The Fallen Princess Read Online Free PDF

usually more subtly than in that first instance—Hywel
wondered if he wouldn’t have turned out like his uncle.
    Hywel knew himself to be perfectly capable
of killing. He’d done it in battle. He’d killed Anarawd, who was to
have been his brother-in-law, and not lost more than a night or two
of sleep over it. He’d justified his actions, as all men did, by
telling himself that what he’d done was right , because to
believe anything else would be to undermine his very existence.
    But Cadwaladr was a different animal
entirely, and Hywel didn’t think he was just telling himself that
in order to feel better about hating his uncle. Cadwaladr really
did care only about himself: how he felt, what his position was,
how other people viewed him. He’d been spoiled by his mother, or so
Hywel understood. Hywel had no idea what that was like, since his
own mother had died at his birth, and he’d been raised by a series
of nannies and foster mothers.
    Just like Tegwen.
    Until he was seven years old, Hywel hadn’t
even lived with his father, who had fostered him and Rhun out to a
man named Cadifor, with estates on the Lleyn Peninsula. Hywel’s
father had brought the boys to him when Cadifor’s wife died, and he
deemed them old enough to take their place at court. Hywel had
hoped that Cadifor would bring his sons to Aber to celebrate the
harvest, but three years running he’d stayed home, and given the
lateness of the hour, Hywel supposed he would do the same this year
too.
    Hywel didn’t think it was an estrangement
keeping them apart, or at least he hoped it wasn’t. Hywel would
have to go to him if many more months passed without them seeing
each other. He’d get Rhun to come. If Hywel had offended his foster
family in some way, Rhun would help smooth it over.
    Hywel’s men-at-arms clustered together near
the cart, and Hywel tried to focus on each one as they spoke to him
of what they’d found—or rather, not found—on the beach. He hadn’t
put Cadwaladr’s pendant coin away. He wouldn’t keep it himself;
when Gareth returned from collecting Llelo, Hywel would give it to
Gareth to hold. It wasn’t that Hywel’s scrip was too full but
rather that the thought of having something near him that belonged
to his uncle turned his stomach, even if that something was
evidence against him.
    Hywel clenched his fist around the coin. He
could admit that he hated Cadwaladr, and part of him rejoiced at
the idea that he’d caught his devious uncle out in more wrongdoing,
but Hywel feared it too. The next break between King Owain and
Cadwaladr might well be the last, and then there was no telling
what Cadwaladr might do. If he were cast out, Hywel’s father would
have no more control over him.
    Though, judging from today, the control that
King Owain did have was no more than an illusion.
    Unable to contain his body when his thoughts
were in turmoil, Hywel spun away from the cart and climbed to the
top of the adjacent dune. He could see Aber’s towers from here and,
facing the other way, the Lavan Sands, Anglesey, and the Irish Sea
stretching into the distance. This was home. He and Gwen had ranged
all over the cantref as youngsters. He’d missed the quality of the
air and the sea while he’d been away. He’d missed the
mountains.
    He’d come back from Ceredigion to breathe
this air and see this view. He’d needed to see his wife, Mari, too,
and had been looking for a respite from the pressures and the petty
conflicts that marked his life. He desperately wanted to bring Mari
south with him when he returned. She was smart and capable, and he
surely needed every capable hand he could find.
    His father had taken the lordship from
Cadwaladr and given it to Hywel as his own and as a test of Hywel’s
character. He needed Hywel to hold it, for Hywel’s own sake and as
a buffer for Gwynedd against the Normans in Pembroke and the
ambitions of King Cadell in Deheubarth. It burned Hywel to admit
that within a year of receiving