At that second the Cymri began their advance, unleashing their hunting bows, spears, knives, and hatred at the cursed invaders. Frenzied Welshmen hacked through the fragile white-plastered wattle houses to get at the Normans behind the wall. They clambered over the thatched rooftops to get a better-sighted shot. They came around both sides of the castle down the small streets, threatening to cut off the small Norman warband as they withdrew.
‘Full retreat,’ FitzStephen shouted. His voice was already hoarse from screaming commands on the battlefield. ‘Quickly, get back to the gates. Get moving!’
It was a straight foot race through the drizzle. The armoured Normans slipped and slid through the mud, avoiding, at the same time, arrows raining down upon them and the long spears of the men running alongside. FitzStephen held his shield over his head to protect his back from the arrows while urging his men onwards. He stole a glance over his shoulder and saw a lone long-haired warrior clamber over the crude wall and leap after the retreating Normans.
‘Keep moving,’ he panted. He looked up to see William Ferrand closing the first of the heavy wooden gates, while above him on the ramparts the massive English captain, Wulfhere Little-Fingers, directed his archers against the Welshmen.
A Norman crashed into FitzStephen’s right arm and then fell to the floor. An arrow was lodged in his calf. Another man splashed into the muddy ground directly ahead of FitzStephen with a wooden spear shaft protruding from his spine. There was no stopping to help the injured for FitzStephen fancied that he could feel the very breath of the Welsh warriors at his neck, but dared not pause to look. He had fifteen yards to go and Ferrand was waving him on and shouting something inaudible. FitzStephen heard his mailed feet thump the last few steps across the small footbridge that spanned the deep flooded fosse and then he was through the gate where he turned and snarled as he looked at the Welsh horde that screamed and charged towards his castle. They had long, wild hair and beards and were dressed in dull clothes, bearing shields with no devices and wicked short blades like savages from his worst nightmares. Some of the barbarians had mail, others were bare-chested.
‘Close the damn gates,’ FitzStephen exclaimed. Beyond the defences he noticed a small man pointing towards the gate and, for a brief second before the wooden gateway slammed shut, his eyes met those of the diminutive warlord. The man stood out amongst the enemy for he was dressed like a Norman, complete with a full suit of chainmail, spangenhelm, and surcoat bearing the three black ravens and red lion of Deheubarth. Though he had never met the man, the Constable intuitively knew that it was Prince Rhys, his mother’s nephew. The Welshman held FitzStephen’s gaze across the body-strewn street before the prince turned to urge his men onwards, screaming commands and pointing directly at Sir Robert FitzStephen.
‘Wulfhere,’ the Constable shouted skywards.
‘Loose!’ came the Englishman’s answer, followed by the sound of bowstrings striking wooden stocks and ash heartwood.
Ignoring the effect of the arrows, FitzStephen put his shoulder to the great wooden gate and grunted with the effort as he helped two of his men to close them together with a bang. Six of the esquires, led by his half-brother William, dragged up the heavy split trunk and hoisted it above their heads, thumping it into place, locking the two doors together. Green moss on one side showed just how long it had been since the gates of Aberteifi had been required to be sealed. The Constable, hands on his knees and panting, spat on the hay and mud-strewn street inside the castle bailey. Lifting his head, FitzStephen stood straight and groaned as his sore back stretched. Two women were on the roof of the nearby cookhouse pouring water on a flaming Welsh arrow that threatened to set the building’s sodden thatch alight, but FitzStephen ignored that small threat.
‘Stay ready,’ he ordered his exhausted warriors, ‘and be prepared to defend the gates to the death,’ he said to Ferrand as he leapt onto the bottom rung of a ladder which took him up onto the allure. Despite his anger at the day’s events FitzStephen watched with pride as his archers and crossbowmen performed their duty with a mechanical killing rhythm. Stationed either side of the barbican, they worked in twos, with one man selecting a target and shooting while another man loaded his weapon. Then they swapped, continuing the steady stream of murder in front of the castle. Arrows replied from what little cover the Welsh could find.
Striding around the rampart, Wulfhere seemed oblivious to the danger of the Welsh sharpshooters. He barked a mixture of flowing French and guttural English orders at the crossbowmen and archers. They kept up their steady stream of arrows despite, rather than because of Wulfhere’s commands. The old Englishman, one of the few of his people in FitzStephen’s service, growled a short welcome in his constable’s direction:
‘Curse this weather,’ he moaned, ‘and a curse on loosened bloody bowstrings. Bastard by the garden wall,’ Wulfhere shouted abruptly at Ludo de Chester. The archer had his weapon spanned to his mouth in a moment and closed one eye in concentration as he aimed the arrow shaft at the Welshman crouching behind the wooden wall. A second later the arrow flew straight and true and the man buckled and screamed in Welsh as he flopped to the floor.
The Normans loved nicknames, just as their Danish and Norse ancestors had done, and they had shown their acceptance of the English warrior Wulfhere by calling him Little-Fingers. Both of his hands had all the fingers removed to the second joint, tribute to four decades spent fighting in a shield wall.
‘They’ve had enough, cease shooting,’ Wulfhere shouted as the last of the Cymri warriors left the open ground before the castle walls and only their insults remained. His men ended their efforts and dropped to their knees behind the palisade, massaging strained shoulders and inspecting red-raw fingers.
‘Well, Robert,’ Wulfhere said to FitzStephen, ‘I hope you are happy.’ He flapped a stunted hand at the town outside the castle walls where Welsh insults mingled with the screams of the wounded. ‘We are bloody surrounded.’
FitzStephen snorted a sardonic laugh at his words. ‘Aren’t we always?’ he replied. ‘For that is the fate of an invader,’ he told him. His smile faded as the Welsh victory songs begin in the sodden town of Aberteifi.
FitzStephen stayed on the allure as the weak sun slipped slowly into the rolling Irish Sea, spending an hour walking amongst his men giving encouragement, orders, and defiantly bombastic declarations of their skill in battle. He flippantly boasted about how the Normans would overcome the minor setback of defeat and how the Welsh would again learn how to fear their lances.
‘We’ll be richer than pious old Thomas Becket when we storm out of Aberteifi and secure all Ceredigion,’ he joked to his men, ‘and the women? However many you want you will have. And all we have to do is to hold this fortress against that pathetic rabble outside our gates,’ he bragged and pointed over the wall at the Welsh. ‘Truly, they surprised us during the battle, but they are dullards.’ The men all nodded along and even smiled at his banter but FitzStephen could tell that they did not believe him.
In the town beyond the castle walls the screaming had all but finished. The Welsh had taken the spoils of victory; the women of the town and the souls and property of their husbands, brothers, and fathers. FitzStephen listened as the Norman monks in the small monastery on the edge of town sang one of King David’s laments. Slowly the song became more fraught and yet quieter until he realised that the Norman monks were being despatched to heaven one by one by the Cymri. Laughter took the place of singing as the last monk died and his song came to an end. In its place another Welsh war song arose.
Standing on the barbican with his elbows resting on a merlon, FitzStephen thought of the past. Rainwater spat off his shoulders as he looked out over the town. Wulfhere had told him that he had been born during a battle, a fight between his father and the Welsh for this very fortress. He believed in his soul that, somehow, his beginning meant that he was born for combat. In any case, warfare and victory had been the only constant in his twenty-eight years. It made the
rout all the harder for Sir Robert FitzStephen to accept.
The hideous weather seemed able to find every gap in his armour and soak through his heavy woollen cloak to his back, but the method of his defeat plagued him yet worse. For the first time since becoming a knight he had lost a fight, and the memory of it sat uncomfortably on his wide shoulders. Time and the pressures of the Welsh March had changed FitzStephen from the boy who had served as a page in the household of Robert de Caen during the anarchy of King Stephen’s reign to the young, talented knight thrust to the forefront of Welsh politics after he saved King Henry’s life at Coed Ewloe seven years before.
You are only as good as your last fight , his morose father had often told him when he was a boy and, looking around the wet wooden walls, he could tell that many of his men agreed with that sentiment. Some looked at him with accusatory eyes, attempting to hide their anger when they caught him looking their way. But FitzStephen could not miss those who mouthed silent prayers as they looked out over the palisade at the many Welsh fires springing up throughout the town. The light in the semi-darkness made it look as if a horde sat before their high wooden walls. Had none of his men ever heard the priests preaching about Gideon’s torches when he faced the Midianites? Of course they had not, he thought. Few if any of the warriors could read or speak Latin. FitzStephen knew that his men prayed for salvation and cursed them for their timidity. In the story of Gideon, the hero had sent the unwilling soldiers home and won a stunning victory against the invader of the Holy Land. Looking at some of his men FitzStephen wished he had that luxury. Did they not realise that they still held the advantage? There was a multitude outside their gates, yes, but sickness would inevitably spread through the besieging force and their men would get bored and hungry. Desertion would thin their numbers.
Aberteifi Castle had a good well, many supplies, and an adequate number of replacement arrows for the archers. They only had to hold out for a few weeks until either the Welsh returned north or news of the attack spread south. Then his half-brother, Sir Maurice FitzGerald, the King’s Constable in Pembroke, would come north to chase off the Welsh. That was real war: patience and good sense. Even after a defeat he would not be beaten. FitzStephen knew that any army could win a battle with bravery and ferocity, but you could not win a war without intelligence and planning. That was the genius of the Norman way of war, he thought. His people could match anyone in battle, and could crush most, but it was their will to dominate that set them apart, and the castle was their ultimate weapon. The English had built their burghs and the Welsh had their hill forts, both of which were designed to protect the people, but a Norman castle was meant to control and intimidate the local populace – to give the few superiority over the many. FitzStephen smiled and decided that there was no way for the Cymri to break into his lair. He had defeated them once again and perhaps that meant his dreams could yet come to fruition. Still, his men’s lack of fight made him grind his back teeth as he continued to smile, acting confident for the sake of their morale. Did they not realise that the Welsh were unable to fly over the walls? The enemy didn’t even have siege equipment! His cousin, Prince Rhys, might dress like a Norman but he did not know all their secrets. FitzStephen pushed himself away from the barbican walls and walked along the allure where he joined Wulfhere. The Englishman stood stock still, wrapped in a cloak as he watched the town through the rain.
‘That was a shit day,’ Wulfhere said.
FitzStephen wondered if his friend was talking about the defeat in battle or the weather. Neither would have surprised him. He grunted an affirmative in the archer captain’s direction.
‘Bloody Welsh have the wind up them now and our boys are battered and scared shitless,’ Wulfhere continued. ‘But they will hold together.’
FitzStephen nodded and stared out at the town, listening to the drunken Cymric victory songs in the distance. He hated the screeching sound, already telling of the Welsh heroes who had beaten the Normans. FitzStephen despised them all; this was not their country anymore, it was his. His father’s people had won South Wales through strength of arms and the Cymri could go to hell if they thought this setback would stop him from taking back every blade of grass that he had once owned in the same fashion. It would be a maelstrom of terror, he promised himself.
‘So I hear the Welsh have learned some new tricks,’ Wulfhere said, half turning towards FitzStephen and raising an eyebrow as the Constable’s chin dropped to his chest. ‘They surprised you, and the Baron of Cemais ran for his life. There was nothing you could do but fall back on Aberteifi. You did well to get away with as many alive as you did.’
FitzStephen stood, nodding his head. Though thankful for Wulfhere’s words, doubt was clawing at his heart; that his murder of Einion had precipitated the attack, and that his curse had brought about this defeat. He felt for the relic hidden beneath his armour beside his heart.
‘I need to organise some food for the archers,’ FitzStephen said suddenly and turned to leave. ‘Fire the town,’ he told the Englishman. ‘I don’t want those damned Welsh here in the morning.’
Wulfhere nodded and spat over the wall. ‘We need more bolts for the crossbowmen, and water as well as the food.’ As he spoke, the Englishman turned and looked at his commander, a brute wrapped in steel. He had been around warriors for the greater part of his long life, but Wulfhere had met no one who was more suited to battle than the tall, blond, blue-eyed ruffian. Robert FitzStephen had scars from fighting in the shield wall and from the saddle, and his mud- and blood-covered sword was dented from use and thin from regular sharpening. Wulfhere had known FitzStephen as a boy and had watched him rise from page to esquire, knight to constable, each advance exacting a price from the ambitious warrior.
The Constable whipped off his blue and white conical helmet and, starting from his forehead, pulled his chainmail coif back from his head and onto his shoulders. No Englishman, Briton, or Frank wore their hair so short, shaved from the top of the ear to the crown and down to the neck in the old Norman style. It gave the wearer an odd, unnatural, and intimidating look: half monk, half lunatic. But FitzStephen was proud of his heritage and, unlike others of his kin who had adopted the foreign custom of wearing their hair and beards long, he fastidiously kept his chin clean-shaven and scraped the hair from the back of his head. He had told Wulfhere that the style made wearing chainmail easier as his hair didn’t get caught between the circlets of steel and allowed him more manoeuvrability within the hauberk, but Wulfhere knew it was because FitzStephen remembered his father and his fellow warriors shaving each other’s heads to give the wild and harsh look that had so scared him and his young friends growing up in the outpost. Many of the younger men in FitzStephen’s army had adopted the same practice of cutting their hair in the old style to show that they belonged to the army of Robert FitzStephen. Boys in Ceredigion, too young to wear the gold and crimson surcoat, raggedly shaved each other’s heads and dyed their clothes by rubbing crushed flowers into the dull wool to be like their hero.
‘That’s not right,’ said FitzStephen suddenly at his side.
Wulfhere had been daydreaming; the lasting legacy of a long day. ‘Eh? What’s not right?’
‘That,’ said FitzStephen from beside him and looking out through the dim light provided by the burning buildings. Wulfhere followed his commander’s outstretched arm and saw several women leaning over some of the Norman dead in the streets. Knives flashed in the firelight from the town torches as clothes were torn from the bodies.
‘So? They’re seeing what they’ve got on them.’ Wulfhere was confused. He had personally watched FitzStephen slice open the shirts of men and women, Norman or Welsh, and even priests, monks, and nuns he had just killed and steal everything they had hidden on their person. The Constable was not a squeamish man.
‘No, they’re not,’ FitzStephen grimaced. ‘The saints preserve us.’ He crossed his chest without taking his eyes off the scene.
Wulfhere looked closer. It was diffic
ult to see in the darkness but he focussed in on the closer of the twenty or so women. Then he saw it: the blood splashed on the body was not dry but wet. She had cut off the Norman’s genitals and was now stuffing them in the dead man’s mouth.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Wulfhere. ‘What are they doing?’
Welshmen, already half drunk on the beer, wine, and honey mead they had found in the town, were laughing and pointing from doorways in the buildings nearest to the carnage. Wulfhere’s wide-eyed gaze moved to another woman who he had bought apples from just a few weeks before. She was cutting off a dead Fleming’s nose and was stuffing it in another upturned Norman’s backside. One was squatting over a fallen warrior and was urinating on his head. All the bodies were being defiled in some way or form by the women. Wulfhere had not realised how much hatred the Welsh had for their Norman overlords. The archers on either side of the Constable began grumbling and shouting at the women, calling them animals and worse.
‘You, boy,’ FitzStephen said to the nearest bowman. ‘Kill one of those bitches.’ He shouted at the other men to hold their tempers.
The young archer was a killer, plain and simple, and without so much as considering the morality of his captain’s command for a moment he turned, aimed and squeezed down on the crossbow’s trigger. His bolt took the woman in the throat as she squawked towards the men under the thatched roof. FitzStephen watched as she fell backwards as the arrow passed clean through her throat to lodge in the mud behind. Her hands went to her gullet as the blood started to pour from the wound, but she was already dead. The remaining women sprinted towards cover given by the houses while the Welsh warriors threw hopeless curses at the wooden walls of the castle from the houses before they retreated indoors to continue their looting and drinking. Nobody in the fortress cheered the death.
‘It’s just not right,’ Sir Robert FitzStephen said to no-one in particular. ‘Throw some torches out there,’ he ordered an archer, ‘and if any of them come back, kill them.’
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