The Anarchy, page 11
‘Quick,’ Anarawd gripped Cadell’s jerkin so that the stick in Cadell’s hand dropped into the water. ‘We have to warn Father. We’ll take the shortcut through the woods.’
Cadell briefly mourned his goldstick swirling out of reach and followed the line of Anarawd’s pointing finger to the riders. Swiftly, they turned and, shoulder to shoulder, ran as fast as their coltish, teenage legs would carry them, crashing past trees and through undergrowth, sure of the path. Visitors were an unusual occurrence here. Cadell’s thoughts buzzed chaotically between excitement and fear. They ran along the ridge above the village of Caeo where they could see below them their father and the red head of their stepmother, seated near a smoking fire. They traversed the steep hill at a run, on the diagonal, braking their gallop down the hill with their knees and hips, balancing with outstretched arms.
‘Father! Father! Riders are approaching!’ gasped Anarawd, his face hectic with the run and the unwarranted event.
Gruffudd and Gwenllian looked up at the sweating boys as they gestured behind them. ‘How many?’ asked Gruffudd.
‘Ten,’ Anarawd replied with certainty.
‘Norman or Welsh?’
‘Welsh.’
Ten was a warband, and they could do plenty of damage against an unprepared village if they were so inclined. Gruffudd began to issue orders to the men in his vicinity. Gwenllian swept up her small daughter and thrust her at the nurse, who had been alerted by the shouts of the boys and had emerged to stand on the threshold of the house. ‘Stay inside with her.’ Cadell followed Gwenllian inside and watched her lift the lid of a chest. She strapped on her gambeson and then her sword.
‘May I have a sword?’ asked Anarawd, coming up behind Cadell.
Gwenllian nodded. Anarawd was big and strong enough to be of some use. ‘You have done well in training.’ She handed him one of her own swords. ‘But only draw it if your father or I do so. A drawn sword is an invitation to attack you.’
‘What about me?’ Cadell asked.
Gwenllian handed him an ornate but wickedly sharp dagger. ‘Put this in your belt and, similarly, keep it there unless I tell you otherwise.’ Cadell pouted at his lesser armoury, but his eleven years had not yet given him the muscle to wield a sword – even the lightweight ones that the smith had made for his stepmother, whereas Anarawd would be able to swing the weapon she had handed to him.
All three re-emerged to stand behind Gruffudd and his men, who were armed and drawn up in ranks. They were not all here, but it was enough to face off ten men. Though their existence in Caeo was meagre, many of the men who had followed Gruffudd to such battle successes against the Normans a few years back had returned to him, finding their way through the dense forest and along mountain paths to this barren, upland commote where he was living out his banishment on orders of the Norman king. Where else would those men go? What other Welsh prince had offered any real resistance to the invaders? It was a constant strain for Gruffudd and Gwenllian to ensure there were provisions for the men, but, at this moment, Cadell was glad that his father had persisted with it and not forced the warriors to disband and seek a wealthier lord elsewhere.
The riders approached. There were three horsemen leading the group: two men, and a youth around Anarawd’s age, judging by the size of him. They halted and surveyed Gruffudd’s party. The helmeted head of one of the leaders swung in Gwenllian’s direction. A smile curved the mouth, which was all that was visible of his face beneath the helmet. The two leaders and the youth dismounted and removed their helmets. Cadell fingered his dagger hilt nervously and inched a little closer to his stepmother. He wondered if he would be able to protect her if the intentions of the visitors were evil. Cadell looked swiftly to his stepmother at her screech but saw it had been a yelp of surprised recognition. She was smiling, but he noted that she still had her hand on the hilt of her sword, so he followed suit and did not remove his own hand from his dagger.
‘Good day to you, Gruffudd ap Rhys. Sister.’ The tallest man turned his face briefly to Gwenllian, and then back to Gruffudd.
‘Greetings Cadwallon,’ Gruffudd said. Cadell relaxed his shoulders a little and let his hand drop from his dagger hilt to his side. These were Gwenllian’s brothers, and, yet, Gwenllian herself had warned Cadell that kinsmen were sometimes the worst enemy. Their father, King Gruffudd ap Cynan of the northern kingdom of Gwynedd, was old and said to be blind. In his declining years, his two eldest sons were ruling Gwynedd in all but name.
‘Perhaps you remember my brothers?’ Cadwallon said to Gruffudd, gesturing to the other two princes of Gwynedd, ‘Owain and Cadwaladr.’
‘You are welcome,’ Gruffudd told them all graciously.
There was a slight shift in the tense air between the two groups. Gwenllian’s second brother, Owain, called commands over his shoulder to their men to dismount and disarm. The clattering pile of swords lowered the tension again several notches, although Cadell did not doubt that all these men retained at least one dagger as wicked as the one that Gwenllian had handed to him.
‘Is it Cadwaladr?’ Gwenllian asked the youth. ‘You were just a small child when I last saw you.’
‘You look the same, Gwenllian,’ he grinned. His own dark red hair echoed hers.
‘Here are my sons, Anarawd and Cadell,’ Gruffudd introduced the two boys. Cadell acknowledged the greetings of the princes of Gwynedd awkwardly. It was rare these days for his family to mix with other royals, and he felt uncertain of the protocols, despite his Aunt Nest’s tuition.
Cadell’s father led his guests into the small hall of their house, where Gwenllian set about giving orders for a meal. Gruffudd’s men were well-trained and would keep a careful eye on Cadwallon and Owain’s troop billeted in the village. Cadell watched Gwenllian moving about the hall. She kept her head high and the stance of her body was regal and disdainful, despite her chagrin that her brothers should see her and her husband living like this. The fine clothes of her brothers only served to emphasise the threadbare apparel that she, Gruffudd, and his sons wore. Cadell watched the youngest brother, Cadwaladr, cast a scathing eye around the space and across the few servants. He brushed at the bench with the gauntlets he had just taken off before sitting down on it.
Cadell noticed how his father’s careworn features contrasted with the arrogant confidence of Gwenllian’s brothers. Grey patches peppered Gruffudd ap Rhys’ black hair, and dark smudges beneath his blue eyes marred his handsome face. His father was growing old before his time. At least, Cadell remembered, they had the visiting bard, Breri, to bring a touch of nobility to the meal. It was a stroke of luck that he had chosen this moment to pass through Caeo on his way back to Pembroke.
The cause for the visit of the princes of Gwynedd did not emerge until late into the evening, when Anarawd and Cadell were yawning after their long walk to the goldmine and their sprint back to Caeo. Cadell noticed that the youngest brother, Prince Cadwaladr, showed no signs of fatigue, even though he drank strong wine along with the men.
‘We came to discuss strategy with you, Gruffudd. You have the advantage of years and experience on us,’ Cadwallon declared.
Gruffudd gave no immediate reply. The princes of Gwynedd were the sons of a strong king. Their family ruled a vast area of the north while Cadell’s father was king only in name. Cadell guessed his father was probably thinking that all his years and experience had done for him was lose him everything.
‘You came the closest that anyone ever has to throwing off the yoke of the invaders,’ Owain flattered.
‘I came close,’ Gruffudd agreed, referring to his attacks on Norman strongholds. He had almost succeeded, but it had all ended in this ignominy. The Norman king allowed him only a commote – a handful of villages in the middle of nowhere. ‘But the Normans have strengthened their hand here again with new men, refortified castles.’
‘Have you given up, then?’ asked Cadwaladr rudely, and Owain frowned him to silence.
Gruffudd laughed with good humour. ‘Never that, boy.’
‘The Norman king is weakened. He has no heir,’ asserted Owain.
‘There is always an heir,’ Gruffudd retorted. ‘It is just not always obvious who he is.’
It did not escape Cadell’s notice that Cadwaladr smiled wryly at that remark. Prince Cadwaladr, with his bushy red hair and long, thin nose, looked something like a fox, thought Cadell. His pale face was splattered with large, orange freckles and his blue eyes drilled intelligently into everything around him. Cadell assessed he was treacherously ambitious for himself, despite his youth.
‘King Henry is distracted with new instabilities in the north and in Normandy,’ Cadwallon claimed.
‘The biggest thorn in the Norman king’s side,’ declared Gwenllian, ‘is his nephew William Clito, who claims Normandy and could claim England too.’
‘Normandy and England are not of interest to us,’ said Owain.
‘No, but distractions and weakenings of the king are,’ she insisted. ‘We hear there is rebellion brewing against the king in Normandy on behalf of William Clito. We could join forces with these rebels.’
‘With Normans!’ Owain recoiled. ‘You think they would not stab us in the back, given the opportunity? You speak of matters you do not understand, sister.’
Gruffudd blinked his eyes slowly at her, and she fell silent. Cadell thought angrily that if her brothers did not have the sense to know that his stepmother had the head and stomach for politics, that was their problem. His father would discuss everything with his stepmother in any case and she had warned him to trust nothing they said. Why would her brothers need to come to them when she and Gruffudd had no power? Surely, they were looking for a cover or scapegoat for their own actions, and their own aggrandisement could be their only true motive.
‘So what are you suggesting?’ Gruffudd asked Owain. Cadwallon and Owain had the resources to raise a vast army. Gruffudd was lucky these days if he could raise a chicken that would lay eggs. ‘Maredudd of Powys tested the waters when The White Ship went down and the king lost his heir and other nobles.’ Cadell’s father was referring to an attack that Maredudd of Powys had made on the lands of the earl of Chester. ‘He got a hard slap-down from the Norman king for his troubles.’
Cadwallon and Owain nodded, and they all smiled for a moment remembering the many hundreds of cattle that Maredudd had been forced to deliver to the Norman king by way of fine for that incident, and how Maredudd had delivered the cows in a vast stampede on Cardigan Castle.
‘Still, I did get to stick the king at least,’ Gwenllian boasted, tossing her thick red plait back over her shoulder.
Owain gave a shout of laughter. ‘We knew the rumours were true! It was you who winged the king! You always were the best archer in Gwynedd.’
King Henry had only suffered a flesh wound from her arrow, but it had felt like some recompense for all they had lost, all the Normans had taken from them.
‘Does our father condone your thinking?’ Gwenllian asked. Their ageing father still had a firm grip on his northern kingdom and had retained it all these years through his careful dealings with the Normans. He would not put his accord with King Henry at risk.
Cadwaladr spoke out of turn again. ‘Father is old and blind. We have ideas.’
Owain frowned him to silence one more time. ‘Father is aware of our thinking. If we proceed with caution, he is behind us.’
‘So what are your ideas?’ Gwenllian challenged.
‘We attack Ceredigion Castle between us,’ Owain invited and sat back, waiting for Gruffudd’s response. The Normans had rechristened Ceredigion as Cardigan since they could not get their ungainly tongues around the proper names for anything. Cadell’s thoughts immediately went to his Aunt Nest. She was in Cardigan Castle. What might happen to her if there was an attack?
‘The Normans are dug in there as elsewhere,’ Gruffudd said. ‘No Norman castle has been taken by attacking Welsh forces for the last two decades.’
‘Then we should be the first to do so, no?’ asked Cadwallon. ‘It can be done. The Norman warriors Robert of Rhuddlan and Hugh of Montgomery were killed. Owain of Powys breached Cilgerran. The invaders are not invincible.’
‘Montgomery was killed by a Norseman,’ Gruffudd reminded him.
Owain swept the objection away with a careless wave of his hand. ‘De Clare is frequently absent from Ceredigion and leaves the castle’s security in the hands of his constable, de Marais.’
‘I know it,’ Gruffudd frowned. ‘You think I don’t scope information on the state of my own lands?’ he said pointedly. Ceredigion was disputed territory and had swapped hands back and forth between the Welsh kings of Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth for several generations, but it had been in the territory of Gruffudd’s father and he intended to hold to that. Cadwaladr shifted in his seat at Gruffudd’s assertion but said nothing. So he has eyes on Ceredigion himself, thought Cadell. ‘De Marais is capable,’ Gruffudd went on, ‘and the garrison there is large and well organised.’ Nobody referred to the fact that Gruffudd’s sister, Cadell’s aunt Nest, was married to de Marais.
‘You consider the idea hopeless, then?’ asked Cadwallon.
Gruffudd shook his head. ‘It could work. If I could gather more men about me here and march west, you would march south, and I could ask my Norse foster-brother, Raegnald, to support us with a sea attack from Dublin. If we have the element of surprise on our side, it could work.’
Owain leant forward, his eyes alight. ‘This is what we hoped for.’
‘But what is in it for you, brothers,’ Gwenllian asked, ‘when my husband takes Ceredigion, which is rightfully his?’
‘We acknowledge that,’ Owain soothed. ‘We would ask only the secession of a sliver of the northern territory of Ceredigion to us as recompense. The Norman king seeks to manipulate and control us with his divide and rule policy. Let us disallow that.’ He reached a hand across the table to Gruffudd.
Gruffudd sucked in a deep breath. Cadell watched his father resist the urge to look to his wife for her guidance. He could sense her distrust of her brothers in any case. Gruffudd had much more to lose than the princes of Gwynedd did. If this plan failed, King Henry would likely execute his father. He had only escaped summary judgement before because of the intervention of Cadell’s aunt, who was loved by the Norman king. And yet, what should his father do? Moulder away here for more years like a farmer, scraping a living from this barren soil, leave no legacy for his sons, allow the royal house of Deheubarth to dwindle to nothing at all? Cadell watched anxiously as his father leant forward and gave his hand first to Owain and then to Cadwallon. ‘If Raegnald will agree to it, we will go forward.’ Cadell realised that the condition allowed his father a way out, if that should prove necessary.
With the deal struck between the two royal houses and beakers raised, Gruffudd nodded to Breri. The bard inclined his head in return, plucked a resonant chord on his lute, and began a stirring tale of the deeds of Gruffudd’s father, King Rhys ap Tewdwr. At the close of this narration, Gruffudd’s house minstrel took up the entertainment. Cadell saw Breri cross the hall and request permission to take a seat next to the young prince, Cadwaladr. Cadell narrowed his eyes and watched the exchange between the bard and the prince take place like a pantomime. The prince inclined his head graciously and waved Breri to the bench. Breri moved his head close to Cadwaladr’s and cupped a hand to the prince’s ear.
* * *
Shivering with cold and anxiety, Cadell stood concealed at the edge of the door to his parents’ bedchamber some hours later. He watched his stepmother comb out her extraordinary, dark red hair. The feast was over, and Gwenllian was sitting in the bed in a white shift, and Gruffudd sat on the bed beside her, still clothed, with one stockinged foot on the floor. ‘I don’t trust them,’ Gwenllian said.
‘They are your brothers.’
‘That’s why I don’t trust them. I know them. They want Ceredigion for themselves.’
‘And we are aware of that. They think to use us, and we will use them. Raegnald will assist me in attacking the castle. If we can oust the Normans from there, I would have a base to work and expand from. It’s what we need.’
‘The Norman king would not accept it. He would take extreme punitive measures.’
‘We will wait for the right moment when he is much occupied with affairs elsewhere, when he is in Normandy. Once I take Ceredigion, he would have to treat with me, as he does with the other Welsh kings. I would demand recognition as king of Deheubarth – as client king – a similar arrangement to those that he has with your father in Gwynedd and Maredudd in Powys.’
‘It would be a regressive step for him. From his perspective, he has Deheubarth and no reason to give it back to you.’
‘Then we must create a reason. We cannot sit here eeking out an existence like peasants.’
Gwenllian combed her fingers through the mane of her loosened hair. ‘No, we cannot.’
Gruffudd heard Cadell at the door. ‘What is it?’ he asked, beckoning him to come in.
‘I had another nightmare.’
‘Come here to me,’ Gwenllian murmured, and Gruffudd shifted to allow Cadell to creep under the cover of the thick furs and settle beside his stepmother.
‘Close your eyes and I will tell you a magical story.’ Obediently, Cadell closed his eyes.
‘There once was a prince named Pwyll who ruled the land of Deheubarth. The prince was out hunting and saw a stag brought down by a pack of hounds, but no sign of their master. He shooed the first pack away and allowed his own hounds to feast on the carcass of the fallen stag. But then, a rider approached, berating him, saying that he had stolen his quarry and was ill-mannered and would pay for it. Forgive me, stranger, said the prince. I thought the hounds had no master. I am their master, declared the man, and I am King Arawn. How can I make amends? asked Pwyll. You will take my face and my life for one year, replied Arawn. Very well, but what of my own lands? asked Pwyll. I will take your face and your life for one year and rule your lands, said Arawn. And so it happened. Pwyll stepped into Arawn’s shoes and ruled his lands and slept in a bed with Arawn’s wife.’
