Daughter of Time (Prequel to The After Cilmeri Series)

Daughter of Time (Chapter Two)

Chapter Two

Llywelyn

In the year of our Lord, twelve hundred, and sixty-eight.

May God go with you.

The priest's parting invocation for the close of evening mass echoed in my head as I took the steps two at a time up to the battlements of CriciethCastle. Darkness was coming on, and I was looking forward to seeing the sun set over the water to the southwest. They say that we, the Welsh, are always caught between the mountains and the sea. On a day like today, with the wind whipping the sea into a froth and the snow-covered peak of Yr Wyddfa—Mt.Snowdon—towering above the castle, both tugged at me.

I breathed in the salty air, feeling its humid scent. In truth, I loved it all. It was as if my boots had been planted in the soil of Wales, and no power in heaven or earth could move me from this spot.

My small corner of Europe had been threatened, encircled, and enslaved by kings of many nationalities since Caesar first crossed the channel into England over a thousand years before. Throughout it all, we Welsh had, in turn, fought and run, thrown ourselves upon our enemies, and hidden in our mountains. Each foreign king had eventually discovered that our resistance to his rule was as inevitable as the rain, and our place in Wales as permanent as the rock on which we stood.

And now King Henry of England knew it too. The triumph of my ascendancy was like a fire in my belly that would not go out. Every month that passed allowed me to more strongly grasp each hamlet, each pasture and village in Wales as my own.

As I stood on the battlements, the wind in my hair, the words my bard had pronounced at the New Year's feast rang again in my ears, each stanza crashing over me like the waves that hit the shore below: There stands a lion, courageous and brave ... Llywelyn, ruler of Wales. Was I too proud, too full of hubris, that I heard these words, long past the ending of the feast?

The sun was reddening as it lowered in the sky, and I turned my back on it to look up at Yr Wyddfa, its snowy peaks now pink from the reflected light. It had been a sunny day, unusual for January, and this was a rare treat. I was just turning to look northeast again, when a—what is that thing!—surged out of the trees that lined the edge of the marsh abutting the seashore to the west of the castle, beacons shining from the front of it, and buried itself headfirst in the marsh.

Stunned, I couldn't move at first, but the unmistakable wail of a small child, faint at this distance, rose into the air. Afraid now that the—thing? chariot?—would sink into the marsh before I could reach it, I ran across the battlements to the stairs, down them, out a side door of the keep, and into the bailey. I spied Goronwy ap Heilin, my longtime counselor and friend, just coming into the castle from under the gatehouse, and I strode toward him.

"My lord!" He checked his horse, concern etched in every line of his squat body. He was dressed in full armor, his torso made more bulky by its weight. His helmet hid his prematurely gray hair.

I hesitated for a heartbeat and then threw myself onto the horse behind him. Goronwy gathered his reins and chose not to argue, even though he had to know that his horse couldn't carry the two of us for long.

"We must hurry," I said.

Goronwy spurred his horse back the way he'd come, out the gate and down the causeway that led from the castle to the village. We trotted through the village and turned left, trying to reach the point where the vehicle had gone in.

While Castell Cricieth itself was built on a high rock that could be reached by a narrow passage, the marsh associated with it was legendary. The pathway fell off dangerously into a sucking swamp, fed by an unnamed underground stream that seeped its way to the sea. I'd not lost anyone in it recently and didn't want to lose anyone now, but as we came to a sudden halt along the road as it turned, I wasn't sure what to do.