Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four) by Sarah Woodbury

The village had been a solidly English one, and yet we’d been greeted at the green by a delegation of townspeople, including the local burgesses. Instead of riding through without stopping as I’d intended, we’d stayed for half an hour. A girl had come forward and offered Lili a bouquet of dried flowers, while the headman of the village had personally brought me a cup of beer to drink and water for Cadfarch. Ironically, I was far more surprised by their hospitality than I’d been at the sight of Mortimer’s men. Fighting Englishmen was normal. Homage from them was not.
    “You say that, Edmund, and it’s all very well and good not to be hated, but I’m having a hard time understanding why they would they treat me this way,” I said. “Isn’t it odd to have Englishmen bowing and scraping as if I wasn’t a Welsh rebel and upstart? Their king died because of me, for God’s sake.”
    “Dafydd—” Lili said, objecting (as my father did) to me taking the name of the Lord in vain.
    I put out a hand to her. “Sorry. But it’s not normal. Something isn’t right.”
    “They love you here, too,” Bevyn said, “the ambush notwithstanding.”
    “How have they even heard of me?” I said.
    Bevyn shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be only bad news that travels quickly. There may be more of this as we get closer to London. You must prepare yourself for it.”
    I coughed a laugh. “I find that highly unlikely.”
    “Sir Bevyn is right, my lord,” Edmund said. “You have made an impression on the people of England, and not just because of the battles you’ve won. While a military victory makes for a fine tale around the fire in the evening, it isn’t skill on the battlefield that makes a great leader.”
    “I do know that—” I said.
    Edmund ignored the interruption. “In fact, if a man is forced to resort to violence to achieve his ends, whether in his own household, his estates, or his country, it’s an outward manifestation of how little power he wields and how tenuous is his hold over his people.”
    “Edmund speaks the truth, my love,” Lili said. “Back at that village, they admired you before you arrived, but when you spoke to them in their own language, and honored their leaders, though you are a prince and they are common folk, they began to love you.”
    Edmund nodded. “You have won the loyalty of the Welsh not through fear, but through love, wouldn’t you say?”
    He was right (or I hoped he was right), but even so, I didn’t know how to answer him. A certain sector of the nobility would argue against Edmund’s assertion, insisting that love made a ruler weak.
    “Lord Mortimer,” Lili said, “did you tell the people in that village that we were coming through today? Is that how they were prepared?”
    “They already knew,” Edmund said. “Don’t ask me how. And I would add, my lord David, that to speak openly of your distrust of my people would offend many.”
    Although Edmund spoke calmly, I was suitably chastised. “I apologize, Edmund. It won’t happen again.”
    “We have only ever experienced grief from England,” Lili said. “Please understand that it may take time for us to accept adoration instead.”
     “The English are practical folk and no more blind to the truth than any men. We can see your husband’s nobility as well as any Welshman,” Edmund said.
    I’d apologized, but I had offended Edmund. I cleared my throat, anxious to move on from this topic. “We’re going to London, we’re attending the wedding, and we’re coming home.” I gazed fixedly ahead, trying not to see the knowing looks that passed among my companions. “Nothing more. Is that clear?”
    “And if the succession becomes a topic of conversation, in private or in council?” Bevyn said.
    “Or in Parliament?” Edmund added.
    “We have no comment,” I said.
    “Yes, my lord,” Bevyn said.
    It was only after Bevyn eyed me and his lip twitched so that his moustache danced, that I