by Robyn Young
Aymer’s frame appeared in the doorway, blocking the light. He had his blade ready in his hand and he too bore the dragon shield against his left side. The knight stepped into the room, his hate-filled eyes fixed on Robert, who stood waiting, his chest rising and falling beneath his surcoat.
‘Another churl hiding in a hovel, waiting to be cut down.’ Aymer’s voice was acerbic, his French full of malice. ‘By the time they find your corpse, I’ll be long gone.’
Robert licked his lips uneasily. ‘A fine notion,’ he said, hefting his sword, ‘being that it works both ways.’
Aymer gave a bark of laughter. ‘I am not Guy. I will not be beaten down so easily.’ His eyes alighted on the shield on Robert’s arm, the dragon shining dully in the glow from the hearth. ‘You think you’re worthy because Humphrey chose you?’ he spat suddenly. ‘You’re a convenience. Someone with power and lands who can help him advance his position. In truth you’re a foreigner to my brothers. An outsider.’
‘That eats at you, doesn’t it? The fact they chose me so soon and yet you had to wait three years before being invited to join the order. Yes,’ said Robert, enjoying the look on Aymer’s face, ‘your so-called brothers told me that.’ He took a step towards the knight, loathing firing his blood-lust. ‘Foreigner I may be, but they trusted me far quicker than they trusted you. Humphrey had your measure, Valence, the moment he met you.’
All at once Aymer was rushing at him, his sword carving the air. The knight came in hard, forcing Robert to block swiftly. The clash of sword on shield was deafening in the cramped chamber. Robert felt the shock of it shoot through his arm, but he reacted at once, knocking away Aymer’s blade fiercely with his shield. The knight stumbled back with the strength behind Robert’s thrust, his leg catching one of the stools, which skittered away behind him. It distracted him, only for a second, but enough for Robert to lunge and slam his shield into Aymer’s face. Aymer’s helm took the brunt of it, but he was rocked back so hard he lost his balance. As he crashed to the floor the impact jolted the sword from his hand. Aymer scrabbled to his feet as Robert came in again. He ducked under a mighty swing of Robert’s sword and was forced to wheel away before he could retrieve his fallen weapon. He raised his shield to deflect a second blow, aimed at his head. Robert’s sword smashed into the painted wood, scoring a deep line across the dragon. Aymer hissed through his teeth at the power of the strike, then shoved furiously with his shield, forcing Robert’s blade away. As the weapon went wide, Aymer barrelled into him.
Taken unawares by the knight’s brute strength, Robert found himself propelled into the trestle and boards, which screeched across the flagstones. He toppled back, until he was half on the table top, Aymer pinning him down under the shield, teeth bared. He lifted his sword with a grunt of effort, bringing it round into Aymer’s side as the breath was squeezed out of him. The blow wasn’t hard and the knight’s mail absorbed it, but he was thrown off balance, giving Robert the opening he needed to push him away and recover his stance. He rushed Aymer, not allowing the knight to go for his sword. Aymer crouched and grabbed Robert’s helm, on the floor where he’d dropped it. Swinging it up, the knight smacked it into his groin. With a sharp exhalation of breath, Robert collapsed. On his knees, he saw Aymer scrabble past, heard a clang and a scrape as the knight abandoned the helm and picked up the fallen blade. Through the sickening pain, he heard the clink of his spurs on the stone floor. The expectation of Aymer’s blade slicing its steel through his scalp jolted enough fear through him to make him stagger to his feet and turn to defend himself.
With a blade in his hand, Aymer was fast and furious. Robert had never seen him fight on foot before. The knight’s muscular frame and broad shoulders lent great power to his strokes. He seemed to have little fear, for he showed no hesitation in coming in again and again, hacking like a woodcutter with his sword, punching like a wrestler with his shield. The ache in Robert’s groin had almost receded, but he felt himself tiring quickly. He mistimed a blow, allowing Aymer to stamp in sideways and punch the pommel of his sword into his face. Robert felt a snap as his nose broke and his throat flooded with blood. Blinded and choking, he staggered away. Through watery eyes he saw Aymer grinning. Frustration made him want to throw himself forward, but he stumbled back around the table giving himself time to recover as he spat blood through his teeth.
‘Coward!’ Aymer seethed, his grin contorting. ‘You don’t deserve that shield, you cur.’
As Robert focused on the knight’s twisted face he felt a surge of fury. He pitched forward, propelling the table into Aymer and knocking him flying. The knight landed on a stool, which broke beneath his back, sending him crashing to the floor among the shards. His sword fell from his fingers and his helm clanged back against the stone floor, the strap snapping with the impact. Before the knight could move, Robert charged round the table and dropped down on top of him, straddling his stomach. Tossing his sword aside, he pulled the knight’s helm from his head. Aymer, momentarily winded by the fall, started to struggle, but Robert punched him in the face, his mailed fist mashing Aymer’s lips and snapping two of his teeth. He punched in again, and again, tearing the skin around Aymer’s eye, breaking his nose, then his jaw.
As Robert, drenched in sweat and panting, pulled his fist back for a fifth strike, he heard hoof-beats and shouts outside. He faltered, recognising his name in the voices. It was his men. At the sound of his brother’s voice, Robert lowered his bloodied fist. ‘In here!’ he shouted hoarsely, pushing himself off Aymer. As he bent to pick up his sword, his head pounding, Robert paused, staring down at Aymer, who was groaning faintly through bloody teeth. The blade hovered in his grip, wavering over the knight’s form. ‘Next time, I will kill you.’
Leaving Aymer senseless on the kitchen floor, Robert staggered out into the smoke-tinged daylight.
On the snow-dappled hillside above Llanfaes, the English had set up camp. Fires still burned unchecked in the ruins below, the flames garish in the early evening. The last survivors were being led in by knights. It was a miserable group they had been herded into, children weeping, men and women pale and shocked, some wounded.
Robert stood alone, his muscles aching, his broken nose throbbing. The older knights were jovial, pleased with the quick work they had made of the town and the rebels. The younger men were subdued, many left silent by their first taste of blood, a taste they had been so eager for. Aymer, his face swollen beyond recognition and missing two teeth, was among their number. Earlier, Robert had heard the knight telling Humphrey he had been set upon by three rebels. Robert doubted Aymer would ever tell a soul the truth.
As Robert watched, Madog ap Llywelyn was brought out, wounded but alive, in front of the waiting knights and survivors. His hands had been bound behind his back, but he walked upright between the two knights who held him, his head raised defiantly. The golden circlet he had worn into battle remained on his head, the dented metal sticky with blood. He was brought before Edward, who stood tall against the sombre sky, his scarlet surcoat snapping in the wind. Behind the king, two flags were raised, one, his standard bearing the royal arms of England, the other, the faded dragon banner. At a nod from the king, a black-robed cleric moved forward to remove the crown from Madog’s head. The Welsh rebel spat fierce words, but the knights held him firmly and Madog was powerless to stop the cleric taking the Crown of Arthur and conveying it to the English king.
Edward stared at the blood-crusted circle of gold that had brought a nation together against him. Then, seemingly satisfied, he waved it away. ‘We will have it cleaned and made good.’ As the cleric took it, the king’s gaze alighted on Madog. ‘You have incited rebellion, committed murder and trespass, assault and robbery. You have destroyed property, fomented unrest and disturbed your king’s peace.’
Madog didn’t flinch, but kept his eyes on Edward.
Robert, watching with the others, wondered if Madog or any of the survivors even understood what the king had said.
‘Fo
r your crimes you will be taken to the Tower where you will spend the remainder of your days.’ The king paused, the wind rippling in the dragon banner. ‘Ten years is a long time. The people of Wales have forgotten the price of rebellion.’ Edward looked behind him, to where John de Warenne and the English earls were gathered. ‘They need another reminder.’
Robert heard a cry and, as the group parted, he saw a figure dragged out. It was a young man with soot-black hair.
Madog shouted and tried to break free.
‘Your brother, Dafydd, so we were told,’ said Edward.
Dafydd’s bruised face was terrified, but he spat on the ground as the knights hauled him past Edward to where two horses were waiting, held by the king’s squires. One of the knights drew back a fist to cuff him, but the king shook his head. Madog fought against his captors, shouting incoherent streams of Welsh at the king and at his brother, whose white face had fixed on the horses, both of which had thick ropes attached to the pommels of their saddles, the free ends held by soldiers.
Dafydd’s arms were pulled apart by the knights. The soldiers holding the ropes came forward and bound them around his wrists, checking each knot to make sure they were secure. The horses snorted as the squires led them into position on either side of Dafydd, whose chest was heaving in and out. The ropes attached to Dafydd’s wrists and the saddle pommels uncurled from their loops on the ground, but still hung slack. Knights ushered the watching men back, out of the paths of the horses. Some of the survivors had turned away, women pressing children’s faces into their skirts, men closing their eyes. More watched in muted silence. Edward stood with his officials, his face impassive.
A couple of soldiers jostled in beside Robert, looking at Dafydd, who stood alone, his hands clenched by his sides.
One of the soldiers grinned at the other. ‘I once saw a man’s arms ripped clean away.’
Robert let the two men move in front of him as the king gestured to his squires, who raised their whips and cracked at the horses’ sides. The beasts plunged in opposite directions, the ropes leaping up to snap taut, pulling Dafydd’s arms up into the air and apart. Madog’s howl of anguish rose to join his brother’s scream.
When Dafydd’s dislocated arms were untied, the butchery continued, his limp body hauled to a trestle and boards where he was brusquely eviscerated with cruel wrenches of the executioner’s knife. Finally, he was quartered and the bloody pieces of him packed in barrels to be sent around the re-conquered kingdom, evidence of the price of rebellion. The crown, worn by Brutus and by Arthur himself, would be conveyed to Westminster, the final nail in the coffin of Welsh liberty.
Leaving Madog’s tortured cries to fade behind him, Robert walked away down the hillside.
Near the town walls the king’s engineers and master masons were in animated discussion, surveying the terrain, measuring and marking out areas with lengths of rope. The king was already intending for another of his fortresses to be built in place of the ruined town. Soldiers were carting the dead down to the beach. Bodies were being tossed into the waters, the waves rushing in to cover them. Already, Robert could see the humps of backs and heads, swirling out into the channel, food for fish and birds. Sensing someone move up behind him, he turned to see Humphrey. The knight bore the dragon shield, his sword sheathed at his side. There was blood on his face and a spray of it up his surcoat.
‘It is done.’ Letting out a breath, Humphrey stared across the water, slowly filling with corpses. ‘Soon we can go home.’ When Robert remained silent, he continued. ‘Rest assured, my friend, you will be rewarded when the Crown of Arthur is displayed beside Curtana in Westminster Abbey. Now, we only have two relics left to find.’
Robert saw a fervent determination in Humphrey’s face. The man seemed so certain, so assured that he was on the right path and that when the instructions in the prophecy were fulfilled everything would be made good in the realm. There had been little time to question the ultimate intentions of the order, or the others’ belief in the visions of Merlin, the dangers of war and winter more immediate, but now, with the dead washing out into the channel before them, Robert wondered. He had been so ready to believe on the night of his initiation; boyhood tales of warriors filling his head with golden prospects. Those stories had portrayed battle as something glorious, the words of the poets raising the heroes above the bloody reality. Robert thought of his father; of how the war here had changed him. For the first time, he had a fleeting sense of understanding. No wonder his father did not believe in things beyond the grim truth of the temporal world, no wonder he had ridiculed men who did. The words of his brother the night the baggage train was attacked in Nefyn came back to him. Do you trust him? ‘You still haven’t told me what King Edward will do when he has all four relics,’ Robert said, fixing Humphrey with his gaze.
‘We aren’t privy to all his plans, Robert, as I’ve told you. Only the men of the Round Table know his full intentions. We have to prove ourselves worthy to be trusted as they are.’
‘Do you not ever wonder?’
Humphrey paused. ‘I just know my king will do what is best for my kingdom.’
Robert said nothing. He thought of his own kingdom, beleaguered by Edward’s interference, and a ghost of a threat drifted in his mind. But even as it appeared, he pushed it away. Scotland was its own kingdom, with its own king. It wasn’t Wales or Ireland, fractured and isolated. However much Edward had desired the Crown of Arthur he had come here, first and foremost, to put down a rebellion.
Yet still, on this bleak shore with Humphrey beside him, Robert felt a sense of standing at a crossroads with many paths leading away before him. In his mind they all led into darkness.
35
Candlelight bathed their ranks in a hallowed glow, shining in the eyes of the men and in the gilt-work on the tombs that surrounded them. Dominating the sanctuary at the heart of Westminster Abbey was a shrine, the stone base of which contained steps rising into recesses. The shrine, built by King Henry for the bones of St Edward the Confessor, along with the soaring abbey that enclosed it, had been erected only twenty-six years ago, but already the steps had been worn smooth by the knees of pilgrims. Atop the base a gold feretory contained the saint’s remains, above which was a canopy, decorated with holy scenes. Beyond, shadows slipped into the epic darkness of the vault.
Beneath the gazes of painted saints, King Edward knelt, his scarlet robes pooling around him on the steps of the shrine. His head was bowed. Behind him, his men stood in rows, radiating out from him, their faces fading into soft gloom beyond the candle flames. At the front were those closest to the king’s confidence, the men of his Round Table: John de Warenne and Bishop Bek, the earls of Lincoln and Warwick, Arundel, Pembroke, Hereford and the king’s brother, Edmund of Lancaster, among others. Behind, stood the Knights of the Dragon, their shields held stiffly before them.
Robert, standing between Humphrey de Bohun and Ralph de Monthermer, sensed someone’s gaze on him. He glanced down the line of men to meet the eyes of Aymer de Valence. The knight’s bruises had faded after Anglesey, but he had a scar on his cheek where he had been injured on the campaign. Robert had seen that his two teeth, broken in the fight, had since been replaced by others. Nestled snugly in the gaps, they had been bound to his own teeth with thin silver wires, giving him a strange, glimmering smile. He had wondered where the knight had got the new ones from. Aymer held him in his stare, then turned away, his gaze fixing on the king. It had been months since Robert had seen him. With the fall of Anglesey many nobles had been released from the king’s service to return to their estates and Aymer had gone with his father to Pembroke. By the malice in his eyes it was clear none of his hatred had been dulled by time. Robert didn’t feel any regret for the beating he’d given the knight, or for the reckoning he guessed might one day come. Even now, he felt a vicious joy when he recalled punching his fists into Aymer’s face; a face that had grinned at his misfortunes and been eager for his pain and humiliation. The bastard had
deserved it. He would do it again in a heartbeat.
When King Edward left the island, with the work on his new castle, named Beaumaris, already under way, Robert had remained in his diminished company. He had been with the king as they travelled first to Caernarfon to oversee the plans for its reconstruction, then south, making a royal progress through forlorn coastal towns and sea-battered ports, past his formidable castles at Cricieth and Harlech. Madog ap Llywelyn had been conveyed in chains to the Tower, sentenced to life imprisonment. With the bloody execution of his brother, the Welsh rebel’s spirit had been broken and he had seemed, in his despair, to embody the very essence of the land of which he had been prince for such a short time.
In each settlement Edward obtained formal surrenders from the Welsh and accepted their vows of homage. Everywhere he went, through the blossoming months of May and June, the Crown of Arthur went with him, a symbol of his supreme authority. The people, bereft of a prince and mourning the loss of so many men, were subdued and frightened. But Edward, who, weeks earlier, had torn apart Madog’s young brother in a brutal display, was lenient, establishing a body of lawyers to conduct hearings into grievances the Welsh had against his overbearing officials, grievances that ultimately led to the rebellion. He even let many rebels return to their families without penalty. Robert, surprised by his show of forgiveness, had soon come to see the sense in it. Edward needed the Welsh content with his rule if their obligations to pay his taxes and serve in his wars were to be enforced and further rebellion prevented.
