Conquest II

by Tracey Warr

  ‘Slaves, bound for the Dublin market,’ she said. ‘Your lord will make a pretty penny off that.’

  I stared at the captives aghast. I lifted the hem of my skirts and made my way down to the bailey. There was a stench of shit, sweat and fear coming from the group of prisoners. ‘Owain!’

  ‘Shortly, dear. Busy right now.’ He sped past me.

  I turned to one of the soldiers guarding the captives. Children with grimy tear-stained faces looked at me. A vacant-looking young woman with streaks of blood on her apron was being held up by a young boy next to her. ‘Who are these people?’ I whispered to the soldier. ‘Where are they from?’

  ‘They’re from Llansteffan, lady. Your lord just made a very good raid there.’

  ‘No! You,’ I called softly to a small boy standing near the edge of the group. ‘Are you from Llansteffan?’

  ‘Aye, my lady.’

  ‘But you’re Welsh …’

  ‘Aye. Some of ’em,’ he gestured over his shoulder to the miserable group, ‘are Normans.’

  ‘Lady Nest?’ A man with a blood- and mud-smeared face jostled his way to the front of the group where one of Owain’s soldiers threatened him with a sword. After a moment, I realised I was looking at Dyfnwal. Amelina’s Dyfnwal.

  ‘I will do what I can for you, Dyfnwal,’ I promised him, in an ardent whisper.

  I spun around, searching the crowd in the bailey for Owain. ‘Owain!’ My tone was peremptory. ‘What is this?’

  He glared at me. Grabbed my arm and pulled me into the stables, away from curious eyes.

  ‘Do not dishonour me in front of my men, Nest, or princess or no, I’ll give you a whipping.’

  I clutched at my stomach, flinched at his words.

  ‘I apologise,’ I said. I needed him to answer me. ‘It was thoughtless of me.’ There was blood on his clothes, a streak on his neck, blood ingrained in the fingernails that gripped my arm. ‘Someone told me these captives are from Llansteffan, from my land, but that cannot be true.’

  ‘Your land! My land now, darling. Yes, they come from a raid on Llansteffan.’

  ‘You took Norman and Welsh alike.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘You intend to sell even the Welsh into slavery?’ I stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘They are all collaborators. It’s what they are fit for. I warn you, Nest, keep your nose out of my business and cease your questioning.’ He dropped my arm and strode from the stables. I stared at his retreating back and at the captive boy and Dyfnwal beyond, who had watched our exchange. They returned my gaze with bleak eyes. I turned and moved back into the hall the other way. I could not face going past the group of captives again. What could I do? I was a captive myself.

  At dinner, Owain, Madog and their men vaunted their success. They had slaughtered the Norman garrison at Llansteffan including the Fleming lord William of Brabant. I knew him. He was a great friend of Haith’s. I felt as if I had stepped off the edge of a cliff into air, all reference points severed, and I was falling. Just falling. What was Gerald doing and thinking, knowing that I was with Owain, that Owain was raiding my lands? In the morning I heard, but could not look, when the soldiers moved the miserable crowd of captives out to the boats of the waiting slavers.

  Madog was away the following day, and rode back into the bailey at a gallop, his horse skidding dangerously close to a small girl playing there. ‘Owain!’ he yelled. Owain came running from the stables and walked into the hall with his head close to Madog’s, his arm around his shoulder. I moved from the doorway where I had watched Madog’s arrival, and where they had passed me without a greeting. Keen to know what was happening I ignored their discourtesy and sat down next to Owain.

  ‘Jesu, Owain, you’ve gone from bad to worse!’ Madog exclaimed.

  ‘How so?’ Owain jutted his chin stubbornly.

  ‘King Henry’s taken great umbrage at your latest raid. He’s taken Cadwgan to England in chains and Iorwerth is on his way here now. You’d better get out without delay.’

  ‘Nest,’ Owain told me, ‘order the household to pack up and move off and get yourself ready to leave within the hour.’

  I stood and moved to the stairs. I wanted to run, to get away, but how, when I was so weighted down both physically and in my mind by the inescapable bulge of my stomach. I cried tears of frustration, feeling betrayed by my own body. Owain waited for me to place his cloak around his shoulders when he came into the chamber. ‘We’ll leave now.’

  ‘But Owain, do you trust Madog? Have you verified his report?’

  ‘You talk nonsense, woman.’

  ‘Richard de Belmeis sets your kin one against the other, with your uncle Iorwerth displacing your father. And Madog is also your kin who might stand to gain from your loss.’

  ‘I did not ask your counsel.’

  We were out on horses in no time and I turned in the saddle to look at Madog standing with his hands on his hip on the top step of the keep. ‘Owain, did you tell Madog where you were heading for?’

  He turned and looked at me and then back to his cousin standing there. ‘I did.’ He looked ahead, staring into space for a moment. ‘Very well. We’ll go a different route. In case.’

  We reached the coast at nightfall and there was a small fishing boat waiting for us on the beach. When I understood that we were going to cross to Ireland, I was aghast. ‘Owain, I can’t. I can’t cross the Irish Sea in a tiny boat, like this!’ I gestured at my stomach. The fishing crew of four men, stood at some distance, watching us argue.

  ‘Nest, you do nothing but complain. If it weren’t for your brother, I swear I’d abandon you, leave you here right now.’

  My mouth was open ready to continue arguing with him, but I closed it abruptly at mention of my brother and stared at him. ‘What do you mean about my brother?’

  ‘Just get in the boat. You will see him soon enough, God willing, if we survive the crossing.’ He lifted my arm, pushing me towards the boat and I clambered in. He whistled to the crew and they came and hefted the small boat off its grounding and climbed in, their leggings wet to the knees. Owain sat next to me, his own trews and boots soaked.

  ‘You should change your clothes.’

  He laughed. ‘Lord, my little princess, what you don’t know about life. We’ll all of us be soaked from head to foot shortly, I assure you.’

  Alas, for once, he was right. The crew were skilled but the boat was perpetually rocked and with each deep tip of the waves, great gouts of water were sent over the sides of the ship and over us. The boat pitched and rolled and fell down high waves. The vessel was awash, our hair was plastered to our heads and faces, our clothes dragging on us like iron weights. For the first time, I was at sea where there was no sight of land. The grey swell surrounded the small boat on all sides, battering us, rising up, threatening to swallow us. The mast shuddered and the sail tore in the incessant gale. The lanterns were all doused. I shivered and spewed over the side, shivered and screamed as another large wave approached, gripped at Owain, and spewed. It went on like this in the darkness for hours and hours. Eventually, I must have fallen asleep with the exhaustion of it. I woke, my head against Owain’s shoulder, blinking, unbelieving, at a blue sky and land before us.

  There were men with horses on the beach, black outlines in the pale morning light. The men and Owain leapt from the boat again and hauled it, with me, onto the strand. Owain and one of the fishermen took a hand each and helped me step unsteadily onto the sand. I looked at the horses.

  ‘Owain, I can’t. I need to rest. I need to stay here a while.’

  ‘You can’t stay on a beach, dripping wet and freezing.’

  ‘Then a cart. I can’t ride.’

  ‘Well, there’s no option,’ he said, hoisting me up and settling into the saddle behind me. ‘We’re not going far. I’ll hold you. You’re fine.’ He slapped the horse’s rump and we took off at a slow pace. The fishermen and their battered boat on the beach were soon out of sight.

 
; We rode for half an hour and there were the walls of a city rising before us on the plain, with large corrals full of horses. ‘Dublin,’ Owain told me. There were many ship masts in the waters before the city.

  We rode up the steep and aptly named Fish Street, which was lined with pungent fish market stalls. People stared at us in silence, the merchants with scales and weights in their hands, the customers with baskets brimming with iridescent fishtails and goggling fisheyes. I glanced at a child playing with a toy ship underneath one of the trader’s tables. I thought I would drop from the saddle with fatigue. ‘Here,’ Owain gestured to a great doorway to one of the grander houses at the top of the street. He spoke with the guards and they allowed us entry. In the bailey, servants ran out to take our horses and help me from the saddle. ‘Owain, I need to lie down. I am unwell.’

  We entered the hall and two women took me by the arms and helped me up a winding stone staircase and into a small chamber where I collapsed onto the bed. The maids fussed around me, chattering in an unknown language. Irish or Norse, I could not tell. They stripped off my wet clothes, exclaiming at the great mound of my stomach. ‘My child is coming,’ I groaned to them but they did not understand me. ‘Owain, Owain!’ I cried out as loudly as I could. He appeared in the doorway, a beaker of wine in his hand and a flush on his face. The maids screeched and covered me with a sheet at sight of him. ‘What now?’

  ‘The child. The child is coming and they don’t understand me.’

  ‘Oh.’ He stared at me nonplussed for a while, took a sip of wine, and then finally said, ‘I’ll find a translator … and a midwife.’ He stumbled off, and I wondered if he would instantly forget about me. My waters broke and rushed out, soaking the dry nightgown they had just put on me, and the bed I sat on, so that there was no longer any need for a translator. A woman, a lady by the looks of her, came in and took charge. She issued orders and the maids ran out, returning swiftly with bowls of steaming water and clean cloths. Another woman, a midwife I supposed, came in, rolling up her sleeves. She washed her hands and positioned me on the edge of the bed. I clung to the bed strut like a woman shipwrecked, my body wrenched by contractions, faster and harder than anything I had known with the births of my other children. The women mopped my brow, filled the room with bunches of pungent rosemary and lavender, spoke soft reassurances to me in their language. I let out a first scream and then many more. The sounds of music, shouts and laughter from the men in the hall beyond died down into silence; the silence of listening. I could not care. Let them hear me screaming. My attention was all focused on the excruciating clench and twist of my muscles and the brief respites from pain in-between.

  It was the longest labour I had ever experienced, going on into the following day, and then when the baby finally slid from me, purple and silent, the pains continued and the midwife and maids were exclaiming excitedly. The midwife held up two fingers to me. In my exhausted state, it took me a moment to understand her. The second baby arrived soon after his brother and with much less difficulty, and I lay back, panting on the pillows, my mind washed of everything. I could barely remember my own name.

  Owain was elated. ‘Two boys!’ he exclaimed. I was too tired to respond. I had held my sons briefly and wept over them, but now they were washed and tucked up in the cradle beside me, head to toe, with Owain peering at them. ‘Llewelyn and Einion,’ he told me. He exclaimed at the boys’ tiny fingers and perfect ears. He sat down on the bed, making me flinch at the jolt to my sore body. ‘You don’t look well, Nest.’ I closed my eyes instead of responding. ‘You need to look better than this for your brother.’ I opened my eyes and stared at him. ‘He’s coming tonight,’ he said.

  I struggled to raise myself against the pillows. ‘Tonight?’ My voice was a croak, exhausted from hours of screaming. I reached for the beaker of wine on the table beside me. ‘I can’t … tonight. I need.…’

  ‘What would you have me do? I can’t put him off. He wants to see you and his nephews, and he and I need to talk strategy. How we will oust all these upstarts from our lands.’

  I took another sip of wine and frowned. If my brother was relying on Owain as his fellow strategist, he had already lost. I was too tired to think. ‘I will sleep before he arrives,’ I said.

  ‘Very well.’ He patted my hand. ‘I hope a few hours’ sleep will revive you. You look like your own mother at the moment.’

  I kept my eyes clenched shut. My own mother. An image of her in the attack on Llansteffan rose into my mind. I could not allow myself to react to his words. He patted my hand again but I pulled it away swiftly. I could not bear his touch or the rank sweat smell of him. ‘Leave me,’ I said on the verge on hysteria and heard him walk from the room, banging the door behind him and startling the babies awake. He was greeted by a rousing chorus of men slapping him on the back and shouting toasts in the hall beyond. The midwife resettled the babies, and I closed my eyes again.

  I woke with a start to see a young man, no more than twenty, black haired, blue-eyed, approaching the bed, smiling. My brother Gruffudd. The last time I had seen him, he was a baby himself. He looked so like our father. I struggled to raise myself against the mound of soft pillows, and he hurried to assist me. ‘Nest!’

  ‘Gruffudd! I thought I would never see you.’

  He hugged me as if we had known one another all our lives. ‘Nest.’

  ‘She’s not looking her best right now … understandably,’ Owain said behind Gruffudd, and my brother glanced at him, frowning, and then went to peer into the cradle.

  ‘May I?’ He beamed down at the babies, shaking his head in wonder. ‘My nephews!’ he said, looking up again at me.

  Owain, tiring of familial mawkishness, told him, ‘I’ll be in the hall when you’re through.’

  Gruffudd sat gently on the edge of the bed. Despite the familiar lines of his face, his clothing and jewellery looked strange to me. Dublin was famous for its metal-work. He wore a large, silver Viking-style brooch, and rings and armlets decorated with the Norse gripping beasts.

  ‘I wish I were not lying here for our first meeting,’ I said, wiping my face.

  ‘Why so? How wonderful to see you and suddenly two more in the family!’

  I saw a cloud pass over his face and knew that he was thinking: two more bastards in the family. Did he see me a woman steeped in venery? ‘Tell me about yourself. You are a friend of Owain’s?’

  ‘Yes. He and his father are here often. I’ve known him all my life.’ There was a silence between us.

  ‘You know what has happened?’ I asked hesitantly.

  ‘You mean with Owain … with your … husband?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I heard about it.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘It seems that Owain’s plan went awry. He hoped you would be free to marry him after his raid, rather than ….’ His words petered out.

  Rather than this shame, he meant. ‘Tell me about you.’ I saw there was no profit in lingering on my own situation.

  ‘After our father was killed, the King of Dublin took me under his protection and I am in the household of his son, Raegnald. This is his house.’

  ‘Raegnald?’

  ‘Yes, the son of King Thorkil.’

  I stared at him, drinking him in, tracing every feature with my gaze. My brother. My family. All that remained of us. ‘So you are a fighting man,’ I said.

  He nodded proudly. ‘I am. And I mean to fight for my rights.’

  I smiled but my stomach churned at his words. His rights. Gerald stood between him and his rights. Henry would defend against his efforts to take his rights. I wanted to ask him what support he had, what plans, but this was not the time. We fell to speaking of Deheubarth, since he had never been there. We carefully avoided mention of Owain, my Norman husband, or my current situation as Owain’s hostage mistress, mother of his bastard sons. It was hardly to my credit.

  ‘I am weary of exile, sister, and must return to my patrimony soon.’

  ‘Gruffudd, you would do
well to know clearly the situation in Deheubarth. The Norman lords have a strong grip on the land. There is a Flemish colony –’

  ‘I know all this, sister.’

  ‘Gruffudd, you are the only brother I have left. I would not lose you.’

  ‘You will not.’ He put his hand softly to my cheek. ‘You need to rest now.’

  ‘Gruffudd, do not underestimate the Norman lords in Deheubarth. They have become strongly entrenched in the years since our father died.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Gruffudd, I heard of our brother Cynan’s death at the hands of Bernard de Neufmarché, drowned in a lake after the battle where our father died. Goronwy was beheaded on the beach. He was thirteen years old. Then Idwal, they sent him to a dungeon in chains for many years of suffering. He died a few days after I was able to secure his release.’

  ‘You did what you could. A woman has no weapons.’

  ‘A woman has weapons!’ I said to him fiercely, and he looked away from me. ‘I do not tell you this litany of woes for your forgiveness that I could not save them. I tell you because I wish to save you. The Normans rule through fear and cruelty. They do what they must to keep what they have taken.’

  ‘As will I.’

  I closed my eyes. I was merely making him dig further into his position. He would have to find out for himself how bad the situation looked for him in Deheubarth. ‘Will you do me one favour, Gruffudd?’

  ‘If I am able,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘Owain raided my lands at Llansteffan recently and means to sell the captives as slaves here.’

  ‘Yes, I know. He is giving me a quarter share since Llansteffan is my land.’

  ‘Our mother left Llansteffan and Carew to me as my dower,’ I told him.

  He shrugged.