Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Read Free

stared
up at his father.
    “ Please don’t laugh, but
I’d like to talk to you about—” David took in a deep breath,
“—about working towards a United States of Britain.”
    “ Thank God!” Bronwen set
down her cup. “It’s about time.”
    “ I was wondering when you
were going to get to that,” Anna said.
    Bronwen held up her hand, palm out, and Anna
half-stood to reach across the table and slap it before dropping
back into her seat.
    David gaped at them both. “But—”
    “ I didn’t say anything
earlier because I knew you had enough on your plate,” Anna said.
“The whole women’s rights thing has been difficult enough without
me bugging you about a bill of rights for everyone.”
    “ Well.” David sank back
into his chair. “I was afraid to talk about it because I thought it
sounded romantic and foolish, even to me, but I guess
not.”
    Bronwen leaned forward, her face intent.
“It’s off in the future, I get that, but just to say it and to have
it as our ultimate goal is important.”
    Anna laughed. “I thought his ultimate goal
was world domination?”
    Bronwen grinned at Anna but then waved her
hand, dismissing the joke and gesturing around the table. “None of
us are in this just to survive. This isn’t about us. Not anymore,
if it ever was.”
    Anna nodded. “It’s about changing the
world.”
    “ You’ve already started by
creating the pillars that can support true democracy: universal
education, economic independence—” Bronwen ticked off the items on
her fingers, “and an impartial government, which includes a system
of courts and laws. In England and Wales, all three are in place,
if nascent.”
    Ieuan elbowed Math, who was sitting next to
him, and said in an undertone, “That’s my wife.”
    Llywelyn had been gazing at
David as the women had been speaking, his expression
disconcertingly noncommittal, but now he nodded. “You’ve talked of
this before to me, son. A constitution and this—” he waved one hand
as Bronwen had done, “ bill of
rights. We already have something like it
in Wales and have had since the time of Rhodri Mawr.”
    “ And in England too.” David
rose to his feet again, leaving the table to pace before the fire,
as was his habit. Ever since he’d learned to walk at nine months
old, his brain had worked in conjunction with his feet. “Though
what England has is very rudimentary—and like the initial ideas
produced by the American founding fathers—doesn’t include women or
men who don’t own land.”
    Meg, of course, had been on board with his
idea before he’d finished his first sentence but now said, “Before
we get ahead of ourselves, what do you mean by a United States of
Britain?”
    David hesitated in his pacing. “A
confederation of states, probably a loose one initially, founded on
democratic principles. Probably more along the lines of a
parliamentary democracy than the tripartite division of the United
States government. I’m not even proposing the elimination of the
kingship, though that should be on the table too.”
    “ What’s the biggest
challenge we face in creating it?” Anna said, ever the practical
one.
    David mouthed the word ‘we’ and shook his
head. “I was an idiot not to have talked to you all earlier.”
    “ You’re not in this alone,”
Anna said. “You never have been.”
    David cleared his throat. “I see that
now.”
    “ One of the barriers has to
be the Church,” Bronwen said, getting the discussion back on track.
“David is fighting a rearguard action, trying not to undermine the
Church’s authority but not being much swayed by it either. As long
as Peckham is the Archbishop of Canterbury, he’s in good shape, but
if David didn’t have the personal authority he does, he’d have been
excommunicated by now. You know he would have. Imagine if they knew
he’d never been baptized in the Catholic Church? His only saving
grace is that England is flourishing economically and that means
income for