Footsteps in Time by Sarah Woodbury

if he was on Father’s side
now.
    They entered the great hall, with its
massive fireplace set against one wall. Many men must have slept
there the night before, but now it was nearly deserted, except for
a small group of men gathered around a table at the far
end.
    They all looked up as David and
Llywelyn entered and Father lifted his hand to greet them. One man,
dark like Father, broader in the shoulders but not as tall,
separated himself from the group.
    “ So, you’ve come,” he
said.
    “ Yes,” Father said. “It’s
time to face what King Edward has in store for us.”
    “ The King left Rhuddlan
last night with seven thousand men.” The man reached Father and
they clasped forearms. Then they both turned to David. “Your son,”
the man said.
    David held out his hand. “Uncle
Dafydd,” he said. “I’m glad to finally meet you, sir.”
    “ You share my name, I
believe,” Uncle Dafydd said.
    “ Yes, sir,” David
said.
    Uncle Dafydd nodded, pleased it
seemed. He probably didn’t know that David had been named for the
other Prince Dafydd, David’s great uncle, who’d ruled Wales from
1240 to 1246.
    “ The weather remains cold,
even on the coast?” Father said.
    “ Yes, for now,” Uncle
Dafydd said. His expression was so fierce, David had to stop
himself from taking a step back but then he realized that the
emotion was not directed at Father, but at Edward.
    “ You have reason to
believe a change is coming?” Father said.
    Uncle Dafydd nodded. “Another week,
maybe less, and we’ll see a thaw. The fishermen assure me of
it.”
    “ Well, they would know,”
Father said. “When do you leave for Denbigh?”
    David realized that was his
father’s third question in a row. David couldn’t think of another
time his father had asked anyone so many questions. Even if the
conversation seemed unnatural and stilted to David, he could see
how it could be a deliberate strategy on Father’s part to show his
confidence in his brother.
    It better not be misplaced,
Uncle Dafydd. You’re the one who fought beside Edward all these
years.
    “ Within the hour,” Uncle
Dafydd said. “As we agreed, my men and I will ride north and east
to take Denbigh from Lacy. In anticipation of a thaw, we will then
cross the Clwyd and besiege Rhuddlan until it falls. You must
prevent Edward from returning north with his full force, or this
entire endeavor will fail.”
    “ We
will,” David said, surprising himself. The words had just popped
out. Uncle Dafydd’s tone had bothered him—as if somehow he supposed
that Father didn’t know what he was doing. Of course, David
had no idea what he
was doing, but Uncle Dafydd didn’t know that and David sure wasn’t
going to tell him.
    Father put a hand on David’s shoulder
and nodded at Uncle Dafydd. “We are agreed then,” he said. “Leave
Edward to me.”
    On the road, Father had confessed to
David that he’d joined Uncle Dafydd’s rebellion initially out of a
sense of despair. In June of last year, Father had lost his wife
and with her, at well-past fifty, any hope of a son to carry on his
rule. He loved Gwynedd, loved Wales, felt a kinship with the land
itself. He spoke of this love with a passion, not too different
from patriots in America, hundreds of years later.
    “ Did Mom ever talk to you
about the American Revolution?” David asked him later, once they
were alone in his chamber which, unusually, they were sharing
because the castle was so full.
    “ She explained to me that
your country has no kings and had won the right to govern itself
from England at the point of a sword. She didn’t discuss the
details,” he said. He sat in a chair and stuck out his foot. David
obliged as his squire.
    “ Well,” David said,
grunting with the effort of removing the boot, “our circumstances
here are much the same as the Americans of that time. We were
taxed, subject to unfair laws, and forced to suffer indignities
imposed upon us by the King of England and