by Tony Riches
‘My name is Cadell,’ he shouted. His rich voice showing a trace of his West Country upbringing. ‘I am a mercenary, paid by Sir Gwynfor of Picton to scout the Du strength and positions.’
The guards stopped and looked at him, undecided. One of them called back. ‘Can you prove what you say is true?’
‘I have heard Sir Gwynfor has been killed but King Gwayne can vouch for me.’
‘Lay down your sword, mercenary!’
Cadell slowly unbuckled his sword from his waist and lay it carefully on the track in front of him. The guards approached him cautiously and one dismounted to pick it up and also took Cadell’s dagger while the other kept his own sword at the ready. The mounted guard was still unsure of him.
‘Where were you going?’
‘On my way back to report,’ Cadell replied. ‘I have valuable information for the king.’ He could see they were still undecided about what to do. ‘I recognise your uniform. What are men of the king’s guard doing in Du territory?’
‘We crossed the border to avoid the Du army.’ The second guard looked thoughtfully at Cadell. ‘We are escort to someone of importance. Can you show us somewhere safe we can stay for the night?’
Cadell pointed back down the track. ‘Nowhere is safe but I’ve been staying at a hunting lodge not far down the track. We would need to keep a look out but at least it is warm and dry.’
The mounted guard turned to the man who was holding Cadell’s sword. ‘Wait here. I will see what our orders are.’
Cadell knew that he could probably overpower the guard and escape if he wished but events had taken an unexpected turn and his curiosity had been aroused. He had been surprised to learn that Du warriors were already in the west but decided his story had seemed to satisfy the guards. They waited in an uneasy silence until a group of riders appeared at the crest of the hill. He immediately recognised Queen Elvina, riding a beautiful white horse. Even though she was the last person he was expecting to see in the lands of the tribes, her long blonde hair made her unmistakeable.
She brought her horse to a stop to look at him. He seemed more tanned and athletic than when she had last seen him with Sir Gwynfor. He now looked like how she had always imagined a warrior would be. She remembered the intelligence in his dark eyes that were now looking at her with a confidence she rarely saw. ‘That is Cadell, the mercenary,’ said Elvina quietly to the guards. ‘I have seen him before, when he visited the Royal Llysoedd.’
‘At your service, my lady,’ said Cadell, smiling.
‘You can help us?’ asked Elvina. She liked the look of the tough mercenary and it would be good to have an extra guard who knew so much about the ways of the Du.
‘Of course, these dangerous woods are no place to be at night, my lady.’ The guards were reassured by the queen’s confirmation and nodded to Cadell, who mounted his black Welsh Cob and led them back down the track to the deserted lodge. He smiled to himself as he rode. He had been sent to find a queen of the Du and had instead found a beautiful queen of the Gwyn.
Bethan soon had a fire going in the stone hearth and made a soup from vegetables they dug from the garden on the lodge. They had carried with them a cured ham and a loaf of rye bread from the farm and Cadell produced a keg of good ale he found on his search of the store behind the kitchen. After their meal the guards went to patrol the grounds and Elvina invited Cadell to join her and Bethan to exchange news of the war.
He told them of his experiences at the hill fort of Ynys Mon and how he had managed to gain the confidence of the warriors of the Du, including the legendary Lord Llewelyn. Cadell made no mention of his search for the queen or the unfortunate suicide of Bishop Cledwin, but he could not resist telling them he knew the queen’s sister, Ceinwen. Elvina liked the handsome mercenary and was eager to learn as much as she could about their enemy. She had many questions about Ceinwen and was curious to learn that the baby prince of the Du was in her care.
Cadell was just as interested in Elvina’s account of their encounter with the lone Gwyn warrior and their lucky escape from the Du raiders in the west. Cadell knew these must be the warriors from Ynys Mon he had trained with and realised that the war was turning to the advantage of the Du. If it were not for his mission for Ceinwen he would have been with them, fighting his way down the coast to the castle at Pembroke.
When the queen and her handmaiden eventually retired for the night Cadell helped the guards stable the horses and followed them on a patrol of the grounds. He suggested that one of them should remain awake at all times to keep watch on the main approach the lodge and showed the other guards the servants quarters, where there was room for them to have some well deserved sleep. Cadell told them he would sleep by the fire in the main room of the lodge and that they could rely on him to help at the first sign of any trouble. He lay wide awake listening to the noises of the night and wondering at the strange hand fate had dealt him.
In the small hours of the morning he heard the guards changing over and waited until the new guard was at the furthest point from the lodge. There was a full moon but the cloudy sky cut down its light and he had enough cover of darkness to creep up behind the guard. Although they had not returned his sword and dagger, Cadell was skilled in unarmed combat. He expertly slipped his arm around the guard’s neck from behind and quickly snapped it, killing him instantly. He dragged the guard’s limp body into the bushes and returned stealthily to the lodge, closing the door silently behind him.
The hunting lodge was big enough for the queen to have a room of her own and Cadell had already made sure he was familiar with the layout. Easily finding his way around in the near darkness he stealthily opened the door and could see the shape of her sleeping. He crossed to her bed and placed one hand over Elvina’s mouth, gripping her slender neck in a stranglehold with the other.
He could feel the soft warmth of her body as she woke and looked up at him with startled eyes. ‘I don’t want to kill you, but if I have to I will.’ There was darkness in Cadell’s voice that showed it was no empty threat.
Elvina nodded to show she understood and he moved his hand a little so she could breathe.
‘We are leaving. Don’t try anything if you want to live.’ Cadell kept his voice low, which made it sound even more sinister.
Elvina wondered how he thought he could get her past her guards without being noticed then felt suddenly angry. Sir Gwynfor and King Gwayne had placed their trust in this mercenary and now he was betraying them all. She feared for her life if she let him take her but the strength of her anger gave her courage. ‘This is my night dress,’ she said quietly. ‘It will be cold outside, will you let me put on my day clothes?’
‘Be quick,’ replied Cadell. He watched in the dim light as she slipped out of her night dress and was naked before him. This was not part of his plan, although the way she was looking at him earlier that evening had registered somewhere at the back of his mind. Elvina picked up her long white dress from the chair by the bed and was about to put it on when she turned and smiled at him.
‘You know it is wrong to look at me like that, Cadell?’ There was an unmistakable invitation in her voice.
He moved closer to her, his soldiers mind struggling against his aroused desire and losing. The light of the pale moon reflected from the exposed perfection of her soft white breasts as she moved towards him. Her lips came close to his and he felt a sudden sharp pain in his chest. Cadell looked down and saw the moonlight glint from the silver handle of an ornate dagger, engraved with Celtic symbols.
‘A gift from the king,’ said Elvina coldly as he died.
Chapter Eighteen
Lord Vorath’s warhorse Ddraig seemed to sense the impending battle and pawed the ground, kicking clumps of grass into the still night air. The back clad warriors stood ready, raising their spears in the air with a shout as the warlord rode to the front. He looked at the rows of fighting men with pride. They had left the north as a band of riders but now he commanded an army. In addition to
those who had joined them from the Gwyn, more men of the tribes had rallied to the flag as word of his victories spread.
Their orders were to crush the spirit of the Gwyn and take control of the king’s residence at Pennard. They had learnt from their surprising defeat by the longbow archers of Caerphilly. This time Lord Vorath’s warriors would attack at night and without warning. Their hands and faces were painted with a thick black mixture of soot and grease, so that just the whites of their eyes shone out in the dark.
Vorath’s face was also painted black and he looked like a dark lord of the underworld as he raised his hand. He held the silence, savouring the moment and fixing it in his memory. This night would become one of the stories to tell his grandchildren. ‘Show no mercy to the Gwyn!’
The warriors roared in response and followed him towards the town of Abertawe where the garrison of Pembroke lay sleeping. Vorath was aware he was leading his men against a well trained and much larger army, on its home territory, but one of the advantages of the enforced wait at their secret hiding place in the hills was that there had been plenty of time to plan the attack. They would be heavily outnumbered but the men who had joined him from the Gwyn had detailed knowledge of the town’s defences and had helped Vorath to decide how best to use his warriors. On the warlord’s signal, groups of warriors each ran silently for their targets, dark cloaks making them almost invisible in the night.
The greatest risk to Vorath’s plan of attack was the ring of high wooden lookout towers the Gwyn had built around the town. If his men were spotted by the Gwyn sentries he would lose the element of surprise, so these lookout towers were the target for the first group of warriors. Vorath’s men swarmed silently up the supports of the towers and brutally slaughtered the surprised guards before they had any chance to raise the alarm. The warlord had ordered his warriors to hold position in the lookout towers, so they threw the bodies to the ground and stayed, ready with spears to pick off any Gwyn soldiers who tried to escape.
Lord Vorath led the next group to the command post, the nerve centre of the garrison. The only entrance was to the front, so although it was high risk they had no choice but to storm the building, relying on the element of surprise. Vorath’s men had already described the layout of the building, so once they had dealt with the men in the guard’s room he know exactly where to go. The acting commander of the Gwyn garrison woke just in time to look into the dark eyes of the warlord’s black painted face as Vorath’s sword slashed across his throat.
The warriors who were tasked with the raid on the main Gwyn barracks had fire as their weapon. The roof of the building was covered with slate but the walls were timber, sealed with pitch. Men who had once slept there knew that the adjacent stables were full of bales of dry straw, used for the bedding, so it was this that the warriors silently piled against the doors then alight. The flames quickly took hold but the men inside reacted quickly, woken by the thick grey smoke. Trained to sleep fully clothed with their swords by their sides, the Gwyn soldiers burst from the doors of the barracks, knocking the burning straw aside and attacking the Du warriors.
Vorath heard the yells of the violent battle that ensued and took the reins of his warhorse from a warrior outside the command post. He galloped to the burning Gwyn barracks to find that his men were outnumbered by the soldiers. Vorath charged into the mass of fighting men, hacking and slashing with his sword. Acrid smoke from the burning barracks drifted towards the fighting men, causing them to choke and cough as it filled their lungs. The light breeze fanned the flames which finally took hold of main timber in the roof, lighting up the night with an eerie glow.
A sharply barbed arrow from a Gwyn bowman flashed through the air and struck Vorath deep in the shoulder, nearly knocking him from the saddle. It simply seemed to strengthen his resolve as the warlord continued fighting, roaring at his enemy as he killed and wounded with relentless force. The drifting smoke was making it hard to see but he knew he was completely surrounded by Gwyn swordsmen. The agony of the arrow in his shoulder was weakening him and he was expecting to die a warrior’s death when he heard terrifying war cries and the sound of hooves clattering on the cobbled road. His riders had joined the battle.
The soldiers of the garrison fought on bravely but didn’t stand a chance against the battle hardened mounted warriors. One by one, the soldiers from the barracks were violently cut down. With their commander dead, some of the less brave Gwyn started deserting, only to fall victim to the warriors waiting in the lookout towers, who used the advantage of height to impale the running men with spears and arrows.
As dawn broke over Abertawe the warriors of the Du were ensuring that not a single soldier of the Gwyn escaped alive. In Pennard, Lord Vorath was recovering from his wounds in the king’s oak beamed room of the Royal Llysoedd. The arrow had been painfully removed from his shoulder and a deep cut to his sword arm stitched by one of the Du physicians. Vorath stood looking above the fireplace at the battered shield, once used by the old king, and vowed that he would not rest until he had forced King Gwayne’s surrender.
*
Afon had never been far north of his home at Caerphilly and his work as a labourer on the building of the castle had kept him close to home. It had seemed a sensible idea to sign up for the army when there was talk of war with the Du, and he had enjoyed the camaraderie of the training. He had not been promoted but he had unexpectedly become something of a popular spokesman, sticking up for the pay and conditions of his fellow soldiers.
Now the men were all talking about the defeat of the Pembroke garrison he wished he had stayed out of the army, as it was rumoured that the king was planning his retaliation. Accounts of the battle were mixed but although the Du had clearly suffered casualties, with many men wounded, the soldiers of the Gwyn had been massacred. Sir Padrig was to be summoned back with his men but Afon knew it would be the Caerphilly garrison that was likely to be sent to ‘sort out’ the Du in Abertawe and reclaim the Royal Llysoedd at Pennard.
The king decreed that the Du must never surprise them again, so the castle guards had been doubled both day and night, with patrols and checkpoints on all the main roads. At first the men accepted their new orders, aware that there was a real threat, but as the days passed more of them were complaining of the long hours of boredom. Afon found the night watch particularly challenging, as he would start to imagine black shapes moving in the trees and had twice woken the entire garrison with false alarms.
Kane had been promoted to the commander of Afon’s watch, so when he asked for volunteers to act as an advance guard to the north of the castle, Afon was quick to put himself forward. Although he usually worked on the principle of never volunteering for anything, he quickly realised that he could do well to be safely out of the castle. He set off in good spirits, determined not to return until the threat from the Du had been resolved, one way or another.
*
To the west the warriors of Ynys Mon continued to seize every town and village in their path and eventually arrived at the most westerly point of St Davids. When word of Vorath’s defeat of the garrison at Abertawe reached them, it was no longer necessary to continue raiding only at night. They marched openly, living off the land and easily dealing with any Gwyn resistance. Warnings of their approach reached Bishop Cledwin’s housekeeper Anwen, who realised it would be impossible to defend the bishop’s property, as all the men of fighting age had long since been ordered to join the army. There had been no word from the bishop since he left for the north and no reply to even the message she had sent to the archbishop.
They had no choice but to pray that their lives would be spared. Anwen had sewn black pennants, which the farm workers raised on long wooden poles to show there would be no resistance to the Du. The warriors of Ynys Mon cheered when they saw the flags and rewarded the bishop’s staff by deciding not to loot and burn the property, as they had done with many others on their journey south. They claimed Bishop Cledwin’s lands in the name of King Gethin and Anwen inv
ited the leaders to use the bishop’s house.
She served them the bishop’s best wine and arranged for a pig to be slaughtered and roasted, wondering how long she could detain them before they became suspicious. Unknown to the Du, Anwen had taken the risk of sending one of the farm workers to alert the soldiers at their final objective, the fortress at Pembroke. Although he had been deemed too old for military service Anwen hoped he would be able to ride quickly on one of the bishop’s horses and reach them before it was too late.
When the exhausted rider from St Davids galloped in to the castle, the guards remaining there knew it was time to take action. The loss of the garrison at Abertawe had shocked them. They had been expecting the Du, as accounts of their progress down the western coast had been reaching them almost every day, but now they were effectively cut off from the king and his reinforcements at Caerphilly. There were still a good number of fighting men in the town, but they were lacking experienced leaders. Some wanted to abandon the castle and others argued that they should barricade themselves inside the walls.
Neb was one of the original archers at Pembroke castle from before the war had started. He was a survivor but not a leader, and although he had the most experience, he had never fired a single arrow at the enemy so was not confident that he was the best choice to lead a group of archers to ambush the Du. When the idea was first suggested it seemed to have a good chance of success, but the news from Anwen’s rider from St Davids made them realise they had underestimated the number of warriors heading in their direction. Neb gathered the archers in the courtyard of the castle.
He looked at the men around him. He had thought himself lucky not to have been sent to Abertawe but now the odds looked even worse. At least the garrison had the advantage of their numbers. ‘The Du are on their way here soon,’ he told them. ‘It’s time to put your training to some use.’
