Children of Clun

by Robert Nicholls

  By Saint Valentines Day, Brenton was healed in both body and mind. No longer the shy distant hermit, he brought laughter back into the reeve’s house with his silly impromptu songs and his obvious love for Anwen.

  By May, a new prince had been born in London, to Queen Katherine. On the last day of August, England’s greatest king, Henry the fifth, died of a fever, leaving his unwinnable war to rage on without him. On a day in September, Maude found Madeleine and insisted that they walk together. She guided her over the little bridge, across and back. “Today,” she said, “is the day it works. We come back wiser.”

  To Madeleine’s consternation, she was then made to sit on the bridge’s rail to wait. “Waitin’ – keepin’ yer eyes open – bein’ ready for the change – they’re the hardest parts,” Maude insisted. An hour passed. Two hours. Then a man came walking out of Wales. It was Meredydd Glyndwr – Tom the Sharpener – and before All Souls Day came again, he would take Madeleine away from Clun into the great world.

  In the days before they left, Maude, whose sight had become ever more vigorous and far-ranging, showed Madeleine one last surprise.

  “This is what I showed da’,” she said.

  In the mist of centuries, it was a view of the remnants of Clun Castle, a ruin of fallen stones. But the village, they saw, remained – still home to the people of the West Country. And the little river still wound its way down to the sea.

  End

  The History

  The town of Clun was, and is, a remote town in Shropshire, in the west of England. The castle at Clun was one of a cordon of English fortresses built to aid in the maintenance of ‘order’ in the dangerous and unstable Welsh Marches. Clun Castle was built by the FitzAlan family, the heads of which had become, by the period of this novel, synonymous with the powerful lordship of Arundel. Records suggest that the lands in Shropshire had passed into the hands of a sister of Thomas FitzAlan, the 12th Earl of Arundel, who had died in 1415. Margaret Lenthall was one of three possibilities.

  To some extent, the castle’s fate was connected with that of the real-life Welsh aristocrat and scholar, Owain Glyndwr, whose lands and titles had been confiscated by the English. One of the many targets in his subsequent highly successful guerilla military campaign was Clun Castle, sacked around 1404. Shortly thereafter, both he and the castle disappeared from history. My version of his fate is entirely fictional, his real fate being a mystery.

  Other contemporary historical figures include the following.

  1. Glyndwr’s son, Maredydd. He was invited by King Henry V to find Owain and make known an offer of amnesty. Maredydd himself accepted the amnesty in 1421, suggesting that Owain had died by then. Some sources suggest Owain might have died several years before this. The ‘Plant Owain’, or Children of Owain, were close followers of Glyndwr during the successful years of his campaign.

  2. Lady Joan de Beaufort. Her romance with the long-imprisoned Scottish prince, James Stewart, would lead to his release and her coronation as Queen of Scotland. I have added two years to her age and brought the date of their meeting ahead by two years.

  3. Perceval de Coucy-Gines. He was the bastard son of Enguerrand de Coucy, one of the 14th century’s most renowned knights. For information on this man, I am completely reliant on Barbara Tuchman’s “A Distant Mirror”.

  4. Elizabeth Douglas. She was a daughter of the legendary Scottish campaigner, Archibald Douglas.

  5. And the French ‘girl of legend’ is, of course, Joan of Arc.

  The gathering in Clun is entirely a product of my imagination.

  The Novel

  This novel began as a teasing review exercise for twenty-eight fourteen year old Medieval History students. Each student was given a minimally altered name and a role in a mythical village that was based on the small North Queensland, Australian town in which we lived. When the unit ended, the story not only refused to die but called out for a ‘real’ location and ‘real’ historical people. The Scots connection (one of the students), sent me looking in the north and west of England. Clun, with its ruined castle, was a completely serendipitous Google find.

  I am deeply indebted to that group of students for their lively natures, their inquiring minds and, so far as such a thing is possible between students and a teacher, their friendship. The first of their fifteen installments is reproduced below, with a clue to our whereabouts in the first paragraph.

  ###

  Madeleine didn’t know it, of course, but today was to be one of those special days that sticks in the memory long after the sun has gone down. She was 14 and lived in the town of Proser, on the banks of the Pine River. The year was 1415 and it was late summer.

  Madeleine’s family were villeins in the service of Lord Sam the Rower. That meant, of course, that for four days of every week, they worked on Lord Sam’s desmesne – the farm lands whose produce was his alone. In return they were allowed to work a tiny allotment of his land for themselves. Their home was a single roomed hut made of sticks and sods, with an earthen floor. All the family slept there – in winter, with the goat and pig, for extra warmth.

  But this was summer and the goat and the pig were tied up outside. They’d be set free to forage soon and someone’d have to go along to watch that they didn’t wander too far. They’d especially have to be kept away from the woods, of course, because Jake the Peg and Wild Jack Sorespot had been seen in the area and it was a well-known fact that they’d pounce on a loose pig as soon as spit on the ground.The hayward, Hayden, had tried to track them down and had complained to the lord about them, but they were too cunning to catch.

  The first good thing to happen was that it wasn’t Madeleine’s turn to watch the pig and the goat. It was Crashy’s turn. Her little blond-haired sister, whose smile rarely faltered, was already finishing her breakfast (a stale bit of bread dipped in water) and chattering away to her friend, Bling-anka, who loved to be with the animals and was excited about the day.

  The second good thing was that Sean the Bowman was back from the wars in France. (She’d once been a little sweet on Sean the Bowman.) He and his mate Darlington had been away for months, fighting for the lord and the king and they had tales to tell of a great victory at a place called Agincourt. The leader of their group of yeomen, Brenton Largeguy, had been slightly wounded by a French lance, but the others had returned unhurt

  The third good thing was that a band of pedlars and fortune tellers was camped outside Lord Sam’s castle. All the women in the hamlet would want to go, of course; first of all to visit Tom the Sharpener, with their knives and sickles. He could be counted on to put a good edge on a blade and to send the women away smiling, being such a terrible flirt. (Madeleine was a bit of a flirt herself, as it turned out.)

  Also travelling with the pedlars was Karshad, the fortune-teller, who could look at the lines on a person’s hand and, even through the dirt and callouses, tell what the future held. She was very exciting in a spooky kind of way. Madeleine would take her two friends, Caitee and Krysmara, to see Karshad and hope that they could trade some bright rooster feathers for the reading because, of course, they had no money. For Caitee and Krys’, it would just be a lark because, being only 12 years old, they had nothing important happening in their lives but, for Madeleine, marriage was looming and she wanted to know who it would be.

  Once while delivering turnips to the castle, she’d run into Taylor the tailor, bustling about with his arms full of woolens and she’d thought he had an interesting sparkle in his eye. She’d also met Kaedo the kitchen boy who was 15 and had pinched her bottom once (in the nicest possible way). But he had smelled so strongly of onions!

  In her dreams, of course, there was always the hulking presence of Sir Jack McDermatitus, the great and fearsome knight whose fabulous coat of arms carried the image of a rampant bull. She thought he had winked at her once while passing the hut on his trusty steed.

  It was every girl’s dream to marry above her station but it happened to the few. Katreena, wh
o was 17 now and had three children, had caught the eye of the Lord’s stable master and now lived inside the castle (albeit in one of the out-buildings). People still shook their heads in wonder at her good fortune. Even the chubby priest, Father Lachlan, when he was jolly from too much ale, had commented on what a good match it was.

  Anyhow, the three girls set off for the castle as soon as they were able and that’s when the fourth good thing happened. They were just in time to see not one but two fabulous corteges of caparisoned horses and bedecked carriages arriving at the castle – one from the south and one from the north. Unbenownst to them, Lord Sam was hosting a great meeting between representatives of the Scottish king and the great English king, Henry V. The spectacle was amazing.

  The renowned Gordon clan of Scotland entered the gates first, led by their favourite daughter, Shy-Lee, who rode side-saddle on a prancing pony. Shy-Lee chattered gaily and constantly to an accompanying knight, Sir Dan McMullit-Over, who looked down on her from an enormous charger. He’d long since given up trying to get a word in.

  In a carriage directly behind rode Shy-Lee’s ladies in waiting - two exceedingly beautiful and haughty girls. One was Lady Hannam who sat coolly and sedately, looking about. The other was Lady Melmont, whose wide-eyed enthusiasm and echoing laughter caught everyone’s attention.

  The second cortege, carrying the representatives of King Henry, was led by a lady of cool elegance and obvious sophistication. Barely a glimpse could be caught of her in her partly enclosed carriage, but the girls knew it was none other than Princess Amylen. She was renowned as one of the king’s wisest advisors and even the Reeve of Proser, Alanson, who was also (most unusually for such a high position) a woman, had spoken highly of the princess’s wisdom.

  Of course the girls’ hearts were racing and they could hardly have conceived that anything more exciting could happen. But it could. Two more things, in fact. The first took the form of the two fabulous knights riding behind the princess’s carriage. Madeleine’s first glimpse was of the sunlight glancing off the cold steel scabbards of their swords. As they passed, both removed their helmets and, wonder of wonders! They were females! They shook long, flowing locks into the wind. Both looked down, with wide, intelligent eyes on the three girls and smiled sparkling, astonishing smiles. They were the sisters Kenny and Alexy, both of whom had been at Agincourt and fought like men. (It was they, in fact, who’d rescued Brenton Largeguy from near certain death when he was wounded.)

  Madeleine, Caitee and Krysmara were near to fainting dead away with the wonder of it all. The world, it seemed, was so much grander and bigger and more surprising than Proser. And then the last wonder of the day happened. Lord Sam’s own sisters, the Ladies Tegz and Bec, were suddenly before them. Their eyes were kind. Their hands were clean and uncalloused. They smelled of sweet perfume. (Madeleine was acutely conscious of the lingering odour of pig from her own straw mattress at home.)

  “Well,” said Tegz to Bec. “These girls seem to be exactly what we’re looking for, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” said Bec. “I believe they’ll scrub up quite nicely!”

  “There’s to be a great feast at the castle tonight, girls,” said Tegz. Änd we could use your help.”

  In unison, Madeleine, Caitee and Krysmara gulped and looked down at their filthy bare feet.