by Griff Hosker
“Why, what have you in mind?”
“We need horses for Prince Cadfan, remember?”
“I will come.”
I shook my head. “You have already told me that you and your horses need a rest. We need you in command during my absence. You have already proved to be a worthy leader. I will take Myrddyn and Lann Aelle. Along with Pol and Aedh that should be enough. Stealing horses requires small numbers and stealth. Pol and Aedh have done this before. Your men need you.”
I could see that I had convinced him. “And the ones we rescued?”
“I will speak with them. The ships can take the weapons to Cadfan and I will send Mungo and Garth with you to return to their forts. They both need to train more men to garrison our new fort. I think it is safe for a while but once Iago and the Saxons realise we are here to stay then they will try to dislodge us. Pasgen needs to build a line of beacons to link with Ruthin. There are enough farms and settlements to do so.”
Hogan put his hand around my shoulder. “And you need to rest too.”
I shook my head and laughed. “I have just had a pleasant sea voyage. I am refreshed.”
After they had eaten I addressed the former captives. “Your homes have been destroyed and your men folk died protecting you. This is as dark a time as you will have to suffer for there is hope on the horizon.” I pointed to the south. “South of us is now free from Saxons. Prince Cadfan is settling the land of the Penrhyn Llŷn. There are warriors there who would be glad of a family to care for. There are many farms on Mona and you are welcome to go there. My son Hogan will be heading south tomorrow with my men and you will be safe in his care. You just need to decide where you want to settle.”
I could see smiles on the faces of the people and they went into small groups to talk of their future.
The bishop came to me. “Bishop Asaph said it and he was right, you have a Christian heart. I think what you offer is for the best.”
“I have now built a fort at Ruthin. They can see your beacon and there will be another just along the road at Treffynnon. It means that if we all watch then we can see the approach of the Saxons and we should not lose so many fine people.”
“And what of King Iago?”
That had worried me too. “I know not. He has been a little quiet since the ambush of my men. I would have expected belligerence from him. He is up to something and that thought is disquieting.” Still I can only deal with one problem at a time. I hope that we still have enough time to defend this land of ours.
Chapter 9
I gathered my horse thieves around me. “We will leave our armour at Ruthin along with the Wolf Banner. We will need stealth and not strength if we are to capture some horses.”
I could see that Lann was excited beyond belief. Aedh and Pol were legends amongst the young warriors. Both had been involved in some of the most exciting adventures and escapades during my time as Warlord. Lann Aelle was now joining those elite warriors.
“Aedh, you know the Saxon country beyond Gwynedd better than most; where should we seek horses?”
“If you want light horses then it is Gwynedd itself which has the most to offer.” He pointed to the mountain of Wyddfa. “There are valleys beyond the mountain which are filled with the herds of King Iago.”
A strange smile played upon Myrddyn’s lips. “We would also be able to spy upon King Iago. Besides which there is a certain irony in that we will be stealing the horses to give to his son. It has a balance about it.”
I shrugged. I did not mind which of our enemies supplied the horses. “Good, then let us leave for Ruthin.”
When we reached the fort I was glad that I had left Miach in temporary command. There was a gate and a drawbridge already built and manned. Although the walls were not as high as they would be eventually, it could be defended. “How long to finish it?”
“Twenty days and it will have walls. Another ten and it will be secure.”
I took him to one side. “We will need you and your archers on Mona soon. Find a leader amongst the men here.”
“I have a couple in mind.” He gave me a shrewd look. “So you go into the dragon’s den?”
I nodded, “We kill two birds with one stone. We gain horses and we see what the devious king is up to.”
We left early in the morning and headed up the shallow valley leading to Iago’s heartland. Pol and I wore our wolf cloaks while the scouts, Myrddyn and Lann wore dark cloaks so that we did not stand out. We rode well spread out both to enable us to see further and to avoid ambushes. I allowed Aedh and his scouts to take the lead. They had the ability to sniff out an enemy. I once had that but I had lost it over years. The hills and crags were criss-crossed by paths. Originally they had been made by sheep and goats and then man had made them wider. They were not straight and they provided many opportunities for an ambush. We were lucky, that first day and we made it to the crags overlooking the settlement of Corwen. We were but eleven miles from the fort but we were deep in Iago’s land. We halted behind a strand of straggly thin trees which had fought their way up in a harsh environment. We saw out first horses. There was a herd of wild ponies and they had been corralled into a stone wall farm. We peered down looking for signs of warriors but there were none. It looked a peaceful little settlement, much as Stanwyck had been before the Saxons had come.
Aedh led us down as the valley quickly darkened with the approach of dusk. “Pol, take Lann and make sure no one comes from the huts lower down the valley.”As the two young warriors trotted off the rest of us went to the corral. We needed the dominant male, the stallion. Aedh knew horses and he quickly found him. He and Myrddyn fitted a halter. The beast began to make noises, alerting those in the farm. “Take him now and the rest will follow.”
Aedh led the pony and the rest of us mounted and galloped after them. “Pol, it is time to go!”
A light showed that the door of the house had been opened and I heard voices shouting at us to halt. We ignored them and galloped back to our place of concealment. Pol and Lann galloped up to join us. Although it was dangerous we could not wait this close to Corwen and we rode the twelve miles back towards the Clwyd Valley. The tethered male leader soon succumbed to the apples Aedh gave him and the rest of the herd followed happily. Rather than making for the fort we headed down to the monastery and reached it, tired but relieved that we had succeeded by dawn. Bishop Stephen was surprised to see the scouts and the horses but he took it all in his stride. We took food with them. I did not want to risk leaving the herd this close to their former owners and we continued on to Prince Pasgen’s fort. The sentries were amazed to see the Warlord herding horses.
Prince Pasgen had had two crutches made and he beamed with delight when he saw us. “You have done well Warlord. Fifteen ponies!”
“Not good enough for equites but they should serve Cadfan as scout horses. Will you see that he gets them?”
“Aye my lord.”
“And beds for me and my men. We need the sleep!”
We spent a whole day with the prince and then headed back to Ruthin. Without the ponies we made better time. As we rode Myrddyn mused. “Those ponies were bigger than the normal Welsh hill ponies.”
I had not thought about that until Myrddyn mentioned it but now it was obvious. They had been almost as big as Aedh’s pony. “You are right but what does it mean?”
“It means my lord that King Iago is breeding bigger horses so that he has cavalry like we do.” He had more to say and I waited patiently. Myrddyn like to reveal his information little by little, as though he was performing a trick. He sighed and continued. “What that means is, he must have bigger horses somewhere that he is using to breed with the hill ponies.”
“And that will be down in the flat lands.”
“Probably around Wrecsam.”
The Mercians had had one success when they had surprised Beli, Iago’s father. Since then Iago had beaten them in every battle and had led to his conquest of Chester. Wrecsam would be the perfect
place to breed his horses for it was flat fertile land and well protected.
“It would be harder to steal horses from Iago’s forts. This would be no isolated farmhouse.”
“My lord, we would discover what he was up to and we would not need to steal all of the horses; just some of them.” I was not convinced and it showed on my face. “The prince has enough ponies to provide scouts. Information and knowledge is more important, Warlord.”
He was right. Infuriatingly he was always right and it was a risk worth taking. “Very well. Aedh lead us to Wrecsam! We will visit with Iago!”
We soon dropped down from the high hills and into the flat lands. We had to be cautious. There would be many of Iago’s men using the roads. We did not look like equites; if anything we looked like bandits but that could still get us killed. I divided the ten of us into groups of threes and fours. We could see the walls of Wrecsam in the distance. “Aedh, take your men all the way around the town and meet us here, under this oak. “Pol, take your two men to the north. We will head south. Meet back here.”
Myrddyn led Lann with me bringing up the rear. The roads in this part of the land were Roman in places but sometimes the Roman roads disappeared to become tracks. There were clusters of round houses dotted in fertile strips of land but we saw no horses. We spotted the ruins of some Roman villas but they were not the huge ones we had along the wall. The people did not appear to want to inhabit them. When I asked Myrddyn about that he said, “It may well be that they fear the ghosts of the dead. The Romans were not from this land and I think the people fear that their spirits will be restless and walk their old homes.”
“And you wizard? Would you fear them?”
“I fear no living man so why should I fear the dead? Besides I have slept in Roman houses as you have my lord and I felt no dead presence.”
There were far more settlements in this area and I could see where King Iago made his gold. There were cattle, pigs and even a few sheep in the higher meadows. Frustratingly we only saw a few horses. Lann asked about that. “Why do we only see one or two horses on the farms here?”
“I think that those farms belong to Iago’s nobles. They are a mark of their rank.”
“Could we steal them?”
“We could, Lann Aelle, but it would not be worth the risk. There are more likely to be armed owners. We would have to spend a long time collecting sufficient horses and they would find us.”
When I judged we had travelled far enough we returned to the oak. Aedh was not back but Pol and his two scouts rode in. He seemed quite animated. “We have found something interesting my lord. A few miles north of Wrecsam on the road to Deva they have built a camp and there is a corral with forty horses in it.”
“That is more like it.”
“However, my lord, Iago has a large number of his army there. We saw the king’s banner. He is training his men.”
“Then when Aedh returns we shall venture there. The pickings to the south are not worth the risk.”
Aedh reached us soon after and we rode, not along the road, for it was a busy one, but along the farm tracks which bordered the road. I was not worried about being seen. We would be taken for Iago’s men, especially if there was a training camp north of here. The danger would come from warriors. Pol had found a stand of trees with a small clearing in the middle. It looked to have been used by charcoal burners at some time in the past but it suited us. Aedh left five of his men with the horses while we made our way through the bushes and hedges towards the training camp. Pol had been a scout too and knew how to move without leaving a trail. He held his hand up and we flattened ourselves along the ground. He waved left and right and we wriggled like adders to the line of elders. I was pleased they weren’t blackberries or blackthorns. I had no armour to protect me from the thorns. There was enough space at the bottom of the hedges to peer through. The elder bushes were slightly above the enclosure Iago was using to train his men. Our enemy had learned from us. If nothing else our scouting mission had shown me a new danger.
Pol pointed to the right and I could see horsemen and they were trying to form a line. They were men of Iago’s shield wall and they were mounted on his horses. The mounts were bigger than ponies but not by much. I smiled as I watched the ragged attempt at forming line and then the movement which I think they intended as a charge. The poor beasts could not move swiftly for they were encumbered by heavy mailed warriors. When they tried to turn it became almost comical. Many of them overbalanced and thundered into the ground. The ponies, suddenly released from their torment, took off in every direction.
Myrddyn grabbed my arm and pointed. There was King Iago with some of his chiefs. He did not look happy. We had learned the lessons he was learning but over a long period of time. We had also had the advantage of warriors who were trained to be riders. Most of Hogan’s men had begun as scouts and learned how to ride well before learning how to fight on horseback. We watched as they tried to hurl spears from the backs of their horses. Some managed it successfully but most did not. Even the ones who threw them were not able to send them very far and had little control over the direction. I then looked around the camp to estimate numbers. There appeared to be four or five hundred men. Not all would be warriors but most would. It was coming to harvest time and Iago was making the most of the time he had to train his men. Soon it would be winter and, in the mountains around Wyddfa, no-one went to war.
I signalled that it was time to go and we made our way back to the clearing. The scouts had neither seen nor heard anything. Pol could not believe what he had seen. “We could destroy those with just a handful of lightly armed horsemen my lord.”
Aedh nodded, “The horses are too small for armour. They would suit scouts or archers but never warriors.”
Myrddyn counselled caution.”Remember the larger horses we saw on the farms. They are breeding bigger horses and they will get better. They were climbing back on the horses once they fell off. That is how men learn.”
“Myrddyn is right and with only five hundred men in the camp I am not worried but it means we need to spend the winter preparing for a spring assault.”
“It will give Cadfan time to prepare too.”
“So it will. And now let us head back to Ruthin.”
Pol looked disappointed, “But we have no horses.”
I swept my arm in the direction of Iago’s camp. “We will get none around here. Iago will have every horse in his land gathered.”
Aedh brightened, “Then north, towards the Saxon lands. There were always a few there.”
“Very well then. It might be a useful exercise for we can see more of the land to the south of Deva.”
The land was very flat and fertile as we headed north. We decided to approach as close as we could to Deva and then turn south west to return to Ruthin. We were four miles from the city when we saw the first evidence of the Saxons. Two small settlements were now smoking ruins. We did not approach too closely for the crows were picking over the carcasses. I was beginning to think that we would find nothing when Aedh said. “I believe there is a small settlement called Tatenhale not far from here. We once saw horses close by but it is Saxon not Welsh.”
We approached Tatenhale from the north. Any of the villagers would assume we were Saxon. We were lucky and we saw no one. It was mid afternoon and unseasonably warm. That may have helped us for Aedh’s sharp nose detected the smell of horse dung. We moved cautiously. We came to a field and there were six horses. They were the kind we used, a throwback to the time of Rome when they were used to pull carts. I could see, in the middle of the round houses, four carts. Whoever owned them moved things around. That meant that there might be armed men but the six horses were like gold. They would be big enough to carry Cataphractoi. I sent Aedh and his scouts to get the horses while we watched the huts. Perhaps they had just returned and were eating I do not know but we captured the horses easily enough.
“Each one of you, tie a halter to a horse and lead him. We can move fas
ter.”
With Pol and Lann leading, the six scouts and horses in between, Myrddyn and I brought up the rear. We escaped undetected. Our route took us towards Wrecsam in order to avoid the steep spur of land which jutted south from the Clwyd valley. Once we had passed Wrecsam then we would be at the fort in less than three hours. The sun was setting ahead of us. Things had turned out well. The horses we had stolen had been worked that day and they were happy to follow the scouts. Suddenly an arrow flew passed my head. I turned around and saw twenty of the warriors Iago had been training. “We are being pursued, Aedh, kick on. Pol and Lann join us.”
We speeded up but the men of Gwynedd were urging their horses on. When Lann joined us he began to whip at his mount. “No Lann! Keep a steady pace. You will blow your horse otherwise.”
Arrows came over our head now and again but a bow is hard to use when riding, especially when riding at the gallop. I kept glancing behind me. One or two of the warriors fell from their mounts as they tried to use their bows, while others were slowing down. The warriors had become a line but they were relentlessly pursuing us. It had been a gloriously hot autumn day and the sunset lasted a long time. The sun was so low in the sky that it was blinding but it was worse for the men pursuing us as they found it hard to see us. If we changed direction they would struggle to see which way we went. The land began to rise as we approached the Clwyd Valley. The warriors behind were spread out over half a mile and there were just six of them close enough to be a danger.
“When I give the word halt and dismount. Myrddyn guard the horses. We will fight them on foot.” Pol looked at me in surprise, “They cannot fight on horseback, we have seen that and we know how to fight horsemen. I do not relish the thought of being pursued all the way back to Ruthin. The others may be discouraged if we despatch a couple. Now. Halt!”
We stopped and dismounted in a heartbeat. Myrddyn grabbed the reins and we stood in the middle of the road. Pol was to my right and Lann to my left. The low sun had blinded them and they did not see that we had stopped. The first warrior only saw me when he was ten paces from me. He tried to swing his axe at my head. It is always a difficult thing to do as you are trying to avoid your horse’s head. I ducked and the momentum took him from his horse to lie at Pol’s feet. Pol stabbed him in the neck. The next two had forewarning and they slowed but they still tried to swing at us. We had no armour but that made us more agile. We easily moved away from their blows. Lann hacked at the leg of one of them as he rode by and Bear Killer bit into flesh to the bone. I stabbed upwards as a warrior’s sword went over my head and I found the gap in his mail under his arm. He fell dead at my feet. The other three looked at their dead and dying companions and turned to ride back to the rest of the warriors. They had halted a mile away.