by Mary Lide
I said, “My lord,” a salutation he does not merit, but which, at least, would mollify. “Lord Robert has sworn one oath, and Prince Taliesin one, and neither will be forsworn. I suggest an alternative. Let the prince take the old pilgrims’ way, which the Church fathers took centuries ago. South they went, then west, carrying God’s word to Brittany, following the sea routes south and west.” When I was through, although how the words came to mind I do not know, “Christ’s bones,” he said, gawking at me in a way not exactly complimentary, not exactly hostile, “Mother of God. For once the fool makes sense. But how to get the boats in place? They must be there else the moment will be lost, and Walran troops be out in full force.”
He observed us again, running a hand through his hair, thinking hard. “Go, then,” he suddenly ordered me. He gave me a push for good measure. “If the guard stops you, say it is my command. Have the boats brought to the cliff closest to the pass. But hurry. Prince Taliesin’s outriders have already reached the cliff fort; they, too, are ready to move at dawn.” He suddenly struck his hand hard against his sword. “By Christ,” he cried, almost to himself, “a hundred to one that it will not work, but a chance we’ll take. Better it than none. But fail me in this, boy, I’ll have your guts, if I live, which if you fail, I doubt. So run.”
Not stopping for argument, I ran. But Lady Olwen ran with me. “Christ’s bones,” I swore when I had breath, when we had left the main gates behind and turned toward the shore, “he’ll hang me for sure if you come.”
“And stay at home?” She almost laughed, her spirits soaring like a bird’s. “Besides, you need what I have brought.” The sack beneath her cloak jangled merrily, the treasury of Cambray, which she had robbed, no guilt for that, although in aftertimes the thought made my blood run cold. “I’ll talk to the fisherwomen, you the men. Together our arguments will overwhelm them.”
As she had said, so we did. It lacked but an hour to midnight when we reached the fisher village. Yet within moments, it seemed, they had come streaming from their huts, pulling on their shoes and their bonnets, which even at night they wear out-of-doors, falling over themselves to help. Most people avoid the fisherfolk, ’tis true, for they have their own outlandish ways, their own pursuits, and sometimes, when you hear of their constant quarrels, their own God to make them so troublesome. They keep to themselves, apart from the Cambray world in their stinking huts at the cliff edge; and although their Irish speech is Celt, it is so unlike our own as to render them as unintelligible, as if they came from another world. Nor can I pretend to know them well, but being an outcast myself, I had come to appreciate them. And in my way, ever poking into things, I had often come to watch them work, their nimble fingers weaving back and forth along their nets, in this task neater and more careful than in their own lives. I had never helped them haul in the fish, the heavy, twisted ropes dripping with weed and the water suddenly boiling, bursting, alive, as the fish leapt and slithered in a silver mass, but I have sharp eyes and often had kept lookout for them from a cliff, watching for a long shadow, the deeper blue that marked a shoal drifting toward land. They are a restless folk, these Irishmen, never still, like the fish they catch, changeable, quick to pick up one thing and drop it quicker still. I did not know if anything would engage them long. But God was with us that night, I think. My words made impact, or rather the Lady Olwen’s gold, which she dispensed freely, with promises of more when they returned.
We began to hurry toward the boats. They are small and round for the most part, like walnut shells, made of wicker and leather skins. Yet they sit down into the water almost uncapsizable, even when waves run high. We loaded up a few bigger boats with food and water jars, which Lady Olwen had had the women bring, and throwing overboard, in a jumble of rope and net, all their fishing gear, we had the men haul on the ropes to bring the boats in line, ready to cast off. Looking at them bobbing there like corks, I had a momentary misgiving. But it is true, no myth, that in such boats the Irish have sailed the Atlantic seas, going farther westward than any man before them dared. As long as they kept within sight of land, creeping slowly down our western cliffs, then west again to the Channel Isles, then south again to the Breton coast, they would not come to harm, providing that the weather held, which I prayed to God it would. As each boat in turn floated free into deeper water outside the jetty wall, a fisherman hauled himself on board and, taking up a oar, prepared to skull out into the bay around the promontory. Lady Olwen went with them, looping up her skirts like a peasant born, wading to ankle, then knee, then thigh. I followed her reluctantly, for the water ran cold and dark, its blackness even more uninviting than the cold.
“Set us loose,” she cried, scrambling on board the closest boat. The wind caught it, twisting it. Ahead of us, the line of boats jerked and pulled like colts on a leading rein. The ropes snaked past, falling in the water, out of sight; and seeing that if I did not make haste, I would be left behind, I struck out, flailing in the sea over my head until she reached down and dragged me up by the hair. With her help I heaved myself over the side; she took up the oar and fitting it in place began to work it back and forth, following the line of foam that marked the path of the other craft. A little flotilla we were as we headed out into the open sea, where the currents spun us around and drove us on the cliff point.
The current ran fiercer there, and the waves broke with a sullen roar. It took both of us, holding the oar steady, to shift our course so that gradually we in turn rounded the cliff and turned inland again, hugging the contour of the shore, where the water curdled like cream against the rocks. In between those rocks were small, sandy coves, hidden from the cliff’s top, useless when the tide was full out or in, causing boats either to be torn apart or left beached like helpless whales. But when the tide was right, there was no better launching place. If only we could catch the tide at its best. So we crept along, the leading fishermen with flares, which they used to navigate, calling out in their rough tongue the obstacles that lay ahead. Thank God, I say, the night was fair. A wind or storm or burst of rain might have caused shipwreck and would certainly have made the fishermen turn back. As it was, just before dawn, we came to the landing, a strip of beach closest to the pass, and there we moored the boats by tying ropes to large flat stones. And there the fishermen waited, shivering a little in the cold, dozing on their fishsmelling sacks or drinking their foul-tasting ale. Leaving the remainder of gold to their care, the Lady Olwen and I went on alone, to climb the cliffs, which towered above us, forbidding in their height.
There was a track of sorts, faintly visible in the morning light. The darkness that comes just before day had lightened to a gray and gritty tone, no color to it, all gray as if covered with mist, and our hands and clothes, already wet, were wet again by the heavy dew. We toiled up the cliff, searching for holds among the heather roots, sometimes sliding down in a pile of stone, moving as quietly as we could. Yet sea gulls, disturbed from their resting place, screamed and fought about our heads and sometimes dived in furious attempt to dislodge us from their ledge. We hurried. The way, though long, once undertaken was not difficult, and presently as we crept on up, ear to the ground, we sensed rather than heard a drumming sound, a steady thud, the sound horses’ hooves make at a distance. Lady Olwen gave me her hand. “Praise God,” she said, and I felt her trembling, “we are in time.” And so it was we reached the cliff top just as the Cambray men moved into place.
Unseen by them, or anyone, we settled down behind a patch of gorse, just out of reach below the cliff, and waited as they did. Our cuts and scratches burned and stung, and my flesh felt torn by thorns. But after a while, when the wind came up to blow away the mist and the gray began to lighten to rose and gold, we felt the ground shake a second time, a drumming again, a steady beat, as Prince Taliesin’s men came through the pass.
The Cambray guard had stationed themselves openly, on either side of the main path. We could count a line of them, extending over the open moors, slightly uphill from where th
e Celts must come. They made no attempt to hide; this was not an ambush but a wall of men, and at their head Lord Robert held his horse in check with his left hand as it tossed and shook its head, scenting battle in the air. You could not have told, I think, that only willpower kept my lord upright. His squire had strapped his arm against his shirt, and his sword was belted against his thigh, but there was no way he could pull it and manage his horse. Yet he sat on that horse like a monument.
Down through the pass, under that ancient hill fort, just as those months ago I had seen men ride, the Celts surged on through. The sun caught at their armaments, glinting off their round, brass-knobbed shields and reflecting from their helmets’ crests. Yet for an army it was in truth a ragtag sort, more foot soldiers than cavalry, although those foot soldiers could outrun a horse uphill and make a spear wall that bristled like a thorn hedge with spikes. In any case they and the bowmen outnumbered us two to one. Yet Norman cavalry, Norman knights, are trained to break through the stoutest wall; that is their weapon, the mounted charge. They can hack through spearmen like a scythe through corn. And I had a new vision, dark and hot, of how an army, years ago, was so cut down, this gulley running red and the air hot with rage and the cries of men. Beside me I think Lady Olwen felt it, too. She stood up, threw off her cloak, as if it stifled her, her hair blowing wildly in the morning wind. Her lips were moving, but she said nothing aloud. I think she was praying, and so was I. For we stood as at the edge of a tourney field, and death waited there in the lists.
Prince Taliesin rode in the front of his men, cantering easily along on the gray, theft-bred horse; two bowmen ran at his stirrup iron, holding the leather with one hand, and behind him but a pace away those six men of his household guard, if anything, smaller and more grim than before. The prince was dressed for battle in old-fashioned mail—small rings attached to a leather coat, an old-fashioned leather helmet, steel-plated and worn, which sat squarely on his red-gold hair—and his sword was drawn. Today you sensed that he alone was in charge; he knew what he was about, and those older men deferred to him, a prince who led out his war host. Like wolves trained to fight. Today I could believe it of him. Seeing Lord Robert and the line of Cambray men, he raised his hand to call a halt. In the silence that followed, no one moved on either side, the only sounds those faint ones of the clink of bridle where a horse shook its head, the stamp of hooves against the flies, the rasp of our own fear-filled breath.
“Greetings, Prince of Afron.” Robert’s voice was hoarse but calm. The wind that had come up with the dawn tore his words away, tossed at the horses’ heads and tails, set the prince’s hair aflame. “How do you come, in peace or war?”
Taliesin hesitated a moment in his reply. “Neither,” he said at last. “My quarrel is with the English king. So let me pass.”
“Not through my lands,” Robert suddenly gritted out, as unbending as steel. “I am sworn to make a peace, not let a war band run riot through.”
Taliesin nudged his horse forward another step. It danced impatiently across the grass. “I could take you hostage, my lord,” he suddenly cried, and he grinned that boyish grin I remembered. “My bowmen are quicker than your mounted knights. Cambray would not attack me if I had you. Nor do I think you yourself could stop me.” For he had noted at once Robert’s bandaged arm. And it was true that his bowmen, armed with their longbows, had regrouped when he had paused, had their arrows notched, trained to shoot. Their arrows would pierce many a man before the horses in turn ran them down.
I felt my heart leap again, and Lady Olwen’s nails cut through my flesh where her hand grasped mine.
“You still would have all of England to cross.” Lord Robert kept his voice low. “Cambray has kept a border watch for longer years than you and I have known; it plans to keep it long after you and I are gone.”
Taliesin smiled again. Young, far from home, he showed no trace of fear, although fear he must have felt, faced with an adversary he must have known would not retreat and Cambray, in any case, being but the first obstacle he must hack through. “You Normans are dog-mangered with land,” was all he said, “that once, I think, was Celtic owned. It’s not your lands I want. I come armed, ’tis true, but it is not with you I fight.”
There was a stir among the Cambray knights; Dylan edged his own horse along until it stood at Lord Robert’s side. “My lords,” he began, his Celtic voice sounding strangely like the prince’s own, his quick Celtic eyes darting from one young face to the other. “There is a choice, rather than fighting.” He turned toward the lord he served, whose father, grandfather, he had served in turn. But what he said was also for the prince to hear—a Celtic trick, to say to one man what is meant for the second. “King Henry is no longer in England,” he said. “He already is embarked to France and, come the Yuletide, will head south with all his court. France would be a better place to catch up with him, if it is King Henry who is sought.” He paused again. “And since the Breton lords are up in arms, seeking but time and place for attack, they would be willing allies in an enterprise against the king.” Lord Robert eyed him thoughtfully, perhaps having guessed his plan or already knowing it. But Prince Taliesin, who must have received a blow, unexpected, to learn his quarry had escaped again, he held himself as proudly as before.
Robert said in his considered way, as if he saw through Dylan’s ruse, “But if the Celts make for Brittany, how shall they get there? The Welsh ports are closed, I hear, and they cannot swim.”
“My lord.” Dylan sat firmly in his saddle and straightened his back. His voice rang out so other men could hear him clearly; even we could. “There are fishing smacks anchored below, waiting for the tide. A fishing fleet could carry men to the Breton shore. But in any case I would have you remember the treaty’s terms. It was sealed with the blood of many good men; to break it would be to undo the work of years and leave a legacy of hate that will last for centuries. But crossing by sea is not by land.” And he laughed, a laugh that other men, hearing it, took up, as if it were the best jest they had heard.
Beside me Lady Olwen mouthed her prayers. “Do not throw your lives away,” I heard her plead. “We are one kin, one race, not meant to fight.”
Lord Robert had heard his old friend out; that was his style, cautious and just. Perhaps he had been forewarned; I cannot tell. I only know he inclined his head. “I shall not be forsworn,” he said. “But if my lord prince will cross swords with me, then will my honor be satisfied. I swear no Cambray man will hinder him as he departs. So does he swear to leave afterward.”
Whatever had been discussed between him and his seneschal, whatever arranged, this offer of combat, man to man, had certainly never figured in Dylan’s plans. He almost groaned in despair.
Meanwhile Prince Taliesin stared at them both, his face pale beneath its brown, and for the first time laughter had died from eyes and lips. His dark blue eyes were narrowed against the sun. “I have never run from anything in my life,” he began reluctantly, “I did not mean to start now. But I repeat, I have no quarrel with you. To avoid a greater wrong I will so swear. Let my men depart in peace. But I will not cross swords with you, Lord Robert; you are not fit. You . . . ”
Whatever else he would have said died away as Robert gestured to his squire, who at his command drew his sword, clamped it in his lord’s left hand, and knotted the reins about his stallion’s neck. The squire jumped aside as Robert now, with voice and knee, edged his horse toward the open moors. It moved slowly at first between the two lines of men, then halted, turned, and began a slow canter back. Lord Robert rode upright, and his sword was held left-handed, as if he bore a lance pressed tight against his chest.
Prince Taliesin had time for one quick look. He threw off his shield, unclasped his belt; he, too, urged his horse on, while unguided, unchecked, Robert’s beast bounded toward him as if on springs. The ground shook beneath the hooves, clods of turf flew behind, and Prince Taliesin held his sword two-handed above his head. I swear he laughed and shouted out th
e battle cry of his house. And behind him his army clashed their spears against their shields and shouted for victory.
Against my will I watched as he and Robert met with a crash that shook the ground, sending both horses reeling upon their haunches. Robert’s recovered first. He urged it up with his spurs, wheeled, and prepared to charge again. This time he had dropped his arm, unable, I think, to hold the heavy sword straight, and only brought it up at the last. Prince Taliesin, too, had wheeled. Back he swooped, and now I know he laughed, the joyous laugh of a man who feels his strength. His great sword rose and fell in a swirling arch. But he did not strike with it. Over Robert’s head it flew, outlined against the rising sun, and landed singing in a clump of grass at the cliff edge, where he had thrown it. And as he swept past, he caught at Robert’s bridle with his free hand. The two horses galloped side by side, until the prince could bring his weight to bear and haul them both to a stop. Horses and men were panting, struggling for breath, and you could see the rip in Taliesin’s mail where Robert’s sword point had slashed his arm. But Robert himself was unhurt (although the force of that encounter might well have opened his other wound); exhaustion alone had almost done for him.
Taliesin said, his voice coming in great gulps, “Thus are we both unsworn; thus are we both released from oath. Permit me, then, to take my leave. In Brittany had I hoped to find my kin and march with them against this king who has destroyed my house and may yet destroy yours. I did not think to find a passage so easily. My thanks, then. I trust we meet again as friends.” As he talked, his men had ridden up with his shield and belt; he took them up and, quickly looping a rag around his streaming cut, knotted it firmly with his teeth.