The Minstrel and the Mercenary

by David Scoles

  Gwilym was rewarded when he located a candelabra set into one wall with its wax candles only half used. Following the curve of the wall, Gwilym picked his way over and around stacks of books and old paintings finding other candelabras set into the old stone at regular intervals. In moments Gwilym had the entire tower lit well enough to finally examine the space in its entirety.

  The tower was large enough to hold ten men standing shoulder to shoulder if there had not been so many books, papers and other miscellaneous objects haphazardly scattered about. Some were large, sprawling volumes that Gwilym thought might hold maps. Others were small enough to fit into a man’s belt pouch. The former lord had been an avid collector of the written word. Such items did not come cheap. Why, Gwilym suspected the Bishop of Cardiff himself did not possess so many tomes.

  Gwilym scanned book after book, but found nothing of any interest or great scarcity. He felt certain the tower held some important secret. The death of the peasant family made no sense by itself, but what if the killers had sought something else that night and caught a group of innocents someplace they were not meant to be? The murders, the symbol of the Horned God painted in blood, King Edward’s armies marching upon Paris. What was the connection? The King had sent a mercenary to sort out the situation rather than one of his own trusted men. Why? Did King Edward not take his alliance with the Countess too seriously or was this a way to distance himself from blame?

  Gwilym knelt beside one pile of papers stacked near a precariously balanced stack of books. The books were nearly encased in melted candle wax and looked not to have been touched in years. He cracked the wax away from the top book and tried to read the words. They were written in Latin, a language he detested and had never bothered to learn in depth. With a scowl he thrust it aside and dived into another pile and then another. What he was looking for he didn’t know. He was driven in part by curiosity for whatever the old lord’s obsession was, but also a niggling feeling that the reason for the servants’ murders might be found here in this room.

  There were common themes amongst many of the works: genealogy of royal families across Europe, Church land grants and records of disputes amongst citizens of Saint Josse going back decades. Gwilym found a small desk tucked against the wall that bore a single sealed scroll case. The case was ornate with a brass hinge for the cap and etchings of hounds on the case’s leather exterior. It seemed ready for a messenger to whisk it away. Gwilym snatched it up and opened the cap.

  Gwilym shook out a single rolled up letter written on fine vellum. Unrolling the vellum then holding his candle close, Gwilym read the letter:

  Your Grace,

  A Scotsman came to me upon the Feast of Saint Stephen and did claim to have information of how Count Montfort intends to seize upon what is mine. This Scot was unknown to me, although by his grim visage and cool demeanor did I feel a deep sense of foreboding. And e’re did I seek word of the spy I employed to watch Montfort (by your suggestion) did I learn the truth. That same Scotsman did approach Montfort and make the same claim against me!

  I see little recourse but to employ the aid of mercenaries, old friend, though you and Compte d’Eu advised against it. Philip loves me not and I fear Montfort may strike first. Please pay the messenger I have sent some pittance. The road to Caen is dangerous these days.

  Blois

  May, 1341

  Gwilym held the letter in trembling fingers. The old Count Montfort had intercepted a letter to the Bishop of Bayeux and now both men were dead. Was the Countess Montfort privy to her husband’s damning evidence against the Bishop and Compte d’Eu? No, else she would have made mention of it long before.

  Gwilym shook his head wearily. He was caught up in something equally frightening and fascinating. Prince Edward had mournfully declared the Bishop of Bayeux had died from his heart stopping during the night following his surrender. Could that have been untrue?

  “Found something interesting, did you?” Gwilym jumped and nearly dropped the scroll.

  “Christ in Heaven!” he blurted. The candle flames wavered. As if he had just been caught grinding wheat with the miller’s wife, Gwilym slowly turned about and displayed a guilty expression. Radu gazed back at him from the trapdoor in the floor with what might have been an amused expression. Or perhaps an angry one? It was difficult to discern the intent of a man who always kept one hand on his weapon.

  Radu entered the tower and glanced about. He took in the stacks of books and cobweb covered walls. Whatever he made of Gwilym’s discovery, he kept it to himself.

  “There are mostly old scrolls and books transcribed in Latin, a language I never truly mastered. Nor can I read Old French.” Gwilym waved a hand indicating the pile of papers laying on the floor near where he stood. “But if the Old Count wanted to hide something from thieves….” Gwilym let the notion linger and Radu slowly nodded.

  “The killers never found this room.”

  “Look here. An old letter I have found with a damning bit of conspiracy betwixt Count Blois and the recently deceased Bishop of Bayeux.”

  “I should like to meet this Scotsman the letter speaks of,” Radu said. He frowned. “From what I have heard, the conflict between Blois and Montfort instigated England and France to take sides.”

  Could that have been the intention? Gwilym rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Could Count Montfort’s death not have been caused by illness contracted during the siege of Quimper, but rather something sinister?” The old Count had lived in exile in England for several years before returning to France with reinforcements provided by King Edward. He had not lived for long afterwards.

  The letter was dated from before England had entered the war. Did it even matter anymore? Would showing the letter to King Edward or even King Philip matter? Would they care that they had apparently been manipulated into this conflict?

  Gwilym thought for a moment on how best to answer his own question while watching Radu handle a book. Gwilym had seen how the illiterate handled books using the precious vellum for kindling for fires. He winced.

  “You needn’t trouble yourselves with those. I can look these over and then read to you any which might pertain to the old Count’s habits.”

  “I can read,” Radu replied coldly.

  “Ah, yes, of course you can. It is just that many are in Latin and that language is only taught to monks and the high born. I meant no offense.”

  “I can read Latin.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. I meant no offense.” Gwilym picked up the scroll case about to return the letter to its safekeeping when a small piece of paper fell out of the scroll case and drifted onto the floor. Gwilym snatched it up and looked it over.

  “I cannot even identify the language on this.” Gwilym scowled.

  Radu strode over to take the offered paper from Gwilym. He nimbly avoided knocking over any book piles. He moves like a lion of Africa might move, if such a thing truly exists. Radu unrolled the paper and read it. The mercenary grunted. “A list of villages in this area.” Radu’s eyes widened. “There are letters written in the margin.”

  “Illegible scrawling. The vellum may have been used previously. I myself have inscribed poems overtop others from time to time.”

  “No, these letters are written in Cyrillic, a language of the East.”

  “Your people?” Gwilym inquired. Is this the language of your homeland then? What does it say?”

  “It makes little sense.”

  “Saints Cyril and Methodius, who invented the language, would disagree.”

  “I sense you enjoy these moments of bookish levity?” Radu scowled, but a grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  “Levity aside, I beg a translation,” Gwilym implored without mockery.

  Radu moved closer to a candle and gazed intently at the letter. Shadows enhanced the mercenary’s hard features as he spoke the words as best he could make out. “At the top it reads ‘White stones’ and here it reads ‘the foreign Prince is leading them.’ There is no date.�
�

  “How strange that a French Count and the Bishop should know your language.” Gwilym said.

  Radu finished reading the letter and rolled it up. Gwilym stared thoughtfully into a candle’s flame. A drop of red wax slid down the length of the candle and dribbled onto the book the candle rested upon. The letter was frustratingly vague and its Cyrillic mysteries only made it more so. Gwilym’s excitement was not diminished. If anything, after hearing the translation he was convinced he had located an important clue. He spoke his thoughts aloud to Radu.

  “We have stumbled upon a deeper matter, but I cannot help but feel the Countess de Montfort and King Edward shall be unsympathetic if we do not discern the identity of the murderers.”

  “I wonder at this reference to a Prince,” Radu muttered just barely loud enough for Gwilym to hear.

  Gwilym paled and nodded. Had not Prince Edward been the last person to see the Bishop of Bayeux alive? His skin felt covered in an oily sheen. Sweat ran down his back and he removed his hat to wipe perspiration from his brow. By all the saints of summer it was hot!

  “Smoke!” screamed Gwilym pointing at the trapdoor. Radu followed his finger to witness coils of smoke writhing like snakes up through the trapdoor. “Oh Christ save me, this place is cursed and the demons seek to kill us now as well!”

  Radu flew to the trap door opening, but quickly drew back, eyes watering. Though the tower was made of stone the mansion below and the stairs they had climbed were made of wood. How had the fire started? Had that drunken priest dropped a candle or passed out and allowed a flame to catch somewhere below? There was no time to wonder.

  Radu snatched one of the candles from a candelabra and moved swiftly about the room, eyes to the ceiling. He knocked over another of the candles. It fell and rolled along the floor near some of the loose parchment.

  “Are you trying to set another fire here as well? Be careful!” Gwilym cried, voice hysterical.

  “Grab a candle and help me look,” Radu snarled. “Look for an opening in the ceiling, a crack in the stone. Something I can pry back! Hurry or we die!”

  Gwilym moved quickly to do as Radu instructed. He snatched a candle from another candelabra and held it aloft as high as he could manage. He could just make out the conical roof above, the timber slats laid out in symmetrical precision, but there was evidence of repairs that had been made over the centuries since its construction. A patch here, a daub of tar there.

  “Here! I see a hole here!”

  “How big?” Radu demanded, his voice harsh. He continued to play his own candle along the wall, his eyes focused on the shadowy gloom above him.

  “The size of two of my fists.” Gwilym cried. He felt his feet growing uncomfortably warm through his deerskin boots. Breathing became labored as more smoke filled the room. Gwilym thrust his candle down near his feet and gasped as he saw the wooden slats beginning to blacken; smoke from the fire below seeped through cracks. They were running out of time!

  “Not big enough, keep looking, minstrel.”

  “God Damnit,” Gwilym swore. How large a hole did he need? Big enough to fit a sword though? Enough to stick his head out and gasp out his last breaths before death claimed the greatest minstrel of this age?

  Woe, woe befell the plebeian masses

  A life taken; fates cruelly silence

  Saint Julian the Hospitaller offers his bed

  Angels offer their harps; the sun shall rise

  upon a new Golden Legend now lost

  “That’s horrible!” Gwilym cried. “But God let me live to sing it!”

  “Get over here, minstrel, I’ve found our way out!” Radu yelled. He had located a deep gash in the roof. Gwilym looked up. The gash was about as long as a man’s arm. Perhaps a strong wind had at one point arisen to tear at the roof like a banshee’s claw. Or maybe some long ago Viking had scaled the tower wall and set into the roof with his ax. It didn’t matter. Radu drew his fokos ax from under his cloak and taking it in both hands gripped it tightly.

  The floor upon which they stood was becoming unbearably hot and was now completely scorched black. Books were smoking and loose sheaves of paper were smoldering, already caught fire at their edges. Gwilym coughed, his eyes watered as the room filled with ever more smoke. It was difficult to see. Radu bellowed in rage and smashed his fokos into the already damaged timbers within the roof gash. With each mighty swing the hole expanded and more and more of the sky revealed itself. Gwilym dared to hope he might live. Then a part of the floor collapsed.

  The floor gave way first near the center and slowly expanded outwards. Radu and Gwilym both paused and gaped as flames from hell exploded from the hole and kissed the top of the tower roof. Radu tossed his fokos up and out of the hole he had made and his arming sword followed. Then with a leap he grasped the edge of the hole and he demonstrated incredible strength by hauling himself up and out.

  “Help me, Radu!” Gwilym cried as he flattened his back against the wall in a vain attempt to avoid falling into the ever deteriorating floor.

  “Jump and take my hand, minstrel!” Radu leaned down from the hole above and stretched out a hand. It was too far! Gwilym gasped in horror as another section of the floor near his feet gave away and crashed into the inferno below.

  “I can’t make it. It is too far for me to jump!” Time stood still. The sweat on his face lifted from his skin and swirled away into steam. The bottoms of his boots were now aflame and soon his feet would be seared down to the bone. To die tragically consumed by flames— someone will write a song of this, truly. ‘Daffyd ap Gwilim, the Golden Harp of Wales whose prose lifted a nation as high as the Sun, now consumed like Nero’s Rome. Tragic and lost forever….’

  “To Hell with that!” With a snarl of desperate anger Gwilym leapt for Radu’s outstretched hand. No sooner had his feet left what remained of the tower floor that the rest of it crumbled and fell away. Gwilym screamed in fear, but the Saints were with him and Radu’s giant hand snatched up his own and hauled him on to the tower roof as though he weighed little more than a sack of grain.

  Gwilym gasped in relief and paused a moment down on one knee. “God bless you!” It was all he managed to say in between coughs. Radu said nothing. He peered over the edge of the tower to the ground far below. Gwilym’s eyes blurred with tears. The entire mansion was aflame! It had spread quickly, the wooden interior of the mansion providing ample fuel for whatever spark had ignited the blaze. As to what had caused the spark….

  “I overheard the Franciscan say he was going into the cellar?” Gwilym wheezed as his lungs continued to labor to cleanse themselves.

  “Then he might yet be alive. Amongst the roots it could be damp and sealed stonework might shelter him from the worst of the smoke,” Radu said. “Right now it is our lives upon which Fate has yet to render judgement.” Gwilym looked over to the hole he and Radu had only moments before escaped from and saw black smoke belching forth. Gwilym groaned in despair.

  “Surely there is no more wood to burn in this tower? The roof is lead I daresay and stone shall stand strong as it has for centuries! May Saint Florian of Lorch’s bucket save us!”

  “The supports for this tower and the manse itself are of old wood and shall burn until spent. Then what do you suppose shall happen minstrel?” Radu looked back over his shoulder and fixed him with a piercing gaze. It held as much mercy for Gwilym as it had for those German mercs back in Caen.

  Gwilym moaned and reached within his shirt to withdraw his ivory crucifix. It had been a gift from his father when he had turned twelve years of age, old enough to travel alone. Gwilym Gam had traveled the lands of Europe in his youth as a troubadour and carried this cross with him during that time. A crucifix blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, he had said it brought him luck. Gwilym now clutched the crucifix to his chest and prayed.

  “I do here make confession, this the hour of my death. I have fornicated in places of worship….”

  “Now is not the time Gwilym, come here
quickly!” Radu said.

  “…and I have made women of holy sisters….”

  “Gwilym!”

  “I stole coin from the pockets of your chosen priests and I… wait, what are you about?”

  Radu lifted Gwilym bodily by the back of his tunic and his breeches and hauled him over to the edge of the tower. It took Gwilym only a moment to divine Radu’s intent.

  “Have you lost your mind? I wish to wait a while, the fire may yet burn out and spare the tower! God damn you, whoreson, I don’t want to DIE!” Without ceremony Radu tossed the screaming Dafydd ap Gwilym off the smoking tower to the ground below.

  Chapter 5

  Gwilym fell. It seemed to take ages and he couldn’t see anything. The sun had set at some point, but he was unable to see because of a thick fog that wreathed the mansion like pipe smoke encircling an old gaffer’s head. Then he was through the smoke and fully expected to smack hard into the ground. Instead, he crashed through a thatched roof into a large pile of hay.

  Gwilym landed hard and the wind rushed out of him with a loud oomph, but the hay had absorbed his fall and he lived! He lived, but his back and limbs groaned in protest when he tried to move. A gasp of pain escaped his lips as he rolled first onto his side then tipped over onto his stomach. He stretched his legs then his arms. All were sound and unbroken.

  Saint Julian must be growing tired of aiding me, Gwilym thought. Jude Thaddeus, Patron Saint of Lost Causes, was no doubt grinning at his shoulder and waited for Gwilym’s luck to run out. Am I to continue with the foolhardy notion that I am an adventurer?

  Gwilym hadn’t laid in the hay for more than five breaths when there was a great yell from above that steadily grew louder until Radu landed with a curse in the hay beside him. Radu sat up instantly, seeming no worse for wear though he wore heavy metal armor. The man didn’t miss a breath as he skidded down the hay and recovered his weapons, which had fallen nearby. Gwilym tried to keep up, but he was still stunned from how close he had come to death. A moment later that he realized death was still hot on his heels.