Swordland

by Edward Ruadh Butler

  This was the dream that had kept him going as he had watched the flames lick his beloved rath at Fearna, the same desire that had forced him to hold his head high while he was begging for charity from Henry of England at Poitiers. It was the same aspiration that had made him make the deal with the warlord Strongbow. And now, with the dream still driving him onwards, it found Diarmait Mac Murchada deep in Welsh territory on a fool’s errand.

  The bishop sneezed loudly beside Diarmait, disturbing his daydream. Mac Murchada turned and watched his ally, feeling his lip curl in disgust as the priest wiped his nose on the sleeve of his dark robes. Diarmait wanted to scold the man, the way he had done so many times to his own son, Eanna, when he used his sleeve in the same way. But he bit his tongue. Bishop David FitzGerald of St David’s Cathedral looked more like a man-at-arms than a man of the cloth, with his broken nose and armour, muscular arms, and cudgel at his hip. Diarmait would have been quite happy to make his way north with just his own warriors, but the bishop and his brother, Sir Maurice, had insisted on accompanying their honoured guest to meet this Cymri chieftain who they claimed could help them. Thus, Diarmait’s derb-fine had been left in Pembroke while the small group of the bishop’s warriors had followed the Afon Tywi north into Welsh-held territory having sent messengers ahead to warn of their approach.

  In the week since their first meeting, Diarmait had built up a stiff dislike of Bishop David. He was not like the Irish clerics he knew such as his brother-in-law, Archbishop Lorcain Ua Tuathail of Dubhlinn. Lorcain had an air of high purpose and bearing as well as a fervent resolve and temper that saw kings kneel and chieftains cower at his judgements. This FitzGerald could not even read or write! And how could a churchman know the law if he had not studied it with his father, uncles, and cousins? David’s Latin was dreadful, his Greek worse, and though he claimed French as his first language it was spoken in the harsh Norman-Welsh dialect rather than the high form that Diarmait had learned in his youth.

  It was in his first tongue that Bishop David now spoke, barking his questions at three men at the head of their small column wearing the black and yellow arms of St David’s Cathedral. ‘How far is the damned castle, boy?’ he asked. ‘We should have stopped for another night and pushed on tomorrow morning.’

  ‘It is not far, Father,’ one armour-clad rider at the front of group replied, ‘ten miles, no more.’

  Bishop David grunted reproachfully at the man’s back as if the warrior had control over the distance that lay before them. Diarmait had noticed that Bishop David was always angry at this one warrior, the leader of the expedition, and, his interest piqued, had discovered that he was the bishop’s bastard son. In Ireland this was nothing of note – bishops were still men, and powerful ones at that, and begat sons to carry on their authority – but in England it was seen as some sort of shame. The warrior, named Miles Menevensis, bore the treatment, caused merely by his existence and illegitimate birth, with patience and fortitude that the man from Laighin respected.

  Ten miles to go, Diarmait thought, ten more miles to add to the hundreds which he had travelled since leaving Bristol where his family remained as the guests of the portreeve, Robert FitzHarding. Not all his family, he thought grimly; Eanna was still the hostage of his enemy Donnchadh Mac Giolla Phádraig and Conchobair was held by High King Ruaidhrí while Domhnall still struggled to hold his ancestral lands of the Uí Ceinnselaig together in Diarmait’s absence. Reminiscences of his faraway sons naturally brought his daughters into his thoughts: Órlaith and Sabh in Ireland with their powerful husbands, and beautiful Aoife, his youngest and favourite, who could have remained safe in Bristol with Domhnall’s sons, but had insisted on joining him on his journey into deepest Wales. He smiled proudly at Aoife as she rode at his side. Her long, dark red hair was vivid on her green dress, and he was not so blind as to see how the bishop’s warriors watched her with such interest. She was a beauty and, unlike her sisters, had proven canny with his gifts to her. Her herds had grown while Diarmait could only watch as Órlaith and Sabh sold off their newborn cattle to fund extravagant lifestyles. Aoife’s livestock and slaves were now under the protection of the Augustinians at Fearna where they would be safe until she could return and claim them.

  It had only been a week since he had sold Aoife’s hand to Strongbow. He hated how that sounded, but Máelmáedoc Ua Riagain assured him that it was common practice in England, and what other choice did he have? His plans to swear fealty and obtain warriors from King Henry of England had fallen flat on their face during his trip to Poitiers. Henry had proven a guarded, suspicious man who refused to part with a single piece of silver or order one of his lords to send his men to Ireland. Claiming poverty due to his obligations in France, all that Henry had been willing to relinquish was his consent for Diarmait to recruit some of his English vassals as mercenaries. Angry, but armed with his royal licence, Diarmait had sent messages to the courts of all the great men of the kingdom with promises of land to those brave enough to accompany him and help him to reclaim Laighin. But no-one had taken up his offer. He had bribed churchmen to read out his proposition from great pulpits, men to shout his scheme in marketplaces, and troubadour-bards to sing his challenge to drunken oafs in inns throughout the country. Yet no-one had come forward to help him take back that which was his.

  He had all but given up when a bedraggled old man – more scarecrow than warrior – and bearing neither sword nor shield had come forward and asked Diarmait to travel with him into the Welsh borderlands to negotiate with his nephew. He had almost chased the man away, but the noble bearing of Sir Hervey de Montmorency had intrigued him and, at a loss on other options, he and a few retainers had followed the ragged knight across the Severn River to the Castle of Striguil. There, he had met Sir Richard de Clare, whom all knew as Strongbow. Diarmait’s desperation for followers had been mirrored by Strongbow’s yearning for land and wealth and opportunity. Yet the Norman earl had not been fool enough to commit to helping Diarmait without driving a hard bargain. It had only been when the exiled king had offered Aoife’s hand in marriage and a claim to his throne after his own death that Strongbow had agreed to help him. It had been a trick of course. The Uí Ceinnselaig would never allow a foreigner to lead them, nor the other tribes permit an outsider to become a king amongst them, but Máelmáedoc Ua Riagain had learned the strange Norman laws of succession through the female line, and had advised Diarmait to dangle the tasty offer in front of Strongbow. And it had worked!

  ‘Ha!’ Diarmait laughed out loud, earning a disgruntled look from his daughter.

  Poor Aoife , he thought as he watched her. He had not yet had the heart to tell her of his pact. The law said that it was her right to choose her own husband, and perhaps she would agree to take on Strongbow. He was rich in land and, even though he was a Norman and old enough to be her father, Diarmait knew that Aoife was ambitious for the power and wealth which he could provide. Bishop David interrupted his thoughts when he coughed loudly, cleared his throat horribly, and spat into some nettles. Diarmait grimaced and swapped a look of revulsion with his daughter.

  He had first met the bishop a week previously when, their negotiations over, Strongbow had announced that it would take him at least a year to raise an army to put Diarmait back on his throne. A year! Another, to add to the three long years that he had been absent from his home. Diarmait could not stomach that and on the advice of one of Strongbow’s warriors he had travelled to St David’s Cathedral in the hope that he could find more daring men to expedite his return to power. He was not to be disappointed. There he had been introduced to the bishop’s formidable brothers, Maurice and William FitzGerald. Together the three siblings and were the greatest lords of Norman-controlled Dyfed. Bishop David was the Normans’ spiritual leader while his brothers relied on their skill with the sword, command of powerful castles, and a surfeit of kinsmen as ready as they to seek fortune wherever the opportunity would arise.

  William, the oldest, had done most of the talk
ing, but it had been Maurice who had impressed Diarmait the most. Quiet, calm, and experienced, he had immediately understood the intricacies facing an army that fought in Ireland. He had also realised that his age prohibited him or his brother from leading such an expedition. The Geraldines, as the three brothers liked to be called, had the funds for the adventure, they had the King’s licence, the prestige, trappings, horses, and men, and they certainly had the will to see it through. But they needed a warlord to lead the invasion. Someone they could trust and someone desperate enough to risk his future on the very edge of the known world. If the man they had selected and now sought was even half the fighter that Maurice FitzGerald claimed then Diarmait reckoned that he would have Laighin re-conquered by Yuletide. If he was that good, the exiled king thought, he would have his enemies humbled within the year! And if these Geraldines were not successful, well then Diarmait would need Strongbow’s help after all – despite the heavy price that it would entail. His eyes flicked towards his daughter, Aoife.

  Like every Norman which he had met, the Geraldines proved to be land hungry. He had never met a people that had such an appetite for conquest, and Diarmait knew some Ostmen! The reality was that he would have promised the moon if it meant that he could have his revenge on his Uí Ruairc and Uí Conchobair enemies, but the brothers had not demanded anything so great for, though the Geraldines were the most powerful Norman lords in western Wales, they did not even own the lands for which they fought and made laws. All they desired were their own estates won by the power of their own swords and not the gift of a distant king who could disinherit their sons with but the sweep of quill over paper. These men were more ambitious than that and, after years of ruling independently of their sovereign lord, none could stomach the interference of King Henry. They wanted to their own kingdom and so Diarmait had offered them one.

  ‘How are you holding up, King Diarmait?’ Maurice FitzGerald spoke quietly from his side. It was the first time that the silver-bearded man had made a sound since their midday stop, and Diarmait had quite forgotten that he was riding just at his back.

  ‘Grand, thank you, Sir Maurice,’ Diarmait replied hoarsely as the Norman politely asked the same of his daughter.

  ‘I am growing used to travelling long distances,’ Aoife answered just as sweetly.

  Maurice smiled at her answer. ‘I had hoped that you would perhaps tell me about Waesfjord again?’ He pushed his horse onto the track beside the father and daughter, ignoring briars and branches which reached out to tug at his legs. ‘It is a merchant town?’

  ‘Aye,’ Diarmait answered. ‘It’s the closest port to Wales, safe behind a big wooden wall with its back to a wide estuary. Legally it belongs to my kingdom, Laighin, although the Ostmen have their greasy claws stuck in it now. If you can take it from them, you are welcome to it.’

  ‘And these Ostmen, they are Danes and Norse?’

  It was Aoife who answered. ‘They are more given to trade than going viking, Sir Maurice. I met one of their merchants in Bristol not a month ago, and he told me that business has never been better in Waesfjord. They don’t think of war and raiding anymore – only trade.’

  Maurice nodded his head. ‘Ten shopkeepers with axes in hand may still slay a knight. What about the two cantreds surrounding the fortress?’ he asked.

  ‘Two hundred thousand acres of fair farming land,’ Mac Murchada lied easily. ‘Whatever you wish to grow, the soil will produce.’ In truth, Waesfjord was almost an island on a bog. Stony and badly drained, it was difficult to cultivate anything other than tough mountain grass and heather. Even before the coming of the Ostmen, the Gaels had shunned the area, claiming it was occupied by spirits from the underworld who would lead a man to his death. But Diarmait was not about to admit this to his new ally.

  Whatever Maurice’s reply it was left unsaid when, at the front of the column, Miles Menevensis raised a hand in the air and called a halt to the progress of the small conrois.

  ‘Stop,’ he hissed.

  Suddenly each of the Normans tensed and searched the shadowed forest for possible threats. No-one spoke. The only sounds came from the jangle of chainmail and the heavy breathing of horses. They had passed into a small glade, shaded and tranquil in the afternoon sunshine. Diarmait leant across and held his daughter by the shoulder.

  ‘I am fine,’ she whispered back.

  Miles again signalled for silence. Seconds passed as Bishop David shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘What’s going on, boy?’ It was the churchman who inevitably broken the hush.

  ‘This is where we arranged to meet Rhys’ people,’ his bastard son replied.

  ‘So where are they?’ Bishop David whispered as he glanced left and right, his fleshy bald neck creasing with every movement. ‘Bloody late, I suppose.’

  Without command a troop of twenty Welsh archers stepped out of the shade and surrounded the Norman horsemen, each with an arrow notched on the strings of their deadly weapons and all pointed at a separate man-at-arms. Like many of the Normans, Miles’ mother had been Welsh and he had also married a native woman. He spoke in lilting Welsh towards the archers.

  ‘Miles …’ Bishop David began to growl before Sir Maurice laid a hand on his brother’s arm to quiet him. A voice called out from the shadows and Miles answered, holding his spear upside down and away from his body to signify that he only had peaceful intentions. His pennant, which showed the black and gold arms of St David, sagged on the heavy gorse beside the track. More seconds passed by in silence before a warrior stepped forward and called out for his archers to lower their weapons. This they did slowly and suspiciously.

  ‘He says that we will not be harmed,’ Miles translated the Welsh leader’s words. ‘We are to follow him. Prince Rhys says that we are free to continue onto his lands.’

  The Norman party were now in the hands of their enemy.

  ‘I should kill you where you stand,’ Prince Rhys spat across the dais at Maurice FitzGerald, ‘you and your … your,’ he grasped for an appropriate word as he swept his gaze towards Miles Menevensis, ‘despicable nephew.’

  The Welsh warriors seated in the main body of the main hall in Llandovery bellowed their agreement at their prince’s threat, baying for Norman blood to be spilled on the rushes which carpeted the stone floor. There were enemy in the Cymri midst and they wanted to tear them limb from limb.

  Maurice said nothing. Instead he stared directly at Rhys with a hint of a grin at the edges of his mouth. He didn’t even stand up. Rather he slouched against the low table by a window with his arms folded over his red and white saltaire surcoat. In contrast, Miles Menevensis growled, but had the good sense to say nothing, happy instead to scowl at the Welsh nobleman.

  ‘I have room for more Norman troublemakers in my oubliette,’ Rhys announced. ‘I mean no offence to you, Lord Bishop,’ the pious prince added quickly to David FitzGerald who sat cross-legged in a wooden chair massaging his bare feet. The bishop’s stiff leather sabatons lay on the ground below his seat where he had discarded them. Having just rubbed his dirty feet with his hand, David leaned forward and picked up a piece of bread, examined it thoroughly before tearing a lump away with his teeth as if he was safe in his own palace in St David’s. The Norman leaders, as well as Diarmait Mac Murchada, were on the dais at the top of the hall with Rhys, his son Tewdwr, and two of the prince’s kinsmen. Sunlight poured in through a huge, elaborate window above the top table, casting blue, green, and red light over the noblemen. Two churchmen sat on Rhys’ left but largely ignored the conference between the leaders. They had offered their sycophantic welcome to Diarmait, but when they discovered that this particular king had neither riches nor estates and was thus unlikely to offer any gift to their religious houses, they fell silent and quietly bowed their heads over their bread trenchers, eating their fill of mutton and sipping generously at their ale.

  Below the dais, Hugh de Caunteton sat with Maurice’s nephew, Walter de Ridlesford, surrounded by a number of irate Cymri warr
iors. Both Normans maintained a hard, proud veneer as they picked at their trenchers, avoiding their mugs of ale. They were in the lions’ den and could feel the resentment from warriors who had lost friends and relatives to their swords over the years. With the two seasoned warriors sat a couple of younger men who ate hungrily and drank liberally, seemingly oblivious to the umbrage taken to their presence. One of the youngsters was an esquire to Miles Menevensis and was trying to hide his excitement at being included in the journey to Llandovery by concentrating on the food before him. He was Ralph, son of Robert FitzStephen, and had begged his cousin Miles to allow him to travel with him on this mission when all other esquires, even Miles’ sons, Dafydd and Philip, had been left behind in Dyfed. The other was a tall and broad-shouldered youth named William who sat with a jolly look on his face. Alone of the Normans he nattered away with the Cymri warriors in their own tongue, completely at ease amongst his supposed enemies. He was Robert FitzStephen’s half-brother who had escaped Aberteifi Castle following Sir Roger de Quincy’s coup. It had been nearly five years since he had laid his eyes on his brother and he, like Ralph, had changed massively, always trying to emulate the image they had stored in their minds of their famous kinsman. At only eighteen years old William was already making a name for himself as a warrior of great potential in Maurice FitzGerald’s conrois.