Chapter 11

 

26 August 1288

Brecon Castle

 

Llywelyn

 

Llywelyn had absorbed all that Dafydd had to tell him with a few blinks and a curse, but he’d been expecting this, hadn’t he? Hadn’t they all?

While the Welsh exchequer was healthier than it had been in a century, since the time of his grandfather, that didn’t mean that each outlay for men and weaponry for a war as yet unfought hadn’t seemed a waste of resources at times.

Not anymore.

Dafydd had shown Llywelyn what they could achieve, given enough men, money, and time. Llywelyn had given his approval to everything Dafydd had sought. And now they were going to use what they’d created. All of it. They would have an early start in the morning.

But what Llywelyn hadn’t given his approval for was the one thing Dafydd really wanted: he wanted Lili. From the looks the pair had exchanged in the courtyard, Dafydd was determined to have her, regardless of what his father said. He and Dafydd had danced around the issue all afternoon, pretending that the looming wall between them wasn’t really there. Llywelyn hadn’t tried to breach it, coward that he was. Who would have thought that one of the greatest challenges of his reign would come in a matter of the heart—his son’s heart, no less.

Dafydd’s news had prompted immediate action: Llywelyn had ordered half of his cavalry south as soon as Dafydd had detailed what he knew of the coming war. Messengers had ridden to every cantref between Brecon and Aberystwyth to rouse the countryside and to probe how far the English menace had spread.

Llywelyn and Dafydd, however, had determined that they must delay their journey south to wait for their people to gather at Brecon. Llywelyn didn’t have a standing army, and thus, it was peasant and nobleman alike who mustered for war. To give this venture the best chance of success, his people needed to see Llywelyn before they started, so that he could explain to them what they faced, and the cost to them and their country if they failed to throw the English back into the sea. To have their king ask for help directly could inspire the necessary courage in every heart to leave home and hearth to march forty miles to fight in his service.

After a long day, Llywelyn and Dafydd sat late into the evening, conversing quietly together for the first time in months. They spoke of Norman barons, of Bohun and William, and of the coming war. As Dafydd talked, Llywelyn studied his son’s face. The fire in the hearth lit it and turned his face aglow. At times, Llywelyn could barely focus on what his son had to tell him. How had he let their argument fester for so long?

Dafydd turned to stare into the fire. It crackled and popped in the silence that fell between them, now that their talk of politics had ended. Nothing in Llywelyn’s life had given him as much joy as this boy. Dafydd, for all his intelligence, was raised in another land and couldn’t possibly understand what it had been like to stand in the clearing at Cilmeri, knowing that his life was ending, only to see his son and daughter appear to save him.

Llywelyn loved Anna—God only knew how much—but Dafydd was his son. His son. No Prince of Wales had needed a son more than Llywelyn, and this one had proved himself to be more than Llywelyn could ever have hoped, from that day beside the riverbank when Meg had told him that she carried his child.

And that meant he could put it off no longer. The wall had to come down. And since he was the elder of the two of them—the father—it was he who had to do it. Llywelyn cleared his throat and lobbed to Dafydd his first attempt at peace: “I never meant for things to turn out this way.”

Dafydd picked up his cup of wine that had been sitting on the table between them and took a sip. “It didn’t have to.”

Llywelyn’s lips turned down at that. Dafydd’s anger shimmered in a halo around him. And yet, could Llywelyn blame him? Llywelyn remembered what nineteen had been like for him. He and his father hadn’t seen eye to eye on anything.

“So your mother has said.”

Dafydd shifted in his seat, gazing into the fire and not looking at his father. “Has she? She counseled me patience.”

Llywelyn’s heart warmed at the thought of Meg, even as he berated himself for causing her grief and forcing her to choose between her husband and her son. He let out a sharp breath. When Meg felt something strongly enough to chastise him for it, he had already lost the argument, even if it took a while for him to admit it. He’d been fighting a rearguard action for two years. Had he become so used to always getting his way that he’d forgotten that sometimes a man needed to retreat, in order to fight another day? It seemed so.

“I called you stubborn,” Llywelyn said.

Dafydd snorted into his cup. “What did she say to that?”

“He’s your son, as you may recall.” Llywelyn barked a laugh.

Dafydd actually smiled. “I am your son, Dad.”

Llywelyn took in a deep breath and let it out. He sent up a prayer of thanksgiving that Dafydd was willing to discuss this and hadn’t gotten up from his chair and left the room. “Then Meg said, your son loves you, my lord.”

“Oh no,” Dafydd said. “When Mom starts my lording you, you know you’re in trouble.”

Llywelyn swallowed down a laugh. The wall was thinning to the point he thought he could see through it. “And then she said, he loves Lili. Let him have what he needs.”

For the first time since Llywelyn had broached the subject of their disagreement, Dafydd turned his head to look at him. “And you said, he’s so damned righteous—”

“I wouldn’t have you any other way.” Llywelyn gazed directly into Dafydd’s eyes. “That same stubbornness will make you the greatest king Wales has ever known.”

Dafydd rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and clasped his hands together, putting them to his lips. “Many times, you have said that the needs of the crown—”

“Are paramount,” Llywelyn said. “Yes, I know. I shouted those words at you last we spoke. Your mother reminded me that you are the crown. You are my son. I had good reasons for denying your request to marry Lili, but they pale in comparison to my relationship with you. I forgot that you were a grown man, not a boy who must follow my every direction.”

“Lili and I have your permission to marry, then?”

“You do.” The moment the words were out, Llywelyn felt a huge weight lift from his shoulders.

When he’d told Meg that he was rethinking his refusal, her response had been, thank God. He’d left Caerphilly the next day for Brecon and before he mounted his horse, she’d hugged him tightly. Thank you, thank you, thank you, she’d said. It was worth shifting course to know that he’d reached an accord with his wife and his son in one fell swoop.

“Did you really think I would change my mind?” Dafydd said. “That I would walk away from Lili?”

“I never imagined you’d walk away from her,” Llywelyn said.

Dafydd sat as he’d been, preternaturally calm. Llywelyn had hoped that he’d at least punch the air, or better yet, stand up and hug his father. But he did neither of these things. “You thought I’d take her anyway,” Dafydd said. “Hoped it, even. And hoped that I would be satisfied with that.”

“That is the usual way of princes, yes.” Llywelyn shrugged. “I don’t want to argue about this anymore. I’ve never wanted to argue with you about anything.”

“We’ve only ever disagreed about Lili,” Dafydd said.

“Exactly. And that disagreement is over. You have my blessing. Marry your girl, if that’s what you want to do.”

Dafydd still hadn’t moved.

Llywelyn tried again. “I can’t bear the distance between us another hour. I may not agree with this choice, for the reasons I’ve explained, but I trust you.”

Finally, Dafydd moved, but not towards his father. He got to his feet and began to pace before the fire, one hand on the hilt of his sword, watching his feet as he strode from one end of the mantle to the other.

“What is it?” Llywelyn said. “Why aren’t you pleased?”

Dafydd glanced his way. “Oh, I am pleased … it’s just that the last time I spoke to Lili of marriage, she said that she’d decided not to marry me even if you gave us permission. She sent me away.”

Llywelyn studied his son. “She’s a woman, Dafydd. They all do that at one time or another.”

“Even Mom?” Dafydd said.

“Even your mother,” Llywelyn said. “I had to bide my time until I could convince her that I wasn’t a madman, much less that I loved her. I don’t know that she fully believed in my love for her until she returned to Wales four years ago. If not for you, she may never have believed in me.”

Even after they’d spoken words of marriage to each other in secret, Meg hadn’t trusted them together, not with the scars from her first husband still healing over. He remembered the day that she told him that she was pregnant. He’d seen a touch of reserve there—of fear—as if he might not be happy with the news.

Llywelyn couldn’t blame her. Her first husband hadn’t responded like a man should when Meg had told him that she was carrying Anna. Even after all these years, Llywelyn’s hands fisted as he considered the man Trevor Lloyd had been.

“I’m going to have to think about how to approach Lili,” Dafydd said. “You may be right, but she seemed very certain that it was over between us.”

“She’s with you now,” Llywelyn said.

“Only because she had no choice,” Dafydd said. “It was her duty to find me and tell me of the attack on Buellt.”

“She could have stayed there, once you’d taken back the castle.”

Dafydd chewed on his lower lip. Llywelyn had never seen him so uncertain—or at least not since he’d been a strip of a boy in those first months in Wales. Even then, he’d had a confidence that shouted Prince of Wales to any man with functioning eyesight. Llywelyn had marveled at his son then, been proud many times, and thanked God for him every day since.

Llywelyn stood. “Let it be for now. You’ve said that everything happens for a reason, isn’t that right?”

“It does, Dad,” Dafydd said. “I just wish I didn’t care so much about how it turns out this time.”