Uneasy Lies the Crown by N. Gemini Sasson Read Free Book Online Page B

and wetted his lips. Then he groped inside a torn sleeve and, discovering his kerchief gone, wiped at the split corners of his mouth with the backs of his fingers.
    Owain shot a glance at Tudur, who obediently dropped to one knee. Maredydd grabbed at the arms of Alice and Tomos and pulled them down. The younger children, bewildered, huddled together beneath a table. Her mouth hanging aghast, fair Catrin slowly knelt, her eyes never leaving the king.
    “What are you staring at?” Richard stomped toward Catrin. Trembling, she lowered her eyes. “Have your eyes never beheld a king?”
    He looked anything but a king as he staggered around Owain’s hall. The shadow on his whiskered cheeks from too many days without a shave and a bundle of limp, knotted hair gave him the appearance of a cat that had been stranded in a rainstorm. Halting behind Owain, Richard bent over and whispered in his ear, “Get rid of them.”
    “Rid of whom, sire?” Owain whispered back.
    “ Them . All of them.”
    “M’lord, if you wish to speak in private we could —”
    “I wish to speak to you here. Now. I haven’t any time. I am pressed for Conwy.”
    Nodding, Owain rose.
    Richard grabbed his sleeve. “That one may stay.” He pointed at Gruffydd. “He reminds me of my cousin—young Harry.”
    Gruffydd hadn’t even been aware that the king had noticed him. As curious as he was about what had brought him here, Gruffydd had no desire to be privy to Richard’s troubles. Life at Sycharth was, for the most part, uncomplicated. English politics were anything but simple. Certainly, Wales had had its share of troubles in the past, but his father had done his best to remain on good terms with both his neighbors and his English overlords—whatever it took to live in peace. Gruffydd, too, preferred it that way.
    Owain turned to Margaret and gave the instructions for the hall to be cleared. It was several minutes later before the last guest exited and the doors were drawn shut. Richard stood in the middle of the hall, his eyes fixed on the distant hills beyond the windows as if contemplating some looming fate.
    “They gave up Bristol,” Richard said. “Opened the doors, let Henry in to murder my men.” Then he turned his face toward Owain. Behind his pupils was an extinguished soul. The flamboyance for which he was known was vanished, his fingers unadorned but for the ring that bore the royal seal. “My kingdom is in chaos. My army, hearing rumors of my supposed death, has scattered to the winds. My people... they hail Henry and toss petals before his godly steps. Yet they flee from me, as if I were some ogre afflicted with leprosy. Have I even one loyal man to defend my name? One? Alas, he has turned them all against me—every soldier, every nobleman, every beggar and every child.” Again, he looked out over the hills and flinched, as if he thought he had seen Henry himself riding for him. “Oh, this I swear, by God I do swear—if ever I get my hands on that bastard Bolingbroke’s neck, he will die in such a manner that they will retell the tale even in Turkey.”
    Richard was rambling as if Henry had woven some spell over the whole of England, when in truth it was Richard’s confiscation of the Lancastrian inheritance that had severed any and all devotion he might have claimed. Even Gruffydd, just turned sixteen and more interested in a certain young English girl than English politics, knew that.
    The king then turned to Owain, inviting a response with a pleading, doleful stare.
    “Say it,” Richard challenged Owain. “Whatever it is, say it. I did not come here so that you could tell me what I want to hear. Tell me what I need to hear. Say it or I’ll damn you every day until my death.”
    Owain glanced around the room—at the immense timber rafters, at the host of empty chairs and half-eaten plates of food—then at the king. “You must give back to Henry everything you have taken from him.”
    Gruffydd cringed at his