Stuart, Elizabeth Read Online Free

trailed off as if it were a fear he dared not voice.
    Elen
nodded. Only the handful of people from Teifi knew she was Lord Aldwyn's
daughter. In her rough wool tunic and calfskin boots, she had easily passed
herself off as Owain's niece. And the rest of the camp had believed his tale
that the noblewomen of Teifi had escaped to France. "Gruffydd's a friend,
I trust him as I do Tangwen and the others who know I'm Lord Aldwyn's
daughter," she said slowly. "I'll go if he says I must."
    Her
eyes narrowed in concentration, her perfectly arched dark brows almost meeting
above the bridge of her nose. "My concern is for you, Owain. With the
English pressing so close and promising outrageous sums for information about
your movements, I fear you may be taken."
    Owain
shrugged. "What will be will be, and God alone plans our course. Heaven
knows, I'm naught but a simple soldier and this dark plotting is beyond me. I
can see only so far as the next fight." He smiled grimly. "But I'm
not so foolish I'll tempt my fate. Though my own cloak be not so warm as Lord
Aldwyn's, I'll not ride out as the Welsh Fox this night. With Richard nearby,
there's too much likelihood of prying eyes about."
    With
a sinking heart, Elen stood in the doorway to watch Owain mount his nervously
shifting horse. "God go with you," she called as the animal pranced
out of the trees into the moonlit clearing several paces before the hut. Owain
lifted his hand in a gesture of farewell, and the shadows of night immediately
swallowed him up.

CHAPTER THREE
    Dusk
crept slowly over the forested lower slopes of the brooding Welsh mountains.
Despite the three score armor-clad men at his back and the southern Welsh
allies acting as willing guides for his band, Richard of Kent rode uneasily,
his keen eyes constantly searching the wood for shadowy figures slipping
through the trees.
    The
men behind him bunched as closely as their high-spirited horses would allow.
English stragglers met a harsh and speedy fate in this mountain fastness of
North Wales. None wished to repeat the mistake of yesterday when three knights
bringing up the rear had lost their lives. A screaming hoard of the mad Welsh
had sprung from the trees to hack down the great war-horses and finish off the
knights, clumsy in impeding armor, as they struggled to rise from the ground.
    Richard's
fists clenched in angry remembrance. It was all over in the blink of an eye.
The Welsh had melted back into the gloomy, mist-shrouded forest in a dozen
different directions, and he and his badly shaken men had quickly lost their
trails. Even his own Welsh scouts had been loath to continue the search.
    A
scowl of frustration marred his lean, high-cheekboned face, a scowl mirrored by
the unaccustomed bitterness in his eyes. Damn these stiff-necked northern
Welsh! They had been beaten fairly enough. King Edward had invested their
fortresses and set plans in motion for a string of stone castles to ring this
mountain stronghold of Gwynedd. The king had wrung submission from every
captured noble, and those who hadn't lost their heads had already sworn on
bended knee to accept Edward as overlord.
    Trouble
was, this stubborn race refused to accept defeat. They didn't even know they'd
been beaten! Small bands continued to strike from their lair deep in these
mountains, roughly led by a canny warrior known as the Welsh Fox. Edward
himself had entrusted Richard with the task of stamping out the last coals of
rebellion. Nothing was left but to hunt the irregular armies down one by one,
to starve them into submission and make an example of their leaders.
    It
was a task Richard had no stomach for. Give him a pitched fight in an open
field and he was any man's equal, as ferocious in battle as the cold-eyed king
he followed. But the ambush tactics of the Welsh and his own mission to destroy
a people fighting for their homeland sat ill in his gut.
    "A
moment, Richard," a voice called out from down the line.
    Richard
swung about in the saddle,