Prince of Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

is simply stubborn.
    We waited, listening to the forest around us. It wasn’t my forest but the feeling it gave me was similar to what I’d felt a thousand times before.
     
     
    The great Cadwaladr ap Seisyll peers through the underbrush, a massive bow on his back and a dozen arrows in his quiver. Braose’s men are scouring the bushes on the other side of the valley looking for him, but of course the great Cadwaladr is invisible to evil men such as they. Cadwaladr stifles a laugh, and turns to—
    “What are you doing, Ieuan?”
    I twist around to look into the face of my little sister, Lili. Instead of answering, I grit my teeth at her and hiss.
    “Are you being Cadwaladr again?” she asks.
    “Sshh!” I yank her down beside me and we peer together through the bush to the other side of the field, where the Earl of Hereford patrols with his men. If I didn’t recognize him from other visits to these woods, I would have thought him an ordinary man. He’s of middle height with red-brown hair and beard.
    “Him!” Lili says, trying to whisper.
    A dozen of Hereford’s knights cluster around him. I can’t hear his words—and wouldn’t understand them could I hear them—but his men listen attentively. Watching him speak, it makes me angry to think that the man might be a good leader, that his men might fight for him for more than the gold he offers.
    I shift, setting my arrow into the bow and sighting on Hereford’s head. It’s an easy shot, not even a hundred yards. Then, Lili bumps against me and my shoulders sag. Would Cadwaladr have achieved greatness if he’d had his little sister tagging along behind him all the time? What would the real Cadwaladr have done? Throttled her? Probably not. Nobody had been able to sneak up on him, except the last English soldiers, there at the end.
    Cadwaladr has been dead for a hundred years but I still feel the weight of his sacrifices. My uncle’s lands of Twyn y Garth, near Aberedw, abut those of the English usurpers, and we live with the constant reminder the English encroachment, what they’ve done to us, and what they still do to us daily. Braose is long dead, though the Earl of Hereford is becoming equally infamous among the Welsh. Braose or Bohun—it makes no difference to me. These English overlords are cut from the same cloth. Thieves and murderers to a man.
    I look hard at my sister, still smiling at me, and then fling my arm around her shoulders. “Come with me,” I say. “I’ll teach you to shoot a bow and that way even when I’m not here, you can defend our family from our enemies.”
    Lili skips out from under my arm and takes off running. “I’ll set up the butts,” she shouts at me over her shoulder. “I’ll be as good as you someday! You’ll see!”
    I shake my head but she’s too far away to see. She has no idea how much practice she will need. Every day I work until my arms shake but still the heavy bow is more than I can handle. And it’s not even a full six feet as yet. My uncle has already cut a new stave for seasoning, and when I turn fourteen next spring, he’ll string it for me one last time. I will be a man then, with a man’s responsibilities.
    Then, with my uncle’s blessing, I will seek out Prince Llywelyn and join his men. And one day Hereford will pay for his family’s treatment of Cymry. I will see to it. Personally.
     
     
    Hereford or Falkes; King Henry or King Edward—the names changed but the will was the same. With no Lili to interrupt me this time, I put a hand on my lord’s arm. Three men approached, walking their horses past our position. They rode unspeaking and we held our breath until they were out of sight and sound.
    “How long are they going to search for us?” Dafydd said, under his breath.
    “Until they find us?”
    “We’re in Scotland. They have no jurisdiction here. Surely this is madness.”
    “Only if they’re caught.”
    “We must reach the boat,” Dafydd said.
    “By what means?” I said.