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Day One
Conall
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The young man at whom Prince Henry had shouted had been listening intently to a nobleman with a thick beard and an expansive manner, judging by the way he was gesticulating broadly. At Henry’s summons, Hamelin made his excuses and hurried over. His red hair was almost exactly the same color as Conall’s own—and Henry’s own—though Conall wore his clipped to almost nothing, and the young man’s was more of a mop on his head.
As Dai’s expression shuttered, Conall moved to his side, but didn’t touch him. To do so would mean acknowledging the range of emotions Dai had experienced in an astoundingly short period of time. Conall was nearly three times his age, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t remember what it was like to feel so fully.
Hamelin appeared to have missed the entirety of the conversation between the king, his half-brother, and Llelo because he strode across the room with an expectant air but not one that expected anything in particular. Gareth and Gwen had met this illegitimate half-brother to Prince Henry during their investigation in Bristol, and from his cheerful expression, he was having no trouble remembering all of them.
He stopped a few feet away, made a respectful bow, and then reached out a hand to Llelo. “Welcome! I saw you come in, but I couldn’t get away from old Carr sooner.”
Llelo clasped his forearm in return, unable to keep the outsized grin off his face. “It is marvelous to see you here!”
For his part, King David said, “Hamelin,” in mild rebuke.
Hamelin bowed more fully in his direction, but while his words were apologetic, his manner was insouciant. “My apologies, my king. Please forgive my slip of the tongue. My thoughts were entirely focused on how happy I was to see an old friend.”
He said the word old this second time completely without irony. When one was nineteen, the year and a half he’d known Llelo was a long time.
David made a motion accepting the apology, and Henry nodded indulgently, since all three of them seemed to be in agreement that nobody enjoyed being cornered by old Carr, the man to whom Hamelin had been speaking, who didn’t appear to be as old as the name implied either. He was fifty, perhaps, but not ancient.
And then Hamelin listened with widening eyes as Henry explained what he planned for Llelo, and added, “I’d like to knight you and Llelo together.”
Conall had never seen a man look more astonished than Hamelin did in that moment. Henry’s smile broadened to see the impact of his words. He was Hamelin’s younger but legitimate half-brother, and for him to offer Hamelin the chance at knighthood, on the heels of his own ascension, was almost too much to take in.
Nonetheless, Hamelin managed an eager nod of acceptance, followed by an even lower bow. “Thank you, my lord.”
“I’m thinking the vigil should be at St. Mary’s this time,” King David said.
“We’ll go now.” Hamelin grabbed Llelo’s elbow and set off with him, heading down the great hall towards the main door, all the while motioning with his free hand and talking animatedly. Llelo hastened to keep pace, nodding that he was listening, in that diplomatic manner he’d learned from his father. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still grinning madly.
Dai watched them go with as neutral an expression as Conall had ever seen, even on wizened diplomats. He was apprenticed to become a member of the Dragons—Prince Hywel’s special force of highly trained men—in whose service he had already performed great deeds. But today was not to be his day, and he was struggling with the disappointment at the loss of an honor he hadn’t known moments before was even a possibility.
Conall had no children of his own, so he was hardly one to counsel another man’s son, but he liked Dai and didn’t enjoy seeing him suffering. Leaning close, he said under his breath in Danish, which Dai spoke fluently, “I wasn’t knighted until I was ten years older than you, and I’m a king’s nephew. Your time will come.”
Though Dai’s expression remained more wooden than was typical for him, his breathing settled. “Father was in his twenties too.”
Meanwhile, Gareth was talking to the king. “I apologize, my lord. I don’t know Carlisle well. Is St. Mary’s another name for the cathedral? As perhaps you know, we are staying in their guesthouse.”
That was where Conall’s sister, Caitriona, had chosen to remain rather than coming to the castle that evening with the other adults. She was pregnant with her first child and unwell with the whole process—even as she was overjoyed that she’d been able to conceive. She hadn’t produced a child during her first marriage, and she and Godfrid had gone into their union knowing that natural children might never be forthcoming.
Godfrid’s brother, Brodar, who was also the King of Dublin, had at one point questioned Godfrid’s decision to marry Cait at all, given her apparent barrenness. Godfrid had held up Gareth and Gwen’s example of adopting two sons as an option if natural means of producing an heir failed. In the Danish world, as in the Welsh one, the only relevant factor in a child’s inheritance was the acknowledgement of the father.
It was as if Caitriona had been holding herself together just until they arrived in Carlisle, at which point she’d collapsed into bed. Any one of them—Gwen, Godfrid, or even Conall—would have stayed at her side if they hadn’t been shooed away by Cait’s own maidservant, as well as by Cait herself.
“St. Mary’s is the church located within the outer bailey of the castle,” Prince Henry said. “I did spend last night and much of the day at the cathedral, since the Bishop of Carlisle saw fit to oversee my vigil, but at this hour Hamelin and Llelo will be better off at the castle’s church. We’ve disrupted the cathedral’s schedule enough this week.” Then his brow furrowed as he turned his head towards the doors, through which the pair had disappeared. “Hamelin did hear you, didn’t he, Uncle?”
For a castle to have its own church was not unusual, especially a castle as large as Carlisle. When they’d arrived, they’d had to traverse a portion of the outer bailey in order to reach the inner gatehouse and then the great hall. Conall had never seen a bailey that encompassed as large an area as Carlisle’s palisade, which even now the king was rebuilding in stone. Conall guessed the line from the southeastern corner to the northwestern one was nearly two hundred yards.
“Dai can steer them aright.” Gareth motioned to Dai and switched to Welsh. “Follow them, son. Before they begin their prayers, they will need to wash their faces and hands, which they may not remember, anxious as they are to begin. Thank goodness Llelo put on a clean shirt at the guesthouse before we came here. Make sure they both have what they need, including your support in word as well as deed.”
“Yes, Father.” Dai had recovered enough to nod vigorously and then was off like an arrow from a bow after his brother and Hamelin.
Gareth then turned to face the prince and king. “Thank you, my lords. This is an entirely unexpected honor. We are grateful beyond measure.”
“All the better for being unexpected.” The king smiled, and Conall thought his pleasure was genuine, since his eyes twinkled too.
Gwen, in turn, laughed, even as she shook her head in disbelief. “This was not how we thought we would end the day when we began it. I’m so pleased for Llelo.” She looked at Prince Henry. “Thank you, my lord.”
“It is the least I can do.” Henry frowned. “I am not unaware that I have left your other son out, but he is only fifteen ...” His voice trailed off.
“A little suffering could be good for him.” Conall took the liberty of stepping in. “You are right that he is disappointed, but also right that he is young. You can already see that he is rising to the occasion.”
“It isn’t in victory that the mettle of a man is made clear, but in disappointment and defeat.” King David gestured to the high table. “Have you dined?”
“No, my lord.” Gareth put a hand to his breast pocket. “I have the signed docu—”
“There will be time enough for that. Suffice that you are here. You shall eat with us.” King David patted Prince Henry on the shoulder. “My nephew is hanging by a thread. He was given water and bread, but otherwise hasn’t had any food since yesterday. It would do nobody any good to have him expiring within hours of his knighting!”
Since the ceremony had ended, the table on the dais had been rearranged such that chairs lined both sides, seating upwards of twenty people. Some regulars to King David’s court had to be displaced with the arrival of Conall’s party, but he saw no disgruntled faces among the onlookers. All appeared well in King David’s domains—at least on the surface. Conall’s uncle, the King of Leinster, had charged him with the task of ferreting out any unpleasantness going on underneath. Rivalries, conflict, and outright betrayal were endemic to Irish royal courts. Conall had heard no rumor of similar proclivities in Norman or Scottish ones—barring the war for the throne of England, which overshadowed them all.
King David was still smiling. “Here at the end of my life, I find myself valuing the simple pleasures: good food, great wine, and companions to go with them.”
Conall bent his head. “I must say that I agree, though you are not that much older than I, my lord.”
The king’s lips twitched with amusement. “I am old, Lord Conall. I will see a few more winters; that is all.”
“Are you ill, my lord?” Gwen asked.
King David turned to her, but before he could answer the question—if, in fact, he had been going to answer it—Dai returned to the hall.
Although he’d skidded to a halt in the doorway, and his urgency was unmistakable to anyone who knew him, he managed to make his way somewhat more sedately to the dais where his parents were standing. By the time he reached them, he had himself fully under control and spoke in Welsh, so as not to make an announcement to the whole hall, “We found a body in the church. And before you ask, it definitely isn’t where it’s supposed to be.”
