The Splintered Kingdom

Fourteen

We came upon Mathrafal around mid-morning, skirting the fields to its west, keeping our distance in case Eudo and his patrol had been mistaken and there were more of them lying in wait than they had been able to see. The place was just as he and Haerarddur had described: a cluster of halls and storehouses within a square enclosure around one hundred paces on each side, with stout ramparts and a moat surrounding it, and a scattering of houses beyond that.

Hearth-smoke rose from the buildings; from our vantage on the hillside I spied flashes of movement within the fort as men rushed back and forth, climbing the ladders on to the catwalk behind the palisade. They had seen us, though they needn’t have feared, for I had no intention of approaching them. Their spearpoints and shield-bosses gleamed dully under overcast skies: I counted three dozen men at least, and those were just the ones I could see. Enough, probably, to hold the walls for hours, especially if they also had bows with arrows, and javelins that they could throw down at us. Even though we’d overwhelm them eventually, it would cost the lives of more men than we could spare.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ithel and Maredudd exchange a look, though they knew better than to try to challenge me again. My mind was set and they would not change it.

Leading away from that camp, following the river valley to the north, were several cart-tracks. Riding hard, we followed them, stopping only to give our horses drink, keeping well away from any sign of settlement where we could. I did not want the men to become distracted with ideas of plunder.

That didn’t stop the folk who lived in those places running like rabbits at the very sight of us, driving their animals and carrying those children who were too small to run towards the safety of the trees or the hills on the other side of the river. Once, I sent Serlo out with a handful of men to cut off a few of the stragglers. He returned having captured a family of five, all of them curly-haired and with a thin, wasted look about them. They told us of a great army that had marched through only the previous evening, whose vanguard had borne the banner of a scarlet lion with an azure tongue, upon a straw-coloured field.

‘The banner of the house of Cynfyn. Of Rhiwallon and Bleddyn,’ said Ithel, who was again translating for me. As the day had gone on his mood had lightened somewhat, though his brother still kept his distance, and regarded with me hostility whenever I happened to glance his way.

‘How many passed this way?’ I asked.

The question was put to the father of the family, a man of more than forty years with iron-grey hair. Gazing at his feet, shivering with fear, he mumbled something so quietly as to be incomprehensible.

‘Pa niuer ynt wy?’ Ithel barked. The man hesitated before speaking, and I saw the lump in his throat as he swallowed. Eventually he answered, more loudly this time, though still he could not muster the courage to look up from the ground.

‘Hundreds upon hundreds,’ Ithel said. ‘Two thousand, or possibly more.’

I swore under my breath. Were that true, they outnumbered Earl Hugues’s force by some margin, which made it all the more crucial that we found some way to add our men to his in the battle to come, either by reaching him beforehand or, failing that, by trailing the enemy until the fighting started, at which point we might catch them in the rear.

‘He doesn’t know for certain,’ Ithel said. ‘He begs that you have mercy upon him and his family.’

I glanced at the wretched man standing with his family gathered close around him. His two young daughters clutched at the skirts and the sleeves of their mother, who was doing her best to comfort them. I met her eyes, grey-blue like Leofrun’s. With all that had happened recently, I had thought little about her or my unborn child, who very soon would be making his way into this world. Guilt filled me, but it was a guilt tinged with anger. Anger at the Welsh and their English allies for having torn me away from them and from Earnford. At myself, too, for having abandoned them, for having allowed my foolish desire for respect and renown to get the better of me, to bring me to this point.

I tore my gaze from those eyes, unable to look at them any longer.

‘Send them away,’ I said. ‘We ride on.’

The skies grew darker as heavy cloud swept in from across the mountains. Rain followed, hammering at us in furious bursts, driven by a piercing wind that buffeted our flanks. Soon we were soaked to the skin, our tunics and packs heavy with water. By then we must have been marching for some twelve hours. With every mile our pace was slackening, although it was the animals that were tiring more than the men. They had toiled hard for several days, and I was starting to worry whether they would be fresh enough for the battle to come.

A little after noon the river was joined by a smaller stream that we had to ford. Here another set of tracks joined those we had been following, although whether the two bands had met here, or whether one had passed through before the other, was impossible to tell. Both sets looked newly laid, with ox dung that stank as if it were fresh.

‘How recently do you think they were here?’ I asked Serlo, who crouched beside me as we took a closer look at the tracks.

‘Not more than half a day ago, if you’re asking me.’

Neither of us were especially knowledgeable about such things, but that was roughly what I had been thinking too. We were gaining ground on them, quicker than I would have expected, though I supposed they would be slowed down by the carts carrying their baggage and supplies.

Again I had sent scouts ahead of the main party to find out where the enemy were and, if possible, to seek out the Wolf and carry word to him of where we were, for he had to be close now also. If he had any sense he would be waiting for them to come to him, presumably standing his ground where the country afforded good protection: perhaps within the ringworks of some hill fort, like the one we had found the previous night. Somewhere obvious, at any rate, where the sight of his banners flying would be sure to incite the enemy and draw them into attacking him. I asked the princes if there was any such place close by.

‘None that I can think of in Mechain,’ Maredudd replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

I frowned, not recognising the name. ‘Mechain?’

‘That’s what they call this part of Powys,’ his brother explained. ‘There is good grazing here but it has never been especially prosperous, and there is little that is worth defending.’

I sincerely hoped that the Wolf knew what he was doing, and that he was ready for the enemy advance. In the meantime we marched on, waiting for our scouts to return. After another hour, one did. He had seen forty horsemen taking shelter from the rain in the ruins of an old mill at a river bend not two miles ahead of us along the valley.

‘They had eight carts with them, each led by two oxen,’ said Giro, for that was his name. ‘Probably a dozen barrels in each cart.’

Supplies for the main host, I guessed; perhaps part of the baggage train that was lagging behind the rest. ‘How are they armed?’

‘Four appeared to have swords; those ones wore mail shirts, but no coifs or chausses. The rest had only knives; a handful had helmets.’

‘Not a war-band, then,’ I said. ‘If they were, they’d be better armed than that.’

Giro shrugged. ‘I don’t know, lord.’

Easy prey, I thought. And if we could capture a few, we might find out how the rest of their army was disposed.

‘Time for the hunt to begin,’ I said.

The rain had eased a little by the time we caught sight of them an hour later, though they seemed in no hurry to move off. Their oxen had been unhitched from the carts and were grazing contentedly, while the horses were tethered to stakes not far from the mill. The building had been abandoned some time ago, to judge by the state of the timbers and the clumps of brambles and nettles growing around it. The roof had mostly collapsed, and I wondered that they should have chosen this place to shelter, especially when there were woods nearby. Running parallel to the river about a hundred paces from its banks was a low stone wall, although it looked in poor repair, with several gaps.

‘What’s your plan, lord?’ Giro asked. He had shown me to the crest from where he had first spotted the horsemen, where a copse concealed us from view.

I’d hoped to weaken them with a volley from Maredudd’s archers, but the ruins gave them enough protection that it would be a waste of arrows. At the same time if we charged upon them, they would easily see us coming in time to get away. But as I gazed down the valley, suddenly a strategy presented itself.

‘Do you see the thicket on that rise?’ I asked Giro, pointing to a spot about a mile and a half to the north. There the valley’s slopes fell away sharply towards the river, forming a natural gap of flat ground less than a hundred paces wide through which we might drive the enemy, as if through the neck of a bottle. ‘Take word back to the princes Ithel and Maredudd. Tell them to take a hundred of their spearmen and all their archers along the ridge and to wait at that spot. We will drive the enemy towards them.’

A continuous line of trees ran along the top of the ridge to that rise, which would help provide cover for the Welshmen as they moved into position, and would with any luck prevent them being spotted from the mill.

‘And the others, lord?’ Giro asked.

‘They’re to join us here. We will trap the enemy with the river at their backs.’

There was no bridge close by, and the waters looked too deep and fast-running to be fordable. We would drive the horsemen into a corner, or else further up the valley, into the ranks of the Welsh shield-wall. Either way they would be forced to surrender.

That, at least, was the plan. No sooner had the rest of our host assembled in that copse than Berengar was barging through the ranks towards me, his face a picture of fury.

‘Out of my way,’ he said as he shouldered his way past Pons and Turold.

‘Quiet,’ I hissed. ‘What do you want now?’

‘What kind of a fool are you, sending the Welshmen on ahead? How do you expect to be able keep an eye on them now?’

I bridled, but somehow managed to keep my calm. ‘Keep an eye on them?’

‘Don’t you realise what will happen? Or are you blind as well as stupid?’

‘Berengar-’

‘They will betray us,’ he snarled, his face so close to mine that spittle struck my cheek. ‘And it will be your fault. Fitz Osbern made a mistake when he made you leader of this expedition, but we are the ones who will pay for it.’

‘That’s enough,’ Turold said. ‘Know your place-’

But Berengar wasn’t listening. ‘You will kill us,’ he said. ‘You will kill us all with your foolishness! Am I the only one who sees it?’

Serlo clamped a hand on his shoulder. Berengar whirled about, faster than I would have thought a man of his size could manage, thrusting his elbow in Serlo’s face. Suddenly the knight was reeling, clutching at his nose as blood spilt through his fingers.

Without pausing to think I lunged at Berengar. He wasn’t expecting it and in spite of his weight I managed to topple him. The two of us crashed to the ground, and I was on top with both hands gripping his throat, throttling him, until suddenly I felt hands on my arms and around my torso, tearing me away and dragging me to my feet.

‘Tancred!’ someone shouted in my ear, and in the other, ‘Forget him, lord. He’s worth less than a goat’s turd.’

I struggled, but it was no use. Slowly I came to my senses to find Wace and Pons either side of me, pinning my arms and preventing me from moving. Berengar lay on the ground, red-faced with anger, breathlessness and, I suspected, more than a touch of embarrassment. He struggled to get up, helped by his knights. He spat in my direction, his eyes filled with a look of such hatred and vengeance as I had rarely seen.

‘You go too far, Breton,’ he said. ‘Too far!’

I was about to reply, when something else caught my attention. About forty paces away, some of the knights had left their horses and broken from the line and were pursuing another figure through the undergrowth. They had mail and shields to slow them down, however, whereas he had none, and I saw that they would not catch them.

‘Hey,’ one said. ‘Get back here!’

It took me a moment to realise what had happened. While the men guarding him had been distracted, Haerarddur, the Welshman we had captured at Caerswys, had managed to get away from them. Now he was crashing through nettles and branches, half stumbling over exposed roots, making for the open ground beyond the woods.

Swearing, I shook off the hands of Pons and Wace. ‘Fetch me Nihtfeax!’ I said, in an instant forgetting about Berengar.

Already Haerarddur had reached the fields that lay between the copse and the mill, and now he began waving his arms wildly, shouting something in Welsh. A warning, I guessed, for through the leaves and the branches suddenly I spied movement by the ruined mill as men came to see what was going on. So much for our surprise attack, I thought.

My destrier was brought to me by Snocca. I took the reins and a javelin from Cnebba as I worked my feet through the stirrups and gripped the crossed straps of my shield in my palm.

‘Go! Go now!’ I shouted to my conroi and to all the other lords. ‘Ride!’

We burst out from the trees in pursuit of the Welshman, who for all his years was a fast runner. The enemy had been slow to react, at first seemingly bemused at the sight of one of their countrymen flailing down the hill, but suddenly they understood. They rushed to their horses, mounting up and hacking with knives and swords at the ropes that tethered them. They had seen our numbers, and none among them wished to fight.

Behind me our war-horn blasted out. At its bellow Haerarddur risked a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder. He saw us bearing down on him but he did not stop running; in fact if anything it seemed to spur him on, though he must have known that he could not hope to outpace us.

I hefted my javelin tightly, drew it back, then hurled it at his exposed back. It sailed through the air, wobbling in the air as it descended before striking home. The steel point drove through his ribs and out the other side. He sank to his knees, gasping for breath that would not come, clutching in vain at the spearhead protruding from his chest. Eudo was not far behind. He swerved to the left to give his sword-arm room, and then it was just as if he were practising against cabbages at the stakes in the training yard. He swung the blade down; the edge sliced through the Welshman’s neck, in one blow severing the head with its lank hair and gaping mouth, sending it flying. It landed amidst the long grass at the same time as the rest of the corpse collapsed forward.

Ahead of us stood the low stone wall, and beyond that the mill and the river. The last few enemy horsemen were making their escape, and in their hurry to get away they left behind their carts and their oxen. The animals had been spooked by the sound of the horn and the sight of us riding hard towards them, and now they were scattering in all directions, lolloping in ungainly fashion.

The enemy had a couple of hundred paces on us, but as long as Ithel and Maredudd were ready for them that should not matter. We would drive the enemy into range of the Welshmen’s bows. Between the two halves of our host they would find themselves trapped with no place to go.

Blood pounded through my skull as I yelled out, ‘On, on, on; for Normandy!’

The cry was passed down the line as we spurred on across the meadows. A few pulled ahead of me, their mounts enjoying the feeling of open ground beneath their hooves. Normally I would have called on them to keep formation, but the only thing that mattered now was speed. Most of the enemy were not burdened by hauberks and chausses as we were, which meant that even though their horses were smaller than ours, they were beginning to open the distance. Already they had almost reached the bottom of the rise where I had sent Maredudd and Ithel with their men. I hoped they were in place; any moment now a flurry of arrows should be let loose from out of those trees, the spearmen would march out from their hiding place and form a shield-wall to block off the valley floor, and we would fall upon the enemy from behind.

Except that the arrows did not come. Nor was there any sign of the spearmen, and still the enemy were drawing away from us.

‘Faster!’ I shouted, for all the good that it would do. ‘Faster! Ride harder!’

The enemy passed beneath the rise, not one hundred paces from the thicket where our Welsh allies were supposed to be waiting. I gripped the straps of my shield in one hand, the reins in the other, as silently I prayed to God and all the saints: let the arrows fly. But still they did not. Where were they? Unless they had found a better position further ahead, though I couldn’t work out where. Beyond that thicket, the valley broadened out and the only cover was provided by the thorny briar patches beside the riverbank.

Hooves thudded upon the soft ground, kicking up turf and stones. Nihtfeax’s mane whipped in the wind; my cheeks were wet from the drizzle blowing in my face. I dug my heels in, drawing every last ounce of strength that I could from his legs.

‘For Normandy,’ someone shouted close by my flank. I risked a glance and saw that it was Eudo, his eyes filled with the battle-joy and the thrill of the charge, fixed on the horsemen ahead of us. ‘For King Guillaume!’

And that was when it happened, so quickly that at first I could not quite comprehend it. A cluster of black lines shot out from the thicket, their silver points bearing down not upon the enemy but upon us. There was a sharp whistle of air as one passed no more than a hand’s span by my helmet, another dropped just in front of Nihtfeax’s hooves, and then they were everywhere, raining down in their dozens and their scores.

‘Shields!’ I heard someone cry, and it might even have been me except that it sounded somehow distant, and I couldn’t remember having willed myself to speak.

After that all was confusion. Even when it was all over, still I struggled to recall exactly the order of things. Whoever gave the warning, it came too late. Horses shrieked as steel pierced their flanks and their riders were thrown from the saddle. Some of the knights had slowed, uncertain what to do, but that only made them easier targets. Others tried to turn their mounts too quickly; the beasts went down in a writhing mess of hooves and grass, earth and blood, falling upon their masters and crushing them. Not ten paces ahead of me, one of Wace’s men caught an arrow in the neck, the point piercing his ventail. He tumbled backwards across his horse’s flank, dead even before he hit the ground.

‘Retreat,’ Wace was shouting, ‘Retreat!’

Another volley of arrows shot out from the trees, arcing over the meadows that sloped down from the rise. From out of the clump emerged spearmen in their scores, beating their spear-hafts and their sword-hilts upon the rims of their shields, raising the battle-thunder as they marched to meet us.

My first thought was that Berengar had been right: that the princes had indeed betrayed us. After everything, I ought to have listened to him. A furious heat rose up inside me: at the brothers for having deceived us for so long; at myself for having failed to see it.

‘Back,’ I called, waving to catch the attention of my knights. Some dozen or so lay on the ground, blood coursing from wounds that would not be healed. ‘Conroi with me!’

On either side of me shafts thudded into the sodden turf. Nihtfeax wheeled about and then we were galloping back in the direction we had come, towards the mill, where the rest of our host were now rallying, drawing up in their ranks and their conrois.

That was when I saw Ithel and Maredudd together with their teulu galloping down from the ridge: forty or fifty men on horseback with pennons of gold and green on their lances. Behind them, running and stumbling over the tussocks, came an assortment of foot-soldiers with leather jerkins, bows in hand or else slung over their shoulders, and a few with bucklers strapped to their arms.

Except that it didn’t seem as if they were coming to attack us, but rather as though they were in flight. I soon saw why. From the woods that ran along the ridge emerged an array of shield-bosses and spearpoints: too many to count, but at a guess I’d have said there were easily more than a thousand. In the centre of the line flew two identical banners that I recognised in an instant, even though I had never before seen them with my own eyes. Banners in pale yellow, each emblazoned with a scarlet lion that had a tongue of blue. The symbol of the house of Cynfyn. Of the self-proclaimed kings Rhiwallon and Bleddyn.

A chill ran through me as I stared at it, my mouth too dry even to let out a curse. I had thought to trap some of the enemy horsemen, when in fact they themselves had been but the morsel in a larger snare.

And I had taken it. Like a fish to a hook I had been drawn in, and now we faced a battle if ever I had known one. A battle from which we would now be lucky to escape with our lives. For they commanded both the ridge and the valley north of the mill, and already they were sending a party of foot-warriors to cut off our withdrawal back south. At the same time we had the river at our backs, and while there was a chance we could swim it if we divested ourselves of our mail, we would make ourselves easy targets for the enemy’s archers, and it would mean surrendering most of our animals besides.

‘We’re trapped,’ said Turold as I rallied my conroi in front of the mill. I could see the panic spreading across his face, as it was among the men in our shield-wall. ‘They will drive us into the water, drown us without mercy.’

‘Shut up,’ I told him. ‘Let me think.’

Turold was young; he had never faced a fight like this before. Yet there must have been countless occasions when I had fought against odds worse than these and still had made it through. Not that I could recall them then. The enemy probably had at least three men to every one of ours, and while numbers were not everything, they counted for a lot.

All along the ridge they thumped their spear-hafts against the ground, hollering out curses and insults. Rather than attacking straightaway, instead they were holding back while their full army drew up in its battle-lines, waiting either for us to surrender or for fear to engulf our ranks. Only once they thought us too disheartened to fight properly would they finally come and tear us apart. Had I been them, I would probably have done the same, for it was a strategy that I had seen work before, and indeed it was working now. Among our own host, men were jostling so as not to find themselves in the first line of the wall, despite their lords’ efforts to keep them under control.

‘Keep your ranks!’ I bellowed at them as I rode along the front of the line, untying my chin-strap, unhooking my ventail, taking off my helmet with its red tails and drawing back my coif so that they could see my face clearly. ‘Stand firm and hold the line!’

I saw Snocca and Cnebba standing by the packhorses not far off and signalled for them to bring me the hawk banner, which I had entrusted to them. They did so, and I gave it flight for all our host to see, before driving the pole into the soft earth.

‘Here,’ I said. ‘This is where we fight. Bring your men forward; defend the banner!’

As it was, our back rank was almost standing in the river, and that was where we would all quickly end up if we didn’t leave at least some open ground behind us.

The barons glanced at each other nervously but did not move until Eudo joined me.

‘Do it,’ he shouted as he showed them his blade. ‘Unless you wish to feel my sword-edge, do it now!’

He spoke with such force that for a moment I almost believed he would make good on his threat, and perhaps the barons did too, since one by one they began to marshal their retainers, exhorting them with threats and curses, and gradually the line shuffled forward. On the other side of the mill the Welsh brothers were dismounting, not far from where Wace was rallying the right wing of our battle-line, roaring at them to hold their positions.

‘Take charge here,’ I said to Eudo as I leapt down from the saddle and broke into a jog towards the Welshmen. The ground was boggier downstream of the mill, where the blocked leats had overflowed, and within a few paces my boots were sinking through the long grass into the mud.

‘They were waiting for us,’ Maredudd said breathlessly when I reached him. There were bright thorn-scratches upon his body, and there was a pained expression on his face as he clutched at the lower part of his shield-arm where it was unprotected by his hauberk, which came only to his elbow. ‘They came upon us by surprise in the woods. We had no chance.’

‘Are these all the men you have left?’ I asked, gesturing at the small band he had brought. I’d sent them with around one hundred and fifty men, of whom half remained. A few were doubled over, vomiting, while others were too shocked even to stand, and had collapsed on the ground.

‘Get up!’ Wace was saying to them, and when they did not respond, Ithel joined him, yelling: ‘Kyuodwch chwi!’

Maredudd nodded. ‘This is all we have.’

I cursed aloud, but we had no time to waste standing around if any of us we were to survive this day. The enemy would not hold back for ever; soon their battle-hunger would outweigh their patience and they would come streaming down from the woods upon that ridge, swords and spears in hand, death in their eyes.

Until they did, however, we had work to do.

‘Rally your men,’ I told the brothers. ‘Their spears will be needed before long.’

Even as I left them an idea was forming in my mind: one that might just give us a chance. It wasn’t much, but we had nothing to lose by it, and if it worked we could at the very least be sure of taking a good number of the enemy with us.