“Because it’s my job,” I said, “and I’m good at it.”
“What if you don’t come back?” Bronwen said, looking up at me. “What is there for me here without you?”
“There are two answers to that question, Bronwen,” I said, “and you already know them both. The first is that I don’t believe I’m going to die tonight. I don’t feel it, but I can’t promise you that I won’t.”
“Then don’t go,” she said, her voice muffled in my chest.
“I could die tomorrow, next month, next year. Your happiness can’t depend on me, as much as part of me wants it to. If I die, other people here will still love you.”
“And that’s the second answer,” Bronwen said.
I pulled her closer and bent my head to kiss her. She tightened her arms around my neck. “Come back,” she said. “I need you to come back.”
“You’re not the only one who needs it,” I said, my voice soft in her ear. “I will come back for you.”
* * * * *
The battle started as soon as it got dark. We had only two trebuchets because they are expensive to build and complicated to work. Dafydd let me hold his binoculars so I could watch the flaming casks hit. The first one fell short, as the men who manned it tried to find the range. Meanwhile, a stone from the other trebuchet slammed into the side of the curtain wall, ripping off the top crenellations. I glanced at the Prince. He wanted more. He didn’t just want to destroy Painscastle, he wanted to demoralize the English.
With the next shot, the men manning the first trebuchet got going in earnest. Each cask arced through the air in a magnificent trajectory of light, then disappeared over the curtain wall into the bailey. The screams of the defenders were audible from where we stood. In an hour, we managed twelve shots.
“Have they put up a flag?” Dafydd asked. “I don’t see one.”
“No, my lord,” I said.
“Tell Goronwy before you join your men that he can bring down the wall whenever he’s ready and Madog to move the archers forward,” he said. “Make sure they’re properly shielded.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Madog was the captain of the archers, whom I’d not met personally before. I’d made it my business to become acquainted with him, however, once it became clear that Lili was determined to fight amongst his men. “If anything happens to her, I will personally rip your head off,” I’d told him.
“She’ll be well protected, my lord, but safer yet would to have her at home, weaving among your women.”
I growled at him. “Did you tell her that?” I’d asked.
He’d grinned at my ferocity. “Me?” he’d said. He held up his hands, palms outward. “Worth more than my life to tell her anything, I think. That’s your job, my lord.”
Now, the foot soldiers and I crowded behind and to one side of the archers. They’d provide cover for us for the two hundred yards separating the tree line from the castle walls. In the momentary lull, I pulled my sword from its sheath, stabbed it into the ground in front of me, and knelt. Dear God, keep me safe. Let me return well and whole. I kissed the point of the cross and with each heartbeat that passed, locked my emotions more tightly into a box in my mind and put it away, on a high shelf. Some men fought angry and it gave them power. I strove to feel nothing—no anger, hatred, love—that would distract me from the task at hand. I’ve no love for Bronwen; no fear for Lili; no regret for a life half-lived. There is only the sword in my hand and my men beside me, with death a widening abyss beneath my feet.
A commotion came from the tunnel entrance. A man ran out, shouting, “It’s lit! It’s lit!”
Whump!
I felt the power of the blast, more than heard it. Less than a second later, the ground shook and Painscastle’s curtain wall exploded into the sky. Fragments of stone and dirt shot fifty feet into the air. They came down like rain, thudding into the ground on both sides of the rampart.
Then the archers started firing their arrows over our heads and we ran across the grass towards the castle, screaming our battle cry until our throats went hoarse. I shouted at the top of my lungs, my sword raised high, but even I couldn’t make sense of what I was saying. The trebuchet fired a cask; it exploded on the keep and shot metal fragments (shrapnel, Dafydd said) in every direction.
It took us thirty seconds to reach the wall—fast considering the rough terrain, but the men had spent the day preparing themselves for battle and were fully charged with courage. We stormed through the breach in the wall, the men stumbling over the stones that descended out of the opening on both sides and filled the ditch behind the wall. The men behind were pushing hard, and some of those in front went down. I grasped one man’s collar and hauled him to his feet as I passed him.
Painscastle was lost the moment we passed the wall and surged into the defenders, who’d been slow to fill the gap. If they’d been able to meet us at the top, we would have fought, pressed against each other so closely a man could hardly wield his sword. Instead, I got three paces down the other side of the pile of stones before anyone countered my advance, and my men spilled into the bailey behind me.
All the buildings had caught fire and metal littered the ground. I hoped Tosny had pulled his non-combatants into the keep, because any left out here would be dead within the half hour. We outnumbered the English, and no matter the ferocity of their defense, now that their wall was breached, they would lose.
I faced an Englishman, his helmet askew and wearing a scorched surcoat. Our swords met, but we were pressed so close together, I only managed one swing before I gave up and bashed his face with my shield. He staggered back, tripped on the stones behind him, and fell. I lost track of him instantly as I had to meet the sword of the man behind him. This one was much larger, but like his fellows, shocked by the barrage and the explosions. I caught his downward slash with my shield, and slid my sword under his guard and into his belly. He fell, and I moved on to the next man. And then the next.
Finally, I reached the barbican—the fortified gateway that protected the motte on which the keep sat. I swung around. We’d charged the wall with nearly two hundred men and encountered less than a third of that number. Most of Tosny’s men had fallen, but it was not my job to finish the rest. I grabbed the arm of one of my men, one of the youngest.
“Run to Lord Goronwy. I need archers atop these battlements,” I said, gesturing to the walls that surrounded the bailey—those that were still standing, that is. “Tell him we’ve penned Tosny in his tower. We need to keep him there until he sues for peace.”
“Yes, my lord,” the boy said. He flitted through the wall and was gone.
The intensity of being that always filled me during battle began to fade and my vision cleared. Soon, my men had finished their work in the bailey and archers began struggling through the gap in the wall. Lili was among them, but before I could berate her, she grasped my arm.
“I’m a messenger, only,” she said. “Your man, Brychan is here, and knows what to do. Prince Dafydd asks that you return with me. He would have your counsel as to what comes next.”
* * * * *
We met in the early hours of the morning. Bronwen had taken Anna to Aberedw Castle, and returned with Prince Llywelyn. He stood with Dafydd and his other lords, including Goronwy and Math, who’d ridden in from Brecon an hour before.
“Tosny refuses to surrender?” Math asked. “Why?”
“Perhaps he fears we will put him to the sword,” I said.
“Edward would have,” Goronwy said. “Edward did, in fact, most recently at Castell y Bere. For all the years he’s lived in Wales, Tosny knows little of its Prince.”
“The only thing standing between him and us is a barbican,” Math said. “Two barrels of powder at its base and it’s gone. He must know by now we have the means to take his keep. Painscastle can be ours if we’re willing to raze it to the ground, along with everyone in it.”
Prince Llywelyn shook his head. “Give him a few days to think about it. His
choice is to surrender or die and he knows it. He’ll see reason eventually, and if he doesn’t, we can still take the castle.”
Dafydd turned to me. “How is the men’s morale? Are they still willing to fight?”
I laughed. “You couldn’t stop them, I don’t think. They’re drunk with the power of being Welsh.”
“Drunk with victory, and soon to be drunk with mead,” Bevyn said. “We’ll need to keep an eye on them if we hope to have any fighting men left to watch the keep.”
“Two cups each,” Goronwy said. “That’s what I ordered. If a commander allows differently, he knows that he’ll regret it.”
“Good,” Prince Llywelyn said. “We need the men alert and awake. I don’t want to just defend the border, I want to control it. I need every man who can walk or ride divided into companies within the hour. From this moment, no Englishman may set foot in Wales without my leave.” He fisted his right hand and slapped into the palm of his left as he spoke.
“This is our hour,” Goronwy agreed. “We must make the most of it.”
“See to it,” Llywelyn said. “Hereford has three days to admit the error of his ways. After that, we will move again, and any Englishman who stands against us will pay a stiff price.
Chapter Thirty
Bronwen
Ieuan was in a hurry. I could feel him urging the car faster as we left Painscastle behind us, heading east to England. His face and shoulders reflected his intensity. We were going fifteen miles an hour, which admittedly in a car feels like a slow crawl, but it was far faster than we would have been going on horseback. The dashboard glowed blue and red, but otherwise we were riding without lights.
Molotov cocktails and the pots of unmixed Greek fire filled the backseat and trunk. The pots exploded on impact, no matter if we threw them on the ground or at buildings. The glass bottles which contained the cocktails, on the other hand, were proving a more sturdy container than we’d anticipated, having been invented in a land of pavement and concrete, of which there was none in the Middle Ages.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was so soon?” I asked.
“Prince Llywelyn’s orders,” Ieuan said.
“It’s only been two days, not the three that Prince Llywelyn gave Hereford,” I said, trying not to feel betrayed.
“Events encouraged us to pick up the pace,” Ieuan said. “Pull over here, to the right.”
I parked fifty feet from the Dyke beneath two beech trees that had become intertwined in a mass of branches and brambles that marked the edge of a farmer’s field. The Dyke lay just ahead, lit by an unexpectedly bright moon after a long day of rain. We didn’t want to alert any nearby English to our presence by driving the car any closer. In the twenty-first century, the sound of a vehicle was like nothing—so common you hardly ever noticed it. Here, where the only sounds were natural, it stood out.
Ieuan eased the door open. “Stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
Ieuan stopped by the trunk, listening. I waited, and then heard what had caught his attention: hoof beats. Ieuan shrank into the shadow of the trees. The pounding rang out as rider passed us a few feet from the car. Even I recognized the horse, the armor the man wore, and the set of the man’s shoulders. Tudur.
“There he goes,” Ieuan said.
“You expected him?” I asked.
“I did,” Ieuan said. “And now we’ll see if the bastard is true to his word.”
Keeping to the grass beside the road, Ieuan cat-walked to where the Dyke rose above him, a bulk in the dark. He climbed down into the ditch and up again, to the top of the wall, and then scurried over it. I waited. Nothing.
This is unacceptable.
I got out of the car and ran in a crouch to the point Ieuan had gone over the Dyke. I knew he wouldn’t like it, but as long as I stayed on the Welsh side of the wall, I thought I’d be all right. I climbed to the top of the earthen wall, my feet losing their traction repeatedly in the mud, and crawled on my stomach across the flat top to the far edge. Fortunately, I managed to bury my gasp in my sleeve.
Below me, a dozen yards away, a campfire blazed next to a small hut. A disarmed Ieuan, with his hands out, stood back to back with Tudur, who’d lost his helmet. A sword length away, a thickset, bearded man glared at them. On the edge of the camp, just within range of the firelight, a company of English soldiers in full battle armor waited.
I spent ten seconds trying to find my breath, my head down on my arms, and then pushed backwards off the Dyke and dropped to the Welsh side. I turned to run back to the car and froze. Worse and worse. Ten men on horseback surrounded my car. They must have heard the thud on the grass as I fell, or sensed my movement, because they turned as one to look at me.
“Bronwen!”
I ran towards Prince Llywelyn, who dismounted to greet me. I spoke through choppy breaths. “Ieuan...Tudur...English soldiers...the other side of the Dyke...must save him!”
“How many men?”
“Forty?” I guessed.
“Ach,” the Prince said. “They outnumber us four to one.”
“Not the way I see it,” I said.
I popped the trunk and everyone gazed down at my Greek Fire canisters. They resembled small urns, with a narrow top and base and a septum down the center that separated the water from the powdered mixture. When the pot broke, the ingredients spontaneously combusted. I was quite proud of them and would have been prouder if we weren’t going to use them to kill people—or at the very least injure them.
I handed one to each of Prince Llywelyn’s men and put the remaining five carefully on the front passenger seat. I moved the box of Molotov Cocktails to the floor, under the glove box. Meanwhile, Llywelyn tied his horse to a tree.
“What are you doing?” I asked, then kicked myself for leaving off the ‘my lord.’ He didn’t appear to notice.
“Coming with you. Someone has to throw those weapons, and it can’t be you if you’re driving.”
I was too concerned about Ieuan to argue. Ten minutes had passed since I’d seen him. Please be alive! Please still be alive! “The men are to the left of the road,” I said. “If you stand in the doorway, you can hang on with one hand and throw the devices over the top of the car with your right arm.”
I started the car, Llywelyn grasped the interior handle, and put one foot on the seat and the other on the rim of the car. He pulled the door more closed so he was sandwiched between the door and the roof.
“I’m going in hot,” I said.
I gunned the engine, we skidded, and then picked up speed as I pulled onto the road. I flipped on the headlights and rocketed along at nearly forty miles an hour, with Prince Llywelyn’s men thundering along behind me; we drove through the cut in the Dyke and into England.
“Ieuan, down!” I shouted, at the same time the Prince barked, “Tudur!”
Llywelyn lobbed the first pot of Greek Fire. Ieuan threw himself towards the Dyke, his hands over his head. The canister hit the back of an English soldier’s metal helmet. It exploded with a sharp crack, engulfing the man’s head in flame.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Llywelyn’s men threw their pots. One settled in the grass without igniting, but the rest blew, throwing fire everywhere. The men who survived ran for their horses. I lobbed a Molotov Cocktail out the window in the direction of the camp fire. It bounced once and rolled into the flames.
Oh my God! What have I done? I ducked below the level of the window in anticipation. The bottle exploded.
Glass shot in every direction and the fire burst upward. Men screamed. It was as if a high wind had come up and blown the English to the east. Within two minutes, the only men remaining lay on the ground.
I brought the car to a halt and ran to Ieuan. The first pot had sprayed him with fragments and fire, but he’d rolled in the dirt to extinguish the flames. He sat up and I threw myself at him, nearly knocking him over.
“It’s all right, cariad,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “I’m only singed.”
“Do we pursue, my lord?” called one of Llywelyn’s men, still seated on his horse.
“No,” Llywelyn said. “Not yet.” He surveyed the camp, and then strode to the smoldering body of a man who lay face down in the dirt. He crouched beside him and his face fell. “Tudur,” he said.
Tudur moaned. I crawled over to him and helped the Prince roll him over. I pressed my ear to his chest. “His heart is strong,” I said.
The Prince blew out a sharp breath of relief.
“And Hereford?” Ieuan asked. “Where is he?”
“He, I would pursue,” Llywelyn said, “but we should regroup and prepare to support Dafydd and his men when they come. It’s bad enough we used all their spare ammunition.”
Llywelyn’s words washed over me. I knelt in the grass beside Tudur, my breeches muddy, my hair undone, my heart still pounding from the tension of the scrimmage. For the thousandth time since I’d come to Wales, I felt like I was in the middle of a rising river, flooding over a waterfall in a rush, headlong towards an impossible future. More than fear or uncertainty, I felt incredulity. How is it that I’m here? How could any of this be real? But the wounded man before me was real, the Prince who loomed over us, his hands on his hips, jaw set, was real, and so was his son, who’d soon come pounding up the road with a hundred men, all set on rewriting history books that had not yet been written.
* * * * *
“I’m a firm believer in overwhelming force,” David said an hour later. David, Ieuan, and I stood on a high spot on the Dyke, watching the Welsh archers fire one flight of arrows after another at the English encampment near Huntington Castle, not far from where I’d first driven into England from Pennsylvania.
Goronwy and Math had ridden with their companies along the road to the north of Painscastle before crossing into England and riding south. David had met Carew at Hay and fanned out across the English countryside, burning as they went. It was total war. We weren’t looking to defeat the English army, we were looking to defeat the English.
Prince of Time (Book Two in the After Cilmeri series) Page 25
