‘The Welsh cannot get to you here, Roger,’ FitzStephen said quietly as if appealing to a particularly dense child. ‘We are tucked up safe in the castle …’
‘We aren’t safe!’ Roger interrupted. ‘Hasn’t Rhys proven that already by capturing the great stone donjon at Carmarthen?’ Desperation was visible in Quincy’s face. ‘What chance does this poor wooden stockade stand if Rhys has already stormed Carmarthen’s walls?’ he asked. ‘It was lunacy to fight on after the defeat in battle …’ Roger paused as Ferrand, Gervais, and Theobald climbed onto the allure. ‘This is your fault,’ Quincy accused FitzStephen as he glanced at his co-conspirators nervously. ‘I was forced to act. I saved the garrison. I-I am the hero.’
‘You are a murderer,’ FitzStephen replied and pictured Wulfhere’s body.
‘No!’ Roger appealed, ‘Gervais and Cressy …’ he began before Gervais FitzPons interrupted him.
‘Are you going to talk to the Welsh prick, or keep talking nonsense to this bastard?’ Gervais asked.
Sir Roger de Quincy cast one last angry look at FitzStephen before turning to gaze out over the town of Aberteifi. It was a horror. Decaying bodies still littered the streets and dogs and birds fluttered amongst the carnage, making him want to vomit. Amongst the burnt-out buildings the Welsh had staked twelve severed Norman heads in front of the castle. The eyes had been pecked out by birds, along with the soft skin of the lips and nostrils. Quincy managed to swallow the rising bile.
He put his hand to his cheek and shouted towards the town. ‘I want to talk to Rhys,’ he called. On the other side of town Roger watched as the Welsh continued to mill about the buildings and no-one came forward to parley. Quincy waited patiently for several more seconds but still nothing happened.
‘They are Welsh, Sir Roger,’ said Theobald Laval, who joined Quincy and Gervais on the barbican, ‘so they probably don’t speak French. Maybe you should try barking at them,’ he laughed and made the sound of a dog.
Embarrassed, Roger reprimanded himself and switched to Latin. ‘I want to speak to Lord Rhys,’ he shouted again. ‘We have an offer he will want to hear.’
Once more there was no reply so Gervais FitzPons shouted in stumbling English across at the ruined remains of the town. One of the languages must have been understood because just minutes later a number of warriors and priests came forward slowly behind a small, thin man who looked uncomfortable in his lamellar armour. The group stopped below the gatehouse and waited. Behind the man came a standard bearer holding a red and white banner showing three black ravens. They were the colours of Prince Rhys of Deheubarth.
Roger de Quincy paused, unsure of how to continue but the Welsh leader butted in anyway.
‘Speak,’ he said in fluent French, ‘before we decide to wipe your little wooden cabin off the face of the earth. What do you offer?’
‘Are you the Lord Rhys?’ Quincy had to ask twice, clearing his throat after his hoarse first attempt. He was such a little man, not the warrior of renown that Roger had expected.
‘I am the Prince Rhys,’ said the thin man, who Roger thought looked very odd in his expensive armour. ‘Are you my cousin, Robert son of Stephen?’
‘Your cousin? No, I am not,’ he said with as much force as he could muster suddenly remembering the family connection and fearing that he had miscalculated. It was too late to change tack now. ‘I am Sir Roger de Quincy,’ he told Rhys, ‘and FitzStephen is no longer our leader but a prisoner.’ He turned to Gervais and Theobald. ‘Get him up,’ he whispered, tapping Robert with his toe. Laval looked unimpressed but dragged the naked FitzStephen to his feet and showed him to Rhys. One of the priests crossed his chest at the sight of the murderer, the bogeyman of Welsh children’s dreams.
‘I will give you FitzStephen in exchange for safe passage back to England,’ Quincy shouted towards the Welsh party.
Rhys had been whispering in the ear of one of his warriors but was stopped in his tracks by the unexpected offer. He stood for a long time studying the fortress, Quincy and the bloody mess that was Sir Robert FitzStephen.
‘You offer the castle and its constable for your lives? That is all you want?’ Rhys seemed sceptical, and well he might. He had not considered for a moment that the soldiers of Aberteifi would hand over a fortress to which there was no obvious line of attack for the Welsh. Not unless they were starving to death or sickness had taken the castle. He could see none of the tell-tale signs of either of those occurrences from Quincy’s manner. ‘You are lucky,’ he told Roger flippantly, ‘we were preparing an attack for midday.’
‘Ha!’ Robert FitzStephen laughed as he leaned over the wall, earning a punch to his kidney from Theobald.
‘Get him out of here,’ Roger whispered desperately, believing Rhys’ lie and fearing that the small warlord would decide to kill them all rather than barter with a defeated enemy.
FitzStephen put up a struggle but his injuries meant that he was no match and was quickly hauled off the barbican and back towards the guardhouse where he was again chained.
‘All we want is our lives, Prince Rhys,’ Roger pleaded, his fingers wrapping around the pointed wooden defences. ‘The fortress is yours if we can go to King Henry’s lands. I swear it on the blood of Lord Jesus Christ!’ He had not meant to sound so desperate. Changing his demeanour to faux defiance he added: ‘Otherwise you will lose a lot of men on our walls.’
Rhys snorted and ignored Roger’s bluster. ‘Why should I not kill you all? If I let you go will I not have to fight you another day? You Normans gather in Pembroke like vipers ready to slither north and attack my lands. Better that I burn out this snake’s nest today rather than let you bite my ankle tomorrow.’
‘We are not bound for Pembroke, Prince Rhys,’ Quincy told him. ‘FitzStephen’s brothers are there and they would not welcome us.’ He was desperate now and almost pleading with Rhys. ‘Let us go and you will not hear from us again.’ The sweat was pouring down Roger’s back as he watched Rhys slowly consider the truth of his words.
Behind the Norman nobleman, Theobald had returned and whispered to Gervais: ‘Buggers aren’t going for it. Let’s just murder the bastard now. He’s in range of our crossbows.’
Roger tensed and whispered back to the two warriors, ‘Wait a minute.’ He did not want to provoke the Welsh who, even without Rhys’ leadership, he knew would surely swarm over the meagre defences.
‘Very well,’ said Rhys finally, ‘you, your men, and their families may leave. But you will swear on holy relics and pain of eternal damnation that you, Sir Roger de Quincy, will lead your men out of Cymru and never return across the great river,’ he said of the Severn.
Quincy let out a breath which he had not realised he was holding. ‘So you agree to my terms?’
‘Your terms?’ stormed Rhys of Deheubarth suddenly. ‘My terms are that you leave Wales and never return,’ he said angrily. ‘That you give me Sir Robert FitzStephen alive and that you go to London and tell Henry of England that he can go and boil his arse in brimstone. Promise to do all that and I will grant you your damned lives and give you safe passage as far as the River Loughor.’
Roger was unused to being talked down to by any man except the hated Robert FitzStephen. Most people immediately tried to please him and almost all wanted his approval and companionship. It especially rankled with him that he was being talked to in this manner by a diminutive man like Rhys, who reminded him of one of his father’s clerks, rather than royalty.
‘Agreed,’ he said through clenched jaw and turned to leave the barbican.
‘Wait,’ said Rhys stopping Quincy, Gervais and Theobald Laval in their tracks, ‘one more thing before you slither away, Sir Roger,’ he said drawing out the silence. ‘Why did you betray my cousin?’
Quincy considered the question. The truth was that he had been terrified at the slaughter of the battle and daunted by the rumours of Rhys’ successes. Blinded by his hatred of Wales and FitzStephen he had convinced himself that he was saving the garris
on. But he felt more scared now than he had when FitzStephen was in command. Roger felt that he would be caught out at any time on the lies he had told to the men. In his panic he spun another deceit that had come to him during the night. ‘God sent us defeat because we were led by an unholy murderer,’ his rehearsed lines silkily spilled from his lips. ‘God reached down and washed away our army because we supported the sinner. God cannot be on the side of murderers!’
‘But you expect Him to be on the side of traitors?’ Rhys said calmly and loudly so that the whole garrison, who had come down to watch the encounter, could hear.
‘Treason against a sinner is no sin at all,’ Roger replied confidently as many on the wall shuffled their feet uncomfortably.
Rhys decided not to continue the discussion. ‘You have one hour to leave the fortress or we will attack and kill you all.’ With that he turned and pushed his way between the priests and warriors who gathered behind him.
Behind him, Roger heard Gervais FitzPons exhale slowly through his deformed nose. ‘We’ve slipped the noose.’
Sir Roger de Quincy began smiling for he was leaving Wales at last. He was safe.
The prisoner watched as all the inhabitants of Aberteifi Castle marched out through the open gates below the barbican. Few of FitzStephen’s troops could hold his one-eyed stare but those who would were angry and violent, and he had yet more bruising to add to his other injuries. His ten-year-old bastard, Ralph, was the only one who stopped beside his battered father, staring at him with a gormless expression on his grubby face.
‘Come away.’ Ralph’s worried mother Mahel hissed at her son. She was holding little Geoffrey and trying to remain anonymous amongst the throng of people as she frantically pleaded with her eldest son. She had not been happy with FitzStephen since he had shacked up with Richildis, but now she desperately wanted her son to hide amongst the servants in case Welsh revenge would threaten her boys as well as their father. Ralph looked over his shoulder at his mother before turning back to his Robert.
‘Goodbye, Ralph,’ FitzStephen managed, though his mouth filled with blood almost immediately and forced him to heave. ‘Be brave and take care of your brother. Remember that you are from a great Norman house,’ he said. ‘Find your uncles in Pembroke and remember: a coward dies daily. A brave man dies only once,’ he added, rather more dramatically than he had wanted. He wished he had spent more time getting to know Ralph, a good boy who worked hard to please both FitzStephen and his mother.
Ralph nodded blankly. ‘Yes, Sir Robert,’ he said before blinking twice and running off to join the column that moved nervously into the town through the charred remnants of the buildings. They quickly passed beyond FitzStephen’s view.
‘Protect my family,’ he prayed, ‘please protect Ralph and little Geoffrey.’
Richildis’ face appeared from under the flap of leather which covered the one of the carts which were going with the Norman column.
‘Robert!’ she mouthed silently. Beneath the wimple her face was dark with bruising and tears but FitzStephen could do nothing for the Norman beauty now. She cried more tears for him and all he could do was tilt his head in her direction before she was gone with the rest of the army and all of his possessions. He had loved her, he thought, just as he had loved Mahel and countless other beautiful women beforehand. Despairing, FitzStephen wondered if they had really had that much affection for him. He tried to dispel his depressing thoughts but his mood darkened further when Roger de Quincy wandered towards him eating an apple and leading Sanglac, FitzStephen’s courser. At Quincy’s side was FitzStephen’s sword, made by a famous smith in Gloucester for the knight who had trained him, Sir Henry FitzRoy. Quincy noticed FitzStephen’s eyes on the sword and began examining its scabbard as he stood at his enemy’s side.
‘A brave man dies only once.’ He read the inscription and laughed as he looked down on Robert, bound and filthy at his feet.
FitzStephen looked away, unwilling to suffer his enemy’s ignominy. After a couple of bites of the apple Roger gave the core to the small, tough horse. He then began staring at FitzStephen, licking his fingers.
‘I think I will rename him,’ his enemy said. ‘Sanglac is so old fashioned and these are new times – perhaps a more poetic name that will impress the troubadours at the Angevin Court? Certainly I will choose something so … how do I put this? So damn Norman.’
FitzStephen kept his eyes firmly locked on the ground. How dare Quincy touch Sanglac, he fumed. He had spent years training the horse to ride up to a shield wall without shying away in fear. He hated the loss of his half-brother’s sword but Sanglac was even worse. The courser was as important to him as his castle and it was devastating to see him accept Quincy as his new master so quickly.
‘Well, Sir Robert, I am sorry it has come to this,’ Quincy began again, ‘but it was the only way to get out alive from this unfortunate situation. A situation that you caused, I should add.’ He raised his hand at two men at the castle’s entrance, who removed the cross-beam and pulled open the gates. The archers marched out of the fortress in good order, but gingerly, their hands fingering arrows at their belts as if they expected mischief at any moment. They at least were unwilling to trust the Welsh and FitzStephen felt a pang of pride at their attitude, despite their wanton treachery.
Quincy sighed at the lack of reply and mounted Sanglac, turning him towards the gates. ‘Goodbye, Sir Robert,’ he said with a shrug, ‘we will not meet again in this land, or this life.’
‘Where is my esquire?’ FitzStephen asked grudgingly and desperately, as though the pain of speaking was almost too great. His young half-brother, William, had not been seen since the confrontation in the donjon.
Quincy’s face contorted with triumph as if his words had provoked FitzStephen. He smiled evilly, but then seemed to relent with a shrug. ‘He scarpered through the postern gate as soon as they saw us enter the keep this morning,’ he said. ‘The little bastard will get caught by the Welsh soon enough. And then?’ he said dragging his finger across his throat, ‘you know what will happen.’
Despite Roger’s malevolence, FitzStephen was delighted that William had got away. He had taught him well enough and the sixteen-year-old would be alright, he decided. His half-brother had been taught to speak the Welsh tongue by Stephen’s wife after Robert’s own mother’s death, and FitzStephen was sure that skill alone would see William safe to Pembroke.
‘When my brothers hear what happened here, they will find you and kill you,’ FitzStephen shouted at Roger’s back. ‘And if not, I will not be a prisoner for ever and I will come for you.’
Quincy laughed as her turned his horse towards the prisoner. ‘I doubt the FitzGeralds will have much time for vendettas, or for negotiating your release now that Aberteifi has fallen. They stand alone in Pembroke against all the might of Wales.’ Roger said. ‘Rhys will attack their little fortress come spring and it will fall, FitzStephen, just as Carmarthen, Llandovery, Llansteffan, and Cilgerran have fallen,’ he shook his head almost pitiably. ‘Me, I will go to my father’s house in England, or perhaps our lands in Normandy, so your ghost may seek me there,’ he said with a smile. ‘Why did we ever come to Wales?’ he reflected. ‘It never does anything but rain and there is no culture, gold, or silver. How can any man make a fortune here? From coal?’ Roger shook his head slowly, the sunshine glancing off his helm and into FitzStephen’s eyes. ‘No. Better to go to Aquitaine or Normandy and fight a proper battle on horseback instead of running around in the hills with no hope of profit.’
FitzStephen stared up at Quincy, who looked back as if the young man still wanted his approval. The traitor realised what he was doing and changed his tack.
‘I have saved the garrison,’ he said. For good measure he spat on FitzStephen from his seat in the bucket saddle and kicked Sanglac into life with his heels. FitzStephen watched as his enemy rode through the gates with the last of the Norman men-at-arms, his sword, his dogs, his woman, his sons, and his horse. Soon he w
as alone in the fortress.
Struggling, he desperately tried to free his hands from the ropes that bound him but the knots were too tight and he had lost all feeling in his hands which had been strung above his head for too long.
‘C’mon, you bugger,’ he snarled as he fought against the ropes. He let his head drop against the whitewashed wall of the guardhouse when his efforts failed, and said a long prayer to St Maurice, his family’s protector. ‘Bring my prayers to God and the saints, Blessed Maurice,’ he whispered towards the sky, ‘save me from this unkind fate. Send providence,’ he begged. ‘I know that I have not always been good,’ he shook his head, his words failing him.
The Norman army was barely out of the gates when two Welsh warriors came through, one armed with a spear, the other with a bow, arrow already on the string. They stalked through the town, ducking into buildings and searching for any Norman chicanery. Once every building in the bailey had been investigated, one of the Cymri jogged over to FitzStephen, chattering in his own language and poking Wulfhere’s body with a spear. Shouting back over his shoulder in the same tongue, he signalled for more men to enter the fortress. Moments later a number entered under the barbican. All were heavily bearded and wearing short woollen shirts and cloaks. Over these they had strapped the weaponry and armaments of Norman warriors who had fallen in the fight in town. The steel looked grand against the tribesmen’s dull clothing. One of the men wore a fantastic necklace of precious beaded stones which FitzStephen was sure he had seen hanging from a Norman knight’s neck before the battle. The gaudy piece now adorned his killer’s neck.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said as the Welshman began prattling directly at him, pointing at the keep. But the Norman could not understand his thick accent so he shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He gasped in fear as the warrior suddenly began hacking with his spear tip at the ropes that held FitzStephen’s arms aloft. His limbs fell to his sides as soon as they were free, suddenly painful as the blood returned to his extremities.
Swordland Page 8