Chapter 19
February, 1177
Rhuddlan Castle, Gwynedd
Longsword was impatient. Richard Delamere watched him, amazed. It was as if his friend was the only person to ever await the arrival of a baby.
Much to Teleri’s indignation, Gladys had been given her own chamber in the rambling keep and a girl to do her bidding. Longsword visited her every day. Delamere wondered what they could possibly be doing up there, alone, especially after Longsword had confided to him with some embarrassment that he was afraid to approach Gladys with lustful intent because he thought it might harm the baby. Delamere’s arguments to the contrary couldn’t change his opinion. Still, he always found the time to visit her. Delamere was mystified. Neither one could speak the other’s language; he had a vision of them simply sitting and staring at the walls until the candles burned down.
Then a delegation of five Welshmen appeared at the gate, seeking justice for the murder of the herdsman and the assault on his daughter. They were from a commote to the northeast of Rhuddlan called Llanlleyn. Four of them, older men with greying beards and lined countenances, were advisers to the chief of the commote, Maelgwn ap Madog, and the fifth was his son, Rhirid.
Longsword listened expressionlessly to the most senior of the delegates as the latter detailed the circumstances of the crimes and then demanded that the three soldiers who had so viciously abused the hospitality offered them pay the galanas, or fine, as the law stipulated.
He was curious about this fine, about the idea that paying a bit of money was sufficient punishment for murder and wondered what the amount was, but he didn’t ask. He was more affronted at the presumptuous tone the man was using. He demanded? Rather abruptly, Longsword told the delegation that he would handle the miscreants himself.
“But the galanas,” protested one of the men angrily, “The law—”
“The law to which you refer,” Longsword coldly interrupted, “is Welsh law and it means nothing here. On this land, we uphold Norman law.”
“Yet the crimes were committed in Llanlleyn,” said the chief’s son in a low, taut voice. “Which is Welsh land.”
Longsword shifted his attention to Rhirid ap Maelgwn. He was young, near Longsword’s own age, black-haired and smooth-faced. His intelligent grey eyes never seemed to blink as he stared right back at the Norman. He stood slightly apart from the other Welshmen as though to imply he considered this interview a waste of time, and not once had his hand moved from its resting place on the butt of his sword.
“Nevertheless,” Longsword answered after a moment, “the men whom you accuse aren’t Welsh. They’re under my jurisdiction and aren’t subject to your laws. Naturally I must make my own inquiry. I can’t punish anyone without hearing his side of the story.”
Rhirid glanced at his companions with a thin smile. Hadn’t he told them the Normans wouldn’t care? That their reaction would be to launch a phantom investigation which would resolve nothing? He turned back to Longsword. “What will happen when you make your inquiries and find our accusation is true? What’s the punishment for a Norman who kills a Welshman? Do you give him a new sword?”
The senior man snapped something in Welsh at Rhirid and he inclined his head in deference. He had made his point. He wanted the Normans to know that he didn’t trust them, didn’t believe a word they said and wouldn’t hesitate to meet them with his own sword. He was satisfied, for now, with the suddenly purple face of the tall Norman.
“My lord,” the spokesman began, but Longsword cut him off.
“Don’t waste your breath! If such an attack occurred, I will find it out. And if there was a murder, I’ll punish it—in Norman fashion! Your involvement is no longer necessary.”
“But the family! The galanas!” the man said insistently.
Longsword turned his back on them. Rhirid ap Maelgwn hissed through his teeth at the blatant insult and spun on his heel and left the council chamber. The remaining delegates looked at each other in dismay but there was nothing they could do.
“Do you think that was wise, Will?” Delamere asked, when the Welshmen had ridden out of Rhuddlan. “To be so unyielding?”
Longsword frowned. “I didn’t like the way they came charging into my castle, accusing my men of murder and demanding I make recompense for it!”
“Well, it is true.”
“Yes, but it’s also true that it was justified. Shouldn’t they take that into account? But that’s not the point. The Welsh have no law over my knights. I’ll deal with my people; I'm the law here, not this Maelgwn ap whatever.”
Delamere shrugged.
“Sometimes it seems you’re on their side and not ours, Richard,” Longsword said in a voice tinged with resentment.
“Don’t be a fool, William!” Delamere snapped angrily. “Of course I’m with you! If you doubt my friendship, you still have my oath as your vassal.”
“I don’t doubt your friendship, Richard,” Longsword answered quickly. “I apologize…” His friend didn’t respond but looked mollified. He felt a great relief and tried to lighten the mood. “A damned Welsh shepherd, for God’s sake! They didn’t even care about him—just wanted the money.”
“You’re wrong; there was one person who cares very much…”
“Oh yes. Rhirid ap Maelgwn.” Longsword pronounced carefully. “He cares, but for a different reason. I think he’ll be back,” he added, and to Delamere he sounded almost pleased. “We haven’t seen the last of him.”
Longsword’s anger at the Llanlleyn delegation gave him something to brood over other than his impending fatherhood but it was only a matter of time before he came to the conclusion that his two obsessions might somehow be married.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he said to Delamere. “I realize that I’m never going to be king. The law won’t allow it and the barons won’t accept it. But now that I’m going to have an heir it’s especially important that I have something of my own to give him and I’ve just figured out how to get it.”
Delamere glanced at him apprehensively. “What are you planning, Will?”
“There’s plenty of land here,” he continued; “good land, too, just beyond Rhuddlan’s demense.”
“That land belongs to the prince of Gwynedd…”
“Hmph!” Longsword snorted contemptuously. “Land belongs to those who can keep it. Anyway, I won’t begrudge the Welsh the privilege of living on it as long as they understand it belongs to me and I’m their master. Richard, between here and Cheshire are miles of fine land. We start at Rhuddlan and work our way east to Chester. That secures our back. Then we push west and south. The possibilities are limited only by the sea and the borders of England.” The pitch of his voice increased with his growing excitement. “I tell you, Richard, I’ve been thinking the last few days and I’ve decided this must be why my father sent me here. He’s got too much else to deal with between Scotland, France and Flanders…He would actually prefer a strong Norman arm to hold this border for him in his name.”
It was Delamere’s understanding that Henry had sent his son to Wales to keep him from stirring up trouble but he didn’t say so. Instead, he found himself intrigued by his friend’s idea. Why not? They were all tired of sitting around doing nothing. The king was satisfied to permit Norman adventurers to carve out their own lands in Ireland as long as they acknowledged his suzerainty. Why should he mind, then, if the same were done in Wales?
“What about Prince Dafydd?” he asked finally.
“He must know what Teleri is like,” Longsword said with a grimace. “He’s probably wondering why it’s taken so long for me to revolt.”
“Be serious, Will!”
“Seriously, Richard, the prince is far from secure on his throne. His brothers are a continuous nuisance and he hasn’t got half the power my father thinks he has. I’m not worried about him.”
“All right. What about the earl of Chester? This land used to belong to his family.”
“What can he do, Richard? He’s b
een disgraced; he’s a traitor. My father’s got his castle. He can’t come against me with force. The best he can do is make a formal protest to my father.” Longsword slapped his hands together almost gleefully. “There’s no reason not to do it! And I want to start by riding Llanlleyn into the ground.”
But if Longsword believed the Welsh were content to wait for his attack, he was mistaken.
Rhirid ap Maelgwn had also spent the week after his visit to Rhuddlan in deep consideration of the situation between the Normans and the Welsh. The tall one, the English king’s son, hadn’t impressed him. He’d been rude and insulting, two unforgivable sins for a host. All the way back to Llanlleyn Maelgwn’s counselors had talked about it. Rhirid had kept a contemptuous silence. What else had they expected? The old men seemed more concerned with the breach of etiquette than with the Norman’s quick dismissal of their suit. And then they’d had the nerve to berate him for arguing with the foreigner. Incredible!
Rhirid had known all along it was a waste of effort talking to the Normans but had asked to accompany his father’s men so he could see his enemy face to face and take his measure. Of course, he hadn’t told his father that. Maelgwn feared the foreigners, feared they would seize his land. He thought if he was conciliatory enough, they would leave his little kingdom in peace. He had actually believed that this Sir William fitz Henry would listen to them, apologize and pay the galanas without a murmur because he was the son of the king of the English and lord of Rhuddlan by the gift of Prince Dafydd. A representative of his father’s harmonious relationship with the Welsh, so to speak. In Maelgwn’s opinion, Sir William couldn’t afford not to make peace. Peace! Rhirid snorted. His father always said the words ‘Norman’ and ‘peace’ in the same sentence as if they weren’t mutually exclusive.
Not only did Rhirid believe peace with the Normans was unachievable, he believed war was inevitable. And that was fine with him. He knew the more land the Normans had, the more their fingers itched to swing their swords and conquer. It was only a matter of time before Longsword turned his eye on Llanlleyn and Rhirid was anxious to meet him and prove the Welsh were formidable opponents.
So while his father strived for good relations, Rhirid plotted. He’d been brought up on the heart-stirring songs of heroic Welsh warriors and their valiant battles. The prince of Gwynedd for most of his youth had been Owain, who had never accepted the Norman presence, who had tolerated it only when there was no alternative and who was quick to battle against it the instant the opportunity presented itself. Rhirid could vividly recall the day ten years earlier when Owain had marched against the Normans at Rhuddlan and taken the castle after an unprecedented three months’ siege. Maelgwn had been tense for weeks, expecting King Henry to sweep down upon Gwynedd in a fury but Rhuddlan had remained in Welsh hands until Owain’s son, Dafydd, had presented it on a platter to the king of England.
Prince Dafydd! There was another one; another Norman-placator. Rhirid didn’t think much of this prince of Gwynedd. Fortunately, there weren’t many who did. No one could figure out how the son of one of the most vehement enemies of the foreigners could end up in bed with them—literally, as he’d married Henry’s half-sister. The rumor went that Dafydd, who lacked the forceful personality of Owain, was cleverly using his connections with the Normans to keep his position as prince. The threat of Norman retaliation was a better curb to hotheaded ambition than Dafydd’s weak arm.
But Rhirid ap Maelgwn wasn’t impressed by his prince’s marital union with King Henry. Furthermore, the murder of the herdsman and the savage attack on his daughter had served to confirm his belief that the Normans at Rhuddlan had no interest in respecting their neighbors’ customs. Rhirid was determined to change that attitude.
His chance came almost immediately.
South and east of Rhuddlan, once out of the marshy river plain, the land grew increasingly hilly and even though it was winter and the trees were bare and could afford a grown man only poor cover, the twists forced by the irregular swells and undulations in the terrain provided enough. And it had long been the frustration of the Norman armies sent to conquer them that the Welsh preferred to strike and melt back into the forests than to fight pitched battles like the rest of the civilized world.
Rhirid and his cohorts had spent the days since his ill-fated visit to William Longsword stalking the hills above the river and waiting for unsuspecting Normans to cross their path. Despite his father’s appeal for a better relationship with the foreigners, Rhirid swore that William Longsword would pay the galanas if not in property or coin, then in blood.
On a cold, drizzling day, he almost succeeded in forcing payment.
Unmindful of the weather, the Normans had gone out to hunt and were returning home after a fruitful day, a few hours before darkness was to fall. Judging from their raucous banter, they didn’t expect to run into a group of disgruntled Welshmen.
But when they rounded a curve in the track, a hail of arrows flew forward to greet them, accompanied by the hooting and hollering of what seemed to be a hundred Welshmen. For a moment the Normans were paralyzed. One arrow struck a horse, which reared up on its hind legs sending its rider tumbling backwards, but the others landed harmlessly. Then they began calling to each other, speaking too fast for Rhirid to understand; one man’s voice louder and more penetrating than the rest. At the time, Rhirid had no idea that this voice belonged to William Longsword.
Meanwhile, the Welsh continued to shoot. The constant barrage disoriented the Normans, who had drawn their swords and were wheeling their mounts from this side to that with vicious tugs on the reins. They could not yet see their attackers through the grey trees and the drizzle. The Welsh screamed with impassioned, wild curses. One of them had climbed into a tree and, teetering acrobatically, harassed the Normans from above.
Two of the arrows hit their marks; one bounced harmlessly off the helmet of one soldier but the second—a one in a million shot—struck another in the joint between the neck and the shoulder.
By this time, the Normans were shouting as loudly as the Welsh. As soon as the moment of surprise passed, Rhirid knew the knights would organize themselves and come after him. He had only half a dozen men with him on this day while the Normans were twice as many. His tiny force would be overwhelmed and annihilated. He whistled sharply, his compatriot in the tree leaped gracefully to the ground and the five of them ran quickly to where the sixth waited with their horses. Within seconds they had mounted and flown, away from the track and into the hills.
Only when it became obvious that no one was following them and they slowed their pace and grinned and congratulated each other did Rhirid recall another voice, screaming the tall Norman’s name over and over.
“Go after them!” Longsword kept saying, the command sounding weaker with each repetition. He had clamped a hand to the side of his neck, around the shaft of the embedded arrow, but Delamere could see how much blood was already soaking his glove. He was breathing hard, in painful, ragged gulps. “Go after them!”
Everyone ignored him, mesmerized by his bloody wound and the grotesque sight of the slender rod projecting from his flesh. Delamere had dismounted and was at his side, pushing initially resistant but then suddenly compliant boots out of the stirrups. Frantically, he reached for Longsword’s torso and grabbing a piece of his hauberk, tugged on it until he felt his friend’s body start to tip towards him. He caught Longsword in his arms and gently brought him down to the ground.
“Forget about me—go after them!” Longsword gasped hoarsely.
“Shut up, Will!” Delamere snapped. He looked at the wound and felt his stomach heave. He forced himself to swallow.
“Should we chase them, Sir Richard?” someone asked hesitantly. “I counted only several men.”
He glanced up, his pleasant features twisted with anger, hatred and fierce concern. “Yes! Six of you go—but not too far. Be wary! This may have been only a ruse to draw us further on into a larger ambush.” He returned his attention to
Longsword and tried to think. Apart from the rapid rise and fall of his friend’s chest and the fluttering of his eyelids as he struggled to keep them open, there was no other movement in his body. The drizzle had suddenly become a hard rain. “He needs a physician,” he said to the other men. “Will! Can you hear me?”
Longsword made a noise in his throat. “This thing…heavy, Richard…off.”
He wanted his hauberk removed but Delamere didn’t know how to do that without knocking into the arrow shaft. He was frustrated by his own inaction. Blood continued to run down Longsword’s neck and chest and was beginning to stain the ground. It was imperative that he decide something quickly…Rhuddlan was hours away at a fast clip and there wasn’t anyone there who was a healer, anyway. He cursed audibly, and despite the cold, rainy day felt sweat trickle down the sides of his face. In all their grandiose plans, they had failed to consider what would happen if the Welsh proved equal.
“Sir Richard, there’s the abbey,” a knight called Guy Lene, ashen-faced, suggested hopefully. “They’re bound to have an infirmary.”
Optimism flooded into him. He looked up at the man. “Get us there.”
He jumped onto his horse and helped pull Longsword up by his armpits while two men on the ground pushed the unresisting body towards him. The rough movement seemed to increase the flow of blood and Delamere called impatiently to the others to hurry and mount up. Longsword was a heavy weight in his arms and the rain poured mercilessly down but he hardly noticed. He muttered every prayer he could think of and in between admonished his unresponsive friend not to die.
The abbey of Saint Mary was a Benedictine house for women founded some forty years earlier when the earl of Chester controlled Rhuddlan. It was a small chapter, consisting of only eighteen nuns, one abbess and three dozen or so lay people, and was housed in a modest collection of timbered buildings half a mile from the sea and almost a day’s ride from Rhuddlan. Although the Welsh were as devout a people as any other, the abbey had found it impossible to recruit new sisters from among them. This was because the Welsh were suspicious of the Norman-introduced Benedictine order which they viewed as part of an insidious plan to reform their Church. The result was that the abbey, except for its lay people, was made up entirely of aged Anglo-Norman women, all of whom had come out to Rhuddlan in the idyllic days of Norman rule and who had been left behind when Owain Gwynedd had seized the castle and evicted the foreigners.
Delamere didn’t pay heed to their direction or to the possibility that there might be more Welsh warriors lurking behind the next hill. He was conscious only of how slow their progress seemed to be, despite the fact that now, after every prayer and admonishment, he urged the men to travel faster. But at last the land ironed out and trees were scarcer, and he saw the fuzzy grey outline of the little settlement on the green, misty plain. And Longsword was still breathing.
One of the knights had raced ahead so that by the time Delamere and the rest of the party had gained the first building, a tiny stone church, there was a crowd of people, huddled together against the rain, half of them garbed head to toe in somber brown, to meet them and to gape at the injured man. He gripped Longsword more tightly.
One woman stepped up to him and introduced herself as the abbess. “We’ve sent for someone to tend to your man’s wounds,” she told him. “In the meantime, I’ll show you where you can set him down in preparation. It will take the priest several days to get here if I send a groom now—”
“He doesn’t need a damned priest!” Delamere interrupted tersely. “Only a physician. And this isn’t my ‘man’, Mother Abbess; this is the son of King Henry and the lord of Rhuddlan Castle!”
The abbess was taken aback. The knight who had flown into the midst of the sisters’ quiet reflection in the church had shouted out nothing more than that a badly injured man was on his way who needed immediate aid. She looked with undisguised shock at the inert figure, the blood-soaked hauberk and the arrow shaft which protruded sickeningly from just above the collarbone, and unconsciously crossed herself.
Delamere gazed anxiously upon Longsword’s pale face. He was alive, but barely. Already his breath grew shallower and his hand colder. There was no formal infirmary at the abbey because its tenants were so few and Delamere and three others had carried Longsword to the abbess’ own room in the dormitory and laid him carefully on the clean, neat bed, which was immediately fouled by his muddy boots and wet and bloodied clothing.
The abbess had closed the only window in the chamber and had had a brazier brought in and a fire made in it to dispel the chill. Delamere complained about the paucity of light and she left briefly, returning with a man who bore two tripods holding new candles. But these comforts did nothing to alleviate Delamere’s anxiety and every second which passed served only to infuriate him further.
“Where is she? What can she be doing?” he demanded. “He will die soon if the bleeding doesn’t stop! Perhaps you ought to have sent for the priest, after all; he’d probably get here before she does!”
“Please, Sir Richard, I am certain she will—” the abbess started to reply but broke off when she saw the knights weren’t looking at her any longer but at the door to the chamber. She followed their gaze and breathed in relief. “Here she is. This is Gwalaes.”
A woman stood calmly in the doorway, dressed plainly in homespun, undyed wool, a shawl over her head and a basket on an arm. The shadows by the door made her features indistinct but to Delamere one thing was clear enough and he whirled around on the abbess.
“Tell me this isn’t your Sister Infirmarer! This is a child!” He sputtered. “Perhaps I haven’t made it clear to you, but that man there is—”
“Sir Richard!” the abbess interrupted so sharply that Delamere fell immediately silent. “We have no Sister Infirmarer. She passed away almost two years ago. Gwalaes was her lay assistant. She’s a clever girl and knows as much as Sister was able to teach her before her death. She is the only one at St. Mary who might be able to help Lord William.”
Delamere opened his mouth to protest again.
“Each minute you spend arguing is a waste of valuable time. I can see from here that your master is in a precarious state.”
It was the young woman who had spoken, in Welsh, not loudly or hurriedly, but with enough quiet force to stifle his complaints. Her voice was low and calm and his shaking emotions were abruptly stilled. He took a deep breath and released it slowly, in measures. He took several steps in the young woman’s direction until he could see her eyes. She held his gaze, her head almost on a level with his. She was young but there was nothing immature in her expression. He clenched his jaw and nodded.
“You must wait outside,” she said to him. “I’ve found that the sight of bloody wounds often turns a man’s stomach and I don’t want the interruption.”
“No. I’m staying.”
She paused, then inclined her head. “Very well. But the others must go and you’ll sit in the corner and keep out of my way.”
He wasn’t used to being ordered about by women, especially one of her station. The other men muttered, understanding the tone and not the language. When she started to walk past him, into the room, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to face him again.
“I’ll pardon the way you’re speaking to me now because the plight of my lord is more important. But you’d better heal him. If he dies—”
“What?” she hissed furiously. “If he dies what? Take your hand away! If he dies now it will be because all his blood has seeped away while you catered to your injured dignity! Now, will you tell them to go? The stench of horse in this room is overpowering.”
Stunned, Delamere released her arm. The woman ignored his outraged face and made her way to the bed. She set her basket on the floor and bent over William Longsword’s motionless body.
When the men had gone, the abbess appeared at his elbow. “I apologize for Gwalaes’ sharp tongue, Sir Richard,” she said to him in a low voice.
“She has a
high opinion of herself to speak like that to me,” he said angrily. The abbess smiled in agreement but didn’t answer. He gave up the argument, feeling suddenly tired, and sighed. He glanced at the bed. The girl had a hand on Longsword’s chin and was carefully turning his head slightly so that she could get a better look at the injured area. “Do you really think she’s so capable?” he asked the abbess.
“Sister Eleanor—that was the name of our Sister Infirmarer—said she has a gift, Sir Richard. Since she’s been with us she’s brought people through fevers and midwifed births. And every week it seems there’s another accident; an animal bite or a knife cut in the kitchen, or something more serious when the men do heavy work.”
“But an arrow wound…” His voice was desperate. People did not often survive such a wound; if the loss of blood didn’t kill them, the subsequent infection did. He was pleading for a miracle and hoping the abbess would tell him this Gwalaes would give it to him.
She put a hand on his arm. “As I said before, Sir Richard, if anyone can help Lord William, it’s Gwalaes.”