* * * * *
It isn't that I enjoy battle, but I would say that the fire that lights in my belly at the start of every fight acts as a potion, a poison some would say. All I know is that it goes to my head. Goronwy was correct when he told Meg that I see every man I've ever killed in my dreams, but he's wrong if he thinks I've never enjoyed killing. When the fury of battle takes you, there is a savage joy to it, as if your true self is finally let loose, and all notions of chivalry, stateliness, and civilized behavior are stripped away. What is revealed then, is the raw coil of a man, the essence of him that only cares about surviving, as if we were barbarians from the north who ate our meat raw. There are times when I understand why they do.
Just as dusk fell, the men gathered at the edge of the forest of Llanbradach, two miles north of Caerphilly. I'd already sent Goronwy, Gruffydd, and the men to their task. The people of the region and my scouts had reported that Clare had abandoned Morcraig when he started work on Caerphilly. Clare might not see the advantage in the half-built castle, but I wanted the heights.
Morcraig was built on a ridge on the south edge of the Glamorgan uplands. From the castle, a man was afforded uninterrupted views south across the coastal plain to Cardiff. Gruffydd ap Rhys, my vassal, would find himself reinstalled by morning. From his seat, he could control all his lands and keep an eye on Clare for me.
The foot soldiers were his men. While my knights were a formidable force, it was right that he was taking most of the risk in this endeavor. He had the most to gain, and as he'd already lost everything, there was an urgency in him that I'd not seen before Clare had driven him from his lands. He'd not realized what it meant, before, to be a lord without a castle.
For our part, the guards at Caerphilly would not be enough to stop our force. The addition of Dafydd's thirty men was, in fact, most welcome. I preferred overwhelming odds whenever possible. My only fear, in truth, was that we'd fired up the men for battle and would arrive at Caerphilly to find none on offer. It was at such times that men become difficult to control.
"We're getting close, my lord," Hywel said. The outlines of the castle, still less than head high, were just visible through the darkening sky a hundred yards ahead. "Clare has cleared the forest for some distance all around. We'll soon be exposed."
We rode to the top of a small hill that gave us a slight vantage point. "Mother of God!" I said at the sight of the construction.
"It appears to be as they promised," Hywel said. "It will be the largest castle in the whole of Wales."
"Not if I have any say in the matter," I said. I pulled out my sword and held it above my head; then stood in the stirrups and signaled to the twenty-five men in my company to form up.
"Ride, men of Wales!" Dafydd called, a distant figure to my right. He urged his horse forward and led the charge. I let him.
My men surged forward, flowing down the slope and across the clearing to the burgeoning castle. Every third man held a torch. Although it made us targets for archers, a fire-lit cavalry charge inspired fear in the most hardened of men and I counted the risk worth it. To the men in the craft houses surrounding the site, it must have seemed like a dragon had descended among them.
I trotted Glewdra across the clearing in front of what Clare had meant to be the front gate and met Hywel near what looked to be the beginnings of a dam for the castle moat. One of several.
"What hubris Clare has to build such a colossus!" Hywel said as he greeted me. Unlike mine, his sword had blood on it.
"I need you to see to the men, Boots," I said. "I didn't want more than a skirmish, but this is less of a fight than I hoped it would be."
Hywel nodded and headed towards the mass of men who'd collected towards the eastern edge of the building site. They milled about, looking for targets, but none presented themselves. The builders and masons weren't our enemy and my men herded them into the middle of the building site and set them to work piling wood and brush on the stones and half-walls. Burning them would destroy them and leave Clare with only wreckage.
Goronwy circled the perimeter of the grounds on the far side of the field, looking for riders or men on foot who might be trying to escape to warn Clare. I turned Glewdra in the opposite direction, intending the same. As I came around the corner of a stone block-this one soon to form the base of one of the castle towers-a boy stepped from behind it, brandishing a long stick as his only weapon.
"Don't be a fool," I said. I leaned down and with my left hand, yanked the stick from his hand.
"I'll fight you to the death," the boy shouted, now raising his fists, as if that would hold off a sword. I reined in fully, studying him in the flickering light of the fire from the buildings which my men had set on fire.
"Now, why would you do that?"
He blinked. "You are thieves and barbarians from the north!"
"You should speak respectfully when you talk to a Prince of Wales," a voice spoke from behind me. I turned to see my brother riding up beside me.
The boy crouched, and then dashed to one side. Dafydd urged his horse after him and in an easy motion, leaned down and scooped him up. I followed, wanting to make sure Dafydd wouldn't harm him, though I saw no anger in him tonight. "A man knows when to fight and when to save his energy for another day," Dafydd said.
The boy didn't answer.
Then, Dafydd slowed his horse. "But you aren't a man, are you?" Even in the gloaming darkness, his quick grin was evident.
"Please let me go," the girl said, and her voice came out sounding so much like Meg's that first night at Cricieth that my heart twisted at the memory.
"I won't hurt you, cariad," Dafydd said.
The girl gazed at Dafydd, wide-eyed, but no longer cowering. Between one heartbeat and the next, Dafydd had transformed himself into the being that attracted women like flies to a pot of honey.
"My lord," Dafydd said, bowing his head slightly in my direction. I nodded and let him ride away with his prize. Enough women had told me, such that I assumed it to be true, that Dafydd was an accomplished lover. Despite his obvious failings, he would not mistreat the girl, no more than I had Meg.
I returned to the center of activity.
As I expected, Hywel had set up a perimeter of guards around the castle. "No one got away, as far as I know," he said. "Though in the dark, it's difficult to say."
"Good," I said.
Hywel looked ruefully at the devastation. "It won't hold Clare up for long," he said. "It's just going to make him angry."
"Clare is a twenty-five-year old boy. I could not let him build unchallenged. The precedent such an act sets is unthinkable."
"He will go to the King," Hywel said.
"No. I don't think he will. He doesn't want King Henry to interfere in Wales any more than I; less so, in fact, because the rights of the Marcher lords are so much more tenuous than mine. He will attempt to settle this himself."
"Shall we press on to Cardiff?" Bevyn, my young man-at-arms, pulled up beside us. He was breathing hard. He'd been in the forefront of the battle-just where he liked to be.
I looked south, to the sea I couldn't see from where I sat, and pictured Clare's castle on its hill overlooking the Severn Estuary. "I have neither the men nor the inclination for a long siege. We came to teach Clare a lesson. I'll give Gruffydd my support until July, and then I must return north. I have a woman and child to see to."
"Best wishes on his birth, my lord," Bevyn said.
"Thank you," I said. "I'll be counting on you to teach him as he grows."
Bevyn's eyes brightened. "It'll be my pleasure, my lord. It surely will."