by Wayne Grant
“Brotherly love,” said one soldier dryly.
Further comment was cut short as the contentious parlay at the tent ended. Roderic mounted his warhorse, said something clearly unpleasant to Daffyd and spurred back down the hill toward the ferry crossing. The men who commanded Daffyd’s troops had watched things play out at a distance. None would have thought to intervene between the two brothers. When elephants contend, it’s always best for mice to stand clear.
But once Roderic had made his hasty exit, they began moving up toward the white tent in ones and twos, thirsty for news. For three fortnights, there had been an alliance between the brothers—the east and the west of Gwynedd finally joining forces to snuff out Llywelyn’s rebellion. Many of the men who trudged up toward the tent had been fighting the rebel prince for seven long years. The alliance between their master and his younger brother had given them hope that the end might be in sight and this new dispute worried them.
Just across the strait and a half day’s march away was Aberffraw and Llywelyn. Anglesey was good open country where a larger force could easily crush a smaller one. Surely this opportunity would not be missed. But the scene at the tent had unsettled them. Something was amiss and, to a man, they approached the tent fearing the worst.
***
“Up, up, my shit stompers!” the sergeant roared. His men scrambled to their feet. “Form up on the road!”
Men stepped lively and began to line up on the rutted path facing down toward the ferry crossing where the last of Roderic’s men were loading onto the boats. The sergeant stood off to the side with hands on his hips.
“Now—about face, lads. We’re marching back home.”
***
It was noon, when another rider from Deganwy reached the column of men marching along the coast road northeast of Bangor. He sought out Daffyd to make his report.
“My lord, Lord Haakon marched into the camp at midnight with near four hundred of his Dub Gaill, and took command. He straight away ordered an assault on the castle.”
The news that the mercenary leader had taken command over his own men disturbed him, but at least he now knew the Dane had not betrayed them.
“And what of this attack?”
“The assault failed, my lord. Haakon’s men gained the north wall, but could not hold it.”
“And our men?”
“We lost another score attacking the gate, lord.”
“Does Haakon know who these bastards are who took the fort?”
The messenger shook his head.
“It’s a mystery to him, lord, though he said they might be English. After the last attack, they ran up a banner above the south wall.”
“English? What sort of banner was it?” Daffyd asked, genuinely curious. He knew the banners favoured by the English Marcher Lords. His nearest neighbour amongst the border Earls was Ranulf of Chester, but he had been careful to keep the peace with him over the years. It could not be Ranulf! If these were Llywelyn’s men, the banner would likely be the red and yellow lions of the House of Aberffraw—his own banner and that of his nephew.
“I got a good look at it after the last charge, lord. It was all of black, with the head of a wolf.”
Daffyd blinked. A black banner with a wolf’s head? He’d never seen the like. Feeling a headache coming on, he pressed two meaty fingers against each of his temples and rubbed.
Who had taken his fortress at Deganwy?
***
Through the morning, the defenders of Deganwy Castle anxiously watched the camp at the bottom of the hill. There was plenty of activity there, but no sign of a renewed assault. Half of the men, exhausted after two nights with no rest, slept at their posts, weapons at hand.
At noon, a watch was posted and men not on duty gathered in the centre of the bailey. Nine graves had been dug for the men who had not survived the taking of the fortress or the attempts by the Danes and Welsh to take it back. The bodies of the Danes who had died inside the stockade in the early morning attack were pitched over the north wall to join a dozen already lying there.
The seven Invalids and two Welshmen who had fallen were wrapped in shrouds and laid in their graves as Friar Cyril prayed over them, first in English, then in Welsh and finally in Latin. He prayed for the men’s souls. He prayed for peace for the families, who would never see them again.
Roland watched the man with new respect. This odd, skinny little churchman, who had taken on the role of chaplain to the Invalid Company as penance for past sins, had seemed ridiculous when first he’d met him in Chester. But the man who had busied himself getting drunken soldiers safely abed in their barracks had acquitted himself well on the march to Dolwyddelan and on the journey down the River Conwy. Now, as he stood before the Invalids to honour their dead, he spoke to them with power and conviction and tenderness. Friar Cyril was proving to be a priest in full.
When the service was concluded, the friar walked back to the south wall with Roland and Sir John. It was a beautiful day with a near cloudless sky, but for a few dark smudges over the southern horizon. As they looked down on the enemy camp, Fancy Jack turned to the churchman.
“Father, you have a way with a prayer,” he said earnestly. “Perhaps you could beseech God to grant us a victory here.”
Friar Cyril shook his head.
“I can’t do that, Sir John,” he said softly. “I can ask God for strength to face our trials. I can ask Him to grant us peace, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but those people down there,” he said and pointed to the small figures moving about in the camp, “are his creations too. We must not ask God to pick between us. I don’t think He likes it.”
Sir John frowned.
“Well whose side are you on, sir?” he demanded.
“Oh, I am not God, Sir John,” the little priest said with a grim smile. “I would prefer that we kill them.”
The Storm
From a low hill, Llywelyn’s scouts watched as Roderic’s army began to gather itself on the west side of the Menai Strait. By noon, the last man and horse had reached Anglesey. Across the strait, they had seen another column of men march away—back toward Bangor. A courier had reached the Prince by late morning with news that the uncles had split their force.
Split they might be, but Roderic alone had a thousand men at his command. Three hundred were cavalry. If Llywelyn was foolish enough to abandon the Llys and fight on open ground, Roderic would unleash his mounted troops to make short work of the rebel foot soldiers. If Llywelyn chose to stay and defend the Llys, it would be Roderic’s seven hundred infantry who would flush him out of that lightly fortified enclosure, to be ridden down and cut to pieces by his cavalry.
When his army had assembled, Roderic ordered scouts forward to probe Llywelyn’s strength. The cavalry advanced an hour behind the screen of scouts, and the infantry began its day-long march to Aberffraw. Llywelyn’s own scouts fell back as Roderic’s men advanced. Couriers took word of the enemy’s approach to the Prince throughout the morning.
By noon, Roderic’s scouts were within sight of Aberffraw. They drew back after a hail of longbow shafts erupted from the walls of the royal Llys and fell in amongst their ranks. With the cavalry an hour behind and the infantry not expected to arrive until nightfall, the scouts settled in to watch.
***
“There’s a man to see you outside, lord. One of the fishermen I believe.”
Llywelyn set down the silver chalice he’d been examining and signalled the man to bring the visitor in. It was Caradog Priddy and he had a worried look on his face.
“Master Priddy, you look troubled,” Llywelyn said, dispensing with preambles.
“Ye have the rights of that, lord. We’ve a problem.”
“Well, spit it out, man. Bad news doesn’t improve with age.”
“It’s the weather—it’s not right. Too warm for mid-winter and that breeze blowin’ in from the south—it feels wet to me.”
“For God’s sake, speak plainly, sir
!” Llywelyn snapped. “Warm weather and a moist breeze seems nothing to worry overmuch about.”
Priddy shook his head.
“Aye, it seems so, but it’s what these signs foretell, lord. That is the trouble. I’ve seen it like this only once before, when I was a young man. Sunny day in the dead of winter, warm wet wind blowin’ in hard from the south and behind it came a tempest the likes I’ve never seen. Six boats went down in Cardigan Bay that day. The rest of us were lucky to make it back into a sheltered harbour, but even there we lost two more boats to the wind and waves.”
Llywelyn rose and started toward the entrance of the great hall, beckoning Priddy to follow. From the archway, he scanned the sky, which was a clear, pale blue, with hardly a cloud in sight. He lowered his eyes and looked toward the sea where Priddy’s boats were beached. Above the southern horizon, the sky had a vaguely bruised look and there was a steady wind blowing in from that quarter that caused the Prince’s cape to whip behind him. Llywelyn was no seaman, but he had lived out in the elements for seven long years and knew the signs of approaching bad weather.
“How soon, Master Priddy?”
Priddy rubbed his chin.
“I expect we’ll feel the first of it in a few hours, my lord, and by evening it will be upon us in full fury.”
Llywelyn took a moment to let the import of this news sink in. The plan had been to wait for the cover of darkness to slip out of the Llys and march down to the bay where they would load the men and set sail for Deganwy. If Priddy’s tidings were true, that would be impossible now.
“So, what’s to be done?”
“Can’t leave the boats on the beach, lord. Storm’ll smash ‘em to kindlin’. Won’t do ye any good then. Can’t just lay out a ways either. In this kinda blow, ye can’t be caught off a lee shore. We’ll have to find a safe anchorage.”
“And where would you find that,” Llywelyn asked.
“Only two that I know of hereabouts, lord—Holyhead and Caenarfon, but Roderic’s men control both. We could sail in, but not back out again.”
“I think neither of us could afford that, sir.”
Priddy nodded.
“Them boats all I got, lord,” Priddy said flatly
The old sailor rubbed his chin, lost in thought for a moment, then spoke.
“My lord, our only safety will be finding refuge off a weather shore and the nearest of those is t’other side of Anglesey. If ye’d march yer lads down to the ships now, we might be able to clear the headland of Trwyn y Gadair ‘fore we’re driven up on the rocks. Then, we could run up the channel with the wind at our backs and make the north side of the island before we sink. We get there and we’re off a weather shore with the wind blowin’ out and comfy as home in bed. But ye’ll need to have yer men take ship now, my lord, if we are to be safe away.”
As the old shipmaster spoke, Llywelyn continued to stare at the southern horizon. The darkness there was slowly growing. He cursed under his breath at the ill luck. The scouts his men had chased away with their longbows lurked out of range but not out of sight and his own scouts had reported that the first units of Roderic’s cavalry were arriving on the field. In six more hours he could have been safe away, but if they marched out now, in broad daylight, they would be caught in flat, open ground. The horsemen would fall on his men like wolves on the fold. It would be a slaughter.
Llywelyn turned to Priddy and gestured toward three riders off in the distance to the east.
“My scouts tell me there are over three hundred of those men gathering out there. We cannot move before dark.”
Priddy shook his head sadly.
“By dark, the wind will be too strong for us to get far enough to sea to clear the lee side of the island. By midnight, there’ll be rain blowin’ in sideways from the south and breakers higher than a man’s head down at the shore. My boats must go soon if they go at all.”
Llywelyn gave a grim nod.
“If you sail now, how long to reach safe waters in the north?”
Priddy turned his face to the south, feeling the strength of the wind.
“In calm seas, it would take six hours, maybe seven, lord, but hard to judge in this weather, maybe twice that. Then, we ride out the storm.”
“Then you sail back to us?”
“Aye, once the wind dies or shifts around to northerly. If it keeps blowing from the south, lord, I’ll tell ye plain, we cannot sail against it.” If the winds are favourable, we can return by dark tomorrow. Can you hold out here that long?”
Llywelyn still had his eyes on the three riders on the horizon.
“Yes,” he said, and knew it was a lie.
***
Llywelyn ap Iowerth, Prince of Gwynedd, stood atop a high dune and watched as the boats that had transported him to Anglesey fought their way back out to sea. The southwesterly wind was growing stiffer by the hour and the faint bruising he had seen on the horizon in the early afternoon was now a menacing line of black clouds racing toward him.
Since he was a boy, he had been convinced that it was God’s will that he rule Gwynedd—all of Gwynedd—but he had not thought it would take seven long years of living like a bandit in the wilderness to realize His will. He’d not complained to his Maker over the trials he had suffered, but wondered if he had offended the Almighty in some way as he watched the last of his thirty fishing boats disappear around a headland to the west. What was it Inness had said to him?
God is a fickle ally.
A stronger gust of wind blew sand up the hard-packed beach to add to the bulk of the dune as he clambered down its shifting surface and mounted his horse. The tide was ebbing now and he was able to ride up the bed of the Aberffraw River, hidden from the view of Roderic’s scouts. As he neared the town, the first fat drops of rain began to pepper the sand around him.
By the time he reached the enclosure of the royal Llys, the rain was coming steady and the wind was picking up. He dismounted and scanned the walls. His men stood almost shoulder to shoulder on a raised earthen step, ready to defend every foot of the barrier—but it was only eight feet high, had no towers and no arrow loops. It was more a decoration than a defensive barrier. It would be a minor hindrance when the onslaught came.
A groom took his horse and he strode into the hall. Gruffydd was sitting at a table drinking ale, which had been found to be in great supply within the Llys. He looked morose. He and his brother had been told of the approaching storm and had strongly demanded that they march down to the coast immediately to take ship. Llywelyn had refused.
It had been many years since either of his cousins had ridden to war and he’d reminded them what cavalry could do to infantry in open ground. They had grumbled, but when he thought the two might abandon his cause, fear had won out, fear of being ridden down by cavalry and fear of Roderic.
Their uncle would know by now they had joined Llywelyn’s rebellion. Backing out now would not save them if their cousin’s cause failed. In the end, Maredudd had agreed to take command of the fleet and sailed with Priddy in the early afternoon. Gruffydd spent the remainder of the day drinking in the hall. Llywelyn ignored him as he walked through the huge room and into a smaller one that held a part of Roderic’s treasury.
Above his head, could hear the rain drumming louder on the roof of the hall. Priddy had not exaggerated the ferocity of the storm and it was only just beginning. He looked at a table where a sampling of silver objects lay. His uncle’s main trove was kept secure behind the formidable walls of Caenarfon Castle, but a small fortune had been locked away in this room as well. Some of it had been pulled from a vault and spread on a table.
Llywelyn sat down heavily and looked at the hoard. The day before, he had been surprised when delegations from a substantial number of the local barons of Anglesey had arrived in answer to his summons. Mostly, these were led by younger sons and, in a few cases, by bastard sons, none wishing to offend the new resident of the royal Llys, but none willing to upset the old ruler either.
L
lywelyn greeted them all as though they were patriarchs and sent them home with generous gifts of silver from Roderic’s own coffers. He had taken note of who had paid him respect and who had not. There would be an accounting for that at the end of all this.
Outside, there was a wailing sound as the wind began to twist around corners and sweep under the eaves of the hall. He felt bone weary, but knew he dare not show it. He walked back through the great hall where his cousin continued to down ale in silence and stepped back through the front entrance.
It was twilight, but nearly as dark as midnight, as the wind roared in from the south carrying sheets of rain with it. He could see his men hunkering down against the fury of the storm and wondered what shape they would be in by the morning when Roderic would have his entire force up. He had six hundred men. His uncle had a thousand. It was bad odds.
He was about to summon one of his lieutenants and order half the men to take shelter when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see the skinny poet, Benfras, approach. The man had been left at liberty in the hall and had sharp ears. He no doubt knew the dilemma Llywelyn faced.
“My lord! What shall you do?” he shouted above the growing roar of the wind.
“We will wait here for your old lord, master poet.” Llywelyn shouted back. “I expect we will see him around first light.”
The poet looked at the men huddled close to the wall with no way to shield themselves from the fury of wind and rain.
“But you will lose, my lord. Even a poet can see that!” the man cried.
Llywelyn shrugged.
“It’s in God’s hands now.”
The poet tugged at his sleeve.
“Does not God help those that help themselves, lord? Step inside. I have a story about a saint I would tell you.”
Llywelyn stared at the man. His sharp face was drenched and strands of his long, wet hair clung to his cheeks where the swirling wind had plastered them. The man’s eyes were intense and he did not turn away from Llywelyn’s gaze or release his grasp on the Prince’s sleeve. Llywelyn shrugged. He would need more than a fanciful tale to survive through the morrow, but what harm could it do?
