Uneasy Lies the Crown (21 page)

Iolo Goch:

Before spring’s end, Lord Reginald de Grey of Ruthin was escorted by Gruffydd ap Owain under the dark of night to Dolbadarn Castle. The view from his single, barred window was unchanging: wild, rough mountains that pierced the sky’s lid, their image mirrored in the sullen black waters of Llyn Peris.

Each evening as the sun retreated, a blazing star trailed its fiery tail across the Stygian darkness. To Lord Grey, it was an omen of ill portent. To the bards who sang of Owain Glyndwr, it was the resurrection of Myrddin Emrys’s prophecies—that Arthur had come again.

In order to raise the astronomical sixteen thousand pounds in gold that were demanded by Glyndwr for ransom, Grey’s manor in Kent was sold off. The drain on Grey’s finances would leave him forever penniless.

28

Harlech Castle, Wales — May, 1402

Between the deep blue waters of Tremadoc Bay and mountains couched in lavender mist, Harlech Castle thrust majestically skyward, washed in the yellow-pink of morning’s first light. Owain stood at the head of his army on the ragged shoreline. He coveted every stone.

“How many?” he asked, as his kinsman Gwilym ap Tudur rode up beside him.

Dropping to the ground, Gwilym dashed a coating of sand from the front of his tunic. “Roughly a hundred men-at-arms, give or take a dozen... and over four hundred of those nasty Cheshire archers.”

“Five hundred then? Are you certain?” Owain asked skeptically.

Gwilym’s thin lips twisted in a sneer. “I am. Seems they were expecting us.”

A warm breeze tossed Owain’s hair across his eyes. He turned and peered at his men through a veil of graying strands. “What now?”

“Into the mountains,” Gethin answered.

“Mountains?For what?” Tudur’s weariness was evident in the slump of his shoulders. “To hide again?”

Gethin shook his head. “No. To Maelienydd: Mortimer lands. There’s much bounty yet to be had between the Severn and the Lugg.”

“Maelienydd? Maelienydd...” Owain shaded his eyes with a hand and gazed at Harlech’s titanic walls. “They wouldn’t expect us to provoke a Mortimer, would they?”

Rhys Ddu spat. “Ach, only thing Henry expects of you, Owain, is sheer madness.”

“Madness, genius, are they not the same?”

Rhys nodded toward the mountains. “Come on then. Maelienydd awaits.”

The Welsh army withdrew eastward—back into the wilderness from which they had crawled. Harlech’s garrison hadn’t even been afforded the satisfaction of sending a caveat of arrows. The castle was safe in English hands. For now.

Pilleth, Wales — June 22nd, 1402

When news of the burning of Bleddfa Church in Maelienydd by Welsh raiders reached Ludlow Castle, Sir Edmund Mortimer did not hesitate. Although he was the uncle of the young Earl of March, he had sworn his loyalty to King Henry and leapt at this opportunity to prove himself, for he did not wish to give the king any cause to suspect that he wished his kinsman on the throne instead. Thus far, his sister Elizabeth’s husband, Harry Hotspur, had proven steadfast as well, although Hotspur had quarreled with the king repeatedly over the delay of payments due to him.

Lured at first toward Knighton by the latest attack, Mortimer found nothing but smoking ashes. He then led his army southward into the throat of the Lugg Valley, threading along the trails that were once Roman roads. A steady week of rain had left the valleys flooded and so Mortimer kept his army clinging to the slick hillsides. Through crowds of oak leaning into the mired valleys, the English trudged, their eyes alternating between the treacherous path and the rumbling sky.

Slowed by a growing mountain of plunder, it appeared the Welsh were being chased down like fading hares. On the 21st of June, the English bedded down at Whitton. Mortimer’s scouts had reported that the Welsh were camped on the emerald skirt of Bryn Glas, a hill less than a mile away from the village of Pilleth. The presence of the dragon standard had been confirmed.

At last. He would bring to battle and destroy the rebel Glyndwr.

Late into the night, Owain knelt in fervent prayer before the effigy of the Virgin Mary in Pilleth Church. Sleep, when it finally came, was broken and fraught with worry. When St. Alban’s Day dawned, the air was already steaming. He rose, donned his armor, and prayed again before mounting his warhorse. His helmet, polished but with many dents, rested on his saddle before him. Sweat trickled over his temples.

Rhys Ddu pulled up beside him on his horse. “Fifteen hundred. And they look very sober about the whole matter.”

“Gethin?” Owain began. “As always, should I fall, you will take command.”

Gethin nodded only once. His countenance was as rigid as his brass-edged breastplate.

As they watched the English columns advance, tall standards bobbing in rhythm and lance tips pointing heavenward, Owain pulled on his helmet. A page scuttled forth and handed up his dragon-adorned shield and newly whetted great sword. “Did you mark the point, Rhys?”

“I did. We’ll be within almost bowshot when they come abreast of that row of hawthorns,” Rhys noted, pointing.

“Good. When they get there, but not before, we turn back and go up Bryn Glas.”

“And give them our backs as targets?” Tudur said.

“If our timing is right, we’ll be just beyond their reach. Archers must stand still to shoot.”

“What if Mortimer doesn’t follow us?”

“Oh, he will. He will. ’Tis a sure thing in his eyes. They outnumber us two to one. Mortimer needs to prove his loyalty and we’re going to let him try.”

Tudur scoffed. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. We should’ve burnt the damn church and left.”

Owain gave him a sideways glance, and then turned his sights back on the nearing English. “Did you find the monk you were looking for at Mynachdy last night, Gethin?”

Gethin weighed his favorite axe in both hands. “I did.” His eyes narrowed as he looked east into the low morning sun. “Be mindful of the first flight.”

“Positions,” Owain commanded. He glanced toward the lines, searching. The smell of mud and sweat rising from his soldiers mingled into one heavy stench. His sons, Gruffydd and Maredydd, were there... somewhere. But each face looked like the one next to it—gazing on at the enemy in macabre state as the throb of battle drums shook the earth beneath their feet.

Pushing forward, Mortimer’s archers, mostly men from the Welsh brink of Maelienydd itself, packed into their menacing wedge shapes. Clutching the shafts, the bowmen pushed their points into the soggy ground before them, so that they might easily snatch them up for ensuing volleys.

“Retreat!” came Owain’s order. The word echoed down the lines as the Welsh turned like a tidal wave breaking against the shore. Hooves and feet pounded toward the hill. Urging his horse along behind the lines, Owain shouted at them to move faster, faster, faster. By all appearances, the maneuver was an inch short of bedlam and a mile short of genius.

The first pluck of arrows nestled against their bow staves. Waxed strings stretched taut.

“Pull!” Death’s chorus sang out.

Owain glanced toward the hissing hail. The sky was black and moving.

The first arrow pierced the skull of a Welsh soldier. His body flew forward with the force; then his face slammed onto the trampled ground. No one paused to check if he was still alive, or even to claim his body. They were all running for their lives.

Owain’s horse stumbled and then regained himself. They were almost clear of arrow range. Almost.

It was in that moment when Owain thought safety was at hand—the flight of arrows having largely fallen short—that he felt the white heat of a broadhead pierce through his mail and into his flesh. Just below his right calf, a tendon snapped, sending a knife of pain through his entire body. His horse reared as the arrow punctured the animal’s ribcage. Owain gripped the reins and pulled them in to his chest, hanging on. The ground whirled. Bodies lay scattered around him in a moaning, writhing sea.

“Owain!” Tudur called as he rode up and grabbed the reins from his brother. “Take my horse!” He abandoned his shield and dismounted as a roar arose from the English ranks.

Swooning, Owain looked down. “I can’t.” His breathing was shallow and ragged as he fought the white blazing fire that consumed him. His horse staggered. His weapon fell from his grasp. His fingers fumbled at the straps of his shield, but he couldn’t loosen it. “You’ll have to... break off the shaft.”

Tudur snapped the shaft as close to Owain’s leg as he could. Then in one brusque jerk Owain wrenched his leg free. Blood gushed down his leg and streamed onto the ground. Pulling his horse close, Tudur yanked the shield from Owain’s arm and helped him onto his saddle. Then, he gathered the trailing reins and sprinted on foot toward Bryn Glas.

Another rain of arrows pursued them as Tudur guided his horse with haste over the litter of bodies. It was a long, arduous run. His breath heaved and his pace began to slow. When at last he reached the Welsh lines, he collapsed.

Faceless soldiers surrounded Owain. Relieved, he kicked his good leg free of the stirrup and tried to swing it over the saddle, but instead his body pitched backward. Arms enclosed him, safely lowering him to the ground.

Strangely, he no longer felt pain. Nor could he discern the words being spoken to him. Or see...

Convinced the Welsh were in retreat, Mortimer ordered the advance. Mounted knights pressed through the line of archers and the charge began. Fury-bent, the English knights were focused on nothing but the breathless Welsh soldiers cleaving to the slick, grassy slope. So intent they were as they thundered across the plain that they did not sense the torrent of arrows closing in on their backs.

Edmund Mortimer gazed on in horror from behind his lines. His jaw hung frozen. English knights and horses dropped like flies on the open field.

Beside him, Sir Walter Devereux mumbled in disgust, “Your trusted Welsh archers...”

The very same archers, who only moments ago had sent their arrows into the Welsh lines, had turned without warning on their English masters.

“Judas.” Mortimer groaned as his stomach turned in on itself. He flipped his visor down and headed into the ill-fated fray.

The glow from the oil lamp was harsh upon Gethin’s dark features, cleaving grave shadows above his cheekbones and pushing back even further eyes that were already deeply set. He stood in judgment before his commander.

When Owain had finally regained consciousness, he found himself at Mynachdy, his lower leg heavily bandaged and his head light from loss of blood. Iolo described the battle and its aftermath in great detail to him. The defection of the Welsh archers over to the rebels had inscribed Mortimer’s lot that day. Near to a thousand Herefordshire men had fallen. Welsh losses, thankfully, were only a fraction and most of those had been in the first flight of arrows. Owain’s general, Rhys Gethin of Cwm Llanerch had commanded the fight brilliantly, but afterwards he consented that a rabble of hill women be allowed to pick over the dead and ransom their bodies. And when those women undressed the English corpses and with their knives cut off unmentionable parts, Gethin had walked among them without a word of reproach.

“Sir Edmund Mortimer was taken prisoner,” Gethin said.

“So I heard.” While pleased with that fact, Owain could not have been more disturbed by Gethin’s actions that day. He had trusted the man. Gethin had dishonored the dead. It was unforgivable.

“He’ll fetch a healthy ransom,” Gethin added.

“If I ask for one. You’ll take him to Sycharth for now, where he’ll remain until I decide what to do with him.”

Gethin eyed him questioningly.

With his wounded leg propped up on the table, Owain straightened in his chair. The shift brought a wince and he slouched back into the comfort of its cushions. His eyes went shut for a moment, and then opened with their accusation. “Enough of Mortimer for now. What you have done... it is not war. It is a mortal sin.”

The condemnation wafted over Gethin. Clearly, he would not allow himself to be so casually damned, even by Owain.

Tenderly, Owain rubbed at the dressing around his arrow wound. “I will not speak of it again. Nor shall you. God will judge you for it one day. For now, I’ve need of you. But don’t ever let it happen again. If you do, your fate will be the same. I’ll see to it.”

Gethin’s mouth opened, but Owain stayed him with a hand and pointed to the door. “Leave,” Owain said lowly, his voice choked with shame. “I find it hard to look at you, knowing.”

In the blackness of Gethin’s eyes there smoldered something of long ago. He stared at Owain and turned to take his leave, but before he reached the door, he spun around.

“When I was —”

“I said leave!”

 “No, no. I won’t scuttle off at the parting of your chastising lips. You will hear me out or you will do without me.” His words fell with the weight of boulders from a sea cliff. “When I was eighteen, I was newly married and my wife... she was carrying our first child. The English forced their way into our home and... and they raped her.” A single shudder gripped him and he went on, remarkably stoic.

“When she struck one of them, he cut off her hand. She screamed and screamed until he bashed her skull in. And while they did this to her, they had me tied to a post. I watched her die and there was nothing...
nothing
I could do... until today.” Without waiting for Owain’s response, he left.

The quiet of midnight suffocating him, Owain clasped his hands in prayer. He stared into the lamplight above his knuckles and whispered, “Almighty Father, I do not want this burden. Why then have you given it to me?”

29

Sycharth, Wales — July, 1402

“Get up.”

Sir Edmund Mortimer rubbed the sleep from his eyes as they gained focus. At the foot of his bed stood the one he recognized as Rhys Gethin. Visions of his possessed nature on the field at Pilleth swept over Edmund and he recoiled toward the wall, waiting for the swift mortal stroke of a blade. Behind Gethin stood four guards, one of them holding a lantern that cast a dim glow throughout Edmund’s room of confinement at Sycharth.