Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance (9 page)

I looked back to find
Marged. She’d tucked Anna inside her own cloak, so only the little
girl’s head showed from between two of the ties. Marged noticed me
watching and grinned. That was another difference between her and
any other woman . . . how many women would have come on this
journey without complaint, and then had the stamina to grin at
me?

Of all the women who’d
shared my bed in recent years, I’d always known, even through the
blindness of lust, that they were with me
because
I was the Prince of Wales. Either they or
their fathers put them in my path because they wanted the prestige
it could give them. But as always, none had born me a child, and
eventually I’d urged each of them to marry someone else.

Goronwy noted my attention
and trotted up beside me. “We’re approaching
Coedwig
Gap
,” he said. “It’s the perfect place for an
ambush if Marged’s memory is correct, whoever this Owain Glendower
might be.”

Hywel reined in close on
the other side. “Should we prepare, my lord?”

“
Yes,” I said. “At worst,
the exercise will wake everybody up. It’s easy to become complacent
when the challenges have become fewer or farther
between.”

Hywel nodded. “If this is
a trap, I have no intention of going in unprepared.” Putting his
weight on his stirrups, he stood in them and raised his sword to
gain the attention of the men.

“
Find someone to take
charge of Marged, Goronwy,” I said, keeping my voice low underneath
Hywel’s call. “I need you if there’s to be a fight.”

“
Yes, my lord.”

We rode on, in better
formation and more watchful. Another quarter of a mile and we
crested a rise that gave us a view of the land around us, though
not the road ahead as it bent and was obscured by trees.
Goronwy checked his horse, looking southeast. I followed his gaze,
only to grimace at the sight: smoke rose towards the sky in
billowing clouds. It was too much for daily activity in any
village, not to mention the small one that crouched in the valley
below, separated from us by expansive fields and stands of
trees.

Hywel had seen it too. “Is that the
trap?”

“Hard to know until we enter it,” Goronwy
said.

“I don’t know of whom Marged speaks,” I
said. “But whoever this Owain Glendower was, he should have known
better than to ride through Coedwig Gap without precautions.”

“We should divide the company,” Goronwy
said.

“Do it,” I said. “Take Marged and half the
men along the road and the rest of us will ride across the fields.
That leaves both of us with twenty-five men—still a formidable
force.”

I pulled my horse out of line. “Come!” Hywel
and I led our men off the road, urging our horses across the fields
that separated us from the unnamed village. The men were on high
alert; those with bows strung them, the rest of us had unsheathed
our swords, riding with the bare blade ready for use.

“I don’t like it,” Hywel said. “If it looks
like a trap and smells like a trap, it’s probably a trap.”

We slowed our horses as we reached the
summit of the last hill before the village. It lay before us, quiet
in the sunshine. Nothing stirred except the three scouts I’d sent
ahead. They worked their way from hut to hut, looking for
survivors. It was a village of twenty thatched huts, all burning,
with a small green. It was the green that drew our attention. The
possessions of the villagers had been piled in its center, ten feet
on a side and another fifteen feet high, and lit. The entire wealth
of the village was going up in flames.

“Mother of Christ!” Hywel breathed. “We
don’t have time for this.”

“Only goods, not bodies,” I said. I wheeled
my horse around. “A trap, but not for us! To Coedwig Gap!”

The company flowed into formation behind us
as Hywel and I hit the track heading west at speed, back to where
our companions rode. We knew these roads, had ridden them many
times before; a path ahead led to the back side of the hill that
overlooked the road at Coedwig Gap. The view from above would give
us the opportunity to assess the situation without falling into a
trap ourselves.

“Goronwy would not have been surprised
easily,” Hywel said, through teeth gritted in concentration.

“He shouldn’t have been surprised at all,” I
said. “It’s the possible numbers he faces that worries me.”

Spying the path, Hywel signaled with his
sword and the men followed us up the trail. It was steep on this
side but our horses were bred for the Welsh mountains and didn’t
falter. We came out of the trees on the crest of the hill and
looked down onto the road below, a heavily treed hollow with hills
that rose sharply on either side.

Hywel cursed beside me. “
S'mae
cwd
!”

My twenty-five men were in brutal
hand-to-hand combat with a company of men who hadn’t the honor to
wear the colors of their lord. A few had managed to keep their
seats, but Goronwy was unhorsed, feet planted, astride the body of
another man. I didn’t see Marged.

I gave Hywel a quick assessing glance and
raised my sword. “
Am Cymry
!”

The men cheered and spurred their horses. We
surged down the hill in a massed cavalry charge, that even with two
dozen men, implied overwhelming force. The enemy, whoever they
were, were unprepared to be hit from behind.

As always in the face of battle, my insides
turned cold and my hearing dulled, even as my vision sharpened.
Slicing through the arm of one man, I caught the neck of another on
the upswing. I registered the cries and calls of pain, but they
didn’t disrupt my focus. I reached the edge of the road, having
passed through the main body of the men and checked my horse in
front of Goronwy. While a few survivors raced north from the
battle, in less than two minutes, my men had driven through the
intruders. Their bodies lay strewn across the road and hillside. It
was a sight I’d seen many times, and always hoped never to see
again.

Hywel breathed hard beside me. “We’ll get
after them, my lord.”

He pointed his sword and a rush of men
chased after the remainders. One of my men pursued and overtook a
man on foot and cut him down from behind. I turned away.

The power drained from me, more quickly than
when I was a younger man. I dismounted and rested my head against
my horse’s neck. I closed my eyes and whispered my thanks and
encouragement to her, before straightening and gazing at the
carnage. Goronwy knelt next to the man whose life he’d guarded with
his own. It was Geraint.

Not Geraint.

“He’s alive but perhaps not for long,”
Goronwy said in an undertone as I crouched beside him.

“Damn those bastards to hell,” I said.

Goronwy ignored my profanity. “He has a head
wound and a gash in his side that has bled heavily.”

“Where’s Marged?”

Goronwy pointed with his chin back down the
road to the north. “In the trees. I should have left Geraint beside
her, but he insisted on riding with us.”

“Fool,” I said, though my throat closed on
the word, and I was angry at myself for not ordering my old friend
to stay behind.
Sweet Mother of God, he would have obeyed
me.

Hywel planted himself stiffly in front of
me. I read in his face the bad news he carried, and stood so as to
give his report the honor it deserved.

“We’ve lost eight men and three more are
grievously wounded,” he said. “Several others are less so. All of
the men who rode from the village are alive, with few injuries. We
caught them completely by surprise.”

“We did exactly as they should have
expected, Boots,” I said. “Why weren’t they prepared?”

Hywel shrugged. “Perhaps they assumed we’d
see the village but ride to it along the road. If our thoughts were
fixed on the village, we would have been unprepared for an assault
here, at the Gap.”

“Possible,” I said. “And they wouldn’t have
known we had warning. The real question now, is who knew we would
come this way this morning and had the wherewithal to set a
trap?”

“Someone at Criccieth,” Hywel
said
.

I was grateful he didn’t give voice to what
he thought—what every one of my advisors would think after half
second contemplation:
Dafydd.
He’d not come with us, and
we’d only taken this road with such urgency because of his
news.

And then there was Marged.

“Haul these men off the road. I don’t want
to leave them in the way,” I said, damping down my anger but
knowing that my words had come out stiff and pointed. “For the
rest, I want a survivor I can question.”

“Yes, my lord,” Hywel said. He bowed and
strode away.

“We must send to that village for help,”
Goronwy said. He eased Geraint’s helmet off his head and threw it
across the road. It rolled away and came to rest in the ditch among
the fallen leaves. “Geraint needs a healer.”

“The village is destroyed and her people
absent,” I said. “Whether dead or missing I don’t know.”

Goronwy absorbed this news without speaking
but tightened his grip on Geraint’s hand. “We have bandages in a
pack on Marged’s horse.”

“I will find her,” I said.

Chapter Seven

Meg

G
oronwy directed the men forward as we approached the gap. At
this location, the road ran through a narrow crevasse, which
Goronwy informed me led ultimately to the ford across the Eden. A
young man remained beside me, not Rhodri, Bevyn this time, who
wasn’t even old enough to shave. He focused his eyes ahead,
however, and I could tell he resented the duty of riding with me if
it was going to keep him from the forefront of a fight.

As the hills rose up on
either side, Goronwy suddenly signaled a stop. He glanced back at
me and Bevyn and tipped his head.

“
We must stay here, my
lady,” Bevyn said. “Get well back into the trees.”

He and I dismounted and
led our horses away from the road, Anna still high in the saddle,
clutching the pommel with both hands. I could hardly believe how
well she’d done these long hours of riding, but she seemed
unfazed.

Bevyn tethered my horse to a tree but kept
the reins of his horse, prepared to launch out of the woods to save
his companions if he had to. With Anna on my hip, she and I found a
higher spot from which to watch the road. The trees were bare of
leaves, making hiding difficult but allowing me a better view of
the road.

At first, our soldiers moved easily, though
their shoulders were tense, waiting—for what, none of us know.

“
This is the worst part,”
Bevyn said. “Before it happens.”

“
You’ve been in battle
before?” I asked.

He turned to look at me
before returning his gaze to the road below. “My father tells me
this.”

Then, a roar broke the
silence, coming from the trees on our side of the road, but further
south. Bevyn shoved me to my knees and I put out a hand to stop
myself from toppling with Anna to the ground. The road became the
definition of chaos, arrows flying at Goronwy’s men and them
struggling to return fire.

Goronwy’s horse reared and
he cursed. He managed to stay on her, while at the same time
swinging his shield around to block any further arrows. A dozen of
Goronwy’s men turned towards the wood, urging their horses forward,
but at the same instant, a host of men charged out of them, aided
by the terrain which gave them the higher ground.

The two lines of horses
crashed into each other and men on both sides went down. Beside me,
Bevyn had mounted his horse, hardly able to contain himself. I
pressed Anna’s face against my shoulder while she cried at the
noise and at my fear.

“
Awn!
Awn!” I said.
Go! Go!

He went, crashing through
the bracken and spurring his horse out of the trees and onto the
road. He raised his sword arm sliced through one attacker and then
another, neither of whom even had time to turn. He cut down one man
who pressed on Goronwy, who’d lost his horse and now stood astride
the body of another man.

I watched only Bevyn, too frightened to look
away, praying with everything in me that he stayed upright; that he
lived through this. His sword developed a coating of blood and it
flashed as he moved it up and down, killing every enemy within
reach.

And then Llywelyn came.

I couldn’t see his face
from this far away, but I could imagine his grimace, that
teeth-bared look all the men had as he and Hywel galloped
full-speed side-by-side down the opposite slope. Bevyn broke off
from what he was doing and flowed into formation behind Llywelyn.
The soldiers moved as a unit and I understood then that that was
what Bevyn meant, more than the daily practice with wooden swords
that I’d always imagined was standard for knights-in-training. It
was the ability to work as a team, to trust that you didn’t have to
block that enemy’s sword because the man beside you had already
done it.

They moved fluidly through
the opposition. I didn’t know how they avoided their own soldiers
but they did. I barely had time to catch my breath before it was
over. So many men were dead or injured. But I couldn’t see them,
through the tears that poured down my cheeks.

I stared at the battlefield, unseeing, until
I caught sight of Llywelyn pacing north along the road towards me.
By the time, he glimpsed me among the trees, I could tell he was
angry. His focus was such that I could practically see the blood
thundering in his ears and that his vision had narrowed to a red
haze.