by Wayne Grant
Llywelyn had only seen Daffyd once and that had been as a child, when his uncle had travelled to meet with the ruler of northern Powys, who was brother to Llywelyn’s mother. Daffyd had been filled with familial affection at that meeting and invited mother and son to return home, but his mother, Magred, was no fool. The invitation had been ignored.
His uncle had, indeed, added much to his girth since last they had met, but Llywelyn had no trouble recognizing him by his air of command. He had more recent recollections of the young man mounted next to Daffyd—his cousin Owain. Owain had made a lightning strike against another of Llywelyn’s hill forts two years ago and had almost destroyed his rebel band. Only the unexpected arrival of Roland Inness and the Invalid Company had saved his cause that day. Llywelyn could see by the smouldering anger in his cousin’s gaze that Owain had not forgotten how that triumph had been snatched away.
The two groups eyed each other suspiciously, hands on sword hilts and, for an awkward moment, it appeared they might come to blows. It would have only taken a spark to set things off between these warring kinsmen, but Roderic chose that moment to step out of the tent with his constable.
“Welcome brother!” he called cheerily to Daffyd, then turned toward the new arrivals.
“And welcome to you, nephew! I’d recognize you anywhere, for you look strikingly like your dear mother. I am glad to make your acquaintance.”
Llywelyn smiled at his uncle, determined to give away nothing in this dangerous company.
“And I yours, uncle. Let us hope our meeting is profitable for all.”
“Well said, sir. Now, I would ask all to lay aside your arms before entering the tent. You each hold one of my grandsons hostage and I am fond of the boys. I would not like some misunderstanding here to bring any harm to them.”
With wary eyes, the men dismounted and filed into the tent, dropping their swords, dirks and axes at the entrance. Once inside, Roderic, so lean and dark next to his corpulent brother, directed the two principals to a small table with chairs. Retainers stood back as Llywelyn and Daffyd sat down and took the measure of each other.
“Llywelyn,” Daffyd began, “we have fought for many years and are no closer to a final reckoning. I believe this bad blood between us has been stoked by your kinsmen in Powys, who fear the power of a united Gwynedd. Let us set aside our differences and join together. Together, we can strike fear into those who wish Gwynedd ill.”
Llywelyn gave a noncommittal smile.
“My kinsmen in Powys have no role in this, uncle. It was I who begged them to join me when first I came to claim my birthright. Some did, but they soon grew weary of being hunted like hares by you and your men. But I am heartened by your sincere wish to reconcile. So, tell me, what do you offer me for peace between us?”
Daffyd leaned forward eagerly.
“I offer you the largest cantref in my domain—Tegeingl—a good third of my land! You will, of course, do homage to me for that grant of land, but I will let you rule there as you see fit.”
Having laid his offer on the table, Daffyd sat back and waited for a reply from his young nephew. Tegeingl lay between the Clwydian hills and the River Dee. It had been fought over between the Earls of Chester and the princes of Gwynedd since the Norman Conquest. It was largely abandoned and gone to wilderness.
Griff, who had listened to the proceedings in silence, leaned in to whisper to his master.
“He thinks to have you buy a pig in a poke, lord, but we have lived in that land. It’s shit.”
Llywelyn nodded, then smiled back at Daffyd.
“A reasonable offer, uncle. I will need a day to think on it and confer with my men.”
Daffyd frowned and gave Griff a dark look.
“You should not trust this rabble you’ve surrounded yourself with, Llywelyn. Let us settle this…among family.”
Llywelyn nodded.
“If you can’t trust family, my lord, who can you trust?” he said, with no trace of sarcasm. Daffyd looked at him hard for a long moment, then shrugged.
“My offer stays open for one day. I would have your decision before then. Let there be an end to the blood. It is time we made peace.”
Llywelyn nodded as he rose from the table.
“Peace unto you, uncle.”
***
No one spoke as Llywelyn’s party rode away from the meadow and back toward the hills that rose from the coastal plain. There was no point. Daffyd’s proposal was laughable on its face, but the meeting had served a purpose. The fact that his uncle had made any offer confirmed the weakness of the man’s position.
By his own reckoning, Llywelyn felt he would have the strength to march on Daffyd’s great fortress at Rhuddlan within a year and roust the old goat out. There was no need to make a poor deal now. His uncle would know Llywelyn’s answer when he failed to return to the meeting place in the morning.
Rhun saw Llywelyn approach with relief. The little boy loved his grandfather, but the man who rode up to him truly looked like a prince. Llywelyn hailed his man and gave the boy a grin.
“How fared our hostage?”
“Very bravely, my lord. I was ready to slit his gullet, but he showed nary a qualm. He’ll make a good fighter someday. Maybe we should keep him!”
For a moment, under the smiling gaze of Llywelyn, the boy thought it would be a very fine thing to ride off with these men. He loved his grandsire, but there was something about this Llywelyn!
“No, I cannot break my word. You know the way home, boy?”
Rhun nodded and gave his horse a jab with his small heels. As the animal started back toward the river, the boy turned and waved.
“Goodbye, Prince Llywelyn!”
Llywelyn returned the wave, then turned his horse back toward the hills above the coastal plain.
***
It was nearing sundown when they approached the sheltered valley where his personal guard camped. A score of picked men had come with him from winter quarters, but had been left behind in the hills, their safety vouched for by Roderic. It was clear and cold and the air was still. With no breeze, Llywelyn would have expected to see smoke rising from campfires beyond the ridge, but the only thing in the blue sky were the ravens. The Prince dropped his eyes back to the road as a hare flushed from the underbrush thirty paces ahead.
Trap!
Llywelyn and Griff reined in instantly and this saved them. A dozen arrows flew from the woods on their left, taking down three men to their front.
“Back!” Griff shouted, and wrenched his horse’s head to the rear. Llywelyn had already turned his mount and dug his heels into the animal’s flanks. He heard a cry and saw another of his men fall with an arrow in his back. More arrows buzzed by as the two men frantically whipped their horses into a gallop. A shaft struck a glancing blow against Llywelyn’s steel helmet and almost unhorsed him, but he was a superb rider and stayed in the saddle. Both men bent low along their horse’s necks to make a small target for the men trying to kill them.
They were almost out of the killing zone of the ambush when a score of riders came charging around a bend in the trail less than two hundred yards to their front. They were armed for battle. Daffyd, or Roderic—or perhaps both brothers—had planned this ambush carefully. No doubt the men he’d left in the valley were already dead—a meal for the ravens. Now they were cornered, front and back, and hemmed in by wooded slopes on both sides.
“The trees!” Llywelyn shouted and turned his mount to the left.
In only a few bounds they reached the bottom of a steep slope and leapt to the ground. Llywelyn wrenched his shield free of his saddle and Griff did the same with his longbow and quiver of arrows. Together they began to scramble up the densely-wooded ridge as the thunder of hooves drew near. Below them, there were shouts and curses from the valley floor as the horsemen dismounted and began to climb uphill after them.
The two men reached a false summit and paused to look behind them. At least fifteen armed and mailed men were struggli
ng up the ridge in their direction. Further down, archers who had missed their mark in the initial attack joined the pursuers. Llywelyn was bent at the waist, trying to catch his breath.
“Can we outrun them?” he managed between pants.
“Maybe. That first lot…are but…lowland horse boys,” Griff managed as he too gasped for air. “They won’t have the…wind.”
Llywelyn gave him a sour look.
“Perhaps…we’ve spent too much time…in the saddle as well,” he said.
Griff gave him a faint grin, then loosened the ties on his mail jerkin and pulled it over his head.
“Won’t be of much help if that lot catches us,” he said, nodding downhill. Llywelyn returned his grin, then shucked off his own heavy mail.
“What of the archers?” he asked as his breath began to steady.
Griff smiled as he drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it.
“They don’t worry me none. If they could shoot straight, we’d both be dead now.”
In one swift motion, he drew his longbow, calmed his breathing and released. A yelp from below told them he had not missed his target.
“That’ll slow ‘em down,” he said, as the men below all went to ground. Llywelyn slapped the tall archer on the shoulder and turned back uphill.
***
For an hour, they scrambled up and down the sides of steep ravines, finding game trails where they could and clambering over rocks and deadfall when no path led them away from their pursuers. The sound of the chase grew slowly faint, but it was still there when Llywelyn stopped at the top of a sawback ridge and looked down on their back trail.
“Rest here,” he said and sat down heavily on a flat rock. Griff slumped against the trunk of a deadfall oak and looked up at the sky. It had grown dark through the late afternoon as they fled through the woods and now there were scattered flakes beginning to fall. He grunted.
“It’s going to be a cold night, but the snow will cover our tracks.”
Llywelyn looked up as the sky grew darker and the flurries multiplied, but did not reply.
“Who was it, ye think? Roderic or Daffyd?” the archer asked.
Llywelyn shrugged.
“This is Daffyd’s realm, so more likely it was him, but I would not discount Roderic.”
“Why would he attack us? We’ve stayed clear of that bastard’s lands all these years—just a few cattle raids.”
“My uncle Roderic plays a long game. He has been well satisfied for me to be a thorn in his brother’s side for these many years, but now…”
“He thinks you might win.”
“Aye. He has no fear of Daffyd, who had grown fat and contented with his lot. Daffyd is no threat to him, but I am. He knows I will not be content with but half of Gwynedd.”
“So now we will fight both uncles?”
Llywelyn gave an emphatic nod.
“Both will have to go if Gwynedd is to be whole. It was always going to come to that, old friend. But if we are to see that day before we are both too old to enjoy it, we will need help.”
“Help?”
“Aye. I have been in contact with my cousins of late.”
“Which ones?” Griff asked. “You have so many—and all of them scheming bastards to my knowledge.”
Llywelyn laughed aloud.
“You are right enough there. The spawn of Owain Gwynedd have multiplied like hares, and most are treacherous as snakes. The key is to cultivate the snakes who will find it in their interest to support me. Then watch them like hawks.”
“So which cousins are you enlisting?”
“Gruffydd and Maredudd.”
Griff couldn’t suppress a groan.
“You’re jesting.”
“No.”
Griff shook his head.
“I can see your logic. They occupy the cantrefs of Meirionnydd and Dunoding and unlike your other cousins they can actually put fighting men in the field, but, my lord—by all accounts—including your own—they are crazy.”
“Aye, you are right about that,” Llywelyn said with a wry grin. “They once came to Powys when we were all boys. By the time they left, I had a broken arm and a furious mother! But perhaps ruling their little patches of ground these past years has sobered them a bit. And those little patches of ground are south of Roderic’s land. They can threaten him from there. Crazy or no, they are the only players on the board who have something to offer me and who might have an interest in undoing our uncles.”
Griff looked sceptical but held his peace. Llywelyn rose from the rock he had been sitting on and cocked his ear. Faint sounds of men could now be heard on the ridgeline behind them. It was time to move on. He turned back to Griff.
“There is also the debt owed me by the Earl of Chester. We harboured him when he was outlawed and gave him men—you included—to take back his city. Ranulf swore he would repay the favour. I think it’s time he did.”
“I was wondering when you would remember our friend, the Earl. What will you ask of him?”
Llywelyn grinned.
“It will be you who does the asking, Griff. Whoever planned this ambush will not be sitting idle. Unless they are utter fools, they will already be marching to strike at our winter camp. My place is there. Earl Ranulf knows you. You will take my demand directly to him.”
Griff frowned. He did not fancy the idea of leaving his liege lord alone to make his way back to their camp. It was a good two-day ride through rough country to get there and they had abandoned their horses in the ambush. Still, he knew it would do no good to object simply on grounds of danger.
“Ye’ll steal a horse?”
“Aye, and so should you. I’ll want you back within a fortnight. If I’m not at our winter camp, seek me at Dolwyddelan.”
Griff nodded. Their last place of refuge was the fortress in the high mountains of Eryri, where Llywelyn had been born.
“And what, exactly, shall I demand of Ranulf?”
“Men—at least a hundred, and not those poxy town boys he has manning the walls of Chester. Make that clear, Griff.”
“You’ll want the crippled lads then.”
“Aye, the Invalid Company.”
“They can fight.”
“That, they can, and, Griff, I will need a man to lead them—a man we can trust.”
Griff gave him a quizzical look, then broke out into a broad smile.
“Roland Inness?”
Llywelyn nodded.
“None other.”
Danesford
A thick line of mounted men moved out of the shadows of the wood line and into a cleared field. Steam rose from the nostrils of warhorses as they stamped the frozen ground. A thin winter sun glinted off sharpened lance points. The man standing alone in the centre of the field felt hope die. On the far side of the open ground lay a patch of forest land, a place where he might elude his pursuers, but he knew he could not reach it in time. Still, he would not simply stand still and be ridden under. He turned and ran.
Behind him, a command rang out and he felt the ground tremble as iron-shod hooves pounded the icy ground. Without breaking stride, he reached for the quiver over his shoulder and found it empty. Somewhere in the running fight with his pursuers, he had loosed his final arrow. He ran harder, but the safety of the trees seemed no closer and the pounding of the charging horses swelled behind him. In a few seconds, they would be on him.
Roland Inness sat bolt upright in the bed, his chest heaving, the thunder of charging warhorses dissolving into the hammering of his own heart. A dream. The damned dream.
He looked to his right as he fought to settle his breathing. His wife had not stirred.
Must not have cried out. Good. It worries Millie when I do.
He slid quietly out of bed, the pounding in his ears growing quiet as his heart slowed. He did not often have these dreams, but when they came, they were vivid. Sometimes his pursuers were Flemish mercenaries and sometimes Saracens with their wicked curved scimitars. Sometimes both pursue
d him, which made no sense. But when did dreams ever make sense?
Tugging leather breeches on under his night shirt, he slipped out of the small room. Wooden stairs led down to the hall where he found a bench and pulled on his boots. Embers from the night’s fire still glowed in the hearth.
He tried to shake off the effects of the dream, but it seemed to cling to him. He had fought in pitched battles from England to the gates of Acre in the Holy Land and had survived those fights, but they had left a mark. It was a price paid by men who took up arms as a soldier. He supposed shepherds dreamt of being savaged by wolves and seamen of being devoured by creatures of the deep. .He wondered for a moment what nightmares farmers and shopkeepers might have. No doubt some sort of unpleasantness troubled their sleep.
He looked around at the rough-hewn timbers of the house—his house—and had no regrets about the life he had chosen. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Chosen was not the right word. He had been a farmer and a hunter once; then a fugitive on the run from the Earl of Derby after poaching a deer. He’d been a green squire to a Norman knight and been knighted himself for a bloody day atop the crumbled walls of Acre. He had fought under Earl William Marshall at Towcester where they had routed the mercenaries that threatened Richard’s throne and sometimes troubled his sleep. Very little of it had he chosen. Still, none of it had he refused.
Behind the door at the top of the stairs, Millicent Inness slept. They had married less than a year ago. That he had chosen and he still could not believe she had made the same choice. Millicent was…the star upon which he guided. All that had come before—the good and the evil—had led him to her and to this home they had built together. For that alone, he would have fought all the Saracens and mercenaries on earth. Dreams? They were nothing.
He walked to the big oak door of the hall and swung it open. A frigid blast of air swirled through the opening, causing the coals in the hearth to flare. He stepped outside and looked to the east where the sky was beginning to lighten. Dawn was coming, but he could tell snow would come with it.
It was light enough for Roland to see the rough wooden palisade that surrounded his timber house—the place could scarce be called a keep. The house and its defensive wall sat atop a small ridge overlooking the River Weaver. Timbers had been cut over the summer and driven into the rocky soil on the hillside. There was a single gate and a single watch tower. It was a primitive fort and reminded him, for all the world, of a brigand’s fortress in the Clocaenog Forest where he’d once had to rescue Millicent.