Four milites in the service of the justiciar ate loudly and laughed at a shared joke in the body of the room. Sir John did not feel like joining the men who had accompanied him in his journey and instead walked over to where Sir Roger de Quincy stood.
‘Sir Roger,’ Stafford greeted him, ‘I am sorry to see that you are unwell. I saw Raymond de Carew fight William Marshal at the tourney in Westminster and it is no disgrace to have been roughed up by a man like him.’
‘I am fine. I was caught unawares by the rogue. That is all.’
‘This is my first time in Chepstow,’ Stafford told his fellow knight, using the English name for the town. ‘It is beautiful countryside. Is the hunting good?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, I see.’ The young heir to Striguil was agitated, that much was obvious to Sir John. He searched his mind for anything else to talk about. ‘This is delicious wine...’
‘It is terrible,’ Sir Roger replied. ‘It is from a vinery in Lincolnshire. The Cistercians make it cheaply and therefore poorly. It is exactly to Strongbow’s tastes; cheap and poor.’
‘He has money problems, then?’
‘Hah!’ Sir Roger de Quincy laughed, sinking what remained from his cup. ‘I am married to the heiress of a dying patrimony. Each year Strongbow sells off more and more land to pay his debts, leaving less for me to inherit. You rode through Tidesham on your way to Striguil?’
‘I did. Good timber.’
‘I know for a fact that Strongbow intends to sell off the whole manor to Bishop Roger of Worcester. And all to pay off a stinking Jew,’ he shook his head. ‘If he is not handing over money to him, then he is dispensing estates to the Church and what does he get for that?’ Sir Roger rubbed the ends of his fingers together as if he was sprinkling sand onto the wooden floor. ‘Nothing. I am to inherit a lordship with no land and of no distinction.’
‘These are tough times for us all,’ Sir John said. ‘Do you have any news from Ireland?’
Sir Roger scornfully spat on the floor. ‘There is no future in that land, no more so than there is in the land of the Scots. Strongbow should forget his throne,’ he said as he poured another mug full of wine. He did not offer any to Sir John.
‘So Strongbow still has designs on Ireland?’ Suddenly Sir John had stumbled upon a new lead in his investigation. He had seen with his own eye’s the earl’s embarrassing performance of homage at the coronation feast in Westminster, and had heard from several sources about why it had occurred.
Sir Roger choked momentarily on his wine and began shaking a finger at Sir John. ‘No, no. I spoke out of turn,’ he quickly claimed. ‘I am not supposed to say anything about...’
‘About?’
‘About Raymond the Fat and Strongbow’s plans,’ Sir Roger admitted. ‘Sir John, if you can promise me that I will not lose Striguil, I will tell you what you need to know. But I want assurances that I will keep this castle if Strongbow is outlawed.’
‘Outlawed?’ Sir John was now confused. ‘Why would your father-in-law be outlawed?’
‘Because you have been lied to,’ the dark-haired knight claimed. ‘Raymond didn’t steal the ship; he was given her by Strongbow in order to go to Ireland. My wife’s great-uncle, Sir Hervey de Montmorency, is in on it too,’ he added quickly. ‘He cannot be trusted either,’ he licked his lips, ‘not like I can.’
‘To what purpose has Raymond de Carew been sent to Ireland?’
‘Conquest,’ Sir Roger described. ‘Strongbow has been promised a throne if he invades on behalf of a local chieftain, or some such nonsense,’ he said. ‘The earl has sent Raymond ahead secretly to prepare a bridgehead while he arranges an army of invasion. Raymond was able to employ over fifty bandits from Seisyll ap Dyfnwal’s lands – outlaws, each and every one. You see, King Henry gave no assurance that he would release Strongbow from his service. He has no licence so he wants to invade in secret. I tell you this only because I trust you, Sir John, to tell the King that I will be a trusted friend to him amongst his many enemies on the March. If, that is, he allows me to keep Striguil, Goodrich and Usk.’
Sir John said nothing but had a long drink from his goblet as he mulled over this news. ‘What do you think I should do exactly? Arrest Strongbow?’
‘If you think it necessary, I would not dream of...’ Sir Roger dropped his voice as a page passed close by, yawning and holding a load of clean bed linens. ‘I would make a far better friend to King Henry than my father-in-law,’ he whispered.
Stafford could not believe Sir Roger de Quincy’s brazen betrayal of Strongbow. However, he felt sure that Sir Roger would indeed be better equipped than Strongbow to function in the dark world of the Plantagenet court where King Henry’s plotting and politicking was to the fore. He felt a sudden sympathy for the old warrior Strongbow, who like Sir John himself, had spent most of his life struggling to earn a piece of land to call his own. And yet the life of a nobleman was never easy when a king like Henry FitzEmpress sat on the throne enacting edicts, publishing proclamations and issuing writs to strangle the independence from the lords of England.
‘I will tell the king of your offer, Sir Roger,’ he lied. ‘I recommend that you keep this information to yourself in the meantime. We would not want to raise your father-in-law’s suspicions prematurely. To that end I would suggest being the most committed and goodly son-in-law that you can possibly be until I can get this information to King Henry in France.’
‘Of course,’ Sir Roger said, suddenly keen.
Sir John looked at the treacherous Sir Roger and forced himself to smile. ‘Striguil would be lucky to have a man of your calibre at its head.’ He bowed. ‘You,’ he commanded the justiciar’s men, ‘we are departing now.’ Moans echoed as the warriors realised they would have to climb back into the saddle and spend the night in the open countryside rather than the comfort of Strongbow’s hall. Sir John de Stafford did not stop to listen to their dissatisfaction. Out on steps to the bailey, he stopped and stretched his back, staring over the bailey walls at the wide Afon Gwy. The river wound its way southwards to where it met the mighty Severn. Freshwater met salt and river met sea, and beyond that the mysterious land of Ireland lay. Sir John snorted a small laugh and pulled his cloak closer around his shoulders, thinking of his wife and daughters at home safe in their small manor house. What ambition stirred in a man of Strongbow’s standing, he did not know or share but it seemed like he was surrounded enemies both within and outside his own castle.
‘Good luck,’ John de Stafford, a man who had known ambition and disappointment, whispered upwards to where Strongbow slept alone in the solar of Striguil.
Part Two
The Bridgehead
Chapter Eight
Crashing waves woke Raymond de Carew from sleep. The wooden belly of Strongbow’s ship squeaked beneath his cold and damp woollen clothes as he rolled onto his shoulder. He stared through the darkness. Down the length of the vomit-strewn ship his company of warriors shivered and prayed that they were having nightmares and would soon awaken in their warm beds far away from the cold beach. It was summer everywhere, it seemed, except Ireland.
A hundred and ten men, sixty horses, a priest and one woman had made the crossing from Striguil the day before. Lurching across the sun-soaked waves, Strongbow’s ship, Waverider, had come across none of the dangers that downed so many other vessels in the Western Sea. Raymond knew that his small ship might have encountered waterspouts, whirlpools, and any number of sea monsters, not to mention pirates, evil spirits and storms. But his luck had held out.
‘Thank you, St Nicholas,’ he said towards the dark purple sky. He prayed that his gratitude found the ears of the sailors’ saint. ‘Thank you for bringing us safely to this,’ he paused as more rain sprayed across the sheer-strake, ‘lovely place.’
The headland was called Dun Domhnall and Raymond had beached the ship in a small cove below the cliffs to the east. During the night the rain had swept in, ever heavier, shaking the rigging, whipping rope
s and scattering water across his small fighting force. Everywhere men huddled together attempting to find any nook that would protect them from the creeping cold which seeped over the rail. One of the young remounts had spotted that Raymond was awake. He tried to stamp his feet to attract his attention and Raymond reached out to silently soothe the cob, hoping that his calming valerian concoction would keep the animals under control for a little bit longer.
‘Holy Trinity,’ he exclaimed as another blast of drizzle tumbled over the starboard quarter of Waverider and froze his face. He pulled himself up to a sitting position. Only a hangover could have made the dark morning worse, but thankfully Raymond had abstained during the crossing unlike many of his new allies. The seventy Welsh archers had come at a high price, but he knew that with Seisyll ap Dyfnwal’s men by his side his plan, and by extension Strongbow’s invasion, had a real chance of success. If, that was, the Welshmen survived the after-effects of so much drinking.
It was a grim start to the campaign. A howling gale swept off the ocean and froze every exposed piece of skin. His knuckles somehow managed to find a way to knock themselves off every hard surface, causing an excruciating if momentary pain to erupt in his otherwise nerveless digits. The snot dripped from his upper lip to mingle with the freezing salt spray from the ocean. Wet, coarse sand found its way into every soft ripple of skin, and the ripping winds pierced his woollen clothes to Raymond’s bones. Waverider was hidden on the less exposed beach, surrounded on three sides by the headland of Dun Domhnall, but it remained a damp, cold misery. From above, dripping water scattered from the half-stowed and noisy rigging to land squarely on Raymond’s shoulders. Under his vast cloak he had a skin full of wine and a quick slug of the liquid warmed against his chest proved enough to lessen the wonderful wretchedness of the south coast of Ireland. He hefted himself to his feet and walked over to his nearest comrade.
‘Are we in hell?’ William de Vale asked groggily as Raymond shook him by the shoulder. The esquire had been another to overindulge during the crossing and was paying the price for that excess.
‘No chance,’ Raymond replied with a laugh, handing over his own wine skin. ‘Hell, I am sure, would be much warmer than this.’ He looked out over the side of Waverider. ‘I can tell you that we are definitely not in heaven either.’ Another wave from the retreating tide smashed into the stern of the Norman vessel and made the wooden planks strain and twist loudly. The sail above them cracked like a whip. William groaned and hung onto the wretched wooden pallet that was his bed. Raymond slapped his young esquire on the shoulder sympathetically and shouted down the ship to rouse Borard and Amaury de Lyvet. Several Welshmen growled and swore at the captain in their own tongue, perhaps demanding that he be silent and let them sleep. He ignored them and moved further down Waverider.
‘Amaury,’ Raymond called again, ‘get your section awake and start moving the coursers onto the beach. It will be daylight soon enough.’
He nodded obediently in Raymond’s direction and began calling the names of men under his direct command. He had taken the place of his elder brother, Nicholas, who had been killed by Jarl Sigtrygg in Westminster, and had proven a steady and trusted subordinate. His order was met with more groans from men who pretended to be asleep even when Amaury poked and jostled them. Borard echoed Amaury’s calls and soon the whole company was awake and getting ready to work.
Bracing himself for the impact, Raymond leapt down onto the beach, happy that both would carry out his orders. He felt vulnerable without his armour and he wrapped his cloak tightly around him as if to make up for the absence of chainmail. To have gone to sea without his coat of steel would have been to invite rust, not to mention the obvious dangers if he had fallen overboard wearing his hauberk and coif. He missed its weight as he made his first steps on Irish soil.
It had already been getting late when they ran the ship up on the beach and Raymond could not imagine why any Gael would have had his eyes on the sea in this Godforsaken part of the world. Still, his nerves jangled and he searched the horizon for any hint of danger. He prayed that the steep cliffs which rose above the beach had protected them from prying eyes during their night-time landing. Daylight was beginning to threaten the eastern sky as Raymond walked the few steps to the shore and doused his face with salty water.
‘Holy Lord, that would wake the dead,’ he said as another gust howled off the sea. Their landing site was on a long peninsula which poked out from the south coast into the western ocean and was surrounded on three sides by high black sea cliffs covered in vegetation. It was the perfect place for a landing, as Strongbow’s uncle had described. Sir Hervey de Montmorency had also informed them that there was a small and ancient fort up on the headland above the beach which would serve as an effective rally point if the small contingent of Normans were discovered by the natives.
Raymond watched as weak sunlight spilled drearily over the watery scene before him, unveiling for the first time the black rocks which punctured the surface of the bay. He had not realised how fortunate his crew had been to navigate the landing without sinking Strongbow’s ship in the shallows. Further out to sea, Raymond could make out several low grey blurs on the horizon which gave away the position of the tiny islands which the ship had rounded in the fading light of the day before.
The last words of a prayer drifted over the rumble of the ocean to where Raymond stood. Lying prostrate on the low-lying black rocks was a man. Raymond had thought him one of the jagged boulders in the bay and he jumped in surprise as his words reached him.
‘Captain,’ William Ferrand greeted Raymond. His voice was hoarse and his head was still bowed on his wringing hands as they rested upon the rocks. ‘How are you finding your first day in Ireland?’
‘Cold,’ Raymond answered. He tried to dismiss the discomfort that Ferrand’s presence inspired. Six years before, the warrior had been one of several hundred refugees who arrived in Striguil under the command of Sir Roger de Quincy. Raymond had listened as the leader of the fugitives had told a tale about the gallant defence of the frontier castle of Aberteifi following the death of the constable, Robert FitzStephen, Raymond’s uncle. Sir Roger had spoken about how, with their last vestiges of strength depleted and FitzStephen dead, the small garrison had sued for peace with the besieging Welsh rebels. Strongbow had broken down in tears as he had listened to the tale and had urged the brave escapees to remain in Striguil as his guests, showering Sir Roger with glory and praise. It was only later that dark rumours about the fall of Aberteifi had begun to circulate, whispers that not only said that Robert FitzStephen was still alive and imprisoned, but that he had been betrayed by Sir Roger de Quincy and his lieutenants, of whom Ferrand was principal. In the six years since their arrival at Striguil, Raymond had had little to do with any of the men in Sir Roger’s retinue. Yet somehow William Ferrand had managed to find out about his plan to flee to Ireland and had stowed away aboard Strongbow’s ship at port in Suðbury.
‘How are you feeling?’ Raymond asked.
‘I am here in Ireland as penance for my sins,’ said Ferrand as he climbed to his feet, his face still turned towards the sea. ‘I am not here for my comfort, but to make clean my soul.’ He slowly turned around to face the captain. Immediately Raymond felt the automatic and unwelcome feeling of disgust as he looked into the face of a leper. Ferrand’s granulated and pale skin looked dead. Knuckles of skin clumped hard upon his face, sending a shudder through Raymond’s body as it had when he had found him on the ship. He had been assured by Dafydd FitzHywel whose brother and grandfather had both perished from the disease that the gravel-voiced warrior would not inflict the horrible condition on anyone else, but Raymond still felt himself take an involuntary step away as Ferrand looked at him. His left nostril was missing, as was part of his upper lip.
‘Surely a pilgrimage to St David’s or Our Lady’s in Walsingham would have been a better place to do penance for a man in your condition? You would have done well to have stayed in the leper hous
e in Tyndyrn, surely a good place to get back on your feet.’
‘It was a good place to die, nothing more. It is not from Holy Mother Church that I seek atonement,’ Ferrand replied with a grimace and turned his back.
Raymond knew of what he spoke. After they discovered the stowaway on board, the other milites had told him that Ferrand had spent much time at Tyndyrn Abbey praying for forgiveness for his part in the betrayal of Robert FitzStephen at Aberteifi. They said that he had performed any task that had been asked of him as contrition and that he had picked up the disease from the sufferers who often went for help from the Benedictines. They also said that when he had begun to show signs of the disease, Sir Roger de Quincy had ejected him from his retinue and it was only the kindness of Lady Basilia that had saved his life, finding a position for him at the port of Suðbury where, no doubt, he had been perfectly placed to find a way onto Waverider.
‘Do you think this is the edge of the world?’ Ferrand asked suddenly as he stared out on the grey, rolling sea.
Raymond shrugged, wondering why the leper had asked him such a question. ‘Could the edge of the world really only be four days’ sailing west of Striguil?’
Ferrand seemed not to like Raymond’s response. ‘Jesus and his disciples sought the solitude of the desert when they needed to contemplate the condition of their souls. We don’t have a desert so this vacant and desolate place will have to do for me. This is the edge of the world,’ he asserted, ‘the end of this world and thus closer to Christ’s kingdom.’
‘Despite it being the edge of the world, we have enemies all around us,’ Raymond replied, ‘so if you are going to eat our food you had better be willing to pull your weight. Are you capable of work?’
Ferrand bowed his head and turned around to face Raymond. ‘What do you want me to do?’ His sunken eyes could not hide the challenge. He did not want pity.
Lord of the Sea Castle Page 19