Footsteps in Time (22 page)

The men with whom David worked
generally avoided thinking about death too, not out of fear, though
there was that too, but because it went without saying that death
rode at their shoulders every day. Sometimes, through the loud talk
and bravado, a soldier was able to admit his fear—and that men died
from the most minor injuries and illnesses in addition to dying in
battle.

David had never been as
sick and scared in his life as when his company attacked the
English at the Vale of Conwy. Bevyn had told him that the first
time he lost it, the men would respect him and understand. He’d
been only fourteen then, after all. But there was a fine line
between disliking the need to take a life, and being thought weak.
Weakness is unforgivable in battle. That was David’s new reality.
And that was something that haunted him constantly. Killing, like
anything else, became easier the more a man did it.

What kind of man will I be
when it begins to come easily? What kind of prince can I be if it
never does? Can God forgive me for offenses that I repeat over and
over, and can I ever forgive myself?

Now David understood why the Catholic
Church prescribed confession. A man could tell a priest his sins
and walk away clean every time.

When they reached
Dolwyddelan, people set up huts, tents, and even a small fair where
summer grazing normally took place. David had thought that their
stay would be something of a rest, but there were even more demands
on his time and more people who wanted to see him. Mom tried to
ease the burden, but only the women wanted to talk to
her.

They followed the same procedure after
the company left Dolwyddelan, following the thirty-five mile spine
across Gwynedd to Dinas Bran. The Roman road on which they’d
traveled to get to Dolwyddelan didn’t go that way, so they took the
Welsh track that was as old as the hills it wended between. Each
day, they set up camp in the early afternoon and spent time with
whatever inhabitants were in the area, before moving on the next
day to another location.

David had followed the same routine
every day after the evening meal. In the hours between dinner and
bed, he would walk among his men, sharing food or a joke with one
group or another. He’d read once that this was good practice for a
commander, and a good commander was what he was trying to become.
Bevyn knew this was his habit. At the end of every evening, David
would walk a short distance from the camp to a nearby stream to
wash before returning to the tent to sleep.

The third night out from Dolwyddelan,
David left the circle of tents and strolled under the trees and
down a little hill to a creek. After he washed, he turned around to
find Marchudd next to him. Marchudd was a member of David’s guard:
a relatively young man, perhaps ten years older than David, who
kept to himself for the most part.

“
My lord,” Marchudd said.
“If you’ll come with me, there’s something I think you should
see.”

Not wanting to offend him, David
followed him thirty yards further downstream. At a small ford,
Marchudd stopped. David looked inquiringly at him, waiting.
Marchudd’s eyes focused on something behind David. Before David
could turn—

Thunk!

David awoke, trussed, a gag in his
mouth and his head pounding.

“
You fool!” a voice said.
“You hit him too hard. If he can’t ride, we’re lost.”

“
If he can’t ride, we’ll
kill him and have an end to this farce,” Marchudd said.

Hearing that, David forced himself to
focus. He lay in the bed of a cart that jolted along a trail in the
dark. David surveyed the sky above him. Scattered clouds blew among
the stars, although no moon showed. Despite the darkness, David’s
captors seemed to know their way well enough.

“
The King wants him
alive!” the first voice said. “I want my money.”

David strove to hold himself still,
but his captors must have sensed a change in him.

“
Make a sound and I’ll kill
you right now. Nod if you understand.”

David nodded, groaning inwardly. He
recognized that voice too. It belonged to Fychan, the boy David had
bested a lifetime ago at Castell y Bere.

“
Hurry,” the first speaker
said, snickering, and David knew the voice now as that of Fychan’s
friend, Dai.

David cursed his naïveté and
stupidity. He’d thought—everyone had thought—that he was safe in
Gwynedd, among people who supported him and more importantly,
supported his father. That was a mistake.

The cart stopped. Marchudd
grabbed David’s feet and Fychan his arms and they unceremoniously
half-dragged, half-carried him out of the cart. Fychen threw David
over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, though he wouldn’t have
called it that. He moved swiftly, not quite running, while David
bounced and bobbed on his shoulder, upside down.

What irked David most was that his
captors were Welsh. Father was trying to build a network of Welsh
to support Wales, and here were three Welshman working against him!
Why couldn’t they understand that the interests of Wales might
supersede their own? Perhaps David was a fine one to talk because
the interests of Wales were his own; but what they could hope to
gain financially from turning him over to the English was dwarfed
by the horror that subjugation to Edward would bring. How could
they not know it?

Fychan went on this
way for two minutes, with David slowly suffocating in his gag.
Upside down, it was hard to breathe through his nose. All the blood
had rushed to his head and made him congested. David kicked out at
Fychan.
I refuse to die so
ignomiously!

Before that could happen, fortunately,
Fychan stopped and dropped David to his feet. With a thrust of his
knife, Dai slashed through the bonds around David’s
ankles.

“
Get up,” Fychan
said.

“
Why?” David said, though
it came out muffled in the gag.

“
On the horse!” Fychan
shoved David’s shoulder and David staggered to his feet. His hands
were still tied so they had to boost him up, pushing and shoving
until he balanced in the saddle.

With this change in perspective, the
‘farce’ to which Marchudd was referring became clear. David was a
big person. At six feet two inches, he was taller than most men,
and at sixteen and a half, stronger than most too. His abduction
had been well planned and executed, but once he was up on the
horse, David began to think he had a chance to live through the
night. What did they think? That they could get him to ride quietly
with them merely because they asked?

They must not have felt too sure of
themselves either, because, standing there under the trees and only
a short distance from David’s camp, they began to argue.

“
Have you lost your nerve,
then?” Dai said in a stage whisper. “We must make
haste!”

“
Don’t fear for me, Dai,”
Fychan said. “He’s so scared I’m surprised he hasn’t pissed his
pants. There is nothing to him, now that he has no one to protect
him.”

“
The prince knighted him
on the field of battle!” Dai said. “He’s killed many
English.”

“
Fairy
tales!”
Fychan said.

“
Enough!”
Marchudd
said. “We’ll bring him to Wrexham as we agreed. King Edward
will reward us handsomely for his capture. Edward would prefer him
alive and undamaged, if possible, so I suggest you get moving. The
boy will be missed soon and we need to be well away before
then.”

With that, Fychan and
Dai mounted their horses and Dai pulled David’s forward. A cold
feeling settled in David’s stomach. It was a matter of weighing the
immediate danger he was in, with the unknown variables involved in
escape. At the very least,
David
could simply slide off the horse in a heap on the
ground, but
Marchudd
might kill him rather than leave him there alive. Marchudd
wouldn’t want to risk his own capture no matter
what.

If they were caught,
Llywelyn would indeed hang them.
David
remembered what his father had
said more than two years ago when David had defeated Fychan in that
fight: “There is a time for making an example of a man, and a time
for showing mercy ... A leader has to be cold in order to mete out
true justice.” His father would have no mercy for these men. David
couldn’t afford it either.

David decided to keep his options open
and wait for a good opportunity to escape. They trotted on through
the night, and eventually the sky began to lighten. Where were his
rescuers? As the morning wore on, David began to think they weren’t
coming. He had excellent trackers among his guard, but given the
efficiency of his imprisonment, they may have left few traces.
Bevyn would try to find David, but the longer he was captive, the
less likely it was that Bevyn would succeed.

By the time they stopped for food and
water, David’s entire body ached with the effort of staying
upright. The numbness in his arms had spread such that his upper
body trembled from holding the same position for so many hours and
his mouth and jaw had swollen inside the gag. Fortunately, Marchudd
deemed them far enough away from any possible help that when he
pulled David from the horse, he removed the gag too.

With a grin, Fychan grabbed David’s
hair and tipped his head back to pour water down his throat. David
coughed and sputtered, but Fychan kept pouring. David managed to
swallow some, but most of it spilled down his front. Dai laughed at
his predicament.

David ignored him. “I need to relieve
myself,” he said, once he could speak again.

“
Piss on yourself, if you
have to,” Fychan said.

Marchudd sighed and corrected him. “If
he fouls himself, we’ll have to smell him all the way to Wrexham.
Is that what you want?”

Taking a knife from its sheath at his
waist, he came over to David. He first put it at David’s throat. “I
will not hesitate to kill you,” he said. “Do you believe
me?”

“
Yes,” David
said.

Marchudd nodded and with a flick of
his knife, cut the bonds from David’s wrists. David relaxed his
shoulders which was a tremendous relief, but his hands began to
hurt as blood flowed back into them. Marchudd nudged him forward,
his knife to David’s back, and David walked a short way from the
camp. In his head, David ran through the various techniques he’d
learned in karate to deal with an assailant with a knife.
Unfortunately, in every one, the person without a knife had a high
chance of getting cut.

Do I want to risk it?
What would Father have me do?
David decided
to wait a while longer. Maybe tonight, if they were to rest, he
would have a better chance when his captors were tired and not as
attentive.

Marchudd rebound David’s
hands, in front of him this time, and they continued the journey.
David’s company had traveled only fifteen miles from Dolwyddelan
before he was captured, so they’d had quite a distance still to go
to Dinas Bran. Marchudd had chosen a more northerly path, angling
away from the road to Dinas Bran and steering towards Wrexham
instead.

The path followed the land up and
down, through wooded patches and around craggy blocks. When towards
sunset it started to rain, a mixture of hopelessness and hope
surged through David. The rain would obliterate their tracks, but
David might have an easier time getting away if his captors were
miserable.

The rain lasted for several hours,
into the evening. Just as David was thinking they’d never take a
break, both Marchudd and the rain stopped. After some struggle, Dai
managed to start a fire and Marchudd distributed rations from his
saddle bags.

“
We sleep only a few
hours,” he said, after untying David’s hands and tossing him a dry
piece of bread and a skin of water.

David ate and drank what
there was, grateful for the fire and the brief rest. Within a few
minutes, he lay on his side, waiting for his captors to settle. He
hoped Marchudd would overlook the fact that Dai had done a poor job
of retying his hands after they’d eaten. David was mildly annoyed
they thought so little of him, but they must have thought they knew
these mountains too well for David to escape.

Fychan had the first watch. Dai and
Marchudd fell asleep immediately, or they were good at faking it.
David closed his eyes, feigning sleep despite the exhaustion that
begged for oblivion. His adrenaline kept him from dropping off.
Through slitted eyes, he watched Fychan poke at the fire with a
stick. He kept his sword sheathed but held a bare knife on his
lap.

David lay still for close to half an
hour. Gradually, Fychan’s head began to nod. David didn’t move.
Fychan’s head fell forward. Terrified that Fychan would wake up and
he would lose his only chance, David sat up. He got to his feet,
daring to believe his luck, and was just taking his first step away
from the fire when Fychan shot across the five feet between them.
With his right hand he grabbed David’s throat and pressed the knife
to David’s belly with his left.