist-high ferns after her. If he could have caught her, he would have pulled her down right there and nothing but the trembling spray of fronds would have betrayed them.

“Elise, I was starting to think you weren’t —”

“Shhh.” She leaned against a tree, one hand pressed to her lower rib cage as if to control her breathing. “He knows.”

“He? Who? Knows what?”

“About us,” she said. “My uncle, Lord Grey, knows about us.” Her thick brown hair was gathered loosely at the back of her head. She pushed a handful of straying strands behind her ear. Her lower lip quivered.

“But how? We’ve been so careful.” It was crushing news. Enough to make him feel compelled to run like the devil and never look back. But in the very same heartbeat he wanted to wrap her in his yearning arms and never let go.

“One of his men saw you follow me behind the market stall in Ruthin.”

They had stolen a kiss. A brief kiss. A fleeting moment of bliss wedged into the mayhem of market day.

She turned her heart-shaped face away for a single moment, but his gaze was too strong for her to resist. She fell into his arms, shaping her body to his. “We cannot meet like this again.”

“No, no, don’t say it. Please don’t say it. We shall give it time. That is all. A month perhaps. Ah God, even that is too long.” He buried his face in her hair, wanting to remember the smell and feel of her, suddenly afraid he might never hold her again.

“My love, my love...” Her dark brown eyes filling with tears, she pulled back enough to look up at him. “Even now, I fear he has me watched. It’s not safe for us to be together. I want no harm to come to you. I... I must go.”

Though it was hardly possible, he pressed her closer to him. He felt every seam of her clothing and every curve beneath. Sweet Mother Mary, he loved her so much it ached in his every sinew. “Then if I must be without you for a time, give me but one more kiss. Just one.”

Leaning close, he closed his eyes and tasted her breath intermingling with his. Her lips brushed his, softly at first, then hungrily, greedily.

He felt her arms tugging him down. His knees swayed and gave way as he sank to the earth with her, their mouths never parting. They lay down upon a bed of bracken, one aligned with the other. The scent of wood and earth filled his nose. Leaves rustled in the canopy above.

A new fear gripped him—that they would be found out. He began to roll away from her, but she grabbed his arm, turned him back to her.

Her fingers grazed his cheek. “Please, Gruffydd, please...”

Oh God, he had thought of her in this way for months now, watched her from a distance, longed for her, awoken drenched in sweat after dreaming of her. “But your uncle —”

“Never needs to know.”

He gazed upon her face, wanting to remember her just as she was, yet wanting more. Unable to resist her any longer, he brought his mouth to hers and —

“Elise!” Lord Grey bellowed through the darkness. “Where are you, girl?”

Gruffydd froze, his pulse racing, every fiery vein turning to slush.

“Run,” she whispered, and shot to her feet. As he reached for her, she plunged through the bracken.

Elise splashed through the brook and bounded up the far side, her feet slipping on the steep bank. She grabbed at a sapling branch, but it bent under her weight and she tumbled to the ground. He wanted to run after, help her up, or haul her back to him, but then he heard the caustic bellow once more. A moment later, Elise was up again, clambering up the incline and back onto the narrow path.

There, she froze, mouth agape, hands clutched to her breast. Her uncle’s bay steed barreled toward her. She jumped out of the way barely in time to avoid being trampled under its hooves. Grey wheeled his horse around and plunged from his saddle to storm at her.

“Where is he? Tell me where he is!” He hooked Elise’s small arm and reeled her in. “Tell me where the devil’s hiding! By God, I’ll gouge out that bastard’s eyes for having put a child in your belly. I told you he would make a whore of you and the next day deny having known you. Tell me, damn it! Were you to meet the shameless mongrel here? How long have —”

Child? What is he talking about? We haven’t...

The realization snatched the breath from Gruffydd’s lungs. She had already lain with another. He was not her first or her only love. She had invited him here with the intention of giving herself to him so she could claim him as the father of her child.

Elise’s voice rose in pitch and protest, but Gruffydd didn’t wait to hear more. He ran, as swift as his legs would carry him. In the distance, he thought he heard Elise scream, but he would not go back to save her, not after she had lied to him so. Limbs and rocks nearly tripped his unsteady feet. Branches lashed out as he flew past. More than once he stumbled, but without a thought he scrambled back up and raced onward.

The wind pursued him, roaring threats in his ears, mocking his innocence. By the time he reached Sycharth, his clothes were torn and muddy and he was minus a shoe.

Dawn came not with the habitual brilliance of a late summer morning, but instead it pounded with thunder and poured a bleak, oppressive rain that lasted for three straight days. The heavens were black in mourning and Gruffydd was the prisoner of a love he could neither confess nor continue to pursue. Elise had betrayed him.

Still, he couldn’t stop thinking of her. He would have forgiven her, claimed the child as his own, if only to be with her forever. But it would never be. Lord Grey, he knew, would hunt him down and make a hell of his life. He could hardly bear to think what Grey already might have done to Elise to punish her.

10

Near Penmaenrhos, Wales — August, 1399

At Conwy, Richard was urged by the Earl of Northumberland to submit to Henry’s claims, but with full promise that he should retain all honor and authority due his kingship. Finally, Richard agreed to meet Henry at Chester and promptly sent Northumberland away. He was certain that if he could buy himself more time, appease Henry for the moment, that eventually he would be able to win back sufficient loyalties to crusade his cause.

But time is one thing there is never enough of—not for a dying man, not for two young, ill-fated lovers, not even for a king.

Richard’s appetite fled as well as his will to fight. Mindlessly, he shoved small hunks of coarse bread down his throat, chased by entire bottles of wine. When he slept, it was usually while sitting upright in his chair at the supper table. His nights were spent shuffling along the battlements, the sea air cold and biting upon his bare neck, as he argued aloud with himself.

A week later, Richard and a small party of guards and councilors stole away in the night from Conwy, for he did not trust the word of Henry of Bolingbroke, or his envoy Northumberland. Their aim was London—London, where once Richard the boy king had captured the hearts of the people when the peasants revolted, burned much of the city and slew hundreds before they gathered at Smithfield to throw down their demands. They had strangled the great city itself and chased its leaders trembling and fearful into hiding. All hope of reconciliation had seemed utterly lost then, but young Richard had staunchly defied their leader, Wat Tyler. When the king’s men killed Tyler, Richard had boldly ridden alone to the rebel mob and proclaimed: “I am your captain—your king! I am your king!”

Would they remember that day and gather as an army of peasants to march behind him? Or would they instead scatter from him and go back to their homes?

As mute as a funeral procession, Richard and his small party rode along a thinning trail, far from the main roads near a place called Penmaenrhos. He was beaten by a lack of sleep and it showed in the manner in which he slumped in his saddle, swaying with every stride of his horse. The king wore clothes borrowed from a soldier before leaving Conwy. He might have looked like a man of no importance, but for the nervous jerking of his shoulders as his head followed his eyes to investigate every cracked twig or rabbit bounding through the underbrush. He had reason to fear for his very life.