Free Uneasy Lies the Crown by N. Gemini Sasson Page A

water and doused his neck.
    In an attempt to convert the glum nature of his oldest son, Owain had called for a day of hunting near Glyndyfrdwy, but the event had only served to aggravate Gruffydd further. Even as much as he tried to turn his thoughts from Elise, they kept drifting back to that night. He should have kept her from going back to her uncle, should have stolen away with her and married her in secret. Given what he had learned just a few days ago, that plan was still not out of the question. Even more appealing was the thought of plunging a sword into Lord Grey’s gut. Someone needed to take care of the bastard.
    Tudur dropped from his mount and whirled about, one flattened hand shading his brow as he surveyed the forest around them. “Perhaps we should take to flying falcons instead?”
    “Lady Margaret would be proud to show you about her mews,” Iolo hinted, as he clung, green-faced, to the cantle of his saddle and carefully brought his right leg over his horse’s rump. The bard was a reluctant hunter and a poor horseman, but he came along for the company. Gruffydd might have been glad for that, he liked Iolo, but he had not yet forgiven him for betraying his confidence to his father.
    Plopping down on the bank next to his nephew, Tudur pulled his feet free of his boots and immersed them in the stream. He glanced over his shoulder at Owain, a half-grin tipping his mouth. “If you had allowed me the shot I could have brought home the biggest red stag ever to grease your spit.”
    “Hah, you would have fared no better.” Owain grasped the thick branch of an ancient black poplar and pulled himself up into the cradle of the bough. Straddling one of the massive limbs, he propped his back against the burled bark of the trunk.
    Tudur tossed his boots into a clump of grass. “I wager Gruffydd here has other things on his mind.”
    “About time, too,” Owain said. “I was beginning to mark him for the priesthood.”
    Ignoring them, Gruffydd crossed his arms over his leather jerkin, lay back and stared up at the dappled mosaic of leaves and branches.
    Iolo hobbled over to join them. He uncorked his flask and emptied it. “Can you blame the lad for dreaming of sweeter things than a rack of antlers?”
    Why were they talking about him as if he were not even there?
    “Iolo, how in God’s name can you bear a summer’s day with that felt hat on?” Tudur said.
    “And how can you bear to have the sun searing into your brains?” Iolo pulled his hat down over his ears to ward off the horseflies.
    “Oh clever, clever, Iolo. You should have been the king’s jester. ’Tis a wonder you don’t drown yourself in laughter listening to your own thoughts.” Tudur smoothed his hair back from his face and, closing his eyes, sank back on a mattress of leaf litter.
    They lounged in drowsy silence, their ears absorbing the trill of gay wrens and the busy scraping of a nuthatch as it dangled in an upside down world. The breeze was warm and indolent yet for early September, barely rustling the serpentine of branches above. It was a fair enough day for hunting, but better still for a swallow of ale and a long nap.
    The throaty cry of baying hounds echoed among the maze of trees like the ominous straining of banshees. The hair on the nape of Gruffydd’s neck stood on end. He sat up with a jolt, grasping at his bow and lifting an arrow from his bag.
    In his uncalloused hands, Iolo clasped a weighty, curved falchion, one heave of which would surely throw his feathery frame off balance.
    Owain vaulted from his perch, landing cat-square on his feet. Leading the way, he clambered up the wooded slope. Just as his head topped the rise a pair of hooves sailed over, clipping the ends of his hair.
    The stag they had spent all morning vainly pursuing landed on twisting forelegs, and then collapsed in a tumbling heap, head thrashing as it rolled toward the little stream. Eyes as wide and dark as the night sky, the noble stag shook its