by Wayne Grant
“That will avail him nothing,” Maredudd replied, with growing conviction. “His power here is broken. Half of Gwynedd is now at our mercy, if we are ready to take it!”
The half-ruler of tiny Meirionnydd paused and studied the tall Welsh archer closely.
“You must realize, Connah, that it is too late for Llywelyn. I grieve for him and for my own brother, but it is not too late for you and I! For seven years, you have fought and bled for this land. Be my strong right arm and we will take it for ourselves!” The man’s eyes were shining as he finished.
Griff glanced at Roland, then turned back to Lord Maredudd.
“Bastard,” Connah said, and punched him in the nose.
***
Lord Maredudd ap Cynan ap Owain leaned against a gunwale and held a wad of cloth to his face, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his nose. He had threatened to have Griff Connah disembowelled at the first opportunity. He reminded the tall archer that, whatever else he might be, he was still a commoner and that for such a one to strike a member of Gwynedd’s ruling dynasty was a capital offense. He turned on the master of the vessel and threatened to hang the man if he took his boats into shore. Griff ignored the man and turned to the wiry old fisherman who had been leaning on the helm and watching events unfold.
“What is your name?” he inquired.
“Caradog Priddy, sir, master of this and other boats here.”
“And this,” Griff said, pointing at Maredudd with disgust, “is your master?”
The old fisherman looked at the nobleman and gave a weary nod.
“Lord Maredudd rules in Meirionnydd, sir, and that would include me and all the others here,” he said, as though revealing some scandalous family secret.
Griff walked over to Maredudd, grasped the man’s fine tunic in two thick hands, dragged him to the railing of the boat and hung him over the water.
“Master Priddy, if this…man, were to fall overboard and drown, where then would your duty lie?”
The old sailor rubbed his chin.
“Why, Lord Gruffydd also rules in Meirionnydd sir, and he is still with the Prince. With Lord Maredudd dead, I would be bound to get myself back to aid Lord Gruffydd, of course. And, there is the matter of the silver.”
“Silver?”
“Aye,” said Caradog Priddy with a sly grin, “the Prince promised me a quarter my weight in silver to provide these ships and I always keep my bargains.”
“Then the Prince will keep his,” Griff replied and looked down at Maredudd, whose knuckles were white where they gripped the railing. There was pure hate in the man’s eyes, but also defeat.
“What say you, Lord Maredudd?” Griff asked politely. “Are you with us?”
The man’s eyes darted back to the water. He could not swim.
“Aye, aye,” he managed through his mangled nose.
“Good!” said Griff as he hauled the frightened nobleman back onto the deck and sat him down on a small bench.
“That’s settled then. Now, Master Priddy, bring in your boats.”
***
Caradog Priddy ran his boat up on the sands that stretched along the coast north of the Conwy’s mouth. The remainder of the fleet from Meirionnydd followed him in, until all twenty-seven were beached there. Exhausted men and skittish horses made their way across the exposed sand to the boats. Ramps were hastily constructed to bring the horses onboard and eighty were loaded on twelve of the boats. Four hundred men managed to jam into the remaining fifteen vessels by the time the tide turned.
As the fishing fleet from Meirionnydd took on its cargo of men and horses, Roland guided the longship back into the channel of the Conwy and beached the boat beside its mate on the gravel bar. When he dropped onto the gravel, he saw Sir Roger and Declan waiting for him there. Beside them was a boy. As he approached, Sir Roger nodded toward the lad.
“Sir Roland, meet Rhys Madawc, my new squire,” he said, with more than his usual degree of formality. “Master Madawc, this is one of your predecessors, Sir Roland Inness.”
The boy gave an energetic bow.
“Madawc?” asked Roland.
“Aye, Roland,” said Declan, “it seems our Sir Alwyn left more behind than his heart when he fled Wales all those years ago.”
“Sir Alywn—a son?” He stepped closer to the boy and stared.
“Aye, my lord,” the boy said quietly, returning the stare without flinching. “Sir Alwyn was my sire, though I never knew the man and he never knew of me.”
Roland looked from the boy to Declan to Sir Roger.
“How…?
“It is a long story,” said Sir Roger, “and one you will appreciate, I think. Young Rhys came to Shipbrook looking for his father, but left a piece of his heart back in Wales.” The big man paused and a half smile stole across his face. “He’s not the first young man of my acquaintance to come to Shipbrook, then go traipsing off to Wales to bring back a girl.”
Roland shook his head and managed a smile of his own.
“I will look forward to the tale when we are safe back in Cheshire, my lord, and as for you, Master Madawc, when this is over we will speak of your father, but mind you,” he paused and pointed at Sir Roger, “this man has never failed to select fine squires. See that you do not ruin his record.”
Rhys bobbed his head.
“Aye, sir.”
Roland turned back to Sir Roger and Declan.
“I do not know what strange circumstances brought you two and the boy here, but what are your intentions?”
Sir Roger dropped a hand to his sword hilt.
“I’ve never left a fight half-finished. We go with you.”
Roland exchanged a quick glance with Declan.
“Lady Catherine will not like it, my lord,” said Declan.
Sir Roger shrugged.
“She is not here.”
***
On the gravel bar beside the river, Sir Roger, Declan and Rhys joined Roland, as those Invalid’s fit to fight crowded aboard the two longships. Seven men had been lost in the taking and holding of the fortress and another five had died in the mad charge through the Dub Gaill shield wall. Six men were too wounded to be of any use and would be left in the care of men assigned by Griff to defend Deganwy should Daffyd attempt to retake it.
One hundred seven men had ridden out of Chester just a fortnight before. Only eighty-nine effectives remained. Engard’s archers had been reduced to sixteen and all joined the Invalids on the longships. With the last of the ebb tide, the boats cleared the mouth of the Conwy. The sun hung low in the western sky, as they waited for the tide to turn and float the rest of the fleet.
Griff Connah remained on Master Priddy’s boat and signalled for Roland to bring his longship near as the tide rose. With its shallow draft, the longship eased up next to the fishing boat before that vessel’s keel lifted off the sand. Roland scrambled over the rails to join the Welshman. He saw Lord Maredudd sitting disconsolately near the bow, still nursing his broken nose.
“How fares your Invalid Company?” Griff inquired as Roland dropped to the deck.
Roland wanted to tell this man that the Invalid Company was grievously damaged, that too many good men were dead—all in service to his Prince, but he bit those words back. He knew that he would long regret the men he had lost, but that he must set aside the regretting for another time. As Sir Roger had said, there was a fight to finish.
“A little over four score in fighting shape,” he reported crisply.
Griff nodded. The losses were serious, but he had seen the burnt fort and the bodies littering the gravel bar where the Invalid Company had made their stand. He had guessed the casualties would be twice that. He looked at Roland and saw the pain in his eyes. Would these losses break him? He prayed not, for he needed the young knight.
“English, I need your help,” he said bluntly. “I can lead men in a fight well enough, but I am no general to plan the battle. The tide will be at flood in another hour and I have no more thoug
ht of how to aid the Prince, than to sail away to Aberffraw and see what we find there. We need a plan.”
Roland started to protest. He was weary down to his bones and wasn’t sure he could think clearly. He’d hardly slept in four days and his last plan had been a near disaster. But sailing to Aberffraw with no plan was a certain way to get more of his men killed.
“Tell me about Anglesey,” he said.
Griff rubbed his chin, then drew a knife from his boot and squatted on the deck. With the point of the blade, he scraped a three-quarter circle in the weathered wood, then carved a straight line to connect the two ends of the arc. He dug the tip of the blade into a spot a little inside the circle and pointed to the mark.
“Aberffraw.”
Roland kneeled to look at the rough map.
“This flat side, then…that would be the strait?”
Griff nodded and drew a second straight line along the flat side of the circle to mark the mainland shore of the narrow waterway.
“Aye, that would be Menai.”
“And where are we?”
Griff poked his knife a few inches above the beginning of the strait.
Roland stood and walked around the sketch on the deck. As he looked at it from different angles, he was joined by Caradog Priddy who had been keeping watch as his little fleet began to rise along with the tide. Roland looked up at the wiry old fisherman as he slowly circled the crude map.
“Master Priddy, I heard Lord Maredudd say it’s twelve hours around the island to Aberffraw,” he said, tracing a course along the coast of Anglesey to the point where Griff had marked the location of the royal court.
“Aye, if the wind is with us,” the old sailor said and looked to the sky. “It’s shifting to northerly now and that will help—if it holds.”
Roland nodded as he continued to circle the map. Then he stopped and looked off toward Anglesey, easily visible across open water to the west. After a moment, he turned back to Priddy.
“Why don’t we sail through the strait?”
Priddy blinked and didn’t speak for a moment. Then he found his voice.
“The Menai? I’ve never done it,” the old man said, “though I’ve met men, local men, who claim they have.”
“And what did these locals tell you?”
“They say the Menai is narrow, hardly wider than a river in places. They say the tides are the worst of it. The flood tide sweeps in from both the north and south ends of the strait. Where they meet, there are whirlpools that will drive a boat right up onto rocky islands in the middle of the channel. They say it is a place to be feared.”
“These local men who’ve sailed through the strait—how did they do it?”
Priddy scratched his head.
“Gently, I expect. As I recall, they enter the northern end two hours before high tide and run with the surge as far as they can. If their timing is right, they reach slack water halfway through and then run south to the open sea with the ebb.”
“And how long would that take?”
“Running with the tide? Five hours at the most I would say.”
Griff Connah had watched this exchange with growing excitement. He turned to Priddy.
“Can you do it?”
“It’s too great a risk, my lord,” the old man said sorrowfully. “The strait is treacherous, even in daylight, and we’d be going with the high tide after dark. These boats are our livelihood. Lose ‘em and our families starve.”
Griff looked hard at the man, but Caradog Priddy did not flinch.
“Very well, Master Priddy. Would another quarter of your weight in silver feed them awhile?”
Caradog Priddy grinned.
“Long enough, my lord, long enough!”
***
On Ynys Llanddwyn, the first attack across the land bridge came at midafternoon. Roderic’s men had arrived on the dunes opposite the island an hour after dawn. They found the sea blocking their way and no sign of Llywelyn’s rebels. Protected from attack by the tides, the Prince had drawn his men back to shelter behind a low bluff that overlooked the submerged land bridge.
As the tide ebbed through the morning, the men on the island kept watch. By an hour past noon, the last of the sea had retreated. Llywelyn ordered his archers to remain hidden, but marched the remainder of his force forward. They formed into three lines on the front slope of the bluff with their spearmen in the front rank. They did not have to wait long for Roderic’s assault.
First came volley after volley of longbow shafts that fell in among the rebel lines. For an hour, men held their shields aloft and did their best to make themselves small, but the relentless rain of arrows had a way of finding flesh and the casualties mounted. The rebel archers returned the fire, but their volleys were feeble in comparison.
Llywelyn stood in the ranks with his men as the sand bridge to the island slowly emerged from the waves. From somewhere out of sight, a horn sounded and horsemen poured out of the dunes and the scrub trees on the Anglesey shore.
“Lock shields!” Llywelyn shouted.
With the cavalry advancing, the hail of arrows stopped. Men on the island dug in their heels and those with spears braced to meet the onslaught. A cavalry charge against infantry relies on shock, as thousands of pounds of horseflesh smash into men who try to turn it aside with spears and shields. Without speed, there is no shock, and Roderic’s mounted attack was ill-timed for speed.
The tide had abated, but the coarse sand left behind was still sodden. As the first wave of horses reached the newly-exposed beach, first one then another plunged a hoof deep into the loose sand and snapped a foreleg. Horses and riders went down, flailing on the sand, and many that followed stumbled over the fallen. All the while, Llywelyn’s archers poured longbow shafts into the men trying to extract themselves from the tangle.
On the treacherous sands, some riders managed to avoid the chaos to their front. These men, more brave than prudent, came on at a quarter of the speed customary for a mounted charge. A score of riders managed to make it to the base of the low rise where Llywelyn had set his defences, but there was no momentum behind their charge.
Sand that had so slowed the horses was more than firm enough for men to cross and Llywelyn ordered his front rank of spearmen to fall on them. Riders saw the line of men charging down the sandy slope and tried to turn away, but it was too late. They were swarmed under by men with spears and swords. Not a one made it back to their lines.
Less than an hour passed before movement was again seen on the enemy shore. Now, thick phalanxes of infantry marched out through the dunes and made straight for the rebel lines. Llywelyn glanced to his left and right. His men were on the verge of exhaustion after the long march through the storm and the wait for the enemy to appear, but none seemed ready to quit.
To his surprise, he saw Benfras, his new court poet, standing in the line a few feet away. He had ordered the young man to stay back with the archers, but the lad had scrounged a helmet, sword and shield from a fallen rebel and now stood near Llywelyn, his arm trembling with the strain of holding up the heavy shield.
“This is not like your poems,” Llywelyn called to him as a new wave of arrows chewed into the wood of their shields.
The thin poet managed a weak smile.
“Well, my lord, it is like the beginning of a good battle poem—outnumbered hero, grave danger, little hope of victory.”
“It is that,” Llywelyn said dryly.
“But by the end of the poem, the hero always triumphs, lord!”
Llywelyn laughed.
“Well, let’s hope we get to that part soon.”
***
It was full dark as the lead longship approached the northern entrance to the Strait of Menai. At the helm was Caradog Priddy. The old sailor had insisted that the nimble longships should lead the flotilla and that he should be at the steering oar of the first boat. He brought with him his youngest son, who sat in the bow with a weighted line and called back the depths to his father. Men of th
e Invalid Company manned the oars.
The line of fishing boats, their square sails reefed, rode the flood tide south under a gentle northerly breeze. They followed in the wake of the longships like ducklings. Off to port, the outline of Bangor’s grand cathedral came into view, rising above the dark streets of the town and shimmering under a brilliant full moon. Nothing stirred there as they moved past.
Two miles past Bangor, the strait curved round a rocky promontory and narrowed to no more than four hundred yards from one shore to the other. As the younger Priddy’s soundings revealed, the narrow waterway was studded with submerged rocks and shoals. There was a deep channel, but it meandered from one side of the strait to the other and back again. The fishing boats needed deep water and Caradog Priddy’s knuckles shone white on the steering oar as he eased through the treacherous passage.
***
Llywelyn spit sand from his mouth as he watched the flood tide sweep in to swamp the thin neck of land that separated Ynys Llanddwyn from the shore of Anglesey. Scores of bodies floated off the sand and bobbed there in the bright moonlight, a grim reminder of the carnage that had marked this long day.
Roderic’s infantry had come at them in three separate attacks. Each had come dangerously close to breaking through the thinning ranks of rebel defenders before being beaten back. The final assault had come with seawater ankle-deep on the land bridge. The whole centre of his line had bulged inward under the relentless weight of the enemy and some of Roderic’s men had managed to hack their way through, only to be cut down by Llywelyn’s longbowmen.
When the rising tide halted further attacks, he ordered his men back over the bluff where they collapsed among the dunes and scrub brush. He had lost a third of his strength killed or wounded and knew that when the next low tide came, he could barely field a defensive line two deep.
Taking a final look at the human flotsam being taken away by the sea, Llywelyn trudged over the top of the rise and walked among his men. A few managed a weak salute to their prince, but most lay on the sand as though dead. Off to one side, the Prince saw Benfras sitting beneath a bush, his arms hugging his bent knees. The young poet rocked slowly back and forth, his head down, but he looked up at the sound of Llywelyn’s approach. His eyes were wet.
