Chapter 49
May, 1178
Taillebourg, Angoulême
Longsword reined in, squinted his eyes at the looming monster in the distance and whistled in admiration. “If he couldn’t take Pons,” he said in a low voice to Delamere, “how in the hell does he hope to take that?”
Delamere shook his head. “They say Taillebourg is impregnable.”
“He’s bitten off more than he can chew, Richard. Five castles in a month is a pretty good feat, even for the king, but I’m not certain Henry himself wouldn’t have trouble with this one.”
They spoke in mutters because Richard, duke of Aquitaine, was close at hand and had a more prickly pride than even Longsword, his half-brother. The prince, however, was too busy conferring with his advisers to have overheard these pessimistic comments, which only encouraged Longsword to further denigration.
“He razes five castles in one month and now figures he’s more powerful than God,” he continued. “Of course, the five castles weren’t perched on top of a rock with sheer drops on three sides and triple ditches and walls on the fourth. Let’s see…he’s been besieging Pons since Christmas and it’s now a month past Easter. Hmm…by that reckoning, Taillebourg should fall sometime in the next century.”
“It does seem rather futile…” Delamere agreed. Then he yawned and shrugged. “What does it matter? We’re only here to help, whatever his scheme. But you ought to go over there with the others, Will; you are one of his advisers.”
Longsword picked up his reins. “The advisers are only for formality. Whatever’s decided will be Richard’s decision alone. I’ve been watching him. He loves this; he loves the plotting and the fighting, and he’s good at it,” he said with grudging admiration. He hadn’t been as charitable during the Rebellion when the two had been on opposing sides. “But he’s not rash. Well,” he amended before moving off, “at least I didn’t think so until today.”
When he was gone, Delamere glanced once more without much interest at the walled city of Taillebourg and then dismounted and led his horse to the makeshift pens already being set up by the dozens of laborers whom the prince employed for the mundane tasks of warfare. There were others to do it, but he unsaddled and curried the animal, cleaned out its hooves and gave it feed and water. The longer he kept away from the camp, the fewer inane conversations about the good weather and the immense castle he had to endure.
He had thought Longsword’s idea a good one. To leave Gwynedd for a while and travel, to see different scenery and perhaps do a little fighting…maybe then his mind wouldn’t be so consumed with losing Olwen. But after two months of joining the king’s retinue in Normandy followed by six months of battling Prince Richard’s rebellious vassals in Aquitaine and Angoulême, he had come to the wrenching conclusion that he would never be able to forget her, quite probably because he didn’t want to.
He’d informed Longsword that once Pons fell to the besiegers, he was returning to Rhuddlan.
Longsword found him after supper lying on his back with his cloak rolled up beneath his head for a pillow and staring into the darkening sky. “Good weather,” he said conversationally. “Hope it’s a good portent for tomorrow.”
“I’m not even going to acknowledge that remark, Will,” he answered. “What great plan has the prince devised?”
“First, he wants to offer terms,” Longsword said, lowering himself onto the ground with a bit of effort. Three years in Wales seemed to have stiffened his muscles and he found the activities he’d once done with ease were slightly more arduous. Delamere had told him the culprit was age, not Wales, but he didn’t believe that. “Which he fully expects to be rejected.”
“Certainly he hopes they’ll be rejected. What then?”
“What else? Siege.”
Delamere clicked his tongue in annoyance. At this rate, he’d never see Rhuddlan again.
“Also, he wants to devastate the fief,” Longsword added. “Tear up the farmland, drive off the beasts, burn the villages…”
“How original.” He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow. “You don’t sound very excited.”
Longsword shrugged. “It’s like you said. We’re here to help Richard do whatever he wants.”
“Will, we just spent a very wet winter sitting outside of Pons, waiting for Richard to break de Rancon. My hauberk is rusted through in four places but I can’t afford repair because there’s been precious little plunder and no ransoms at all. And until a few weeks ago when he decided to get off his ass and look for easier challenges, this campaign was more boring than anything we ever did or didn’t do in Wales. And now what? Taillebourg? Taillebourg? If his plan is to burn down the countryside to deprive ourselves of victuals while every man, woman and child—and dog—in that city laughs at our folly as they enjoy a hearty supper, I’m telling you right now I’m leaving. I’ll go back to Rhuddlan at first light.” When Longsword didn’t reply, he added less stridently, “You want to leave, too, don’t you?”
“No…”
“Coming here was a bad idea, Will. Admit it. We ran away.”
“We didn’t!”
Delamere resumed his former position and clasped his hands behind his head. “We ought to have stayed, if only to put Rhuddlan to rights. Perhaps it really was too late for Olwen and I to reconcile but Lady Teleri had finally come around and we had peace for the first time in a year…We ought to have stayed,” he repeated. “Clean clothes, comfortable beds, a dozen servants to jump at your bidding…You’re the master of one of the king’s castles, Will, but what are you doing here? Giving advice to someone who isn’t even listening to you.”
After a short moment, Longsword said in a subdued voice, “I couldn’t stay, Richard. I needed to speak with my father…”
“Yes? So you did.”
“Concerning an annulment. I needed to know if he would seek one on my behalf…”
Delamere was surprised. “You never said—”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t approve!” Longsword said curtly. He flipped a pebble into the distance impatiently. “And, as it turned out, neither did the king. In fact, he seemed to find my request amusing and told me to look to the example of his own marriage.”
It was common knowledge that since the Rebellion, Queen Eleanor, who had supported and advised her sons against their father, had been kept a prisoner by her husband. Despite his mood, Delamere grinned. “Well, that’s one solution, of course. But, Will, there is another. Stop trying to fight her. She’s decided to make the best of the situation; why can’t you do the same?”
But Longsword didn’t answer that question. He flung away another pebble instead.
“Let’s go back, Will…”
Rather abruptly, Longsword got to his feet. “I need to find the latrines,” he told Delamere shortly and stalked away.
There wasn’t any way Delamere was going to leave his friend after having heard the real reason for their departure from Rhuddlan. He just prayed the prince had some secret plan up his sleeve to ensure a quick end to the siege of Taillebourg. Or failing that, he hoped Richard would simply get bored and dismiss his army.
Upon the expected rejection of the prince’s terms, which demanded full capitulation of both town and fortress in return for royal forbearance in the matter of the destruction of the countryside and the sparing of many lives, Richard’s forces proceeded to lay waste to the area as promised. This activity did not trouble the besieged, who were well-provisioned and somewhat smug behind their formidable walls and ditches but there was bewilderment within when Richard moved his camp directly beneath the wall nearest the city gate. With its line of escape so convenient, the garrison came out to challenge him but he’d been counting on a frontal assault and defeated it easily. He and his men entered the city and after two days of rioting, looting and mayhem which proceeded in a steady, inexorable sweep towards the defenses of the fortress, the garrison there surrendered as well—without a fight. The impregnable Taillebourg, whic
h had never before been challenged, had fallen to the king’s son. The city’s defenses were stripped away and the castle, like its five cousins before it, was razed to the ground.
The rebellious petty barons of Angoulême and Aquitaine who had been testing the mettle of Richard, their overlord, were subdued and humbled…at least for the moment.
The prince and his army returned to Pons to deal with Geoffrey de Rancon, the most vociferous of the rebel barons, but that man, having been informed of the fall of Taillebourg, gave up his castle to Richard on bended knees and watched the prince tear it down around his ears.
Delamere finally came away with enough goods to barter for repairs to his hauberk. And when the prince disbanded the army and announced his intention of returning to Henry’s court to give a personal account of his activities in Angoulême and Aquitaine, Longsword, rather than meet his father again, reluctantly agreed to go back to Rhuddlan.