Footsteps in Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book 1)

Footsteps in Time (Chapter One)

Book One in the After Cilmeri Series

Footsteps in Time

by

Sarah Woodbury

Copyright © 2011 by Sarah Woodbury

Part One

Prologue

Llywelyn

"How can you leave Gwynedd undefended, my lord? Without you, we can't hold back the English."

Goronwy stood with his back to me, gazing out the window at the courtyard where a dozen men prepared to ride out on a scouting mission. I didn't envy them, for rain lashed their faces and the temperature hovered just above freezing. It was cold for November, even here by the sea.

I put aside the letter I was writing and gave Goronwy, my steadfast friend through nearly fifty years of governing and fighting, my full attention.

"Dafydd will hold the north for me, and you with him," I said. "You may travel with me as far as Castell y Bere, but not beyond that. I need you to watch Dafydd and rein him in if necessary."

"Dafydd." Goronwy swung around to face me. "Traitor isn't too strong a word to describe him. You can't deny it."

"I don't deny it. Dafydd follows always his own desires, usually in direct opposition to mine. I can't trust him to remain true to Wales or to me, but I can trust him to remain true to himself. For now, his interests and those of Wales coincide." I picked up my pen and twirled it in my hand. "It's not Dafydd's loyalty that concerns me, but the Mortimers."

"The Mortimers!" Goronwy's tone for them matched the one he'd used for Dafydd. "We've heard rumors only. They hold Buellt Castle for King Edward and no amount of persuasion is ever going to talk them out of it."

"So Marged said."

"You still want to risk it? You listen to neither her nor me. If you go south to meet them, I fear you meet your death."

"I do listen, Goronwy," I said. "That's why you're staying here, in case I don't return. The men will follow Dafydd if they know you stand with him."

Goronwy rubbed his face with both hands. "There's nothing I can say to persuade you not to make this journey?"

"If we are to defeat the English once and for all, if I am to rule Wales in fact as well as name, I must control the south. The Mortimers' allegiance would strengthen my position and shorten the war. Surely you can see that I must meet them?"

"If it were true, I would see it, my lord; but I don't believe they will betray England. Not all men bend with the wind as easily as Dafydd."

"Some bend; some break." I picked up the letter and saluted Goronwy with it. "This time either Edward or I will break. I know only that I can bend no longer."

Goronwy took a deep breath. "May I take my leave, my lord?"

I nodded. Goronwy bowed and left the room. I gripped my pen, reading over the words I'd written, and signed my name at the end: We fight because we are forced to fight, for we, and all Wales, are oppressed, subjugated, despoiled, reduced to servitude by the royal officers and bailiffs so that we feel, and have often so protested to the king, that we are left without any remedy ...

Chapter One

Anna