Rhuddlan (26 page)

Longsword shifted his attention to Rhirid ap
Maelgwn. He was young, near Longsword’s own age, black-haired and
smooth-faced. His intelligent grey eyes never seemed to blink as he
stared right back at the Norman. He stood slightly apart from the
other Welshmen as though to imply he considered this interview a
waste of time, and not once had his hand moved from its resting
place on the butt of his sword.

“Nevertheless,” Longsword answered after a
moment, “the men whom you accuse aren’t Welsh. They’re under my
jurisdiction and aren’t subject to your laws. Naturally I must make
my own inquiry. I can’t punish anyone without hearing his side of
the story.”

Rhirid glanced at his companions with a thin
smile. Hadn’t he told them the Normans wouldn’t care? That their
reaction would be to launch a phantom investigation which would
resolve nothing? He turned back to Longsword. “What will happen
when you make your inquiries and find our accusation is true?
What’s the punishment for a Norman who kills a Welshman? Do you
give him a new sword?”

The senior man snapped something in Welsh at
Rhirid and he inclined his head in deference. He had made his
point. He wanted the Normans to know that he didn’t trust them,
didn’t believe a word they said and wouldn’t hesitate to meet them
with his own sword. He was satisfied, for now, with the suddenly
purple face of the tall Norman.

“My lord,” the spokesman began, but Longsword
cut him off.

“Don’t waste your breath! If such an attack
occurred, I will find it out. And if there was a murder, I’ll
punish it—in Norman fashion! Your involvement is no longer
necessary.”

“But the family! The
galanas
!” the man said
insistently.

Longsword turned his back on them. Rhirid ap
Maelgwn hissed through his teeth at the blatant insult and spun on
his heel and left the council chamber. The remaining delegates
looked at each other in dismay but there was nothing they could
do.

“Do you think that was wise, Will?” Delamere
asked, when the Welshmen had ridden out of Rhuddlan. “To be so
unyielding?”

Longsword frowned. “I didn’t like the way
they came charging into my castle, accusing my men of murder and
demanding I make recompense for it!”

“Well, it
is
true.”

“Yes, but it’s also true
that it was justified. Shouldn’t they take that into account? But
that’s not the point. The Welsh have no law over my knights. I’ll
deal with my people;
I'm
the law here, not this Maelgwn ap
whatever.”

Delamere shrugged.

“Sometimes it seems you’re on their side and
not ours, Richard,” Longsword said in a voice tinged with
resentment.

“Don’t be a fool, William!” Delamere snapped
angrily. “Of course I’m with you! If you doubt my friendship, you
still have my oath as your vassal.”

“I don’t doubt your
friendship, Richard,” Longsword answered quickly. “I apologize…”
His friend didn’t respond but looked mollified. He felt a great
relief and tried to lighten the mood. “A damned Welsh shepherd, for
God’s sake!
They
didn’t even care about him—just wanted the money.”

“You’re wrong; there was one person who cares
very much…”

“Oh yes. Rhirid ap Maelgwn.” Longsword
pronounced carefully. “He cares, but for a different reason. I
think he’ll be back,” he added, and to Delamere he sounded almost
pleased. “We haven’t seen the last of him.”

Longsword’s anger at the Llanlleyn delegation
gave him something to brood over other than his impending
fatherhood but it was only a matter of time before he came to the
conclusion that his two obsessions might somehow be married.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he said
to Delamere. “I realize that I’m never going to be king. The law
won’t allow it and the barons won’t accept it. But now that I’m
going to have an heir it’s especially important that I have
something of my own to give him and I’ve just figured out how to
get it.”

Delamere glanced at him apprehensively. “What
are you planning, Will?”

“There’s plenty of land here,” he continued;
“good land, too, just beyond Rhuddlan’s demense.”

“That land belongs to the prince of
Gwynedd…”

“Hmph!” Longsword snorted contemptuously.
“Land belongs to those who can keep it. Anyway, I won’t begrudge
the Welsh the privilege of living on it as long as they understand
it belongs to me and I’m their master. Richard, between here and
Cheshire are miles of fine land. We start at Rhuddlan and work our
way east to Chester. That secures our back. Then we push west and
south. The possibilities are limited only by the sea and the
borders of England.” The pitch of his voice increased with his
growing excitement. “I tell you, Richard, I’ve been thinking the
last few days and I’ve decided this must be why my father sent me
here. He’s got too much else to deal with between Scotland, France
and Flanders…He would actually prefer a strong Norman arm to hold
this border for him in his name.”

It was Delamere’s understanding that Henry
had sent his son to Wales to keep him from stirring up trouble but
he didn’t say so. Instead, he found himself intrigued by his
friend’s idea. Why not? They were all tired of sitting around doing
nothing. The king was satisfied to permit Norman adventurers to
carve out their own lands in Ireland as long as they acknowledged
his suzerainty. Why should he mind, then, if the same were done in
Wales?

“What about Prince Dafydd?” he asked
finally.

“He must know what Teleri is like,” Longsword
said with a grimace. “He’s probably wondering why it’s taken so
long for me to revolt.”

“Be serious, Will!”

“Seriously, Richard, the prince is far from
secure on his throne. His brothers are a continuous nuisance and he
hasn’t got half the power my father thinks he has. I’m not worried
about him.”

“All right. What about the earl of Chester?
This land used to belong to his family.”

“What can he do, Richard? He’s been
disgraced; he’s a traitor. My father’s got his castle. He can’t
come against me with force. The best he can do is make a formal
protest to my father.” Longsword slapped his hands together almost
gleefully. “There’s no reason not to do it! And I want to start by
riding Llanlleyn into the ground.”

But if Longsword believed the Welsh were
content to wait for his attack, he was mistaken.

Rhirid ap Maelgwn had also
spent the week after his visit to Rhuddlan in deep consideration of
the situation between the Normans and the Welsh. The tall one, the
English king’s son, hadn’t impressed him. He’d been rude and
insulting, two unforgivable sins for a host. All the way back to
Llanlleyn Maelgwn’s counselors had talked about it. Rhirid had kept
a contemptuous silence. What else had they expected? The old men
seemed more concerned with the breach of etiquette than with the
Norman’s quick dismissal of their suit. And then they’d had the
nerve to berate
him
for arguing with the foreigner. Incredible!

Rhirid had known all along
it was a waste of effort talking to the Normans but had asked to
accompany his father’s men so he could see his enemy face to face
and take his measure. Of course, he hadn’t told his father that.
Maelgwn feared the foreigners, feared they would seize his land. He
thought if he was conciliatory enough, they would leave his little
kingdom in peace. He had actually believed that this Sir William
fitz Henry would listen to them, apologize and pay the
galanas
without a murmur
because he was the son of the king of the English and lord of
Rhuddlan by the gift of Prince Dafydd. A representative of his
father’s harmonious relationship with the Welsh, so to speak. In
Maelgwn’s opinion, Sir William couldn’t afford not to make peace.
Peace! Rhirid snorted. His father always said the words ‘Norman’
and ‘peace’ in the same sentence as if they weren’t mutually
exclusive.

Not only did Rhirid believe peace with the
Normans was unachievable, he believed war was inevitable. And that
was fine with him. He knew the more land the Normans had, the more
their fingers itched to swing their swords and conquer. It was only
a matter of time before Longsword turned his eye on Llanlleyn and
Rhirid was anxious to meet him and prove the Welsh were formidable
opponents.

So while his father strived for good
relations, Rhirid plotted. He’d been brought up on the
heart-stirring songs of heroic Welsh warriors and their valiant
battles. The prince of Gwynedd for most of his youth had been
Owain, who had never accepted the Norman presence, who had
tolerated it only when there was no alternative and who was quick
to battle against it the instant the opportunity presented itself.
Rhirid could vividly recall the day ten years earlier when Owain
had marched against the Normans at Rhuddlan and taken the castle
after an unprecedented three months’ siege. Maelgwn had been tense
for weeks, expecting King Henry to sweep down upon Gwynedd in a
fury but Rhuddlan had remained in Welsh hands until Owain’s son,
Dafydd, had presented it on a platter to the king of England.

Prince Dafydd! There was another one; another
Norman-placator. Rhirid didn’t think much of this prince of
Gwynedd. Fortunately, there weren’t many who did. No one could
figure out how the son of one of the most vehement enemies of the
foreigners could end up in bed with them—literally, as he’d married
Henry’s half-sister. The rumor went that Dafydd, who lacked the
forceful personality of Owain, was cleverly using his connections
with the Normans to keep his position as prince. The threat of
Norman retaliation was a better curb to hotheaded ambition than
Dafydd’s weak arm.

But Rhirid ap Maelgwn wasn’t impressed by his
prince’s marital union with King Henry. Furthermore, the murder of
the herdsman and the savage attack on his daughter had served to
confirm his belief that the Normans at Rhuddlan had no interest in
respecting their neighbors’ customs. Rhirid was determined to
change that attitude.

His chance came almost immediately.

South and east of Rhuddlan, once out of the
marshy river plain, the land grew increasingly hilly and even
though it was winter and the trees were bare and could afford a
grown man only poor cover, the twists forced by the irregular
swells and undulations in the terrain provided enough. And it had
long been the frustration of the Norman armies sent to conquer them
that the Welsh preferred to strike and melt back into the forests
than to fight pitched battles like the rest of the civilized
world.

Rhirid and his cohorts had
spent the days since his ill-fated visit to William Longsword
stalking the hills above the river and waiting for unsuspecting
Normans to cross their path. Despite his father’s appeal for a
better relationship with the foreigners, Rhirid swore that William
Longsword would pay the
galanas
if not in property or coin, then in
blood.

On a cold, drizzling day, he almost succeeded
in forcing payment.

Unmindful of the weather, the Normans had
gone out to hunt and were returning home after a fruitful day, a
few hours before darkness was to fall. Judging from their raucous
banter, they didn’t expect to run into a group of disgruntled
Welshmen.

But when they rounded a curve in the track, a
hail of arrows flew forward to greet them, accompanied by the
hooting and hollering of what seemed to be a hundred Welshmen. For
a moment the Normans were paralyzed. One arrow struck a horse,
which reared up on its hind legs sending its rider tumbling
backwards, but the others landed harmlessly. Then they began
calling to each other, speaking too fast for Rhirid to understand;
one man’s voice louder and more penetrating than the rest. At the
time, Rhirid had no idea that this voice belonged to William
Longsword.

Meanwhile, the Welsh continued to shoot. The
constant barrage disoriented the Normans, who had drawn their
swords and were wheeling their mounts from this side to that with
vicious tugs on the reins. They could not yet see their attackers
through the grey trees and the drizzle. The Welsh screamed with
impassioned, wild curses. One of them had climbed into a tree and,
teetering acrobatically, harassed the Normans from above.

Two of the arrows hit their marks; one
bounced harmlessly off the helmet of one soldier but the second—a
one in a million shot—struck another in the joint between the neck
and the shoulder.

By this time, the Normans were shouting as
loudly as the Welsh. As soon as the moment of surprise passed,
Rhirid knew the knights would organize themselves and come after
him. He had only half a dozen men with him on this day while the
Normans were twice as many. His tiny force would be overwhelmed and
annihilated. He whistled sharply, his compatriot in the tree leaped
gracefully to the ground and the five of them ran quickly to where
the sixth waited with their horses. Within seconds they had mounted
and flown, away from the track and into the hills.

Only when it became obvious that no one was
following them and they slowed their pace and grinned and
congratulated each other did Rhirid recall another voice, screaming
the tall Norman’s name over and over.

“Go after them!” Longsword kept saying, the
command sounding weaker with each repetition. He had clamped a hand
to the side of his neck, around the shaft of the embedded arrow,
but Delamere could see how much blood was already soaking his
glove. He was breathing hard, in painful, ragged gulps. “Go after
them!”

Everyone ignored him, mesmerized by his
bloody wound and the grotesque sight of the slender rod projecting
from his flesh. Delamere had dismounted and was at his side,
pushing initially resistant but then suddenly compliant boots out
of the stirrups. Frantically, he reached for Longsword’s torso and
grabbing a piece of his hauberk, tugged on it until he felt his
friend’s body start to tip towards him. He caught Longsword in his
arms and gently brought him down to the ground.