Swordland

by Edward Ruadh Butler

  ‘It is done,’ FitzStephen shouted, his voice echoing around the cavernous priory. Three men dressed similarly to their captain entered the building along with a young Welsh warrior. Walter recognised the boy as Geraint, a cousin of Einion.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ FitzStephen switched to the Welsh tongue to address the terrified boy, ‘I am not going to kill you. I want you to deliver a message to your Prince Rhys.’ The Norman knight knelt and picked up Einion’s head by his long hair, throwing it to the boy who squealed as it struck him in the chest and rolled down his body to his feet. ‘Take that to my cousin and tell him who sent it.’ The boy was wild-eyed as the head was forced back into his arms. ‘He will know where to find me,’ FitzStephen said and turned to his warriors. ‘Take him outside and put him on a horse,’ he told his men. ‘Then we are for Aberteifi and home,’ FitzStephen shouted. ‘We have what we came for. I have my war,’ he added more quietly.

  Walter groaned as another bout of pain surged through his body. His heavy breathing interrupted the Norman captain who turned around to look at the Welshman, sprawled on the floor.

  ‘Walter, I had forgotten that you were there,’ FitzStephen said. ‘Alas, I am afraid that I am going to need my armour back.’ The Welshman whimpered once as his enemy stalked forward with his dagger poised to strike again.

  Six months later

  The Norman army, gaudy against the greys and greens of rain-soaked Dyfed, marched towards the fast-flowing River Teifi. They strode with smiles upon their faces, the smirks of men who knew that victory was imminent.

  ‘The Lord of Hosts is with us,’ Sir Robert FitzStephen shouted at the horsemen and pointed to the black and yellow banner of St David which hung limply above the warriors sent by the Norman bishop. ‘You’d better be with us,’ Sir Robert murmured as he cast his snarling gaze skyward. ‘Now of all times.’

  ‘Tell the Lord to go back to heaven,’ a warrior shouted from the midst of his armoured horsemen, ‘because we don’t need his heavenly host, we have the Devil on our side! His name is FitzStephen.’

  The other men-at-arms laughed as Robert punched a chainmailed fist in the air and led the army north across the long wooden bridge between the countries of Cemais and Ceredigion. Behind the cavalry came the ranks of archers and infantry, twice as many as there were horsemen. They laughed and joked amongst themselves as they tried to hide their excitement and terror at the thought of the fight ahead. Yet they were all glad to be free of the boring garrison duty that had so dented their opportunity for plunder and acclaim in Wales. The girls of the town cooed and waved as the dim light danced off the cavalrymen’s armour, and boys ran alongside, grasping to touch of the weapons that hung from the flanks of the Norman horsemen. Above, pennants trembled in the wind on lances and spears. The horses seemed to sense the oncoming storm of violence and shuffled nervously beneath their masters.

  ‘I wish this rain would stop,’ Sir Roger de Quincy said as he trotted alongside FitzStephen. His courser’s hooves knocked dully on the wet wooden timbers of the bridge which spanned the Teifi. ‘I don’t fancy fighting in this downpour …’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about the weather,’ FitzStephen interrupted, ‘I need you to stay here at Aberteifi with five milites and a section of archers …’

  ‘Stay?’ Quincy interrupted, his nose curled with petulance. ‘Why do I have to stay? Why can Ferrand not stay here?’

  ‘Because William Ferrand is going with me and you will learn not to question my orders,’ FitzStephen replied in a low voice, waiting until Quincy sullenly nodded his head.

  ‘I know my duty,’ Quincy added angrily, clipping his heels to his horse’s flanks and riding ahead of the Constable towards the end of the bridge.

  FitzStephen shook his head in anger at Quincy’s lack of respect and sent a curse through the deluge towards his lieutenant’s back. It had been raining on Ceredigion for two weeks; a sticky, constant drizzle that, along with the warm weather, made woollen clothes cling to their owners, itching and uncomfortable. The grey clouds had come in from the east and wrapped themselves around the top of the low Welsh mountains, pouring their contents unceasingly across the already sodden hills. But no matter how much it rained the heavy October clouds did not diminish and the land of Ceredigion seemed cut off from the rest of the Wales, flanked on either side by the leaden mountains and the grey, stormy sea to the west. Rainwater splashed on rocks and ran between the sparse clumps of grass before it was collected by streams and tributaries which wound their way down the hills to join the mighty River Teifi.

  But not even the rain could dampen the relish in FitzStephen’s eyes. It was six months since the incident at the priory and finally his moment had arrived: the native princes had united and would give him battle! Droplets drummed on helmets, shields, weapons and armour yet victory seemed assured. Had not the priests sworn that in the eleven hundred and sixty-four years since the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, no army had ever been so grand? Were the Normans not the masters of Wales? And who could possibly defeat such an army led by that great knight himself, Sir Robert FitzStephen? Surely not this rag-tag army of Welshmen coming out of the hills to the north, he thought. What did it matter that the priests from Deheubarth and Gwynedd claimed that God had abandoned the man who had murdered their heroic captain, Einion ab Anarawd?

  ‘Get your vanguard moving faster, Sir Robert,’ a knight in the colours of the Baron of Cemais shouted through the rain. ‘We want to get across today,’ he yelled sarcastically.

  ‘He is very keen for a boy who has never lifted his sword in anger before,’ FitzStephen shouted back. The knight’s face turned red and he rode away rather than reply to the insult against his lord. Nevertheless FitzStephen urged his men to greater speed as asked. ‘We go north, lads,’ he shouted as he reached dry land below the high earthen motte of Aberteifi Castle. ‘We go north, for plunder aplenty and Welsh wenches for one and all!’ His men cheered and streamed past him towards the road upon which, he had no doubt, they would soon find the rebel Welsh army. The sound of cantering horses’ hooves made FitzStephen turn.

  ‘The Cymri have stopped their advance, Robert,’ William Ferrand shouted in his direction as he slowed to a trot, surrounded by more outriders dressed in the same gold and crimson arrow-headed surcoats.

  ‘Where?’ asked the Constable of Aberteifi.

  ‘Two miles to the north,’ Ferrand said as his excited horse fought against its bit. ‘They are waiting for us. They are led by Rhys of Deheubarth and Owain of Gwynedd.’

  ‘They are definitely going to give us battle?’ FitzStephen sounded dubious, and well he might; the Welsh princes had rarely allowed themselves to be caught in a pitched battle with the Normans. By the same token, the dwindling numbers of FitzStephen’s people were too few to risk a head on collision with the more numerous Welsh and were content rather to sally out from their castles to wreak havoc and ravage the land, extending their influence piece by piece and mile by mile.

  This campaign was different. All the native princes of Wales had united to take on the murderer of Einion ab Anarawd, and expel the Normans from the land of Ceredigion. FitzStephen smiled when he considered the Welsh horde that approached his small fortress. In his wildest dreams he had thought that Einion’s death would have given him the opportunity he had wanted since he had been created Constable of Aberteifi: to draw out his enemy and meet them in battle, Norman lance against Welsh bow. Thanks to Einion’s death only one victory lay between Sir Robert FitzStephen and the destruction of the greatest lords of Wales. One decisive encounter and the kingdoms of Ceredigion, Deheubarth, and Gwynedd would lie open to conquest.

  ‘Rhys will stand and fight?’ FitzStephen asked Ferrand with a sceptical shake of his head. ‘You are sure?’ He could not believe that his cousin, his mother’s nephew, would take this action. ‘You are sure?’ he repeated.

  ‘The Cymri are arrayed for battle,’ Ferrand confirmed and stared nervously through the drizzle towards the hills to the north
where their enemy waited. ‘The armies of Gwynedd and Deheubarth have come to Aberteifi,’ he breathed out and shook his head. ‘It will be a long day, even with the Baron of Cemais’ army at our side. I hope you know what you are doing, Robert.’

  FitzStephen smiled and nodded his head. In his world, reputation in battle was everything; triumph in battle meant castles to govern land: land supported wheat, wheat fed warriors, and warriors could extend borders. Reputation meant power. The whole basis of the Norman way of life fed off conquest and in Wales was found the last fighting frontier in Christendom.

  Shouts in the distance drew his attention and FitzStephen cast a scathing and distrustful look through the rain at the young Baron of Cemais, his neighbour from across the Teifi, who had inherited his father’s vast Welsh estates just a year before.

  ‘Spoiled brat,’ FitzStephen said quietly – and jealously for, despite his many successes, he was essentially a landless knight. As Constable he held the castle of Aberteifi for the Earl of Hertford, the absentee lord of Ceredigion, and could only hope to become rich through the favour and endowment of land from his liege lord after his service was done. All he could expect for his efforts was the enjoyment of his lord’s offices until he retired to some upland estate where he and his sons would struggle to raise crops and defend themselves against the Welsh. He thought of Aberteifi and Ceredigion as his inheritance, but the reality was that he could be replaced as Constable at any time if his lord so chose. FitzStephen was no longer content to wait for either reward or dismissal from the Earl. The time had come for him to prove himself against the two most powerful princes in Wales. He would take a prize for himself, and if God was with him then it would be a Marcher kingdom without equal.

  ‘If the Baron of Cemais stands and fights,’ Ferrand interrupted FitzStephen’s thoughts, ‘then the Welsh will only outnumber us by four to one.’

  ‘We have them then,’ FitzStephen said to his friend and circled his courser. ‘We have them,’ he shouted towards the dark, encroaching clouds. Around him the Norman warriors of the Welsh March cheered through the rain.

  Victory was near, Sir Robert FitzStephen was certain.

  Bodies littered the street all around him as he deflected another Welsh spear thrust with his shield. FitzStephen screamed as he ducked and swept his sword through his enemy’s knee. The man went down screaming amongst the dead, his leg hanging by tendrils of flesh, and FitzStephen wasted no time in claiming his life with a stabbing downward lunge. Chainmailed Normans lay pierced with arrows and Welshmen lay contorted with horrific open wounds. The street of Aberteifi was awash with blood diluted by rain. FitzStephen ignored the horror and panted hard, searching for another enemy to kill.

  ‘Sir Robert,’ William Ferrand exclaimed as his men fell in alongside their constable, ‘we thought you were dead!’ Blood was visible on his spangenhelm as he locked shields with FitzStephen.

  ‘St Maurice was watching over me,’ he replied hoarsely.

  ‘Where is the rest of your rearguard?’

  ‘Those that live are back in the castle,’ the knight told him indelicately, ‘but there were not many that made it back.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘Quincy said that the baron had fled back across the bridge to Cemais?’

  Ferrand nodded and spat. ‘And good riddance, I say. He tried to get me to abandon the castle and defend the far side of the river, do you believe that? Sir Roger told me that you were dead and that he was going to follow the baron too. Wulfhere put paid to that; he told Quincy he’d put an arrow up his arse if he saw him on the bridge, so he stayed put.’

  ‘Good,’ FitzStephen replied and turned to stare at Aberteifi Castle, white and shining under the weak autumn sunshine.

  ‘We’ve built a wall in the street,’ Ferrand told him. ‘I suggest we get on the other side of it.’

  FitzStephen nodded and followed Ferrand to the rudimentary rampart erected across the main street through Aberteifi.

  ‘This man says he has a rich ransom,’ Robert’s half-brother, William, interrupted. Below the esquire, a terrified Welshman was on his knees, his hair coiled around the teenager’s fingers and a hunting dagger at his gullet. The Cymri warrior babbled nonsense as the boy held him firm. ‘Do shut up,’ William snarled in the Welsh tongue and thumped the man on the side with his knee. Under normal circumstances FitzStephen would have taken any ransom to enrich his coffers, but this was not the time to lose even one warrior to watching prisoners.

  ‘Kill him,’ he told his brother. William looked up regretfully before finishing his victim, hands flapping in his face as the Welshman squealed for pity from the young esquire. He received none and William dragged another body towards the gruesome barrier of dead men and loose timber which Ferrand had thrown up across the street.

  ‘Shields,’ someone shouted suddenly from FitzStephen’s left. The Cymri, who had pursued his rearguard back to Aberteifi, once again began their aerial assault and the Normans raised their long, leaf-shaped shields to take their arrows. The occasional grunt and yelp of pain told the Constable that his men were taking damage. The Welsh bows didn’t have the killing range of a crossbow, but a good archer could shoot ten arrows every thirty seconds whereas the Flemish crossbowmen that FitzStephen hired could only manage half that number. The archers would make an unholy mess of the Norman chainmail at close range, but they lacked the power to penetrate wood- and leather-backed shields. Every Norman knew the skill of the Welsh bowmen and had learned to fear that ability. To make matters worse, FitzStephen observed more enemy warriors streaming down the hill to the north-east. They would come looking for plunder, to kill men and to rape women.

  He had wanted this war, he recalled, and had engineered an invasion of his territory by killing Einion, confident that he could destroy his enemies in open battle. But Einion’s uncle, Prince Rhys of Deheubarth, had prepared a trap and FitzStephen, arrogant as he was, had bumbled straight into it. Rather than the untrained raiders which the Welsh usually deployed against the Normans, he had found armoured and disciplined enemy who had matched his infantry blow for blow in the horror of the shield wall. The Welsh should have broken, should have dispersed into the hills as they always had in the face of Norman force, but Rhys’ army had withstood FitzStephen’s advance. And the surprises had not finished there; a distant thunder of hooves was as much as Sir Robert FitzStephen could remember of the moment his army, and his dreams for conquest, had died.

  He recalled doubting the evidence his ears provided, telling himself that the Welsh did not have armoured cavalry as he had continued to stab and defend in the very centre of the shield wall. But moments later he felt the shudder pass through his army like wind through a field of bluebells, and he had stolen a glance at his right flank where he saw a rout taking place. His ally, the Baron of Cemais, Ralph FitzMartin, was fighting for his life, his men streaming from the hillside and back along the road towards Aberteifi. The Welshmen had ambushed his army using the Normans’ own tactics. Then, suddenly, his whole army was retreating, step by step at first but before long they were running, the Cymri on their heels. The Baron of Cemais’ men were already on the road in disorder, assailed by arrow and Welsh lance, and the soldiers of Aberteifi had added to that chaos. FitzStephen had been able to keep his fifty household warriors together, and had strung them across the muddy road while his army had fled back to Aberteifi. Only twenty of that rearguard had made it to the fortress alongside their constable. The rest lay on the road, destroyed, like his ambitions.

  However, the Welsh were seemingly not simply happy with victory in the field, and had followed FitzStephen back to his castle at Aberteifi. They wanted to rid Ceredigion of the Norman invaders, to pull down the walls of the castle and to destroy the bridge across the Teifi. FitzStephen swore as his shield was battered by the staccato strike of arrows. He had hoped to hold the town until nightfall, denying the attacking Welsh protection from the inclement weather which he knew was gathering over the sea. But now, with the town about to be
overrun, the only thing left for him to do was to withdraw into the fortress and face a siege. FitzStephen did not like the idea of being trapped and he growled angrily at the thought until an arrow punctured his shield, penetrating far enough to cause him to cry out in shock. Unheralded, Einion ab Anarawd appeared in his mind. Before he had died, his Welsh cousin had told FitzStephen that he would face defeat and then death. The Constable stabbed his spear into the soft mud and used his free hand to cross his chest to avert evil.

  As he did, William Ferrand tapped him on the shoulder with the butt of his own weapon and spoke in his soft growl of a voice. ‘Bastards are coming,’ he said simply.

  The Constable turned around and followed his subaltern’s nod towards the west. He could see two Welshmen at the end of the road, staring and pointing at the Norman left flank with their spears. They turned and shouted at someone behind the houses that FitzStephen couldn’t see. But the message was clear: the Normans were about to be assailed in the flank and in force.

  ‘Sneaky bastards,’ he exclaimed and turned back to his friend. ‘Get your men back into the castle. Secure the gate.’

  Ferrand swung his shield over his shoulder and jogged the short distance back to the castle gate. His small troop of warriors followed his lead without the need of an order. FitzStephen then despatched three more of his senior milites in the same direction leaving only a skeleton crew at the makeshift wall of bodies and broken timbers.

  ‘Get your arse moving,’ he hissed, grabbing Herluin de Exeter by his hauberk, dragging him to his feet, and pushing him towards the open castle gates, thirty yards behind. He then shouted the order to the last of his men, ‘Back to the castle!’