Kathryn Le Veque (35 page)

When the fighting finally tapered off, Gart split the forces into those gathering the wounded and those putting d’Einen back into his coffin. Quickly, the coffin was loaded onto the wagon, along with eleven wounded men, and the women were loaded up as well. With no more signs of the Welsh, Keller ordered the funeral party to flee, and flee they did. What had been a leisurely ride to Machynlleth was a harried return to Nether Castle.

Keller was thankful for their very lives, but one thing was certain – Rhys was correct. Perhaps the next attack would be on Nether. The Welsh were cunning and sly, and he would have to be on his guard every moment from this point forward. It was clear that someone was watching him and knew his every move.

He would have bet money that someone was Gryffyn d’Einen.



The big knight with the dual blades had nearly taken his head off. As it was, Gryffyn suffered a nasty gash to his shoulder, enough so that it caused him to flee the fighting, fearful that something worse would befall him. It was a bad wound that bled a good deal, and it hurt him to lift his left arm, so he needed to have it treated. The problem was that there was no available physic and he didn’t trust the dirty, crude Welsh soldiers. He didn’t want those dirty hands touching him.

Therefore, he burst into one of the first homes he came across where a woman and her two children were going about their chores for the day. Bolting the door behind him, he beat the woman fairly severely as her children stood by and screamed, beating her to the point where she begged for mercy. Gryffyn was only satisfied when those around him were submissive and once she behaved in a surrendering fashion, he stopped hitting her and demanded she tend his wound. Bloodied and wounded herself, the woman did as she was told.

With shaking fingers, the woman cleaned the gash and stitched it, but she hurt him as she stabbed him with the needle and Gryffyn hit her so hard that her left ear began to bleed. But she finished sewing him, whimpering with fright. When she was done, Gryffyn simply left. No words of thanks, no exchange of any kind. He simply swept out of the hut and headed over to the farmer’s cabin he had confiscated because he had left his mount there, a shaggy brown pony borrowed from Colvyn.

As he made his way back to the farmer’s dwelling, he made sure to stay low to the ground and move swiftly. He dodged behind houses and jumped over fences. He could hear the distant sounds of what he thought might be combat but he didn’t return to find out. His destination was Castell Mallwyd. Whatever men were left after the skirmish with the English would also return there, as they’d been instructed to do. He didn’t even know what happened to Colvyn. He’d not seen the man since he set out after Keller, who had been inside the church with Chrystobel and Izlyn.

Like a coward, Gryffyn had fled the scene. He returned to Castell Mallwyd before the nooning meal and it was deserted, so he set about scrounging together a meal from whatever Colvyn had in his food stores and waited for Colvyn and his men to return. It wasn’t a long wait. He hadn’t been back an hour yet before men started trickling in.

For as many men as the Welsh had against half as many English, the wounds upon the Welsh were bad. It was clear that the English had been the victors, but Gryffyn waited with hope - hope that Colvyn had managed to wrest one or more of his sisters from Keller, but by the time Colvyn returned shortly before sunset, it was clear that he didn’t have the women with him. He was empty-handed.

Gryffyn, who had been watching from the derelict battlements, could only feel great disappointment and great fury. He met Colvyn down in the bailey as the man, astride his shaggy pony, wearily entered the grounds of his destitute castle.

“What happened?” Gryffyn demanded. “Where have you been? And why are my sisters not with you?”

Colvyn didn’t say a word as he dismounted his steed. But once his feet hit the muck of the bailey, he walked up to Gryffyn and punched the man right in the face. Gryffyn staggered back, falling to one knee has he put a hand to his stinging cheek. When he looked up, it was to see Colvyn looming furiously over him.

“That is for being a coward and fleeing a battle that
you
, in fact, instigated,” Colvyn seethed. “I lost twenty-seven men. Twenty-seven! And what did you do? You ran like a woman!”

Gryffyn was livid but he was wise enough not to strike Colvyn in return. The man was a Welsh prince, after all, and the men at Castell Mallwyd were loyal to him. At least, they were for the time being. Gryffyn had been trying for three days to change that.

“I was wounded,” Gryffyn hissed, indicating his torn tunic and the stitches on the skin beneath. “I was bleeding all over the damn place and went to seek aid. By the time my wound was tended, the battle was over, so I returned here. Are you telling me that it was
not
over? Was there more fighting that I missed?”

Colvyn growled and turned away. He was disgusted, exhausted, and enraged, which was a nasty combination, and Gryffyn fleeing the battle had only fed that anger. He’d always known the man to be dramatic and cowardly, but this was more than even Colvyn believed him capable of. After pacing a few feet away, he abruptly stopped and turned to Gryffyn.

“This is the last time,” he said, his voice low and hazardous. “We will not attack the English again. Twice we have tried and twice we have been defeated. There will not be a third time, at least with the amount of men I have. This is a task for a much bigger army than what I have.”

Gryffyn could see his cause slipping away. He could not lose Colvyn’s support, not now. He could not face defeat in any fashion and quickly, his mind began to cook up an alternative scheme. The English were too powerful against the under-armed Welsh. Other than a massive Welsh army, which was highly unlikely, Gryffyn had to be smarter than de Poyer. There had to be another way to best him.

In the past, Gryffyn had free reign of Nether and it was easy to do what he wanted to with his sisters. Beat them, jail them… he could do as he wished. Now, de Poyer was there to protect them…
he was there
. What if de Poyer was
not
at Nether? An idea began to bloom, forming in desperation because Gryffyn could not let this go.
He could not fail
!

“There is a simple way to solve this issue once and for all,” Gryffyn said, saying it loud enough so that Colvyn’s men could hear. “The English have already proven that they can best us in combat, so we must choose another tactic. If force does not work, then mayhap a lack of force will. Mayhap it will be as simple as walking into the castle, regaining my sisters, and reclaiming the wealth that the English have stolen from me.”

Colvyn wasn’t agreeing with him. “This is another trick, d’Einen,” he muttered. “You speak in foolish riddles.”

Gryffyn shook his head violently. “I am not, I assure you,” he said passionately. “There is a secret passage by which to enter Nether. I used it myself the other day to gain access. We can use it to get into the fortress.”

Colvyn threw up his hands in frustration. “Get in for what purpose?” he demanded. “The English will be inside, waiting for us, and this time they will kill us all.”

“They cannot kill us if they are not there.”

Colvyn was about to fire a retort but Gryffyn’s softly uttered statement had his curiosity. He knew he shouldn’t ask. God knows, he knew he shouldn’t. But he couldn’t help himself.

“Explain.”

Gryffyn tried not to sound too excited, knowing that convincing Colvyn would not be easy. He motioned to some of the soldiers standing nearby to come closer, to hear his plan. He would build a case of public opinion for his scheme and then Colvyn would have no choice but to agree to it. Gryffyn was astute that way.

“If another
Saesneg
-held castle is being attacked by Welsh, then other
Saesnegs
will ride to their aid,” he said, sounding quite logical. “Hen Domen Castle is the closest English castle. It is a day’s ride from here. If we send de Poyer word that the lord of Hen Domen needs assistance, then we can lure the man out and away from Nether. He will take his army with him and once they are gone, we can sneak into Nether and reclaim the castle.”

In truth, it was a reasonable plan. If the English were removed from Nether, then the matter of taking the castle and saving the sisters would be a relatively simple thing. But the scheme was almost
too
simple. Surely there was a hole in it somewhere.

“Hen Domen is the seat of the Earl of Shropshire, Robert de Boulers,” Colvyn said, torn between interest and refusal. “I have had dealings with them before, as has my father. They are rather warring towards the Welsh.”

Gryffyn leapt on that bit of information. “Do you have a missive from Shropshire?” he asked. “Does your father? We will need to see the de Boulers seal in order to duplicate it on the feigned message.”

Colvyn shook his head. “I do not but I am sure my father or brothers might,” he said. “My father had some dealings with de Boulers’ father several years ago when they were trying to set boundaries of the earl’s properties.”

Gryffyn was excited at the prospect. “Then we must have a missive with a seal that is intact or at least repairable,” he said. “You have a smithy here. Mayhap the man can recreate the seal. Then we can send a missive to de Poyer, lure him away from Nether, and claim the castle and her riches while he is gone. We can
do
this, Colvyn! Can you not see the possibilities? We can rid Nether and this region of the English that so badly want to conquer both.”

Colvyn still had his doubts, although they were fading. “So we lure the English away from Nether,” he said. “There will still be English at the fortress. Are you truly convinced we can overcome them, even if we enter from the hidden passage?”

Gryffyn had an answer. “If we can get one man from the passage to the postern gate near the stables, he can open the gate for the rest of your men,” he insisted. “Believe me when I tell you that this will be the best way to gain control of Nether. With enough of your men overrunning the place, we should be able to easily subdue the English left behind.”

Colvyn looked at the man, seeing the light of excitement in his eyes. In truth, it was a viable plan and, if Colvyn thought hard on it, he was looking forward to the reward of regaining Nether for Gryffyn. Coin, food, perhaps even a few sheep would be his reward. He was tired of being so poor and desolate. He was tired of being hungry, of living a pitiful existence from day to day. He had no future and only a sorrowful past because at Castell Mallwyd, there was no hope. It was a doomed place. But what Gryffyn offered was optimism, no matter how unattainable the scheme. At least it was something, and Colvyn was willing to take a chance on something if it meant extracting him from his soulless existence. It was a weakness he had. With a sigh of resignation, he nodded his head.

“Very well,” he said. “I will send a message to my father and ask him for a Shropshire seal and explain the circumstances. But this will take time, you know. We will not be able to accomplish this in a matter of days. And this missive, when you send it, must be written in English. I cannot write in English.”

Gryffyn was nearly weak with relief in the knowledge that his battle against de Poyer was not yet over. They had one chance left and he was going to take it.

“I can write in English,” he said. “I fostered in England in my youth because my father thought it would be wise for me to learn their ways and I learned their vile language, so you needn’t worry over that.”

Colvyn still had doubts. “What about your sister?” he wanted to know. “Wouldn’t she know your writing? What if she sees the missive?”

Gryffyn shook his head. “I am sure that de Poyer would not share his business with my sister,” he said. “She is a mere woman, after all. Why would he confide in her or discuss it with her? Nay, it is a chance we must take.”

Colvyn wasn’t so sure about the risk of Gryffyn’s writing being recognized but he let it go. There was no use fighting d’Einen because, in the end, he would only persuade him otherwise. So he backed off, with nothing more to say, and headed towards the great hall where a meager amount of food await.
That is the first thing I am going to do upon reaching Nether,
he thought to himself.
I am going to eat myself into oblivion
. He justified his compliance by focusing on his end reward.

Hunger had a way of making strange bedfellows. The wheels of deceiving the English were now in motion.



CHAPTER NINETEEN

Early November

In the big master’s chamber that she shared with her husband, Chrystobel was helping one of the house servants tend freshly washed clothing. Since their marriage almost three weeks ago, Chrystobel had come to learn that her husband was somewhat slovenly. Not in the literal, terrible sense, of course, but the man didn’t keep his clothing clean in the least. Therefore, he had several tunics that had hardly been washed, if ever, and that included two heavily padded tunics he wore under his mail coat.