Daughter of Time (Prequel to The After Cilmeri Series)

Daughter of Time (Chapter Nineteen)

Meg

"My tongue feels like the backside of a dog," Goronwy said. I mopped his brow with a warm washcloth. He'd woken, ill as all the men were, and now lay sprawled on his back on one of the benches in the hall. He'd vomited when he'd tried to lift his head earlier, and both of us were loath for him to try again.

"I believe it was the mead," Llywelyn said.

"I did not over-drink last night!" Goronwy said, conscious enough now to work up the energy to thwart any aspersions on his character.

"I didn't say you did," Llywelyn said. "The healer believes it was poppy juice, which can cause deep sleep—sometimes too deep, but thankfully not in this case."

"By the Saints! Who's the witch who poisoned us?" he said.

"No witch, Goronwy," Llywelyn said. "Merely a man who worked for Roger Mortimer against me. He has paid for his mistakes with his life."

"You caught him, my lord?" Goronwy said. "Do we know him?"

"Mortimer removed his head from his body to show his displeasure at the outcome of the plot," Llywelyn said.

"The whole thing wasn't very well planned anyway," I said. "Why did the man keep the gates open, when Roger Mortimer rode in from the north? He couldn't even get into the castle from the north because both the towers are built to block access to the gatehouses from any direction but the drawbridges."

"He could, actually," said Llywelyn. "The ford of Rhyd Bernard is just upstream of the confluence of the Usk and Honddu. He didn't think he needed it, though."

"Because he had the gate in the undercroft."

"Well, yes, but was he going to lead those horses through there one by one?" Llywelyn said.

"Okay, you're right," I said. "I was surprised at all those stairs for horses to navigate at Castell y Bere, but here—were they going to get up from the kitchen to the hall?"

"That's the point, of course," Goronwy said. "The stairs leading down to the postern gate at Castell y Bere are behind the stables as an added protection in case someone decides to enter that way. I confess, I never thought of putting the door in the kitchen."

"Anyway," Llywelyn said, "Mortimer said that his scouts saw Meg and me enter through the southern gate. They may have been close behind us when we went in, but as soon as we closed the portcullis, were forced to ride west to the nearest ford across the Usk."

"A long way as it's in flood," Goronwy said.

"That they rode around is the reason we had enough time to do what we did," Llywelyn said. "Luck, as Roger said."

"Luck serves those who are best prepared, my lord," Goronwy said. Llywelyn and I exchanged a look. Llywelyn settled himself on the bench at Goronwy's feet and Goronwy lay back, his hand across his eyes. "It isn't as if it hasn't worked before."

"Taking a castle by stealth, you mean," Llywelyn said.

"You mean like the Trojan horse?" I asked.

Llywelyn smiled, his eyes alight. "You've read Homer?"

"Not in the original, but yes."

"But you know the story," he said, "how the Greeks built a giant horse to hold their men. The Trojans, thinking the offering a gift to their gods, brought it inside their city."

"They had to tear down their own gates to do it, I believe," Goronwy said. "Certainly a lesson to us all."

I touched Llywelyn's arm and spoke in a low voice. "They found the city. Six hundred years from now they uncovered the walls and the gold—much as Homer described."