Prince of Time
Authors: Sarah Woodbury
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Historical, #Romance, #Paranormal, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Time Travel, #Science Fiction, #Alternative History, #Medieval, #New Adult, #Love & Romance
Prince of Time
A Brief Guide to Welsh Pronunciation
Book Two in the
After Cilmeri
Series
Prince of Time
by
Sarah Woodbury
KINDLE EDITION
Copyright 2011 by Sarah Woodbury
Cover image by Christine DeMaio-Rice at Flip City Books
Prince of Time
Two teenagers are catapulted back in time to alter history and save the medieval kingdom of Wales …
David and his man-at-arms, Ieuan, find themselves alone and on the run from a company of English soldiers who’ve sworn vengeance for the recent death of their king. Meanwhile, Llywelyn lays on his deathbed, wounded by a traitor’s arrow. And once again, it is David and Anna, and all that they represent, that holds the key to the survival of Wales.
Prince of Time
is the second book in the
After Cilmeri
series. Books in the series include
Daughter of Time
,
Winds of Time
(a novella),
Footsteps in Time
,
Crossroads in Time
,
Children of Time
,
Exiles in Time
and
Castaways in Time
.
To my Dad
Books in the After Cilmeri Series:
Daughter of Time
(prequel)
Footsteps in Time
(Book One)
Winds of Time
Prince of Time
(Book Two)
Crossroads in Time
(Book Three)
Children of Time
(Book Four)
Exiles in Time
Castaways in Time
The Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mysteries:
The Bard’s Daughter
The Good Knight
The Uninvited Guest
The Fourth Horseman
The Fallen Princess
Other books by Sarah Woodbury:
Cold My Heart: A Novel of King Arthur
The Last Pendragon
The Pendragon’s Quest
A Brief Guide to Welsh Pronunciation
c
a hard ‘c’ sound (Cadfael)
ch
a non-English sound as in Scottish ‘ch’ in ‘loch’ (Fychan)
dd
a buzzy ‘th’ sound, as in ‘there’ (Ddu; Gwynedd)
f
as in ‘of’ (Cadfael)
ff
as in ‘off’ (Gruffydd)
g
a hard ‘g’ sound, as in ‘gas’ (Goronwy)
l
as in ‘lamp’ (Llywelyn)
ll
a breathy ‘thl’ sound that does not occur in English (Llywelyn)
rh
a breathy mix between ‘r’ and ‘rh’ that does not occur in English (Rhys)
th
a softer sound than for ‘dd,’ as in ‘thick’ (Arthur)
u
a short ‘ih’ sound (Gruffydd), or a long ‘ee’ sound (Cymru—pronounced ‘kumree’)
w
as a consonant, it’s an English ‘w’ (Llywelyn); as a vowel, an ‘oo’ sound (Bwlch)
y
the only letter in which Welsh is not phonetic. It can be an ‘ih’ sound, as in ‘Gwyn,’ is often an ‘uh’ sound (Cymru), and at the end of the word is an ‘ee’ sound (thus, both Cymru—the modern word for Wales—and Cymry—the word for Wales in the Dark Ages—are pronounced ‘kumree’)
Map of Wales
Prologue
City of Chester
28 June 1285
Humphrey de Bohun
Third Earl of Hereford
I
stalked toward Edward’s quarters.
Stalked
. My wife tells me I stalk when I’m angry, like a caged lion or trained bear at a village fair. I don’t agree. I don’t get angry. Anger is dangerous. Anger implies a loss of control that I can’t allow myself, not when so much depends on measured thought and careful planning. Edward would agree. Though I despise the man for his cunning and his power over me, cold calculation is more his style and it’s a style I have endeavored to emulate.
Idiots! To bungle the siege so badly as to call my leadership of the Marcher lords into question! To have Edward call me into his presence for an accounting!
I pushed open the door into King Edward’s rooms and
stalked
the twenty feet to the dais, before bowing. “You summoned me, sire?”
Edward sat, an elbow bent on the arms of his chair, his hands steepled in front of his mouth. He was in his mid-forties, ten years my senior, but still a vibrant man, with a full head of dark hair and a straight back, showing no signs of either a slower mind or body. There was a pause as he left me hanging, waiting for his response, trying not to feel as awkward as one always felt in the royal presence.
“Tell me of Builth Castle,” he said, as if discussing the disposition of a minor estate.
“Prince Llywelyn came behind us with several hundred men. We couldn’t maintain the siege and had to quit Wales. We have retreated to Huntington.”
“Your assumption was that if you took the castle, I would take it as a
fait accompli
and allow you to keep it,” Edward said.
Yes
. I bowed again. “I apologize, my lord. I believed I was acting in England’s best interests.”
Damn the man! Why couldn’t he be as malleable as his father? I must remember in future that when I challenge you, I cannot think as my father or grandfather did; you are a different kind of king; you do not respect the old boundaries and honors.
“Did you now?” Edward said. “Had you taken it, I would have had to act in England’s best interests and give it to Edmund Mortimer who has prior claim.”
And who has never fought against you as I have. I learned at Evesham that there is no such thing as honor, no such thing as right or wrong. Only victory matters. You taught me that day to think as you do: no mercy for one’s enemies and hardly any loyalty to one’s friends. There can be no chinks in one’s armor. A sword can find a weak point, even if by chance, and thrust home. Power is fleeting, drained out as my father’s blood soaked the ground around him, dead on your orders. I was only sixteen when my father died at Evesham. The bitter taste of that has stayed with me ever since.
Edward continued speaking. “I realize that you and your forefathers have treated the March as a child’s toy that is yours and yours alone, but you may recall a conversation we had earlier in which I explained that I expected to be notified, in advance, of any major offenses into Wales.”
“I misunderstood, my lord,” I said. “I intended no slight to your person.”
“I can’t have your activities endangering my plans for Wales. Peckham has requested a meeting between us and the upstart Welsh in Lancaster in August. I have acquiesced, and I expect you there as witness.”
“You intend to acknowledge them?” I said, surprised.
“No.” Edward looked at me coldly. “But until then, you will keep to your possessions.” He paused, and I studied him carefully. There was something else there, something uncharacteristic of him that I’d not seen in his face before.
Glee?
“You may hold your men in readiness,” he continued. “After Lancaster...then we will see.”
Cast of Characters
The Welsh
David ap Llywelyn—Prince of Wales
Ieuan ap Cynan—Welsh knight, one of David ap Llywelyn’s men
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd—Prince of Wales, David’s father
Marged—Princess of Wales, David and Anna’s mother
Anna—David’s half-sister
Mathonwy ap Rhys—Anna’s husband; nephew to Llywelyn
Lili—Ieuan’s sister
Aaron ben Simon—Physician; Jewish émigré to Wales
Bevyn—Welsh knight, Captain of David’s guard
The Americans
Bronwen Llywelyn—Archaeology graduate student
Elisa Shepherd—David’s aunt (Marged’s sister)
Ted Shepherd—Elisa’s husband
Christopher Shepherd—Elisa and Ted’s son; David’s cousin
The English
Edward I (deceased)—King of England
Sir John de Falkes—Castellan of Carlisle Castle
Thomas Hartley—Falkes’ nephew
Humphrey de Bohun—Earl of Hereford
John Peckham—Archbishop of Canterbury
Chapter One
2 August 1285
David
I
euan hung over the side off the boat, heaving his guts out. No doubt he’d long since stopped caring if anyone saw him, but hoped now that I would change my mind, turn this God-forsaken bucket around, and head for Wales.
I watched from the cabin doorway as Aaron, my friend and physician, stepped beside him. “Only another few hours, Ieuan. The captain says we’ll reach port long before dark.”
“But when is dark in this land?” Ieuan moaned, resting his head on the rail of the boat. “It stays light for hours longer than it should.”
As a matter of fact, from my position I could see our destination. The Irish Sea was fickle at the best of times, but in this case, I assumed we would reach port as the captain promised.
Aaron patted him on the shoulder and continued towards my cabin. “I gave Ieuan one of my remedies,” he said when he reached me, “but his stomach dispensed with it before it had time to take effect.”
I debated whether to go to Ieuan, but decided he’d prefer that I didn’t. He was proud, and for his lord to hold his head while he upended his innards over the side of the boat was probably not what he wanted. Quite naturally too, under the circumstances, Ieuan was exaggerating about the light. It wasn’t as if southern Scotland were in the arctic and Wales in the tropics. Still, at this latitude and longitude (which admittedly hadn’t been discovered yet) we could expect to see the sun for nearly sixteen hours a day, which meant that it wasn’t full dark until ten in the evening, and it started to get light before five. Unless it was raining, of course, in which case it was dark all day and I had the dark moods of my men as well as the dark skies to contend with. Fortunately, at the moment the sky was free of clouds.
We docked a few hours later near the town of Annan in Scotland, northwest of the English city of Carlisle.
“Why here?” Ieuan asked Aaron, but as I’d instructed, Aaron looked blankly at him and said that when and if Prince Dafydd chose to tell him, he would know the reason. My men were used to following orders, but in recent weeks I’d entrusted Ieuan with more responsibility. Bevyn was getting older and he and I agreed that Ieuan should take his place as my first captain when the time came. Ieuan was young, in his mid-twenties, but smart—clever even—and the other men respected him.
As we docked, I emerged from my cabin in cloak and boots I’d borrowed from one of my men who shared my height. The clothes were plainer than any I’d worn since I’d become a Prince of Wales two and a half years before. In keeping with my disguise, I didn’t wear my mail, but instead wore heavy leather armor under a plain, brown cloak. I could have been a third son of a minor house, which was my intent.
My men were either on shore already or crowded onto the deck of the boat when I came out, and they stared at me, surprise showing on their faces. I knew, then, that I’d made the right decision to send Sir Nicholas de Carew home ahead of me in a different boat. He would have counseled against what I was about to do.
I gazed back at my men and smiled, feeling light-hearted and free for the first time in many months. “Aaron and Ieuan, with me. The rest of you must stay here.”