Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance (29 page)

As it grew longer, Dafydd’s amusement became
palpable. “I hold the best interests of Wales always in my heart,”
he said.

Tudur couldn’t hold back a snort and I
couldn’t hold my tongue. “Dafydd, dear,” I said, trying for a
sickening sweetness that he couldn’t mistake, “you certainly have
an odd way of showing it.”

“Oh, that,” he said, waving a hand
dismissively. “All in fun. You made it clear at Criccieth that you
belonged to Llywelyn. I was merely having a joke with him, like we
did when we were boys. It was an amusing game, that’s all.”

“You know what they say about men and
jests.” I stood to leave, unable to sit one second longer at the
same table with him.

“What do they say?” Dafydd said, as I hoped
he would.

“Jests are the last recourse of a man with a
small dick.” Tudur was in the middle of taking a swallow of wine,
which he proceeded to spew onto the table in front of him. I patted
him on the back. “If you’ll excuse me.” I walked away, shaking so
badly by now that I was sure they could see it.

Tudur followed right on my heels.

“My lady!” He wiped his face with a
handkerchief as we rounded the corner into the stairwell. “I
haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. Well done.”

“I had to do it,” I said. “I don’t want to
rile him, but I hate that self-satisfied smirk he always
wears.”

“Our lord has expressed a similar sentiment.
My concern now is that you have angered and humiliated him in front
of others.” He glanced back at the high table, and then raked his
eyes around the hall. “Hywel is worried too. Our men ceased to
drink the moment Dafydd and his men entered the hall, and none will
sleep tonight.” Tudur took my elbow and escorted me to my room.
“Bar the door and don’t open it until you see Dafydd’s banners,
riding away from us south.”

“I will,” I said. “And thank you. I trust
that even if you don’t like me, you seek to serve Llywelyn.”

Tudur’s gaze was measuring. “I distrust
everyone. In truth, you less than most.” And with that, he turned
on his heel and disappeared down the stairs.

Well. That was unexpected.
But Tudur
was right. What I’d said was funny, but not smart.

T
he pungent smoke
from the campfire spiraled upward with that peculiar tang that only
filled the air before a battle. I didn’t know why, but when we
traveled in times of peace, as we had from Criccieth to Brecon, the
scent was never quite the same. I breathed it in, taking it for
what it was—a sign that war was at hand and I would have to face
it, yet again.

“Your brother, Dafydd, arrives.”

“The foolish bastard dares show his face
here?” Hywel said, incredulity evident in his face as well as his
voice.

“Thanks to King Henry, we appear to be stuck
with him,” Goronwy said.

Dafydd meandered through the camp, raising a
hand in greeting to one man and then another. I met Goronwy’s eyes
and he nodded. I didn’t have to tell him what I was thinking:
Make a note, Goronwy, of those to whom he speaks. It may serve
us well to know who among my men he views as allies.

“I have so many enemies, I can hardly keep
track,” I said. “A reduction by one, even temporarily, is a
blessing.”

By the time Dafydd reached us, I’d tamed my
expression. The grimace was gone. To know that I was angry would
only serve as ammunition against me later. Better to swallow my
pride and temper, and treat him as if I was glad to see him.

Dafydd dismounted and bowed, scrupulous in
his obeisance. “My lord brother,” he said. “I bring you letters
from both Tudur and Meg.”

I took the letters, glad to see them, though
the thought of Dafydd in the same room as Meg brought the taste of
acid to my mouth. I would not want her here; would never want to
risk her, but it stuck in my craw that my absence left her
vulnerable to my brother. “Thank you.” I unclenched my jaw to let
the words through.

“Your woman is in blooming health,” Dafydd
added. “But she has quite a mouth on her. I wouldn’t want her in my
bed.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said, “since she’s
in mine.”

I knew if I said anything more, I would have
reproached him with the events of the winter, and now was not the
time. The men were preparing for battle and it would do me no good
to divide them before we started.

Goronwy came to my rescue. “How many men
have you brought?”

“Thirty horse,” Dafydd said. “I know you
have a plan. What is it?” In an instant, Dafydd slipped into his
on-again-off-again role as counselor and confidant. Instead of
back-handing him across the face, I replied in the same tone.

“Gilbert de Clare builds. He laid the
foundation stone on the 11
^th
of April. He has dozens of
craft workers. He has masons, ditch diggers, and camp followers.
They’re building him the finest castle in the realm.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”
Dafydd said.

“I’m going to burn it to the ground,” I
said. “I was going to wait until there was a little more to burn,
but Goronwy convinced me we must attack immediately, before Clare
gets wind of the size of our force.”

“Surely he must know you’re here.”

“He has few soldiers stationed in this
region, surprisingly. I’ve had scouts make a fifteen mile circuit
around Caerphilly. He has no standing army. His knights are spread
thin across the whole of his lands. My fifty horse, plus your
thirty, and our two hundred foot should carry the day.”

“If he’s not gotten very far in the
building, it won’t take long,” Dafydd said. “One night. But then,
he can rebuild it in a day too.”

I shook my head. “I have no intention of
giving him that chance. I will strengthen the garrisons at my
castles in the region and prevent him from moving into the area
again.”

“When is this to begin?”

“Tonight,” I said. “You’re just in
time.”

“Good,” Dafydd said. “I’ll inform my
men.”

“I want you on the right flank,” I said.
“Hywel on the left.”

“And Goronwy?” Dafydd asked. “Where will he
be?”

I realized that the question he was really
asking was, “Does Goronwy watch over me? Do you trust me to do my
part?” I wasn’t sure if I could really trust my brother, but the
odds of him being friendly with Clare were slim.

“He and Gruffydd ap Rhys lead the foot
soldiers to Morcraig,” I said. “All should be under my control by
morning.”

* * * * *

It isn’t that I enjoy battle, but I would
say that the fire that lights in my belly at the start of every
fight acts as a drug, a poison some would say. All I know is that
it goes to my head. Goronwy was correct when he told Meg that I see
every man I’ve ever killed in my dreams, but he’s wrong if he
thinks I’ve never enjoyed killing. When the fury of battle takes
you, there is a savage joy to it, as if your true self is finally
let loose, and all notions of chivalry, stateliness, and civilized
behavior are stripped away. What is revealed then, is the raw coil
of a man, the essence of him that only cares about surviving, as if
we were barbarians from the north who ate our meat raw. There are
times when I understand why they do.

Just as dusk fell, the men gathered at the
edge of the forest of Llanbradach, two miles north of Caerphilly.
I’d already sent Goronwy, Gruffydd, and the men to their task. The
people of the region and my scouts had reported that Clare had
abandoned Morcraig when he started work on Caerphilly. Clare might
not see the advantage in the half-built castle, but I wanted the
heights.

Morcraig was built on a ridge on the south
edge of the Glamorgan uplands. From the castle, a man was afforded
uninterrupted views south across the coastal plain to Cardiff.
Gruffydd ap Rhys, my vassal, would find himself reinstalled by
morning. From his seat, he could control all his lands and keep an
eye on Clare for me.

The foot soldiers were his men. While my
knights were a formidable force, it was right that he was taking
most of the risk in this endeavor. He had the most to gain, and as
he’d already lost everything, there was an urgency in him that I’d
not seen before Clare had driven him from his lands. He’d not
realized what it meant, before, to be a lord without a castle.

For our part, the guards at Caerphilly would
not be enough to stop our force. The addition of Dafydd’s thirty
men was, in fact, most welcome. I preferred overwhelming odds
whenever possible. My only fear, in truth, was that we’d fired up
the men for battle and would arrive at Caerphilly to find none on
offer. It was at such times that men become difficult to
control.

“We’re getting close, my lord,” Hywel said.
The outlines of the castle, still less than head high, were just
visible through the darkening sky a hundred yards ahead. “Clare has
cleared the forest for some distance all around. We’ll soon be
exposed.”

We rode to the top of a small hill that gave
us a slight vantage point. “Mother of God!” I said at the sight of
the construction.

“It appears to be as they promised,” Hywel
said. “It will be the largest castle in the whole of Wales.”

“Not if I have any say in the matter,” I
said. I pulled out my sword and held it above my head; then stood
in the stirrups and signaled to the twenty-five men in my company
to form up.

“Ride, men of Wales!” Dafydd called, a
distant figure to my right. He urged his horse forward and led the
charge. I let him.

My men surged forward, flowing down the
slope and across the clearing to the burgeoning castle. Every third
man held a torch. Although it made us targets for archers, a
fire-lit cavalry charge inspired fear in the most hardened of men
and I counted the risk worth it. To the men in the craft houses
surrounding the site, it must have seemed like a dragon had
descended among them.

I trotted Glewdra across the clearing in
front of what Clare had meant to be the front gate and met Hywel
near what looked to be the beginnings of a dam for the castle moat.
One of several.

“What hubris Clare has to build such a
colossus!” Hywel said as he greeted me. Unlike mine, his sword had
blood on it.

“I need you to see to the men, Boots,” I
said. “I didn’t want more than a skirmish, but this is less of a
fight than I hoped it would be.”

Hywel nodded and headed towards the mass of
men who’d collected towards the eastern edge of the building site.
They milled about, looking for targets, but none presented
themselves. The builders and masons weren’t our enemy and my men
herded them into the middle of the building site and set them to
work piling wood and brush on the stones and half-walls. Burning
them would destroy them and leave Clare with only wreckage.

Goronwy circled the perimeter of the grounds
on the far side of the field, looking for riders or men on foot who
might be trying to escape to warn Clare. I turned Glewdra in the
opposite direction, intending the same. As I came around the corner
of a stone block—this one soon to form the base of one of the
castle towers—a boy stepped from behind it, brandishing a long
stick as his only weapon.

“Don’t be a fool,” I said. I leaned down and
with my left hand, yanked the stick from his hand.

“I’ll fight you to the death,” the boy
shouted, now raising his fists, as if that would hold off a sword.
I reined in fully, studying him in the flickering light of the fire
from the buildings which my men had set on fire.

“Now, why would you do that?”

He blinked. “You are thieves and barbarians
from the north!”

“You should speak respectfully when you talk
to a Prince of Wales,” a voice spoke from behind me. I turned to
see my brother riding up beside me.

The boy crouched, and then dashed to one
side. Dafydd urged his horse after him and in an easy motion,
leaned down and scooped him up. I followed, wanting to make sure
Dafydd wouldn’t harm him, though I saw no anger in him tonight. “A
man knows when to fight and when to save his energy for another
day,” Dafydd said.

The boy didn’t answer.

Then, Dafydd slowed his horse. “But you
aren’t a man, are you?” Even in the gloaming darkness, his quick
grin was evident.

“Please let me go,” the girl said, and her
voice came out sounding so much like Meg’s that first night at
Criccieth that my heart twisted at the memory.

“I won’t hurt you,
cariad
,” Dafydd
said.

The girl gazed at Dafydd, wide-eyed, but no
longer cowering. Between one heartbeat and the next, Dafydd had
transformed himself into the being that attracted women like flies
to a pot of honey.

“My lord,” Dafydd said, bowing his head
slightly in my direction. I nodded and let him ride away with his
prize. Enough women had told me, such that I assumed it to be true,
that Dafydd was an accomplished lover. Despite his obvious
failings, he would not mistreat the girl, no more than I had
Meg.

I returned to the center of activity.

As I expected, Hywel had set up a perimeter
of guards around the castle. “No one got away, as far as I know,”
he said. “Though in the dark, it’s difficult to say.”

“Good,” I said.

Hywel looked ruefully at the devastation.
“It won’t hold Clare up for long,” he said. “It’s just going to
make him angry.”

“Clare is a twenty-five-year old boy. I
could not let him build unchallenged. The precedent such an act
sets is unthinkable.”

“He will go to the King,” Hywel said.

“No. I don’t think he will. He doesn’t want
King Henry to interfere in Wales any more than I; less so, in fact,
because the rights of the Marcher lords are so much more tenuous
than mine. He will attempt to settle this himself.”

“Shall we press on to Cardiff?” Bevyn, my
young man-at-arms, pulled up beside us. He was breathing hard. He’d
been in the forefront of the battle—just where he liked to be.