The Splintered Kingdom (24 page)

And so it proved then. It didn’t help that Berengar was still seeking to stir up resentment, although many of the barons were beginning to grow tired of his remarks and jibes, which I supposed was reason to be thankful. Whenever we stopped to fill our water bottles I could hear him. No longer content to voice his disquiet behind my back, instead he made sure that whenever he spoke out I was within earshot, as if taunting me. For a while after Caerswys he had said hardly a word in my presence, and I’d wondered if what had happened had finally cowed him into silence. Clearly that had been wishful thinking.

‘From what I’ve heard he used to be held in high favour by both the king and Fitz Osbern,’ Wace told me when next I saw him. ‘He won his fame at Hæstinges. His was the hand that slew the usurper’s brother Gyrth; the one who rallied the English forces after Harold himself fell.’

That part of the battle had been among the hardest fought, as I remembered. It had been late in the day; we had managed to force our way on to the ridge above the field of blood, but still their shield-wall had held. Thousands of their countrymen lay dead and yet Gyrth and his huscarls continued to fight on, defending his family’s wyvern banner to the last. Only after he had fallen to the charge did their line crumble and the rout finally begin. But that Berengar was the man who made that happen – round-bellied, pudgy-faced Berengar – I found hard to believe.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

‘It’s what they say.’

‘You mentioned that the king used to hold him in favour. What happened?’

‘It seems he was rewarded generously with lands and for the next couple of years there he sat, growing ever fatter on the wealth of his estates. The next time he was called upon to fight, apparently his arse was so large that his horse collapsed under his weight. Some months after that he somehow managed to kill his two young
nephews in a training match and was made to forfeit most of his lands in recompense. All he has left now is one manor near to Hereford, and not a rich one at that.’

‘That still doesn’t explain why he hates me so much.’

‘It ought to,’ Wace said. ‘Don’t you see? He’s you, except that you haven’t yet eaten your own weight in mutton or beaten your sister’s sons to death. He used to be the one who was lauded. Now he finds himself ridiculed and shouted down in council, while you’ve taken his place. Of course he hates you.’

‘Because of that?’

Wace shrugged. ‘Men have killed each other for less.’

He’d been right; none of that brought me closer to working out what I could do to repair the damage that had been wrought. If unpleasant words were the worst Berengar could offer, I wouldn’t have been concerned, but he had slain two of his own kinsfolk, and the way that Wace had spoken of it suggested it was no mere accident. Nor had I forgotten how he had almost killed that mother and child. If their lives were worth nothing to him, what did that say about mine?

The next day I sent Eudo and Ithel ahead at the head of a party of ten men, with Haerarddur as well, both to explore the land around Mathrafal and, if they managed to get close enough, to catch a glimpse of the enemy encampment. They were gone longer than I had expected, and by the time they arrived back it had already been dark for several hours. We had pitched our tents within the ringworks of an ancient hill fort, and I was pacing their circuit, anxiously keeping a lookout for Eudo’s return, when I heard a shout of greeting from the men on watch by the eastern ramparts. I hurried across the enclosure to find, emerging from out of the black, the dark forms of thirteen horsemen climbing the slope towards the causewayed entrance. The skies were clouded that night, and at first I could not make out their faces, but I knew it was them.

‘They’re gone,’ was the first thing Eudo said once he had reached me and let someone take care of his mount.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘We saw the hall with its moat, and the village as well, but the enemy weren’t there,’ he said with a sigh. His shoulders hung low and he looked bone-tired, but then I supposed he must have been riding hard since daybreak. ‘Their campfires were still smouldering, so they couldn’t have left long before we arrived. A few hours, perhaps; no more than half a day.’

Not for the first time I wished that Ædda were with us. He would have been able to tell us.

‘The place looks to be defended by barely fifty spears,’ Ithel added, and there was an eagerness to his tone that I had not heard before. ‘We could storm the palisade and take the fastness; it would not be all that difficult.’

Eudo snorted. ‘You would try to capture it?’ he asked, as if the mere suggestion was a ridiculous idea, a sentiment that I shared.

Ithel looked taken aback. ‘We have the numbers,’ he said defensively. ‘Why not?’

I’d had my doubts before about his ability and experience as a war leader, and what he had said only served to strengthen them. ‘Even if we manage to take it,’ I said, ‘what would we do with it?’

Eudo nodded in agreement. We both knew that there was nothing to be gained in wasting time and men trying to capture such a place when we had little need of it, when we could just as easily skirt around it.

‘It is Mathrafal,’ Ithel replied, as if it were as simple as that; as if that were all he need say. When he saw that we were waiting for more he went on: ‘It has been the seat of their house for a hundred years and more; it is where they hold their court, where their treasure hoard lies. If we strike at the heart, the head will fall soon after. How can their vassals and followers continue to brave the shield-wall for men who cannot even protect their own halls?’

All this had come out in an excitable rush, and despite his years I saw Ithel now for the youth that he was. A noble youth, for certain, and by no means stupid, but rash nonetheless and as yet lacking in knowledge of how wars were waged. The hour was late and I was too weary to listen to his ramblings.

Ignoring him, I turned to Eudo instead. ‘Was there any sign of which way the enemy went?’

‘There were tracks leading away downriver,’ he said. ‘I can only guess that they received word that the Wolf was afield to the north and marched to head them off. Why else would they have left so suddenly?’

Which either meant that they did not consider us a significant threat, or else that they still knew nothing of our presence, which seemed more likely, given that only a fool would choose to leave an enemy in his rear. Either way, we had a chance to catch them by surprise. I only hoped that Earl Hugues was ready for them, for if he was not, we would all be riding to our deaths.

Ithel called to his brother, who had come out from his tent to join us, and the two exchanged some words in Welsh. Maredudd’s eyes were bleary, as if he had not slept well, and as he spoke his expression quickly turned from gladness to anger.

‘What is this?’ he asked as he rounded on me. ‘Mathrafal lies all but undefended and yet I am told you would have us march past it without so much as a glance in its direction.’

‘To attack would be folly,’ I said. ‘Only by seizing this opportunity and pursuing the enemy can we hope to rout them.’

If we abandoned the two-pronged strategy then we would have divided our forces for nothing, and the Wolf would be left to face the enemy alone. How could these two not see this?

‘Your lord Fitz Osbern promised us a kingdom,’ he said. ‘Mathrafal is the heart of that kingdom. There will be no better chance than this to take it.’

‘You will have your chance once the enemy are defeated,’ I said, trying as best I could to keep frustration from entering my voice.

‘We have brought you this far, across hills and moors,’ Ithel put in. ‘We have fought for you, and without us you would all have been dead long ago. Now there is silver for the taking and you would deny it us.’

So that was it. In the end all they really desired was what every man wished for: coin enough to fill their purses, chests of gold to
furnish their halls, circlets inlaid with precious stones with which to crown themselves.

‘And you think that the enemy will not have taken any of it with them?’ I asked, and I was unable to contain my laughter. ‘You think they would be so dim-witted as to leave it all in the care of just fifty spearmen?’

They had no answer to that, nor did I expect them to. Of course they needed silver, as any lord did, not just for themselves but also for their retainers, to reward them for their service. Nevertheless, they were fools if they thought they would find it in Mathrafal, which to judge by everything I had heard was hardly a palace befitting of kings but rather a fortified dwelling not much larger than my own hall at Earnford.

‘We will not suffer to be mocked,’ Maredudd said. ‘We were promised a kingdom. It is our birthright as the sons of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn!’

‘And you will have it,’ I said. ‘In time you will have Mathrafal and all of Wales too, just as Fitz Osbern promised, but not yet.’

In truth I cared little for their supposed birthright, or who their father was, or whether their claims were just or legitimate or fair. They were enemies of our enemy and that was the only thing that mattered: the fact that they would lend their support in fighting those who threatened to destroy us. The number of spears and shields they could bring to our aid was all I was interested in.

Neither of the brothers had anything more to say, which was just as well, since I could not trust myself to hold my temper much longer. With everything that had happened these last few days, I wanted nothing more than to be away from here, to be back in Scrobbesburh or, better still, the comfort of my own manor at Earnford, where Leofrun was waiting for my return.

‘Wake your men,’ I said to Ithel and Maredudd. ‘We march as soon as we can.’

‘Now?’ Eudo asked. ‘We’ve been in the saddle since dawn. We’ve ridden probably more than thirty miles. You can’t expect us to start out on the road without resting first.’

‘We have to if we’re to have any hope of catching the enemy.
You said they’d already been gone several hours by the time you reached Mathrafal. By now they could be as much as a day’s march ahead of us, on their way to do battle with the Wolf.’

Grudgingly Maredudd and Ithel made for their half of the camp, shouting to rouse their troops. Torches were lit as the message was passed from tent to tent, and one by one bleary-eyed faces began to emerge, angry at having been woken so early. I didn’t doubt that the brothers would blame me for that, but what else could I do? Earl Hugues had been relying on us to fulfil our part of the strategy, but since our raiding had failed to tempt the Welsh kings out, somehow we had to make sure that we could bring our small force to bear when the two sides clashed. For all that any of us knew, our five hundred men could make the difference between failure and triumph.

I turned to Eudo, who was fixing me with a stare as cold as I had ever seen from him. Only too well did I understand his exasperation, and feel for his tiredness. Didn’t he see, though, that the longer we delayed, the less chance we had of catching up with the enemy?

‘What more do you want from me?’ I asked.

His lips were set firm in disapproval, or disgust; I could not tell which. ‘This is unwise, Tancred,’ he said, keeping his voice low as he glanced towards the Welsh brothers, although they were far enough away by then that I doubted they would hear. ‘With every day we’re venturing further into unknown country. More and more we depend on what they tell us, and yet I trust them less and less.’

‘Fitz Osbern trusts them,’ I said, though I knew it wasn’t much of an answer.

Eudo knew it too, for he gave me a sardonic look. ‘They have as many spears under their banner on this expedition as we do. If they turn on us—’

‘They won’t.’ I tried to sound confident, as much to convince myself as him, for I was only too aware of how vulnerable we all were, and how much we needed the Welshmen. As, I hoped, they needed us too.

‘You can’t know that,’ he said. ‘They have something in mind, I’m sure of it.’

‘If they’d wanted to lead us into a trap, they could have done so long ago,’ I replied. ‘Why wait until now?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘And the not knowing is what I like least about it.’

Eudo was not the kind of man usually prone to such suspicions, and the fact that he would express his sentiments so openly suggested to me that I ought to take him seriously. Yet the time to voice those kinds of doubts had long passed. Whether we liked it or not, we had to trust Maredudd and Ithel. Not only that, but somehow I would have to repair the damage that had been wrought this night, to make sure that they would trust me in turn.

‘What else can we do but follow them?’ I asked. ‘If they’re leading us to our deaths, then we’ll know it soon enough. But if we start sowing mistrust between us and them, they’ll only turn on us all the sooner.’

It was scant consolation, and Eudo did not look satisfied by it, but I could offer him nothing better. If our years of friendship counted for anything then he would accept my judgement on this, as he had on countless occasions before.

Shaking his head, he said, ‘Fitz Osbern might have placed you in charge, but that doesn’t mean you have all the answers, Tancred. Remember that.’

‘Eudo—’

He didn’t give me the chance to reply as he swung up into the saddle and rode off.

A group of foot-warriors had stopped to see what was going on. ‘What are you looking at?’ I snapped at them. ‘Fetch your belongings and ready your horses. We ride as soon as we can.’

I made my way to the other side of the hill fort where the French tents stood. Already my thoughts were turning to other things: to the battle that lay ahead; to Rhiwallon and Bleddyn, whose men had raided my lands so many times this past year; and to Eadric and all the Englishmen who had joined them. To the conquest of the Marches, of the Welsh kingdoms, and to glory.

Fourteen

WE CAME UPON
Mathrafal around mid-morning, skirting the fields to its west, keeping our distance in case Eudo and his patrol had been mistaken and there were more of them lying in wait than they had been able to see. The place was just as he and Haerarddur had described: a cluster of halls and storehouses within a square enclosure around one hundred paces on each side, with stout ramparts and a moat surrounding it, and a scattering of houses beyond that.