King Arthur's Bones

ACT TWO

The Welsh Marches, December 1282

The tavern-keeper filled a pottery mug with a pint of ale and reached up to place it almost fearfully on the centre of the blackened tree trunk that arched across the simnai fawr, the great fireplace that was built into the thickness of the wall.

‘On a night like this, the devil needs his brew!’ he muttered, crossing himself as paradoxically he pandered to an ancient superstition meant to placate Satan in such foul weather as this.

‘No need, Eifion!’ growled one of the dozen men hunched around the fire on benches. ‘The devil is safe up in Anglesey tonight – the bastard who calls himself King of England!’

The snarl of agreement from the throats of the company was tinged with despair, as it competed with the howl of an icy wind that rattled the shutters and flickered the flames of the few candles and rushlights.

‘Almost two hundred bloody years we’ve fought those swine – and now it’s all over,’ groaned one old fellow, his voice ending in a sob.

A much younger man, in his late thirties, with black hair and deep-set dark eyes, slammed his ale-jar down on a rough table.

‘No, it doesn’t have to be over, damn you! Prince Dafydd is still fighting on up in the north. It’s up to folk like us to give him all the help we can.’

Another man, with a face scarred by old cow-pox, shook his head. This was Dewi, who worked in a fulling mill just up the road. ‘You mean he’s cut off in the north, Owain! And most of our army was massacred at Builth, after Llewelyn was ambushed. What’s the point of carrying on?’

There was a rumble of dissent from some, but others sided with the speaker.

‘What can we few do down here in Erging?’ said one. ‘It’s a hundred miles or more to where Dafydd’s forces lie in the mountains – and Edward’s armies have them squeezed in tighter than an abbot’s arse!’

The drinkers subsided into a doleful silence, hunched around the great hearth like a group of mourners around a coffin – which in reality was fairly near the truth. The main difference was that they had no corpse to mourn, as no one knew for sure where Llewelyn’s body lay, though his severed head was already stuck on a spike at the Tower of London.

Eifion, the landlord, kept an anxious eye on the wooden screen behind the great oak door. He had stationed his unfortunate pot-boy outside, a lad of ten who, though wrapped from head to toe in a smelly sheepskin, would have to be called in soon before he perished from cold. The lad’s task was to scan the moonlit track outside and warn of any strangers on the road from Abergavenny to Hereford, though this seemed unlikely this late on such a freezing, blustery night, three days before the eve of Christ’s Mass. A warning was vital, as the group of men in the bleak taproom were all former Welsh soldiers, and their assembly could well be considered treasonous if the Sergeant of the Hundred or one of the lordship’s servants from Grosmont took it into his head to visit the Skirrid Inn that night. Even though this was geographically Wales, the Norman-English Marcher lords and their client landholders considered it their territory. Even the Welsh name ‘Erging’, for the area of what was rapidly becoming south-west Herefordshire, had been eradicated by the English, who now called it ‘Archenfield’. It was true that many folk, even some English, accepted that the little river Monnow marked the border in this area, but the endless to and fro of frequent Welsh raids and relentless English acquisition made the idea of a frontier meaningless.

The black-haired man broke the silence. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’ he growled. ‘If we could gather enough support, I’m willing to lead a party through the mountains to reach Dafydd in Eryri.’ [1]

Out of the muttering that this provoked, another voice dissented. ‘You may well say that, Owain ap Hywel! You have no wife or children left to starve while you go off to be killed.’

Then Dewi, the scar-faced man, added his own caution. ‘Before you do anything rash, Owain, you had best take your father’s advice. He fought alongside our prince many times, though it was twenty years past.’

‘And got a spear through his chest for his trouble,’ added the inn-keeper. ‘You said Hywel was dying, Owain? This awful news must be breaking his heart?’

The black-haired man nodded sadly. ‘My father has been sickening all autumn; his cough gets worse each day. I knew he could not last the winter, but this tragedy will kill him before Christ’s Mass.’

He got to his feet and swallowed what was left in his pot. ‘I promised to call in on him tonight.There may not be many more chances before God takes him.’ He pulled a shoulder-cape of dark leather over the belted tunic of coarse brown wool that reached to his thighs, covering serge breeches pushed into thick boots. The cape had a hood, which he pulled up over his head as he made for the door.

‘I’ll see what my father has to say and we’ll meet here again on the eve of Christ’s Mass,’ he promised, passing behind the draught screens and tugging open the massive iron-banded front door.

A blast of icy wind swirled a few flakes of snow past him, as he pushed the freezing pot-boy inside and heaved the creaking door shut behind him. For a moment he stood in the bright moonlight, checking that the road of frozen mud that went past the hamlet of Llanfihangel Crucorney was empty in both directions. The Black Mountains, the edge of Wales, loomed close behind him and a mile or two to the south he could see the strange silhouette of the Holy Mountain, Ysgyrid Fawr, the English corruption of which gave its name to the ‘Skirrid Inn’. The great cleft in its side was said to have been caused by an earthquake that occurred at the hour of Christ’s Crucifixion. Owain wondered bitterly what earthly disaster might have occurred somewhere in Wales at the dreadful hour of Prince Llewelyn’s ambush and assassination.

His father lived a mile up the road at Pandy, a cluster of cottages around the fulling mill, whose wheel was driven by the Honddu stream. He was looked after by his daughter Rhiannon, whose husband also worked at the mill, which treated all woollen cloth woven in the surrounding area.

Owain was a self-employed carter who carried much of the mill’s produce around the neighbourhood and often further afield. His two patient oxen were tethered out of the wind in the lee of the tavern and, huddling against the cold on the driving board, he drove the plodding beasts and his empty cart up to Pandy, where he left them in the shelter of the mill yard.

His sister’s bwthyn was a hundred paces further, on the banks of the millstream. It was a two-roomed cottage built of cob, a mixture of clay, straw and dung plastered on wattle panels between oak frames, the walls capped by a steep thatched roof.

Rhiannon was expecting him, late as it was, but her husband was asleep in the inner room, snoring in the box-bed with their two small children cuddled under blankets on the wide shelf above him. There were glowing logs in the fire-pit in the centre of the main room, the wispy smoke being lost beneath the high ceiling of plaited hazel twigs that supported the thatch.

‘How is he tonight?’ murmured Owain, as his sister opened the door for him.

‘Weaker than ever, poor man. He can hardly catch his breath.’

Propped against the far wall, slumped on a hessian mattress stuffed with raw wool and goose feathers, was their father, Hywel ap Gruffydd. At seventy, he looked a score of years older, a gaunt skeleton of a man, unable to lie down because of shortness of breath. His old chest wound had collapsed one lung and now the other was giving up as well. His sparse white hair overhung a cadaveric face, the same deep eye sockets that his son possessed being like dark pits above sunken cheeks and blue-tinged lips.

Owain went across and knelt on the floor rushes alongside the pallet. He took his father’s hand in his, feeling the coldness of the claw-like fingers, in spite of the profusion of blankets that lay on the bed and around his shoulders.

‘I’ve no more than a day or two left, my son,’ he whispered between heaving breaths that drew air into what little remained of his lungs. ‘But there’s nothing to live for now that our last prince has gone.’

His son gently stroked the bony fingers. ‘Don’t strain your voice, Tâd,’ he said. ‘We’ll all come to see you in turn, the whole family.’

Briefly the old man’s eyes flashed. ‘Idwal’s sons are most welcome,’ he hissed between gasps. ‘But is it likely that Ralph and his brood care much if I live or die?’

Rhiannon, standing on the other side of the bed, clucked in disapproval. ‘Now, Tâd, that’s not true. They’ll be here tomorrow, no doubt.’

Hywel had had three sons, as well as a daughter. The eldest, Idwal, had been killed many years before, during Llewelyn’s attack on Caerphilly in ’68. Idwal left two sons and when, later, their mother had died, Owain had looked after them until they were old enough to fend for themselves.

Hywel’s remaining elder son was Ralph, though he had been baptised Rhodri. Now a prosperous man in his forties, he had ‘gone over to the English’, as his father put it bitterly. He had abandoned his patronymic of ‘ap Hywel’ and become ‘Ralph Merrick’, a common anglicization of one of his forebears, ‘Meurig! As a youth, he had entered the service of the Scudamores, a notable Norman family, and had risen to be their bailiff at nearby Kentchurch Court, one of the Scudamores’ main estates. Ralph had married an Englishwoman from Hereford town and their three children were John, William and Rosamund, all thoroughly English names.

Relations between the two parts of the family were cool and, though there had never been any outright enmity, Ralph and his family looked down on the others as rude yokels who had failed to make the best of their lives by siding with the invincible invaders who were inexorably pushing the Welsh border further westwards.

Owain and his sister crouched for a while on the floor alongside their father’s bed, soothing him and talking quietly about old times. None of them made any attempt to avoid the fact that the old man had not long to live, for death in those rural communities was commonplace and accepted. Hywel had already lived much longer than most men, though it was hard that he must go now, knowing that his revered prince had been killed – and along with him the last hope of maintaining Welsh independence.

Rhiannon fed him some warm bread in milk, and their father seemed to gain a little strength, struggling to sit up further on his deathbed. ‘Go to bed now, good girl,’ he commanded. ‘I will talk to Owain for a while.’

Reluctantly, but accustomed to doing what she was told, the middle-aged woman left them, putting a few more oak logs on the fire as she went. As soon as the heavy leather flap that served as a door to the bedroom fell back into place, Hywel seized his son’s hand in a surprisingly strong grasp.

‘I cannot die before telling you something, Owain bach,’ he wheezed. ‘Our family carries a secret which must be passed on from generation to generation.’

His son frowned, wondering if the old man’s mind was failing along with his body, but he felt he must humour him. ‘Why me, Tâd, for Ralph is the older one?’

Hywel scowled and gripped his son’s hand even harder. ‘I cannot trust him with this; he panders too much to our enemies.’ He paused to cough, white spittle appearing at the corners of his mouth, then continued, though it was an effort to do so.

‘Listen, you know the legend that in times of great crisis Arthur of Caerleon, ancient king of the Britons and Hammer of the Saxons, will come again to save the country in its hour of need?’

Bemused, Owain nodded in the firelight, wondering what this had to do with some family secret. ‘The bards say he never died,’ he conceded, recalling the fairy tales his mother had told him as a child. ‘He is supposed to be sleeping in a cavern with his men, awaiting the call to arms.’

His father slowly shook his head. ‘Wishful thinking, my son. Our bards liked to make a romance out of everything,’ he murmured cynically. ‘Arthur died on the Isle of Avalon and was buried there, long ago in Glastonbury. But the damned English monks dug him up almost a century ago, to prove that the champion of the Britons was really dead and gone, so could no longer be looked to as a future saviour.’

‘Why are you telling me this now, Tâd?’ muttered Owain, becoming a little impatient when there were far more immediate troubles to be considered.

‘Because the bones of Arthur are no longer in Glastonbury, to be mocked by those who want him proven dead. They were stolen by us and are hidden very near here.’

Owain’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead in puzzlement. ‘What do you mean, stolen by us? Who are “us”?’

Hywel struggled to sit up even straighter, the effort causing him to gasp for breath. When he had recovered, he explained. ‘A band of brave men took them from Glastonbury – a band led by Meurig ap Rhys, your great-grandfather. He swore that the secret of their hiding place must be handed down through each succeeding generation, and so it came to me from my father, Gruffydd ap Meurig.’

‘And you are loath to pass this on to Ralph?’ asked Owain.

‘He is not to be trusted with such a secret,’ wheezed Hywel contemptuously. ‘Being a creature of the Scudamores and even known to Edmund Crouchback of Grosmont, he might tell them in order to curry more favour. No, it is you, Owain, a true patriot and a fighter who must carry this trust onwards.’

‘But I have no sons. You well know that my wife died barren years ago.’

‘Then pass it to Idwal’s sons! That would be fitting, as he was my eldest boy.’

Owain was dubious. He felt that this must be some romantic fantasy, perhaps with a basis of truth, but exaggerated by the dying mind of his father. Yet the old man was speaking clearly and rationally, with no sign of mental confusion. ‘But what use is this knowledge to us – or anyone else?’ he asked.

Hywel’s dark eyes flashed briefly in the light from the flickering logs and briefly he became almost animated. ‘This may be the time, Owain!’ he hissed. ‘God knows that if ever there was a moment when Wales was in mortal danger, this must be it! With Llewelyn slain, we need Arthur’s return as the only hope of salvation.’

‘But you said that he was dead – he must be, if you have his bones! This old story about him sleeping in a cave is just a fairy tale!’

The old man became agitated, grasping at the blankets with an emaciated hand. ‘Of course it is, boy! But think what a rallying point it would be for Prince Dafydd’s army up north, if it were known that the relics of King Arthur were carried before their host when they marched to battle! Even these Norman-English bastards are fascinated by Arthur, which is why they revered the remains in Glastonbury. It was even old King Henry, curse his black soul, who told the abbot where they were to be found.’

The effort of this long speech exhausted him, and he slumped back against the pillow behind his head.

Suddenly Owain could see what his father was driving at, and a wave of love and admiration swept over him at the clear-sightedness and cunning of the dying old warrior. ‘You think I should take them up north, then, Tâd?’ he asked, anxious to get a firm direction from the head of the family.

‘I know you meet the local patriots in the Skirrid and other places,’ gasped Hywel. ‘Discuss it with them, but hurry! Every day makes Dafydd more hard pressed in Gwynedd. Take the great king’s remains to him at his castle of Dolwyddelan and trumpet their magic to every minor lord, archer and foot soldier in the country, for them to rally to the aid of our dear land!’

His desperate enthusiasm was infective, and Owain bent closer to the frail figure on the pallet.

‘So where are the bones hidden, Tâd?’ he whispered.

In the flickering light of the fire-pit, father and son bent their heads together as the secret was passed on.

‘They’ll have you dangling from that, if this becomes known!’ warned Dewi. He pointed at the wooden staircase that wound its way to the upper floor of the tavern, where a rope with a noose on the end hung ominously in the stairwell from a beam above. The large upper chamber was used for the monthly court of the nearby Hundred of Ewyas Harold. Summary justice was carried out on the premises for a whole variety of offences, including hanging for the theft of anything worth more than twelve pence.

‘Supporting Prince Dafydd is now treason, from what we hear,’ confirmed Eifion, the inn-keeper. ‘That sod King Edward has decreed that any Welshman found in arms will be hanged.’

It was now the eve of Christ’s Mass, and a few of those who had assembled two nights earlier were back to meet Owain. Dewi from the Pandy mill was there, with his twenty-year-old son, Caradoc, who was trying to court Owain’s niece, Rosamund Merrick, against the violent objections of her father Ralph.

The dejected patriots huddled together in a corner this time, as there were some other villagers from Llanfihangel crouched around the hearth, also rather despondently celebrating the birth of the Saviour with a few jars of ale.

Owain had patiently explained to his fellow conspirators the substance of his father’s disclosure, eventually overcoming their incredulity. In a low voice he finally asked their opinion on what should be done. ‘I already had half a mind to go up to Gwynedd to join Dafydd’s forces. Now this seems a formidable gift to take him, if it puts more mettle into his men,’ he argued.

As Eifion collected the empty ale-pots, he gave his opinion before going back to his line of kegs at the back of the taproom.

‘I’d say leave well alone, Owain. Keep your head down and it may remain on your shoulders,’ he muttered.

Dewi lifted his cow-pox-raddled face to follow Eifion with his eyes as the inn-keeper walked away. ‘I’d be careful what we say in front of that man,’ he advised. ‘I’ve got my doubts about how true he is to our cause.’

‘He is beholden to the Sergeant of the Hundred who rents his room upstairs for their court,’ added the old man with the rheumy eyes. His reddened lids leaked tears, as the cold was still intense, though the wind had dropped.

As no one had answered his question, Owain repeated it impatiently. ‘So what are we to do? Are we to retrieve these relics and try to get them up to Dolwyddelan?’

The half-dozen looked at each other uneasily.

‘So where are they now?’ ventured Caradoc.

Owain shook his head. ‘That secret has been guarded for over ninety years. I’m not going to divulge it in a public alehouse, especially when we’ve not yet decided what to do about them.’

After some further muttered discussion, Dewi’s son Caradoc and two of the younger men agreed that they would support Owain if he really did intend trying to smuggle the relics up to North Wales to join the prince’s depleted army. The others decided that their lives and their families outweighed the slim chance of success for such a hazardous journey – and the even more doubtful outcome of trying to defeat the massive forces of Edward Plantagenet that now formed an iron ring around Snowdonia.

‘Come with me a moment, while your wives sit and gossip in the church,’ Owain commanded, beckoning his two nephews into Garway’s sloping churchyard. It was after morning Mass on this special day of Christ’s birth, and their feet crunched through a thin layer of frozen snow that lay on the grass outside the strangely shaped building. The Knights Templar, who had a preceptory in the tiny village, had recently built a circular nave on to the old chancel in imitation of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, with a separate fortified tower a few yards away.

‘Where are you taking us? It’s damned cold today,’ grumbled Madoc, at twenty-five a couple of years older than his brother, Arwyn. He was a big-boned young man with abundant brown hair and the family’s deep-set eyes.

‘Let’s walk down to the Holy Well, out of earshot of those nosy folk,’ growled Owain, looking at the trickle of parishioners coming out of the south door.

As they trudged the hundred paces down to the bottom of the churchyard, Arwyn pulled his heavy woollen cloak more tightly around him and shivered. ‘Don’t be too long, Uncle, for Bronwen has a goose to cook for us all.’ He felt the cold most, as unlike his brother, he was thin and wiry, with darker hair.

‘This is more important than a damned goose, even for dinner on the day of Christ!’ retorted Owain, and the two younger men fell silent. He had been virtually their father since they were children, and his word was not to be questioned.

In the corner, against the boundary wall, a small stone-lined well normally provided water that was claimed to cure eye ailments, but today it was frozen solid. A couple of raised slabs formed benches, but today they were too cold to sit on, so the three men stood by the well, the two nephews waiting expectantly for Owain to speak.

Gravely he explained the whole history of Arthur’s bones and their removal from Glastonbury by their great-great-grandfather, as well as the solemn vow of the Guardians to pass on the secret of their hiding place through the generations. At first incredulous, the two younger men were by no means lacking in intelligence and quickly grasped the significance of the relics.

‘But that swinish king, Edward Longshanks, caused them to be moved to a new shrine near the High Altar in Glastonbury only four years ago,’ protested Madoc. ‘He went with all pomp and ceremony to the abbey there and made sure that everyone knew that Arthur was really dead and unable to rise again to save the true Britons.’

Madoc was more aware of current news than most people, as he was the reeve to the Templars’ farm at Garway and often had conversations with the three monkish knights who lived in the nearby preceptory.

Owain grinned, the first time he had smiled since the news of Llewelyn’s fatal ambush. ‘Then they are fakes, substituted by the Benedictines there. We have the real bones of Arthur.’

He went on to tell them that as he had no sons himself to whom to pass on the secret, he was going to impart it to them. ‘It is fitting, as your father, Idwal, was the eldest son and he would have told you, had he lived.’

‘Why are you telling us this now, Uncle?’ asked Arwyn. ‘You are not all that many years older than us, and you have a long time before you need contemplate death.’

Owain began to explain the present crisis and his intention to take the relics north to Prince Dafydd. ‘I may never return, either because I will be killed before I reach Gwynedd – or die in the battles that must come. In that case the bones will be lost and your duty will never be called on.’

‘So why are you telling us?’ persisted Arwyn.

‘The relics are still in the hiding place where they have rested for almost a century. There are many people in this area I do not trust, and it may be that I will be prevented from retrieving them – possibly prevented by death!’

He banged his hands together to get some warmth into them.

‘In that case someone must still keep the knowledge of where they are, for some future occasion. You are the only ones I can trust, as Ralph and his brood cannot be relied on not to go running to their English masters.’

Madoc frowned. ‘My masters are the Templars and they are Normans. Why do you trust me?’

‘Because you are the son of Idwal, and grandson of Hywel, who, thank God, still survives, though he cannot last for long.’

He turned to Arwyn. ‘And that goes for you too. You are both true Welshmen, and if I can’t trust you both I may as well lie down and die this minute.’

Madoc looked at his uncle in concern. ‘Are you going to ask us to leave Garway and go with you to fight in Snowdonia? We both have wives and children.’

Owain placed a fatherly arm around their shoulders. ‘No, never fear, I’ll not prise you from your Bronwen and Olwen. It may be that I will need you to help me hide these bones, which are within a few miles of here. But that is all, apart from learning of their hiding place, in case I am killed tomorrow!’

He pulled them closer and their heads bent together so that they almost touched, as he whispered the old secret into their ears.

On the morning after the day of Christ, the hooves of a pony clattered to a halt on the frozen track outside Owain’s cottage in the tiny hamlet of Hoadalbert. This was a handful of dwellings midway between Pandy and Grosmont Castle.

The carter, who lived alone in the single-roomed bwthyn that used to belong to his father, rose from putting fresh logs on his fire to peer through a crack in the boards of the door. Seeing a lad slide off a shaggy mountain pony, his first thought was that this was a message to say that his father had died, until he realized that the boy had come from the direction of Grosmont, not from his sister’s home. In fact the messenger was a stable-boy from Kentchurch Court, just beyond Grosmont on the English side of the Monnow.

Owain opened the door and waited for the lad to come in. His nose was bright red from the cold, and he was beating his arms to get warm. Around his thin shoulders he wore two oat sacks as a cloak, and his hands were wrapped with rags in lieu of gloves.

‘I come with a message from Bailiff Merrick, sir,’ he announced, using the English language. ‘He says that he wishes you to come to a family meeting at his house at noon and bring your sister with you.’

‘Is that all he said?’ Owain was surprised, as his elder brother rarely communicated with him and never invited him to his home, which was in the grounds of the large fortified manor house where the Scudamore family lived.

Taking pity on the lad’s frozen appearance, Owain ladled some cawl from an iron pot at the side of the fire and handed him a wooden bowl of the leek and mutton stew. Gratified, the groom fished a spoon fashioned from a cow’s horn from his pouch and, between appreciative slurps, confirmed that Ralph Merrick had said nothing else at all but had appeared to be in a bad temper – though this seemed to be his usual state of mind.

The boy knew nothing else and after warming himself at the fire for a few moments, he rode off towards Grosmont, this being the caput of the barony, held by Prince Edmund Crouchback, brother of the hated King Edward.

Owain pondered for a while, wondering what crisis could have caused his brother to deign to summon him. Possibly their father’s imminent demise had prompted Ralph to talk about the division of Hywel’s property, though there was precious little of that, as he had not been able to work on his smallholding in Hoadalbert for years, due to his chest troubles. He had given it to Owain for his home and had moved in with Rhiannon.

Owain shrugged and thought he would let events take their course. He decided not to use the cart to take his sister to Kentchurch, but instead saddled up his old mare. Rhiannon could sit behind him on the blanket that underlaid the simple saddle. When he reached Pandy, she was as surprised as he was to learn of their brother’s invitation – or rather command – but she refused to leave her father, who was getting weaker and was now only half-conscious. Her husband was working in the mill, and she would not leave her two children alone with a dying man.

Owain knew better than to try to persuade her, for she was a strong-willed woman – and indeed, by the looks of his father, he was not likely to last the day.

‘I’ll come back as soon as I can, cariad,’ he promised, ‘to tell you what our dear brother wanted and to sit with Tâd for the rest of the day – and night, if needs be.’

As it was approaching mid-morning, he rode back along the track, taking care to avoid the worst patches of ice so that his mare would not lose her footing. The wind had dropped and it was a clear, still day, with patches of pale blue sky appearing between the clouds. As he passed through the village of Grosmont, he saw that work had already restarted on the castle after the holy day break. Prince Edmund was strengthening the fortifications of the compact but menacing fortress and increasing the living accommodation. Edmund Crouchback, so called from the Cross he had emblazoned on his shoulders at the Crusades, was Earl of Lancaster and Leicester and, though he had numerous possessions elsewhere, he seemed intent on making this remote corner of the Welsh Marches his principal home.

Cursing Edmund, Edward and all the damned Plantagenet brood as he rode past, Owain crossed the little bridge over the Monnow and turned down the long track that led through the wide Scudamore lands to Kentchurch Court. However, he did not need to ride that far, as his brother’s house was near the barton, the demesne farm that served the domestic needs of the Scudamores. As bailiff, the controller of all outside work at the manor and overseer of all the bound and free workers, he had a substantial dwelling. It was a stone building with three rooms and a stable at one end. A chimney protruded from the other end, as there was a hearth instead of the cruder fire-pit, and it was in this room that Ralph Merrick had assembled his family for the meeting.

His wife, Alice, a thin woman with a sharp face and a tongue to match, sat on a settle near the fire, with her pretty daughter, Rosamund, seated alongside her, looking pale and nervous.

The two sons sat on a bench opposite, looking ill at ease in their father’s presence. The elder was John, at twenty-five a huntsman for the Scudamores, in charge of the hounds. He was a stocky fellow, with fair hair inherited from his Saxon mother, and a narrow rim of beard running around his jaw. He wore a dark green tunic over breeches and riding boots, with a hunting horn hanging from a thick leather belt.

His brother, William, two years younger, was heavily built like his father. He had a mop of dark brown hair, shaved up to a line above his ears in the old Norman style. A jerkin and serge breeches were usually covered by a thick leather apron, but he had left this in the stable, as his job as the estate butcher and slaughterman had fouled it with bloodstains. His otherwise comely features were marred by a bad turn in his left eye, which failed to follow the movements of the other.

The focal point of this family gathering was Ralph Merrick, a tall, erect man with a permanently truculent expression. He was forty-five, born seven years before Owain. Heavy features and a ruddy complexion made him unlike his brother, apart from the deep-set eyes that were a family trait.

‘I told you to bring our sister,’ he snapped as a greeting. ‘Where is she?’ He spoke in English, though he also had a fair grasp of Norman-French, the language of his masters.

‘She cannot leave our dying father, and her husband has to be in the mill all day,’ replied Owain, deliberately speaking in Welsh.

‘For God’s sake, speak in English,’ snapped his brother irritably. ‘You know Alice can’t understand the peasants’ talk.’

‘It was good enough for you when you were young!’ retorted Owain. ‘You never heard a word of English until you were ten years old.’

He suspected that Alice understood far more than she admitted, but this pretence was all part of their craven attachment to the Marcher lords and their tenants, who were ruthlessly annexing what for untold centuries had been Welsh lands.

‘Why have you asked me here today?’ he demanded, never one to be overawed by his domineering brother. ‘Our father cannot live much longer, so I trust you are going to come to visit him while he still breathes?’

‘I was there last week,’ growled Ralph. ‘And if my duties here permit, I will ride over in the morning.’

‘You may well be too late,’ retorted Owain. ‘Since Idwal died, you are the eldest son and must lead the family.’

Ralph dismissed this with a wave of his hand. ‘I summoned you here because I have heard very disturbing news about your activities,’ he began ominously. ‘It has come to my ears that you are encouraging men to go with you to join the rebel Dafydd. Are you mad, brother!’ His voice had risen to a shout.

Owain was shocked, for this meant that someone had betrayed him. ‘Who has told you this? I am a Welshman, as you are, and I am free to fight this oppression against my homeland!’

‘The king has declared all such rebels as traitors and the penalty is death,’ thundered Ralph. ‘You say I will soon be the head of this family, so I intend to prevent it from falling into disrepute by having a traitor as a brother!’

Owain, now in a rage himself, pointed a quivering finger at Ralph. ‘You’ll not tell me what I can or can’t do, Rhodri ap Hywel!’ he shouted, deliberately using his brother’s real name. ‘If you were not so besotted with crawling around the English who have settled on our land, you would join me on this journey to Gwynedd!’

Alice squealed her protests at the quarrel that had flared up, and the two sons had risen to their feet, looking aggressively at their uncle. Ralph, bright red in the face, advanced on Owain, shaking a fist at him.

‘This part of the March is now at peace. Would you see all our efforts wasted by your mad schemes? We are prosperous, both Welsh and English. Why would you wish to stir up conflict once again?’

‘And what’s this nonsense about taking King Arthur’s bones to the north?’ cut in the son John. ‘Everyone knows that they lie in Glastonbury, so are we going to suffer you as a charlatan as well as a rebel?’

His uncle was too aghast at this further disclosure to censure his nephew for his insolence in speaking in such a way to a family elder. How in God’s name did they learn about the relics?

‘Who told you this?’ he demanded. ‘Was it Eifion at the Skirrid?’

To his further surprise, Rosamund suddenly burst into tears, bending over where she sat and sobbing into her folded arms.

Ralph threw out a hand dramatically towards her as he continued to rant at his brother. ‘See how you and your treacherous friends cause such anguish to my family?’ he rasped. ‘Some common fellow of your acquaintance has had the impudence to try to pay court to my daughter. It was from him she has heard these tales of rebellion, before I forbade her today ever to lay eyes again on the ruffian.’

This provoked a fresh outburst of sobbing from Rosamund, which caused her mother to give her a good shaking rather than to comfort her. Owain, though incensed at the way in which his secrets had been bandied about, felt obliged to come to the defence of the culprit.

‘The lad is no ruffian! Caradoc is the son of the fuller at Pandy, a respectable and prosperous freeman,’ he protested.

Privately, if Owain had had Caradoc here now, he would have boxed his ears soundly for his loose mouth, even if it was to his girlfriend.

‘I care not if he has a chest of gold, he will not approach my daughter ever again!’ snarled Ralph. ‘I have given orders that if he sets foot on this estate again, he will be flogged!’

Rosamund wailed again and got another shaking from her mother.

‘I suppose he is another of your rebellious knaves – so let him go off to Gwynedd and be killed, and good riddance to him! All who are foolish enough to rally to Dafydd ap Gruffydd will be slain,’ ranted the bailiff. ‘But I forbid any member of this family to sully our name by turning to treachery!’

Owain glared at his elder brother, containing his anger with difficulty. ‘Is that why you called me here today?’ he demanded. ‘Dragging me from the side of our dying father to lecture me on your craven obedience to the people who have stolen our land and our heritage?’

‘Don’t speak to our father like that!’ bawled William. ‘The Scudamores have been good masters. We live better now than we ever did before.’

John, emboldened by his brother’s defiance, weighed in with his denunciation: ‘A damned sight better than you who live across the Monnow and up into the hills – squalid shacks to live in, scratching an existence from stony ground and few sheep!’

Owain ignored them and continued to glare furiously at his brother. ‘So what are you going to do about it? Denounce me to your English overlords and have me hanged? Edmund Crouchback’s castle is just down the road, and he has the highest gallows in these parts!’

‘Of course not, you foolish man!’ glowered Ralph. ‘You are my brother and for all your wrongdoing you are still my kin.’

He swept his hand around the room to indicate his wife and offspring. ‘But look what danger you have brought on me and my family, damn you! By concealing my knowledge of your folly, I risk being branded as a traitor myself.’

Owain shrugged. ‘None will hear it from me – so if you tell your daughter to keep her chattering mouth closed, no one will be any the wiser. I’ll deal with Caradoc. He’ll say no more to anyone.’

He turned to go, convinced that staying would only worsen the antipathy between them. As he reached the door, he turned to face them again. ‘Whatever has passed between us, remember that your father is dying, Ralph. If he could walk or even crawl, he would be with me on this venture, but, as it is, he at least deserves to hear his son say farewell!’

With that, he stalked back to his horse and rode away.

Ralph and his two sons did come to Pandy the next day, but they were too late. Hywel had died peacefully in his sleep in the small hours and now lay in the Church of St Michael, near the Skirrid alehouse, until he was buried in the churchyard the next day. Owain walked out of the cottage near the mill when Ralph appeared, too incensed at his brother’s dilatoriness, leaving Rhiannon to exchange a few stilted words with him.

He took his empty cart, which he had used to carry his father’s body to the church, down to Llanfihangel and sought out the priest to make arrangements for the burial.

‘The ground is rock hard with frost, Owain,’ said the parson sadly. ‘How will we dig the grave? Our sexton is sick with a fever, though in any case he’s too old to hack his way through such ice-bound earth.’

Owain promised that he would come himself with friends and with picks and iron bars, to lever away the topsoil to get at the softer earth beneath. The priest, Father Samson, was Welsh-speaking, unusual in this area. When Owain had gone with his nephews to Christ’s Mass in Garway, the priest there conducted the whole service in Latin, of which no one apart from a couple of Templars understood a word. Owain knew that this was the usual practice everywhere, except that often the short sermon was delivered in English. Here in Llanfihangel, still within the diocese of Llandâf, the incumbent was a native, and Owain suspected that his sympathies were similar to his own. It would have been difficult for Father Samson not to have been aware of the politics of some of the men in the parish, such as those who met covertly in the Skirrid.

Later that day he returned with Dewi, Caradoc and Islwyn, another of their coven, and began the arduous task of digging a grave pit near an old yew in the corner of the graveyard. They had to avoid the roots, but the shelter of the tree had slightly lessened the depth of the frost, and within two hours they had gone down a sufficient depth to accommodate the rough coffin that one of the mill workers had fashioned. As they finished digging the hole, Owain took Dewi and Caradoc aside and gave the younger man a stern warning about his loose mouth.

‘But it was only to Rosamund!’ he protested. ‘How was I to know she would carry tales to her father?’

‘Well, she’ll carry no more, by the looks of it,’ snapped Owain. ‘Ralph Merrick says he’ll have you whipped if you set foot in Kentchurch again – and probably he’ll have you hanged if you try a second time!’

Dewi responded by giving his son a smart clout across the ear, which made the young man stagger. ‘You silly fool, you put all of us in danger with your idle chatter! Let’s pray that none of this comes to the ears of those in Grosmont!’

Their altercation was cut short by the return of the parish priest, who came to see if they had finished the grave. After he had inspected it, and declared it better than their sexton could have done, Owain took him aside and spoke in a low voice. ‘Father, talking of sextons, do you happen to know who is the sexton at Abbey Dore now? Is it still a Welshman called Meredydd?’

The parson looked at him covertly, suspecting this was no casual enquiry. ‘I think he is still there, but why do you ask?’

Owain became evasive, still not sure of where the priest’s sympathies lay. ‘Digging this hole made me think of sextons – and I had heard that that post at the abbey was almost a family benefice, handed down from father to son.’

‘I would not know about that, Owain, but certainly the fellow there now is called Meredydd. It is not often I go there, as local priests are not always welcome at Cistercian houses.’

Abbey Dore was a large and very rich abbey at the bottom of the Golden Valley, which ran down the eastern edge of the Black Mountains.

Owain was on the point of letting Father Samson into the secret, but after having castigated Caradoc for the same indiscretion he decided to keep quiet.

The diggers adjourned to the Skirrid for well-earned refreshment, during which Owain was beset with people offering their sympathy for the loss of his father. Eventually he was able to retire to a corner of the taproom with Dewi, his son and two others, Alun and Cynan, who had offered to go with him to Gwynedd.

‘We have to see my father safely into the ground tomorrow,’ he began soberly. ‘Then we need to carry out his last wishes, by recovering these relics and taking them to our prince up north.’

Dewi nodded in agreement. ‘The will of a dying man, especially one with the courage of Hywel ap Gruffydd, must be respected. So what are we going to do?’

‘It’s time to tell you where the bones of Arthur rest,’ said Owain. ‘And this time, no one – and I mean no one,’ he added, glaring at the abashed Caradoc. ‘No one breathes a single word until our task is accomplished… is that understood?’

There were nods and grunts from the four heads that were inclined close to his. Then he stood up and swallowed the rest of his ale. ‘Come outside. I’ll not reveal the hiding place in an alehouse, as I said before.’

They trooped out into the cold afternoon, but there was no wind and even a weak winter sun made it just bearable to sit on the tailboard of his heavy two-wheeled cart while he related the story he had heard from his father.

‘Hywel told me what he had learned from his father years ago,’ he began. ‘After the relics were retrieved from Glastonbury by a group of patriots, they were taken to Carmarthen, where they were hidden for a few years. The leader of the group was Meurig, one of the sons of the Lord Rhys, but ironically, when Rhys attacked the Normans in that town, they were in such danger that they were moved on to a safer place.’

‘What happened to this Meurig?’ asked Alun.

‘He died of wounds in the fighting at Carmarthen but managed to pass the secret to his sister, who called the remaining Guardians – I don’t know how. His half-brother, also called Meurig, led these men, and he was my great-grandfather!’

Dewi nodded wisely; for a miller he was well versed in Welsh history. ‘It was common for brothers to have the same name, as so many died in infancy. That same Lord Rhys, who is your ancestor, had no fewer than three sons called Meredydd.’

‘But where did they take these relics?’ demanded Caradoc impatiently.

Owain looked around cautiously at the empty countryside. ‘Abbey Dore!’ he murmured.

‘The abbey! What the hell did they take them there for?’ exclaimed Cynan, sounding indignant. ‘Those Cistercians were all Frenchmen then! They would have no truck with anything to do with Arthur, unless perhaps they were from Brittany.’

Dewi shook his head. ‘They came from Burgundy, that lot.’

‘And they must have known that the real bones were still in Glastonbury,’ objected Cynan. ‘The abbot there made great play with the news of their discovery, so that he could attract even more pilgrims and their pennies.’

Owain held up his hand to placate them. ‘Don’t fret over that! This ancestor of mine, this Meurig, was a drover and he knew many people between Carmarthen and Hereford. One was a Welshman, who became sexton at Abbey Dore.’

‘What good was that?’ muttered Alun.

‘It seems that this man was sympathetic to all things Welsh. Meurig took the box of bones on a packhorse when he was driving the next herd of cattle to Hereford and prevailed on this sexton to hide them at Abbey Dore.’

‘But why there, of all places?’ persisted Cynan.

‘Meurig felt that it was right for a Christian king to be buried in consecrated ground, as he was in Glastonbury,’ said Owain. ‘It would not have been seemly for him to be stuffed into some unhallowed field or bog.’

Dewi nodded sagely. ‘Arthur was certainly a devout man – he bore the image of the Virgin on his shield at the battle of Mount Badon, where he defeated the Saxons.’ Caradog became impatient with his father’s tale-telling. ‘So how are we going to get him back?’ he demanded.

Owain shook his head at the impetuousness of youth. ‘Straight after the funeral tomorrow, I’ll go over to the abbey and see how the land lies.’

With that, the others had to be content.

The whole village turned out to the funeral and, as legally he was the chief mourner, Hywel’s eldest son Ralph grudgingly attended, with John and William but not his wife or daughter.

The priest droned the Mass in poor Latin and then unusually gave a more sincere eulogy in Welsh at the graveside, to Ralph’s annoyance. There were no formalities after the coffin had been lowered into the frosty ground, but all the villagers filed past Ralph and Owain at the church door, briefly offering their sympathy and respect. With hardly a word to his brother, Ralph left as soon as propriety allowed, leaving the small group of conspirators to fill in the grave with the lumpy, frozen earth.

Owain stood for while with his two nephews, sadly contemplating the tumbled soil in the bare patch among the winter-shrivelled grass of the churchyard. Then he pulled himself upright and sent Arwyn and Madoc back to their homes and wives in Garway. When they had gone, he went over to the yard behind the Skirrid tavern, where his fellow conspirators were waiting.

‘Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you?’ asked Dewi anxiously.

Owain shook his head. ‘This is only a scouting visit, to make contact with the sexton,’ he said. ‘I can do it quicker on my old nag than with the cart – though we may have to take that to fetch the box.’

They watched him ride off, trotting up the Hereford track in the clear cold of the December day.

‘I’ve got a bad feeling about all this,’ muttered Dewi. ‘God grant that my resolve holds, to leave home and hearth to risk my life for a desperate cause up in Gwynedd.’

It took Owain the better part of two hours to cover the eight miles to Abbey Dore. A mile or so short of the monastery, he passed the small castle of Ewyas Harold, sitting on its mound. He half-expected some challenge to be called out by the sentinel on the gate, but the man thankfully ignored him.

‘The bastard probably thinks the Welsh are finished for good now that Llewelyn’s dead,’ he muttered, but it gave him pause to think about returning with the casket of bones. There was no way he could get past here with the cart, as its creaking wheels could be heard a quarter of a mile away in the stillness of the night, when there was supposed to be a curfew. Either they would have to come back in the day, with a load of legitimate goods in the cart, or else carry the box across country, though he had no idea of its weight or size.

Soon the huge abbey came in sight, nestling in the lush Golden Valley, with the slopes of the Black Mountains on one side and the fertile land stretching away into England on the other. The great church, with its square tower and huge nave was surrounded by numerous stone buildings that housed the chapter house, dormitories, refectories, guest rooms, hospital and all the other accoutrements of a prosperous monastery. The surrounding land was dotted with sheep and held strip fields which, in season, would be filled with corn, barley, oats and vegetables.

Owain was cautious in his approach, not wanting to attract too much attention to himself, but played the part of a traveller seeking rest and refreshment. He walked his horse into the guest-house yard and offered two pennies to a lay brother who was the ostler in the stables. For this subscription to the abbey treasury, the man readily agreed to water and feed the mare, telling Owain to go into the hall kept for travellers to get some potage and ale. When he came out, he asked the ostler if Meredydd was still the sexton.

‘I knew him some years ago,’ he lied. ‘I wondered if he was still here.’

The man grinned. ‘He can hardly go anywhere else, being as his father before him did the same job,’ he chuckled. ‘And his eldest son will succeed him one day, no doubt.’

‘I’d like a word, for old times’ sake. Where could I find him?’

‘This time of day, he’ll most likely be in the parish graveyard. A babe was buried this morning, so he’s probably tidying up there.’

There were two cemeteries at the abbey, one for the monks and priests, the other for the lay brothers and their families, as well as for the villagers who lived in the surrounding area. Owain was directed to this one, which lay against the eastern boundary wall. Here a tall, thin man of about fifty was hacking at frosted clods of turf with a mattock and placing them against a pile of earth which was obviously the pitifully small grave of an infant. He wore a coarse brown robe, quite different from the white habit and black scapular apron of a Cistercian monk, and he had no shaven patch on top of his greying hair.

‘Meredydd? God be with you!’

He spoke in Welsh, and the man jerked around suspiciously.

‘Who are you? I don’t recognise you from the village.’

He replied in the same language, but stiffly, as if he rarely used that tongue.

Owain explained who he was and cautiously opened up the reason for his visit. ‘I think we both have family obligations concerning the same matter,’ he began. ‘My great-grandfather was Meurig ap Rhys, and he brought something precious here from Carmarthen.’

Meredydd’s long face creased into a beatific smile. He dropped his hoe and advanced on Owain, gripping him on the forearms with both hands.

‘Many years ago, my father told me that he knew of a man in these parts who was descended from the Guardians, but he never approached him. That must have been your father?’

Owain nodded sadly. ‘Hywel ap Gruffydd, whom we put in the ground only this morning. That’s why I’m here, as he charged me with taking the relics to Gwynedd.’

The sexton’s eyes widened as his eyebrows rose. ‘The time has come, then? It should not be a surprise, given the evil news from Builth. If ever there was an hour of need, this must be it.’

Owain explained the hope that his father had, that the possession of Arthur’s bones might spur the remnants of the Welsh army to greater feats of courage in the coming battles with the English forces. Meredydd nodded enthusiastically and, picking up his mattock, steered Owain back towards the guest house, where he insisted on plying him with more ale, though Owain resisted his offer of food.

‘I apologize for my rusty Welsh,’ said the sexton as they sat on a bench near a large fire. ‘Since my wife died and my sons all married, I have lived in the lay brothers’ quarters near the farm, where everyone speaks English, so I am out of practice.’

‘Where are the relics now?’ asked Owain in a low voice, though there was no one within earshot in the near-deserted hall. The midday meal was long over and, with no guests travelling the winter roads so soon after Christ’s Mass, only two serving lads were in sight.

‘They are buried in the monks’ graveyard on the other side of the church,’ answered Meredydd. ‘I have never seen them, nor did my father or his father! But I know where they are.’

Owain frowned. ‘But I saw no stones or grave-markers in that place you were digging just now.’

The sexton shook his head. ‘Only eminent people like abbots and priors get an inscribed slab inside the church, though a wooden cross is often placed on the grave straight after the burial, but it is not meant to last long. A grassy mound is good enough for eternity, for God certainly knows where they are.’

‘So how can you be certain where Arthur’s remains lie? You say no one has seen them for three generations!’

Meredydd smiled and tapped the side of his long nose. ‘My father dinned it into me, as his father had done to him. There are sight lines with various parts of the abbey that mark that particular grave mound. I have often checked on it, just for curiosity. Now I am fated to be the one who actually uses those directions.’

Owain was still not completely convinced. ‘It may be that we will have to do this in the dark. Can you still find the box?’

The sexton shook his head. ‘There is no need for that. I can remove it in daylight and hide it nearby until you collect it.’

‘What if you are seen?’ said Owain, aghast at the man’s nonchalance in the face of such vital issues.

‘Unless there is a burial, no one ever goes in there, except me. And if they were to see me digging and pulling things around they would think nothing of it – that is part of my task in life.’

Before Owain left to get home before the early-winter dusk fell, he arranged with Meredydd that the sexton would dig out the casket and conceal it near the abbey farm, under a pile of hedge trashings that were waiting to be burned.

‘I can take it across on my wheelbarrow hidden under a heap of old leaves from the cemetery,’ he said confidently. ‘Then you can bring your cart and pick it up tomorrow.’

As Owain left, he fervently hoped that no one at the farm decided to have a bonfire that night.

Dewi was the one who accompanied him on the cart next day, as the miller was a freeman who operated the fulling mill for the Lord of Abergavenny, who owned it. No one breathed down his neck every hour of the day to see that he was there, and as long as the wool was washed and beaten by his three workers he could get away for most of the day. This was just as well, as Owain’s ox-cart was a slow, ponderous vehicle which took three hours to make the journey to Abbey Dore. Both Dewi’s son Caradoc and Alun wanted to go with them, but Owain felt that too many on the cart might arouse the interest of the sentries at Ewyas Harold, for, since the momentous events at Builth, the Marcher lords were nervous about possible reprisals from the Welsh and were checking on the movements of strangers.

They set out an hour after dawn, the weather having changed from its icy calm to a blustery west wind and a sky filled with heavy grey clouds. Their load was a pile of woven hazel hurdles, made in Llanfihangel and destined for Monnington, ten miles beyond Abbey Dore. Owain had to deliver them in the next few days but felt they were useful camouflage for his journey. He could leave them at the abbey farm and pick them up later, before he set off on his crusade to North Wales. As it transpired, his subterfuge was unnecessary, as the guards at the wayside castle took but a cursory glance at the wagon as it passed.

‘We’ll come back with a load of straw that I’ll buy from the abbey,’ said Owain. ‘That can conceal the box well enough, without drawing any attention.’

This plan worked well, for the straw had to be purchased from the demesne farm, where the box had been concealed overnight under its pile of hedge cuttings.When they met Meredydd, who seemed to be enjoying the intrigue immensely, he arranged for the three pennyworth of straw to be collected from an open barn and helped Owain and Dewi to load it into the cart.

‘You found the box?’ muttered Owain, as they dumped armfuls of yellow straw into the wagon.

‘It’s in my barrow. I took it from the waste heap an hour ago,’ replied the sexton. He trundled his conveyance nearer and with a quick heave slid a wooden box on to the tailboard of the cart and deftly pulled straw over it. Owain just had time to see a rectangular casket of dark oak, about the length of his arm and two-thirds as wide and deep, streaked with smears of earth.

‘Pile more straw on top of it!’ Meredydd commanded, and Dewi and Owain dropped further armfuls of last year’s wheat stalks into the cart so that there was no sign of their illicit cargo.

They gave their sincere thanks to the sexton, who Owain suspected would have joined them on their trip to Gywnedd, given the chance. ‘If anything goes wrong, you can always bring it back here,’ said Meredydd as they prepared to leave. ‘I can still pass on the sacred trust to my sons.’ He stood gazing after them as they trundled away, his Welsh fervour reawakened after all these years.

‘A good man. A pity we don’t have twenty thousand more like him,’ growled Dewi, as Abbey Dore slowly faded from view behind them.

They reached Garway without incident, the guards at Ewyas Harold taking no more notice of them than they had on the outward journey. Owain decided that he could not leave for Gwynedd for several days yet, as there were arrangements to be made with his sister and nephews. He needed to make sure they would not suffer for being linked with a felonious rebel and intended to slip quietly away with the three others. With luck, no one at Grosmont or Kentchurch would notice their absence for some time.

Madoc, who was the reeve at the farm run by the Templars at Garway Preceptory, lived in a cottage just outside the tiny cluster of houses that formed the village. The land sloped down from there towards the Monnow, the preceptory being between the village and the church. The home of the three Templars was a collection of stone buildings, with quarters for the knights, a sergeant and several lay brothers, including a few clerks, as the preceptory acted as the administrative headquarters for all the Templar properties and farms in South and West Wales.

Owain’s ox-cart creaked its way to the farm, which was separated from the preceptory by a few acres of pasture, where Madoc anxiously awaited them. They unloaded their straw into a barn, which already held a large amount, and unobtrusively slid the precious box beneath the large mound.

‘It’ll be safe enough there for a few days,’ said Madoc. ‘No one will need any of that straw. We have a different store for the horses’ bedding.’

They went over to Madoc’s dwelling where his handsome wife Olwen warmed them before the fire and fed them cawl and fresh bread.

‘Have you looked inside the box?’ asked Madoc, who was fascinated by the thought that he had actually carried the remains of the greatest figure in the ancient history of the Britons.

Owain shook his head. ‘I have kept it out of sight ever since we collected it,’ he answered. ‘But I’m not sure I want to look. These are powerful relics!’

‘Best make sure, Owain,’ said Olwen ‘You don’t want to struggle all the way to Dolwyddelan and then find you’ve given the prince a load of stones or beef bones.’

They talked it over for a while and eventually, with Dewi’s added persuasion, Owain saw the sense of Olwen’s caution and agreed to open the box briefly before taking it away.

With the evening approaching, they took their leave and the cart rumbled away, leaving the great king to slumber under a pile of straw in a Templars’ barn, perhaps an appropriate place for such a devout warrior.

When they reached Hoadalbert, Dewi left to walk the couple of miles to Pandy. After settling his oxen, Owain threw a few logs on to the smouldering ashes in his fire-pit to warm the room for the night, then he wrapped himself in a couple of blankets and, after offering up a prayer for his father’s soul, settled down on the hay-stuffed mattress in the corner.

It would be the last time he ever slept in his house.

Next day Owain was back at Madoc’s cottage and went with him down to the barton, the home farm of the Templars, to check on the bones. Owain’s presence there would cause no comment from the few lay brothers and outside labourers, as being a carter he often came to the farm. In fact the preceptory was one of his main customers, as he brought in much of their supplies and carried a lot of their produce to market in Abergavenny, Monmouth and Hereford.

They went into the barn and pulled out the large box, handling it with some reverence. Though almost a century old, the hard oak looked in good condition despite being buried for so long.

‘Just a quick look, to make sure there really are bones in there,’ said Owain, rather hesitantly.

‘It’s not locked – just a tight-fitting lid,’ observed his nephew, tentatively poking at the top edge. It took more than that to open it, as the wood had swollen and distorted over the years, and Owain had to use the edge of a large, rusty hay-knife to prise it apart. Eventually the lid creaked open on its corroded brass hinges, revealing a layer of mould-stained linen covering the contents. Gingerly pulling that aside, they gazed down on a jumbled heap of mottled brown bones, some of which even their inexpert eyes recognised as human, especially as they glimpsed the rounded calvarium of a skull. They stared for a moment in awe, then spontaneously crossed themselves and mumbled a prayer in Welsh.

‘That’s enough!’ said Owain abruptly and pulled the linen back across the remains. ‘Let greater men than us do what they must with them.’

As he was about to lower the lid, Madoc pointed to something lying between the cloth coverlet and the side of box.

‘There’s a pouch there. It might be important.’

Owain lifted it out, a damp leather bag with a drawstring, patches of green mould growing thickly on its surface. Loosening the string, he looked inside, but there was nothing there but a small quantity of yellowish slime at the bottom. With a shrug, he put the pouch back again and closed the lid, pounding the warped wood until it sat firmly in place.

They pushed the heavy box back under the straw and returned to Madoc’s house, but just as they reached the door they heard the sound of hooves coming at a canter, and a brown gelding dashed into the yard, bearing Arwyn on its back. He almost fell off in his haste and rushed across to them.

‘Owain, you must hide. They are searching for you!’ he gasped, grabbing at his uncle’s sleeve. ‘A man I often employ to help me with the thatching is working at Grosmont, and he came just now to tell me that Crouchback’s sergeant-at-arms has gone out of the castle with a couple of men to arrest you!’

Owain stared at him in surprise. ‘What the hell for?’

‘It seems someone has denounced you as a traitor, intending to join the rebels fighting the king!’ gabbled Arwyn. ‘You must flee at once – hide yourself, for when they know you are not at home in Hoadalbert, my house and this place will be their next targets!’

‘Bloody Ralph Merrick, that’s who it will be!’ snarled Madoc. ‘He’d sell his own brother to curry favour with those bastards at Grosmont.’

The two nephews hustled Owain away, urging him to vanish into the countryside for the time being and hide somewhere until he could slip away to North Wales.

‘We’ll meet you after dark at the dead elm on the banks of the Monnow,’ promised Arwyn. ‘I’ll bring some food and a blanket for you. Now go, for God’s sake. We’ll put them off with some tale about you having already gone away!’

Dazed, but responding to their genuine fears, Owain trotted out of the barton and then downhill past the church, keeping going until he reached the thickly wooded strip of land that ran along the river. He vanished into the trees and loped for a mile deeper into the woods until he found a badger sett and sank into it gratefully, pulling his cloak around him as tightly as he could. Thankfully, the really icy weather had moderated and the wind was coming from the west, which meant rain by tomorrow. He sat there pondering who might have given him away, to send him scurrying into the forest like a hunted animal. Though Madoc had immediately put the blame on Ralph, Owain could hardly believe that his own brother would denounce him to the English.

Others knew about the plan to go up to Gwynedd to join Dafydd’s army. There were the two sons, William and John, who had never got on with Owain and looked down on him as a peasant. Ralph’s wife and daughter knew of the plan, thanks to Caradoc’s big mouth, but of course there could be many others. At the Skirrid, Dewi had warned him against the landlord, though again he found it hard to accept that Eifion would knowingly betray him. What about the priest? He was a Welshman but, as far as Owain knew, he was not aware that they were planning to join Dafydd.

The culprit was probably someone working at Kentchurch, who had picked up the gossip from Ralph or one of his family. Maybe they had not denounced him directly, but gossiped with folk at Grosmont, which was very near and had close connections with the Scudamore estate.

There was nothing he could do about it now, except try to keep out of sight until he could slip out of the district and make his way north. Accepting this philosophically and giving thanks for the fact that he had no wife or children to abandon, he settled down into his badger hole and waited for dusk.

‘The swine’s not here, so let’s see if he’s holed up with his kin in Garway,’ growled the sergeant, aiming a kick at a stool, sending it flying in pieces across the room. He and one of his men had already trashed the place, ripping up the mattress and overturning the table in frustration. Outside, the others had pulled out the oxen’s hay from the byre and chased the pig from its sty, in a futile search for Owain ap Hywel.

They mounted their horses and cantered off back to Grosmont, then on past Kentchurch towards Garway, where Sergeant Shattock burst first into Arwyn’s cottage half a mile outside the hamlet and then into Madoc’s at the barton. Neither of the men were at home, and after terrifying the wives and children, who genuinely knew nothing of what was going on, they scoured the neighbourhood until they found the two brothers, who professed similar ignorance of anything amiss.

‘What our uncle intends doing is none of our business,’ protested Arwyn. ‘He never tells us anything about his own affairs.’

‘His father has just died. You shouldn’t be hounding him like this!’ declared Madoc. ‘What mischief-maker told you these lies?’

Shattock, a heavily built, florid man with a surly nature, gave the reeve a shove in the chest. ‘Watch your tongue, damn you! None of your business who told the steward. If we find you’ve been hiding him, you’ll both be wearing rope necklaces down at the castle gallows!’

They soon lost interest and rode away, the sergeant complaining that he had missed his dinner because of this futile mission. It was obvious that they were not going to take this allegation about Owain all that seriously, unless the steward, Jacques d’Isigny, sent them out once again to hunt him down.

Back at Grosmont, the sergeant went for his food before seeking out Jacques to report their failure. The castle was in state of chaos, and it was just as well that the recent defeat of the main Welsh forces had reduced any risk of a local attack, for a length of the curtain wall and one of the main towers had been pulled down in order to rebuild them according to the ambitious designs of Prince Edmund.

The steward, the principal officer of the barony and ruler of the castle when Edmund Crouchback was absent, took Shattock’s news calmly.

‘If the bastard turns up, just arrest him and then we’ll hang him,’ he said casually. ‘With the prince arriving in a few days, I’ve got better things to do than chase some local peasant.’

Jacques d’Isigny was a tall, smooth-faced man of forty, with an olive skin that suggested a family origin in southern France. He dressed in clothes that were modest in style, but of the very best quality. His calm manner hid a ruthless nature, which made him a most efficient administrator. The fact that he was the senior civil servant of the king’s brother gave him a status well above the usual steward.

As his lord was coming soon to check on the progress of the remodelling of his favourite castle, Jacques was understandably more concerned with this than catching some local renegade. If it had not been for a message from Sir Vincent Scudamore’s manor at Kentchurch, to the effect that he had been given news of this man’s seditious intentions, he probably would not have stirred himself to bother with the matter.

But by the following morning Jacques d’Isigny would be very keen to lay hands on Owain ap Hywel.

That night, Arwyn and Madoc met their uncle at the prearranged spot on the banks of the Monnow, about two miles from Garway. They took him food and a carthen, a thick woollen blanket, and sat with him in the dark while he ate his fill.

‘We’ll take your pig down to your sister and bring the oxen up to the farm,’ said Madoc reassuringly, though in fact he was worried sick, not only about Owain’s plight but also about the risk to him and his family if they were found to be giving aid to a rebel.

‘What about the relics now?’ asked Arwyn. ‘We can’t leave them in the barn for long. They’re bound to be discovered sooner or later.’

Owain shook his head sadly. ‘There’s no way I can take them up to Gwynedd now, even if I can get there myself. I doubt Dewi and the others will risk coming. It will be obvious after this treachery where they’ve gone, and their families would suffer.’

‘So what shall we do with the box?’ persisted Madoc. ‘Take it back to Abbey Dore?’

Owain considered for a moment. ‘No, not yet anyway. Find somewhere safe to hide the bones, preferably in consecrated ground. It may be that I can come back and collect them later, if Prince Dafydd thinks it’s worth while.’

They agreed and left their uncle to a solitary night, apart from the indignant badgers whose sett he was blocking. But a couple of hours later and a couple of miles distant, greater trouble was brewing.

A shadowy figure lurked within sight of the bailiff ’s house at Kentchurch Court, patiently waiting in the gloom. Though there was a half-moon, the gathering rain clouds often blocked its light, but eventually the watcher’s persistence was rewarded. Before going to bed each night, Ralph Merrick did his rounds of the farm buildings to make sure everything was secure. At the stables, the bailiff checked that the hurdles were in place across the doorways and that the two ostler-boys were sleeping in their proper places on piles of hay. He had to make sure that the chicken pens were locked against foxes and the fire damped down in the kitchen shed.

Ralph carried a lantern to light the interior of the buildings, a candle within a case that had thin sheets of pared horn as windows. As he began to walk back to the house, he thought he heard a noise in the bushes that ringed the yard. Holding up the lantern, he tried to see if there were the shining eyes of a fox or even a wolf, but the dim light of the single candle was too feeble.

Shrugging, he turned away, but after only a couple of steps there was a commotion behind him and a heavy cudgel smashed down on the back of his head. He fell like a poleaxed bull, and by further ill chance his forehead landed on a large stone embedded in the pathway.

Though the noise brought the stable-boys running to his aid, they found him deeply unconscious – and within the hour he was dead.

‘It’s that evil brother of his,’ sobbed Alice Merrick, sagging against her daughter in a melodramatic fashion. ‘He did this awful thing!’

Jacques d’Isigny motioned to his wife to help the woman to a chair, and the silent, black-haired woman moved forward to assist Rosamund in settling her mother in a leather-backed chair. They were in the first-floor chamber of the north tower of Grosmont, the sound of hammering and sawing coming through the window-slits.

‘Tell me again what happened,’ commanded the steward.

Alice related her brief tale through her sobs. ‘My husband went out to close down for the night, sir, as he always did,’ she blubbered. ‘Then one of the stable-hands rushed in to say that he was lying in the yard. There was a wound on the back of his head and a great bruise on his temple. We brought him in, but he died without recovering his wits.’

A grey-haired man, dressed in a sombre but good-quality cote-hardie, nodded his agreement. ‘I can confirm that, steward, as they came rushing up to my court to tell me my bailiff had been assaulted and I was there when the poor man died.’

This was Sir Vincent Scudamore, and Jacques was careful to be deferential to a man who was second only to Prince Edmund in the hierarchy of the district.

‘It seems this carter is the obvious suspect, sir. We were already seeking him as a renegade Welshman intent on continuing their hopeless fight.’

Sergeant Shattock, lurking near the doorway with one of his men, was bold enough to speak up. ‘We’ll get him today, sirs, never fear. I already have all my men-at-arms out seeking this Owain.’

Scudamore nodded his approval. ‘I suggest that you use my hounds in your search – their master is the son of the dead man, so he will have an added reason to succeed.’

This brought forth a fresh bout of howling from Alice Merrick, and her daughter Rosamund tried to soothe her, though the girl herself did not seem unduly distressed at the loss of her father.

Vincent Scudamore walked to the door and jerked his head at the steward to accompany him. Outside, with the sergeant in attendance, he spoke to d’Isigny in a low voice.

‘This man Owain had a dispute with my bailiff a few days ago, so one of his sons tells me. On the eve of Christ’s Mass he came to their house and uttered threats if they disclosed that he intended to go off to join the rebels in the north.’

The steward nodded. ‘So I heard from the other son, the butcher, who came with the news of the murder earlier today. Obviously the miscreant must have decided that his elder brother had revealed his treachery to us – as, of course, was his duty.’

‘And had he?’ asked Vincent bluntly.

‘No. As it happens, it came from someone else. But nevertheless, the carter exacted his revenge on your bailiff with the sin of Cain on Abel.’

The Lord of Kentchurch shook out the heavy riding cloak that he had been carrying over his arm and swirled it about his shoulders, ready to leave. ‘This is damned inconvenient, losing such a good servant,’ he snapped. ‘Now I shall have to find another to take his place.’

As he started down the steps to the cluttered bailey, which looked more like a builder’s yard, he gave an exhortation to the steward. ‘Do everything you can to find this bloody man! I’ll send John down with his hounds as soon as I get home.’

As Scudamore went to his horse, Jacques made a mental note to have the gallows put back up in the bailey, in spite of the builder’s objections.

While more than a score of soldiers and a pack of hounds were beating the countryside, Madoc and Arwyn were worrying about the box of bones as well as the safety of their uncle. The news of the bailiff ’s death had already reached Garway by noon, and they had realized that Owain would immediately be the prime suspect.

‘With all this searching, that chest is not safe under the straw,’ declared Madoc. ‘We need to hide it somewhere well away from here, best of all back in Abbey Dore. There’s no chance now that Owain will be able to take it to Gwynedd as he’d planned.’

‘He’ll be lucky to get there himself,’ growled Arwyn. ‘But how are we going to move it? It’s too big to go in the pannier of a packhorse.’

‘I’ll have to bring the oxen back here, or they’ll starve. We can use them for the time being. The preceptory has to have some transport when our uncle’s gone.’

They were standing outside Madoc’s cottage, well above the church and the preceptory, and he stared out westwards across the undulating countryside to the dark mountains that formed the edge of Wales. They agreed that Madoc would go to Hoadalbert to fetch the oxen, take the pig to Rhiannon’s house and give her the disturbing news about Owain now being a fugitive.

‘You’d better have a quiet word with Dewi in the mill,’ advised Arwyn. ‘Tell him to keep his head down for a while.’

The two brothers moved to sit on a log outside the door, each with a quart of ale brewed by Madoc’s wife Olwen. They were silent for a while, staring out over the countryside, which today at least lay under a watery sun.

‘You don’t think he could have done it, do you?’ said Arwyn eventually. ‘His mood has been desperate since Llewelyn was killed.’

Madoc looked indignantly at his younger brother. ‘For God’s sake, man! Of course not! He wouldn’t harm Ralph, other than perhaps with his tongue. He was his brother, objectionable though he might have been!’

‘Well, who did it, then?’ persisted Arwyn. ‘Someone lay in wait for Ralph and it must be a local, otherwise they wouldn’t know he had that regular round of the farm each night.’

Madoc was implacable in his defence of the uncle who had virtually brought them up.

‘Anyone with bad intentions could spy on the place for a couple of nights and discover that… and almost every bailiff does the same. And how could Owain get up there last night, when he’s holed up in a badger sett two miles away?’

Arwyn muttered something about two miles being nothing for a tough man like Owain, but he wanted to be reassured that his fears were unfounded. When their ale was finished, he went off to repair the thatch on one of the preceptory outbuildings. Madoc returned to his duties at the farm, checking on two labourers who were whitewashing the back of the calf shed, before he went for the ox-cart. In the yard he met one of the three Templar Knights who lived in the preceptory. This was Brother Robert de Longton, a thin, cadaveric man who had returned from the Holy Land some years before, following a severe illness.

‘What are all those men doing down in the lower fields, Madoc?’ he demanded.

The reeve had no option but to tell him that they were searching for his uncle, in the mistaken notion that he had murdered the Kentchurch bailiff. The Templar clucked his tongue in concern.

‘A sad thing to disturb the peace of this village. We cherish the serenity of this innocent place.’

Gathering his heavy black cloak around him, he stalked away, the eight-pointed red cross on his shoulder glowing in the pale sunlight. Madoc wondered how many Saracens he had killed in his time, which was seemingly at odds with his present pacifism.

As the warrior-monk reached the gate leading into the grounds of the preceptory, he saw that the two other Templars had appeared, John de Coningham and the preceptor himself, Ivo de Etton. They began talking earnestly and de Longton’s gesturing hand told Madoc that he was relaying the latest news to his brothers-in-God.

Later, as he set out on his pony to Hoadalbert, he saw more evidence of the soldiers from Grosmont. At the end of the strip fields sloping down to the river, iron helmets were bobbing among the bushes at the edge of the woods. As he neared the castle he saw another dozen men-at-arms marching out with menacing clubs dangling from their wrists, and when he had gone a little way along the road beyond Grosmont towards his uncle’s house the baying of hounds came clearly across the still winter air.

Saddened at the turn of events, Madoc carried on with his task, all too conscious that there was no way he could warn Owain of the new hunt for him. They had arranged to meet again at the elm, for them to give him more food. To try to find him deep in the woods along the Monnow, with all these soldiers around, would be futile and probably suicidal.

With a sigh he carried on to collect the pig in the cart and take it down to Rhiannon, who would be devastated to hear this new turn in their lives.

Owain never had any realistic hope of eluding capture, especially as he was not even aware that he was being hunted for murder rather than for being an alleged renegade.

Late that afternoon he was woken from a sleepy reverie in his badger hole by the distant sound of baying hounds. At first he thought that it was probably a hunt for deer or foxes out of Kentchurch and decided to lie low and let them pass him by.

But soon it became apparent that they were closing in, and he began to hear men shouting and the crack of snapped branches.

Owain got up and listened more intently, then decided to make for the river, to wade across and lose any scent of him that the hounds may have picked up.

He was too late. Before he had got fifty paces, a dozen hounds broke cover, including several lymers and running-dogs, which hunted by scent rather than sight. Though they did not attack him, they surrounded him and began barking and howling, so that soldiers soon crashed through the undergrowth and seized him roughly, throwing him to the ground. As he managed to look up as they lashed his wrists behind his back, he saw his nephew John Merrick calling his hounds back, managing to avoid looking at his captive uncle.

‘John, for Christ’s sake!’ he called in a strangled voice, for a burly soldier had his boot planted on his back. ‘What’s this all about? Was it you who denounced me?’

The fair-haired man dropped his gaze to Owain, with a look of hate on his face. ‘Denounce you? You mean accuse you! You killed my father, you cowardly swine!’

As he was pulled to his feet by a couple of men-at-arms, Owain stared at John in bewilderment. ‘Killed Ralph? He is dead?’

‘Don’t play the innocent! You struck him a cowardly blow from behind! Could you not fight him like a man, face to face?’

Before he could respond, Owain was dragged roughly by the rope around his wrists towards the nearest path, where Sergeant Shattock appeared, out of breath.

‘Good work, lads. You’ve got the bastard!’ He accompanied his words with a vicious punch to Owain’s face, before turning and leading them away from the river, up towards the church and the village.

‘What are we going to do with him?’ asked one of the soldiers, a rough-looking man with a face like a pig.

‘Until he’s hanged, lock him up,’ snapped the sergeant.

‘The castle’s no good, then,’ grumbled the ugly man. ‘The tower that had the lock-up has been pulled down and half the outer wall of the bailey is missing.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that!’ rasped Shattock, who until that moment had not given it a thought. He rubbed his bristly chin as he strode forward, then made up his mind. ‘We’ll use the church tower for now, until the steward decides what to do with him. That’s used as a lock-up for drunks and poachers.’

It was true that a room at the base of the massive, squat tower of Garway was sometimes used for securing petty offenders and was known by the villagers as ‘the prison’. The tower had been erected some years earlier by the Templars when they rebuilt the ancient church and added their circular nave. It was a few yards distant from the church itself and intended more as a defence against marauding Welsh than for any religious function.

Owain was dragged out of the woods and across the now-bare strip fields towards Garway. The sergeant marched ahead, then dismissed most of his men, telling them to return to Grosmont, leaving himself and three soldiers to handle Owain. After a few pointless struggles against his captors, he gave up and stumbled along behind them, staggering now and then as they gave a malicious tug to the rope that bound him.

Below the tiny hamlet, they struck up the hillside, past the grey buildings of the preceptory, to reach the church. The familiar surroundings crowded into Owain’s consciousness: the farm, which he visited so often with his cart, and the church itself where he had taken the sacrament only a few days ago.

The sergeant and his men hustled him into the churchyard and across to the tower, which stood alone like a massive stone thumb, with its four-sided conical roof and a pair of arrow-slits high up on each side.

‘Hold him there, while I get that door open,’ snapped Shattock and left them pressing their captive against the cold stone alongside a heavy door. He marched into the church through the south door and returned with a large key, almost as long as his forearm. An elderly man followed him out, with grey hair and full beard, wearing the brown habit of a Templar lay brother. Recognizing Owain, he demanded to know what trouble he was in.

‘He’s a rebel and a murderer!’ snapped the sergeant. ‘We must keep him confined until he’s hanged.’

‘Are you sure you have consent for this?’ called the sexton, as the sergeant thrust the key into a hole in the tower door.

‘It’s at the command of the steward of Grosmont – and will be confirmed by Prince Edmund when he arrives,’ lied Shattock brusquely. ‘We have no means of keeping a prisoner at the castle while the building work is going on.’

The sexton was not impressed by this, as the Templars acknowledged no one except the Holy Father in Rome as their ruler and were unlikely to take orders from a castle steward. He went muttering under his breath towards the preceptory, to see what the knights thought of the situation.

Inside the tower, which was even chillier than outside, Owain’s wrists were freed, then he was thrust into a small side-room. Its door was slammed shut and a bar dropped into stout brackets. It was entirely empty, with some mouldy straw on the floor and a low window-opening the size of Owain’s face running through the massive wall like a tunnel. He heard the big key being rattled in the outer lock and Shattock’s harsh voice telling a guard to stand outside until he was relieved.

Then there was silence.

As dusk fell, Madoc and Arwyn came into the churchyard and bribed the freezing soldier on guard with two pence to let them talk to the prisoner. Though he had the key, the man would not let them into the tower and they had to hold a conversation through the hole in the wall. They also used it to pass in the food and drink that they were going to take to him in the woods.

‘Has anyone been to see you?’ whispered Arwyn to the shadowy figure at the other end of the tunnel.

‘Brother Robert came and brought me some milk and bread a few hours ago. He asked if I wanted to confess, and I told him I had done nothing wrong, apart from wanting to fight for my country.’

Arwyn sighed. ‘For the blessed Mary’s sake, Uncle, he’s from Normandy! He’s on the side of the bloody king. You shouldn’t admit anything to him.’

‘I swore on the Cross that I had not harmed my brother, and I think he believed me.’

‘Do you know what is going to happen tomorrow?’ asked Arwyn tremulously, for he already knew the answer.

‘They’ll take me down to Grosmont, no doubt. The steward will hold a mock trial in the name of Prince Edmund, then they’ll hang me.’

His voice sounded dull and resigned, as if he’d already given up any hope. His nephews could think of nothing to say that would deny his morbid anticipation, so they turned to Arthur’s relics instead, telling him of their intention to get them back to Abbey Dore when the present emergency was over – presumably when Owain was dead and buried.

He agreed, but impressed on them the need to pass on the secret of the chest’s whereabouts to their family when the time came. Arwyn had a baby daughter, though Madoc so far had no children, but they both swore that the family obligation would be honoured.

‘Tell Rhiannon to come to Grosmont when I am arraigned,’ pleaded Owain. ‘I must see her one last time before I join my father.’

But once again fate took a hand.

Next morning Madoc and Arwyn mournfully intended to follow their captive uncle down to Grosmont Castle to meet his accusers. A couple of hours after dawn, they went to the church expecting to see Owain being taken out of his cell by his gaolers, but apart from a different soldier stamping his cold feet outside there was no sign of activity. Ignoring the guard’s eavesdropping, Madoc called through the tiny opening in the wall. ‘Owain, has anything happened yet?’

His uncle’s face appeared dimly at the other end, slightly more visible now in the eastern morning light. His voice was almost eager, different from the resigned apathy of the previous day. ‘That Father Samson from Llanfihangel Crucorney came here at first light, God bless him!’

‘What did he want? To shrive you before you hang?’ said Arwyn bitterly.

‘Not at all! He was trying to save my life.’

Owain explained that the Welsh priest had exhorted him to claim sanctuary, as he was in a church! At first he had not taken him seriously, but Father Samson was emphatic in claiming that being on consecrated ground made it legal for him to be a sanctuary-seeker and to demand his forty days’ grace, free from arrest.

Madoc gave a great shout, which startled the guard, but they ignored him. ‘I recall one of the old men in the village telling of such a case here years ago,’ he said excitedly. ‘He’d stolen a sheep from up on Garway common, but he ran to the church here and sat in the chancel, holding on to the altar for weeks. I can’t recall what happened to him.’

‘The priest says they have to call the county coroner, then after performing the right rituals, the accused can be sent out of the country,’ called Owain through his diminutive window. ‘He’s gone over to see the preceptor about it now.’

Arwyn was doubtful about this ray of hope. ‘I can’t see those swine in Grosmont accepting this! They’ll just drag him out of there – after all, it is a prison.’

‘Well, let’s go into the church, brother, and pray that it does come about,’ suggested Madoc.

Half an hour later a heated argument was going on in the preceptory yard, across the lane from the church. Sergeant Shattock had arrived on horseback with two men-at-arms and a spare horse to carry the prisoner back to Grosmont, about three miles away. Father Samson, in a rather threadbare cloak over his cassock, stood in the gateway where he had patiently awaited the expected escort and then informed them that they could not take Owain ap Hywel, as he had claimed sanctuary.

‘Don’t be damned silly, begging your pardon, Father,’ growled Shattock. ‘The fellow’s in gaol and we mean to take him out.’

‘He’s also in a church and, having declared himself a sanctuary-seeker, you can’t have him!’ said the priest stubbornly. ‘There are severe penalties laid down for violating that sacred right.’

‘He’s in bloody gaol!’ yelled the sergeant furiously. ‘Now get out of my way!’

He pushed the slightly built cleric aside and waved to his men to follow him to the church, but a stern voice rang out behind him.

‘Stop, fellow! Come back here.’

Shattock was not accustomed to being spoken to in this fashion, even by the steward or Edmund Crouchback. He swung around, ready to shower blasphemies on the speaker, but they died in his throat when he saw who was addressing him. A tall Templar Knight, flanked by two of his fellows, stood in their forbidding black winter cloaks with the red crosses. They formed an impressive sight as they regarded him impassively.

He walked back towards them, his eyes on the preceptor, Ivo de Etton, whom he knew by sight and reputation.

‘Sir, I am but carrying out my duty. I have been commanded by the prince’s steward to bring this man to the castle for trial.’

‘Well, you can’t!’ the preceptor responded flatly. ‘He is in a church and has claimed sanctuary.’

‘But he’s in the tower, sir – not even joined to the church!’

One of the other knights shook his head at the sergeant. ‘That’s of no consequence,’ said Robert de Longton. ‘Anywhere within the consecrated ground is sufficient. If he only crawled through the churchyard gate, he would still be entitled to sanctuary.’

Shattock was not going to give up easily. ‘But he’s a murderer, not just some serf who’s illegally trapped a rabbit!’

‘That’s also immaterial,’ snapped the third Templar, John de Coningham. ‘Unless it involves sacrilege, the nature of the crime does not matter.’

‘I have to take him back to Grosmont!’ yelled the stubborn sergeant. ‘They are waiting to hang him. I’ll be in big trouble if I go back without him.’

‘That’s your problem, soldier,’ snapped de Coningham. ‘And it says little for natural justice that you intend executing this man even before he goes to trial.’

Red in the face with anger, Shattock looked around and stared at the church down the lane. He was contemplating dragging Owain out of the tower and be damned to these monks, even though their reputation for battle was legendary.

The preceptor seemed to read his mind. ‘Don’t even dare think about violating our church, sergeant!’ he barked. ‘You will answer to our Grand Master himself if you do. You could suffer greatly – fines, imprisonment, even excommunication!’

In spite of his military calling, Shattock was in awe of the Church and knew that for the moment he was beaten. He was unsure if these Templars carried their swords under their cloaks, but in any event his ingrained discipline ensured that there was no way in which he was going to challenge three knights. Let the bloody steward or the Crouchback sort it out, he decided.

‘So what happens next, sirs?’ he muttered.

‘We will send to Hereford for the coroner,’ replied Ivo. ‘He has to take a confession from the prisoner and then arrange for him to abjure the realm.’

Shattock’s face reddened again in outrage. ‘You mean the sod will get away with it?’ he roared.

‘As he’s not been tried yet, we don’t know that there’s anything for him to get away with,’ said the preceptor calmly. ‘You should go back to the castle and report what has happened, and we will get the coroner here as soon as possible. I’ll send a man to Hereford straight away.’

The sergeant stomped towards the gate. ‘Prince Edmund is due shortly. He will have something to say about this!’ he warned.

‘He can say what he likes,’ responded Ivo placidly. ‘The refuge of sanctuary is older than Christianity itself, and no king or prince has any power over it. You can petition the Holy Father in Rome if you like – you might get an answer within six months!’

‘But your man will be gone long before forty days have passed,’ added Brother Robert maliciously. He had taken a marked dislike to the soldier’s arrogance.

Shattock bristled. ‘I’m not taking my guard from the door,’ he snarled as he walked into the lane. ‘If I do, that Welshman will be off quicker than a scalded cat!’

When he had gone, still fuming with injured pride, the preceptor sent John de Coningham over to the church tower to explain to Owain what was going to happen. John knew the carter well enough after Owain’s years of service to the farm and was solicitous about his well-being, checking that his nephews had brought him sufficient food and drink for the day.

‘Do I have to stay in this damned cell, sir?’ asked the captive. ‘There’s not even a bucket in here for me to use.’

The Templar considered this for a moment. ‘I see no reason why you should not move into the church. I have read in our records that there have been several sanctuary-seekers here over the years, and they have all sojourned there.’

In spite of the guard’s feeble protests, Owain was released and taken to the round nave a few yards away, where he could sit or lie on the shelf around the walls, built for the feeble and aged parishioners, as there were no chairs or pews on the floor of beaten earth.

‘I’ll send a bucket over for your use,’ promised the knight as he left. ‘Understand that if you leave the confines of the church grounds, you are liable to be slain on the spot – that is the law.’ He forced the reluctant man-at-arms to stand outside the churchyard gate, telling him that he could only act against the accused if he put a foot outside it.

Satisfied, he left the reprieved Welshman to his thoughts.

In the tower room of Grosmont, Jacques d’Isigny listened impassively to the sergeant’s ranting. Though he was annoyed at the interference of the preceptory monks in his administration of justice in the area, he had more pressing matters to deal with than some peasant who may have assaulted his own brother. Furthermore, he had no intention of standing up to the Templars, who were virtually immune from interference from Church or state, being accountable only to the Pope. If Edmund Crouchback wanted to make an issue of it when he arrived, that was up to him, but with the spectre of Thomas Becket and the consequences to Edmund’s great-grandfather still hovering, violation of sanctuary was hardly to be contemplated for such a trivial matter.

‘Make sure he does not escape from the church, but do nothing else,’ he commanded Shattock. ‘We will see what Prince Edmund advises when he comes. Until then, let the coroner deal with this lout. Maybe he will refuse to take a confession, in which case we have to wait forty days, then the coroner will close up the church and let him starve.’

The sergeant scowled, still smarting from his loss of face at Garway.

‘And if the coroner does allow him to abjure, are we to let the bastard walk away?’ he demanded.

The steward stroked his smooth chin. ‘Then we let his family and their friends know which route he is given. Maybe they can engineer some unfortunate accident on the way.’

This was Jacques’ only concern, that allowing the Welshman to escape would anger the Scudamores, who were an influential family in these parts. To see the alleged killer of their bailiff escape to a port and sail away might not be something that Sir Vincent would appreciate. His ruminations were broken by a clerk demanding his attention, as the master mason was clamouring for the steward’s attention about some problem with the grand new chimney, and Jacques put away the irritation of a Welsh felon for more immediate concerns.

Back at Garway, Madoc took time from his duties in the farm to go over again to the church, where he found Owain sitting against the wall in the peculiar round nave, staring at the great Norman arch that led into the chancel, which was the original old church.

‘I didn’t kill Ralph, you must know that,’ he said, turning his face to his nephew.

‘I never thought for a moment that you did,’ replied Madoc loyally. ‘Though I’m damned if I know who did.’

‘Much as my brother and I had our differences, I’m sure he didn’t denounce me to the castle as a rebel,’ he said bitterly. ‘It must have been his scrawny wife or one of those sons of his.’

Madoc shrugged and spoke of more immediate matters. ‘The Templars, bless them, seem to be on your side. At least they don’t make judgments without any evidence.’

‘What’s going to happen to me, lad?’

‘The preceptor has sent Edwin on a horse to Hereford, to notify the coroner. He should be back with news by tonight.’

Owain was hazy about how the English legal system worked. ‘What happens then?’

Madoc had questioned Robert de Longton about this, as he was the most approachable of the three Templar Knights. ‘It seems the coroner has to take your confession, then send you to a harbour to take ship out of England, never to return.’

‘Suits me, though where the hell am I to go?’

‘France or Ireland are the usual places, now that Wales has been declared part of England by that evil king of theirs,’ replied Madoc. ‘But you could get back to Gwynedd from Ireland.’

‘How can I make a confession when I didn’t do anything?’

His nephew shrugged. ‘If it saves your neck, does it matter? God will know you are innocent.’

Owain looked up to make sure that no one was within earshot, especially the guard. ‘What about the relics? Are they still safe?’

Madoc nodded. ‘But we can’t leave them there much longer. Someone will soon need straw and then the box would almost certainly be found.’

‘Can you not take them straight back to Abbey Dore and get Meredydd to bury them again?’

His nephew nodded. ‘That’s what we intend doing, but it’s a day’s work and we can’t leave you while all this coroner business is going on.’ Deciding that he had better get back to work, he emptied Owain’s bucket at the edge of the churchyard and left his uncle to his lonely vigil in the nave.

It was dusk when he arrived back with Arwyn to take Owain more food and tell him that they had sent a message by one of the farm boys to Rhiannon, who would come to see him the next day, walking the miles from Pandy and back.

One of the Templar lay brothers had given him a rushlight, and he sat in the gloom with the yellow glow illuminating his face as they came in. He had news for them too, as the messenger who had gone to Hereford had returned with the news that the coroner would come the day after tomorrow. He had sent instructions that a sackcloth robe be prepared for the confession and that the sanctuary-seeker should himself fashion a cross from wood found in the churchyard, the standard accoutrements for anyone abjuring the realm.

‘Have you heard any news from Kentchurch Court?’ asked Owain. ‘I’ll not be able to go to my brother’s burial now. Much as we disagreed about almost everything, he was still of my family.’

‘I doubt that we would be very welcome there either,’ said Arwyn ruefully. ‘They look on us as your sons, rather than nephews, so we’d not be popular at the funeral.’

‘So who did slay Ralph?’ pondered Madoc. ‘Though from what I’ve heard, it was him falling on to a rock with his forehead that killed him, rather than the blow on the back of his head, so maybe the assailant just wanted to hurt him.’

Owain shrugged in the gloom, ‘Whatever happened, I certainly had no part in it. I was skulking down in the woods by the river that night.’

‘Bailiffs are not popular people,’ observed Arwyn. ‘He used to hold the manor court quite often and must have sent scores of poachers and other miscreants to the stocks – or laid heavy fines on them. Maybe one of those decided to get his revenge.’

‘Let’s not concern ourselves with that now,’ said Madoc. ‘We have enough to worry about with getting Owain out of here alive.’

The coroner, Humphrey de Bosco, was a heavy, short-necked man with a red face and bulbous nose that suggested his fondness for the wine flask. A knight with a small manor near Hereford, he had fought briefly in the Irish wars and then, mainly for lack of any other candidate for this unpaid task, had been appointed coroner, which he pursued with no great enthusiasm.

Arriving at the preceptory on a grey mare, he first accepted some liquid refreshment, then went over to the churchyard with one of the Templar clerks, as he had brought no one to record the proceedings. A small crowd had assembled outside the lychgate that led into the churchyard, including Madoc, Arwyn and their aunt Rhiannon. Several of the preceptory lay brothers were there, as well as their sergeant, in his brown habit and cloak. Standing well apart was another sergeant, Shattock from the castle, holding a watching brief with one of his men-at-arms.

The chaplain from the preceptory, who aided the parish priest in conducting the holy offices, led out Owain, who was dressed in a rough smock of hessian, with a length of thin rope for a girdle. He had made a crude cross from two branches from the churchyard trees, lashed together with twine.

‘Let’s get on with this. I want to get back to Hereford before nightfall,’ grunted the coroner, indicating that the supplicant was to kneel before him at the gate. He was illiterate, but had learned the ritual phrases by heart and began to gabble rapidly in Norman French, before offering a shortened version in English. ‘You have to confess your crimes, fellow,’ he grunted.

‘What am I to confess? I murdered no one!’ answered Owain stubbornly. His nephews groaned when they heard him throwing away his last chance of survival.

De Bosco glowered at him. ‘Are you going to waste my time after riding all this way?’ he bellowed. ‘I’m told you killed a man – your brother, no less!’

Owain shook his head vehemently. ‘I killed no one. But if it pleases you, I’ll confess to being a true Welshman, one willing to fight for his country.’

The coroner was in no mood for arguing. ‘Sedition and rebellion!’ he grunted. ‘That’ll do me – you’ve confessed to that.’

Owain then had to repeat a formal declaration of confession and take an oath of abjuration, before de Bosco again gabbled a long instruction in French, from which Owain was able to pick out enough words to get the gist of what the coroner was saying. He would have to take the shortest route to the port of Chepstow, wearing a white robe and not straying from the high road even to walk on the verge. He must not spend more than two nights at any one place – which was a pointless rule, as Chepstow was less than twenty miles away.

‘When you get to the harbour, you must take passage on the first ship,’ rumbled the coroner, suddenly switching to English. ‘If there is no ship, you must wade out into the tide each day up to your knees, to show your eagerness to depart!’

After muttering some more half-understood phrases, he gave the kneeling Owain a shove with his foot that sent him sprawling on the ground, then he turned and addressed the dozen people watching the proceedings with mystified curiosity.

‘Let no man interfere with this man as he abjures the realm. As long as he keeps to the road, he is inviolate. But should he depart from it, he becomes an outlaw and any of you is entitled to behead him without peril to yourselves!’

With this morbid injunction, Humphrey de Bosco left without so much as a glance at Owain, and headed back to the preceptory, where Ivo de Etton had promised him food and especially more drink before he set off back to Hereford.

The onlookers drifted away and Sergeant Shattock took his bad temper back to Grosmont to report. Though the new abjurer legally had thirty-seven days left to stay unmolested in the church, he was keen to be off before anything worse happened, such as the arrival of Edmund Crouchback, who might decide to ignore sanctuary and seize him for his gallows.

‘You can’t start today. It’s well after noon,’ advised the chaplain. ‘Stay in the church again for tonight, and we’ll find you a white robe in which to make an early start for Chepstow in the morning.’

Afterwards, Owain sat in the church porch with his sister, his nephews and their wives, eating and drinking the victuals that the women had brought. It was almost a festive occasion, as although they knew that Owain was leaving, probably for good, at least he was alive. Later, when the women had gone, the men had a serious discussion.

‘I don’t trust any of those from Kentchurch or Grosmont,’ said Madoc. ‘They’ll not take this as calmly as it seems. I’m sure the bastards will have some plan up their sleeves.’

They discussed contingency plans for a while, then Owain asked about the relics.

‘We’ll take them back to Abbey Dore the day after tomorrow,’ promised Madoc. ‘We want to be on hand when you step outside that churchyard gate.’

After a good breakfast, again brought by his nephews’ wives, Owain pulled on a plain white tunic supplied by the Templars, though it was bare of their striking red insignia. Grasping his makeshift cross, he went with Madoc and Arwyn to the churchyard gate and, with a slight hesitation at leaving his safe sanctuary, stepped out into the lane. Embracing his sister, as well as Olwen and Bronwen, they said fervent farewells, with wishful hopes that one day he would come back to them from Gwynedd.

Then he set out past the preceptory, where several of the lay brothers stood to wish him Godspeed, and plodded up to the road that ran through the village. The route from Garway to Chepstow first went eastwards to Skenfrith, then south through Monmouth and down the Wye Valley. His two nephews were firm in their decision to escort him for the first few miles. Somewhat to their surprise, Dewi and his son Caradoc arrived from Pandy to join them.

‘Like you, I don’t trust those sods from Kentchurch,’ Dewi growled to Madoc. ‘Nor the bastards from Grosmont!’

As they walked steadily down the long incline towards the Monnow, leaving the strip fields for dense woodland on either side, Owain and his escort looked suspiciously around them for any signs of men lurking in the trees. Every few hundred paces, Arwyn looked behind him to make sure that they were not being followed. Owain was careful to keep in the centre of the narrow road, well away from the verge, even though there was no one in sight.

‘Once well away from the village, I’ll be safe enough,’ he protested. ‘You can’t come all the way to Chepstow!’

‘We’ll keep with you as far as Skenfrith,’ declared Madoc. ‘I doubt even those bloody cousins of mine will stray further afield than that.’

He was not sure what they would do even if they were attacked, for since the king’s edict they dare not carry swords or maces and had to rely on the usual countryman’s knife on their belt and a stout staff or a cudgel in the hand. The five men strode warily onwards, keeping in a tight group, but as nothing untoward happened after the better part of an hour they began to relax.

‘A pity about the relics,’ said Dewi. ‘It would have been a great boost to have got them up to Prince Dafydd. If that swine of a brother of yours – begging your pardon, Owain – had not betrayed you, all this would not have come about and you could have taken the bones up north.’

‘We’re not certain it was Ralph who told Grosmont about him,’ said Madoc.

‘It was either him or one of his poxy family,’ growled the fuller. ‘I admit it was the fault of this stupid boy of mine, but no one else there knew of your intention to join the prince’s army.’

‘At least the bones will be as safe as they were before,’ said Arwyn, anxious to damp down any controversy. ‘We’ll get them back to the abbey tomorrow.’

Further talk was suddenly brought to a stop by a warning cry from young Caradoc, who was walking slightly ahead of them.

Around a bend in the track, between tall trees that came right to the verge, they saw the figures of four men sliding out of the wood and menacingly blocking the road. Owain recognized his two nephews, John and William Merrick, as well as a blacksmith from the Kentchurch barton and a soldier from the castle, now without his uniform jerkin and helmet. This last man brandished a sword, and the others had clubs and knives.

They advanced towards Owain and his friends, yelling insults and threats, though Madoc sensed that they were disconcerted to find Owain escorted by four other men.

‘Out of our way, damn you!’ yelled Madoc. ‘The coroner laid a charge on all men to give safe passage to an abjurer, on pain of the most severe penalties.’

‘Yes, he said the highway is a place of safety!’ hollered Arwyn. ‘You can be hanged and excommunicated for violating the law.’ He felt that stretching the truth a little was justified.

Though the two sons of Ralph hesitated, the soldier and the farm worker seemed indifferent to cautions and rushed at them, waving their weapons, leaving William and John to scream allegations of murder at their uncle, before lumbering after the first two men.

It was five to four, but one of the attackers had a sword. A melee began immediately, and Owain, the only experienced campaigner, reversed his stout cross and began laying about him as his companions also started flaying around them with their clubs and knives. The first casualty was the blacksmith, who made the mistake of attacking Owain with his staff and received a stunning blow from the end of the abjurer’s cross, which laid him senseless in the road.

Madoc and Arwyn were not inhibited by family constraints in squaring up to their cousins, and a spirited battle with staves and cudgels began, while Dewi and his son Caradoc took on the man-at-arms with the sword. Caradoc danced behind him and swiped at him repeatedly with the heavy stick he carried, trying to stop the soldier from jabbing his broadsword at his father. He failed, and Dewi received a severe wound across his left shoulder which sent him staggering, blood pouring from between the fingers of his other hand. His son, screaming with rage, belaboured the attacker, managing to land several blows with his cudgel that sent the soldier staggering, giving Owain the chance to land another few on him with his penitent’s cross that sent the fellow groaning to the ground.

It was all over within a couple of minutes, as the two Merrick sons, seeing both their accomplices stretched out on the road and their stronger cousins gradually beating them back, suddenly threw down their weapons and raised their hands in the air.

‘Enough, we give in!’ yelled John, dropping to his knees in supplication. He and his brother were grabbed by Madoc and Arwyn, but there was no fight left in them. Then they were ignored, as Owain and Caradoc shouted for their attention. These two had gone to Dewi, who had slumped to the grass at the edge of the track, his head on his chest.

‘My father, he’s badly wounded!’ wailed Caradoc, dropping to his knees alongside the stricken man.

Owain saw the bright red blood still pumping from between Dewi’s fingers, running down his chest on to the ground, and knew that this was a mortal injury. Ignoring the Merricks, he called Madoc and Arwyn to his side. ‘We can try to get him back to the hospitaller at the preceptory, but I fear it will be of little use,’ he murmured to them as Caradoc cradled his father in his arms, tears streaming down his face.

‘He’s trying to say something,’ he sobbed. ‘He wants you, Owain.’

Kneeling in the dirt of the road, Owain put his head near that of his old friend, to catch the words coming from his weakening lips.

‘I brought this on you, Owain. I am sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I had so much hate for that Ralph, who not only shamed my son by forbidding him his daughter, but betrayed you to the English.’

‘Are you saying you killed him, Dewi?’ said Owain incredulously.

‘I didn’t mean to… just injure him. But he fell on to a rock…’

His voice tailed off and his head slumped down again. He was not yet dead, but certainly dying.

Owain rose, leaving Caradoc to try to comfort his father, and walked over to his other nephews. William and John were aghast at having been involved in a death, even though it was not their hand that had directly caused it.

‘Did you hear what he said?’ he asked in a voice like steel.

William nodded. ‘He killed our father, not you,’ he said shamefacedly.

‘Dewi attacked your father because he believed Ralph had denounced me,’ grated Owain. ‘Was he right about that?’

John lifted his bowed head and shook it. ‘It was our mother. She never liked you and told that sergeant at the castle, when she saw him at Grosmont market. When father was killed, we all assumed it was you getting revenge.’

Madoc and Arwyn, who had been listening, interrupted them.

‘Now that it’s clear you are no murderer, you can come back to the village,’ pleaded Arwyn.

Owain shook his head. ‘Maybe no killer, but still a hunted rebel. I’ve been granted sanctuary and the chance to leave the country and I’m taking it.’

He turned to the Merrick brothers. ‘You’ll have some explaining to do about all this!’ He swept his arm across the two fallen men in the road and the dying man on the verge.

‘Madoc and Arwyn, you had better get these stupid relations of ours to help you carry poor Dewi back to the preceptory – though I fear you will be carrying a corpse for most of the way.’

He embraced them both, then picked up his battered cross and strode away down the road.

After another mile, he checked that the track was deserted, then tossed his cross into the bushes and vanished into the trees.

From the start, he had had no intention of going anywhere near Chepstow and now he went deeper into the forest to wait until dusk, when he would make his way across country back to Pandy. He had already arranged with Rhiannon for her to collect clothes and a hidden cache of money from his cottage. With a backpack of food, he would then slip away into the nearby Black Mountains and work his way northwards to Gwynedd.

It was a pity he was unable to take Arthur’s bones, but at least they would soon be safe again and ready to await some future crisis that might afflict the true Britons.

The old ox-cart once again creaked its way back to Abbey Dore without incident, the heap of straw concealing the stout oaken box in the back. Madoc and Arwyn were the Guardians this time and sought out the sexton without difficulty.

Meredydd heard out their tale philosophically and readily agreed to resume care of the relic box and make sure that its position was safeguarded by being passed on to the next generation.

‘But I can’t put it back in that same grave again,’ he announced. ‘The soil was disturbed so much getting it out that it might be too obvious if I go digging the same spot up again so soon.’

‘Where can you put it, then?’ asked Arwyn. ‘We want the king’s relics to be in consecrated ground.’

The sexton nodded. ‘They will be, never fear. There’s a convenient hole appeared at the base of the cemetery wall, there on the north side. Looks as if a vixen or a badger was trying to make herself a den.’

They went to the abbey farm and discreetly shifted the chest from the ox-cart to a wheelbarrow, but this time helped to cover it with earth.

‘I’d have to fill in this pit anyway,’ said Meredydd. ‘So the bulk of the box will save me carrying at least one load of soil.’

They watched him contentedly pushing his barrow towards the cemetery and as he vanished through an arch in the wall.

Madoc crossed himself and murmured: ‘Pray God will keep Arthur safe until next he’s needed!’

Historical note

The extraordinary church at Garway is one of the few in Britain to reveal evidence of the round Templar naves, thought to represent the Temple in Jerusalem. It had a separate fortified tower, the ground floor of which is still known locally as ‘the prison’. Garway’s preceptory administered all the Templar properties in Wales and had three resident knights at the time of the suppression of the order in 1307.

The Skirrid Inn is the oldest in Wales and a contender for the oldest and most haunted in Britain. It still has a hangman’s rope dangling in the stairwell, some hundred and eighty executions having been carried out there, the last in Cromwell’s time.

The Scudamore family still lives in Kentchurch Court, after almost a thousand years’ residence.