King Arthur's Bones (16 page)

In the flickering light of the fire-pit, father and son bent their heads together as the secret was passed on.

‘They’ll have you dangling from that, if this becomes known!’ warned Dewi. He pointed at the wooden staircase that wound its way to the upper floor of the tavern, where a rope with a noose on the end hung ominously in the stairwell from a beam above. The large upper chamber was used for the monthly court of the nearby Hundred of Ewyas Harold. Summary justice was carried out on the premises for a whole variety of offences, including hanging for the theft of anything worth more than twelve pence.

‘Supporting Prince Dafydd is now treason, from what we hear,’ confirmed Eifion, the inn-keeper. ‘That sod King Edward has decreed that any Welshman found in arms will be hanged.’

It was now the eve of Christ’s Mass, and a few of those who had assembled two nights earlier were back to meet Owain. Dewi from the Pandy mill was there, with his twenty-year-old son, Caradoc, who was trying to court Owain’s niece, Rosamund Merrick, against the violent objections of her father Ralph.

The dejected patriots huddled together in a corner this time, as there were some other villagers from Llanfihangel crouched around the hearth, also rather despondently celebrating the birth of the Saviour with a few jars of ale.

Owain had patiently explained to his fellow conspirators the substance of his father’s disclosure, eventually overcoming their incredulity. In a low voice he finally asked their opinion on what should be done. ‘I already had half a mind to go up to Gwynedd to join Dafydd’s forces. Now this seems a formidable gift to take him, if it puts more mettle into his men,’ he argued.

As Eifion collected the empty ale-pots, he gave his opinion before going back to his line of kegs at the back of the taproom.

‘I’d say leave well alone, Owain. Keep your head down and it may remain on your shoulders,’ he muttered.

Dewi lifted his cow-pox-raddled face to follow Eifion with his eyes as the inn-keeper walked away. ‘I’d be careful what we say in front of that man,’ he advised. ‘I’ve got my doubts about how true he is to our cause.’

‘He is beholden to the Sergeant of the Hundred who rents his room upstairs for their court,’ added the old man with the rheumy eyes. His reddened lids leaked tears, as the cold was still intense, though the wind had dropped.

As no one had answered his question, Owain repeated it impatiently. ‘So what are we to do? Are we to retrieve these relics and try to get them up to Dolwyddelan?’

The half-dozen looked at each other uneasily.

‘So where are they now?’ ventured Caradoc.

Owain shook his head. ‘That secret has been guarded for over ninety years. I’m not going to divulge it in a public alehouse, especially when we’ve not yet decided what to do about them.’

After some further muttered discussion, Dewi’s son Caradoc and two of the younger men agreed that they would support Owain if he really did intend trying to smuggle the relics up to North Wales to join the prince’s depleted army. The others decided that their lives and their families outweighed the slim chance of success for such a hazardous journey – and the even more doubtful outcome of trying to defeat the massive forces of Edward Plantagenet that now formed an iron ring around Snowdonia.

‘Come with me a moment, while your wives sit and gossip in the church,’ Owain commanded, beckoning his two nephews into Garway’s sloping churchyard. It was after morning Mass on this special day of Christ’s birth, and their feet crunched through a thin layer of frozen snow that lay on the grass outside the strangely shaped building. The Knights Templar, who had a preceptory in the tiny village, had recently built a circular nave on to the old chancel in imitation of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, with a separate fortified tower a few yards away.

‘Where are you taking us? It’s damned cold today,’ grumbled Madoc, at twenty-five a couple of years older than his brother, Arwyn. He was a big-boned young man with abundant brown hair and the family’s deep-set eyes.

‘Let’s walk down to the Holy Well, out of earshot of those nosy folk,’ growled Owain, looking at the trickle of parishioners coming out of the south door.

As they trudged the hundred paces down to the bottom of the churchyard, Arwyn pulled his heavy woollen cloak more tightly around him and shivered. ‘Don’t be too long, Uncle, for Bronwen has a goose to cook for us all.’ He felt the cold most, as unlike his brother, he was thin and wiry, with darker hair.

‘This is more important than a damned goose, even for dinner on the day of Christ!’ retorted Owain, and the two younger men fell silent. He had been virtually their father since they were children, and his word was not to be questioned.

In the corner, against the boundary wall, a small stone-lined well normally provided water that was claimed to cure eye ailments, but today it was frozen solid. A couple of raised slabs formed benches, but today they were too cold to sit on, so the three men stood by the well, the two nephews waiting expectantly for Owain to speak.

Gravely he explained the whole history of Arthur’s bones and their removal from Glastonbury by their great-great-grandfather, as well as the solemn vow of the Guardians to pass on the secret of their hiding place through the generations. At first incredulous, the two younger men were by no means lacking in intelligence and quickly grasped the significance of the relics.

‘But that swinish king, Edward Longshanks, caused them to be moved to a new shrine near the High Altar in Glastonbury only four years ago,’ protested Madoc. ‘He went with all pomp and ceremony to the abbey there and made sure that everyone knew that Arthur was really dead and unable to rise again to save the true Britons.’

Madoc was more aware of current news than most people, as he was the reeve to the Templars’ farm at Garway and often had conversations with the three monkish knights who lived in the nearby preceptory.

Owain grinned, the first time he had smiled since the news of Llewelyn’s fatal ambush. ‘Then they are fakes, substituted by the Benedictines there.
We
have the real bones of Arthur.’

He went on to tell them that as he had no sons himself to whom to pass on the secret, he was going to impart it to them. ‘It is fitting, as your father, Idwal, was the eldest son and he would have told you, had he lived.’

‘Why are you telling us this now, Uncle?’ asked Arwyn. ‘You are not all that many years older than us, and you have a long time before you need contemplate death.’

Owain began to explain the present crisis and his intention to take the relics north to Prince Dafydd. ‘I may never return, either because I will be killed before I reach Gwynedd – or die in the battles that must come. In that case the bones will be lost and your duty will never be called on.’

‘So why are you telling us?’ persisted Arwyn.

‘The relics are still in the hiding place where they have rested for almost a century. There are many people in this area I do not trust, and it may be that I will be prevented from retrieving them – possibly prevented by death!’

He banged his hands together to get some warmth into them.

‘In that case someone must still keep the knowledge of where they are, for some future occasion. You are the only ones I can trust, as Ralph and his brood cannot be relied on not to go running to their English masters.’

Madoc frowned. ‘My masters are the Templars and they are Normans. Why do you trust me?’

‘Because you are the son of Idwal, and grandson of Hywel, who, thank God, still survives, though he cannot last for long.’

He turned to Arwyn. ‘And that goes for you too. You are both true Welshmen, and if I can’t trust you both I may as well lie down and die this minute.’

Madoc looked at his uncle in concern. ‘Are you going to ask us to leave Garway and go with you to fight in Snowdonia? We both have wives and children.’

Owain placed a fatherly arm around their shoulders. ‘No, never fear, I’ll not prise you from your Bronwen and Olwen. It may be that I will need you to help me hide these bones, which are within a few miles of here. But that is all, apart from learning of their hiding place, in case I am killed tomorrow!’

He pulled them closer and their heads bent together so that they almost touched, as he whispered the old secret into their ears.

On the morning after the day of Christ, the hooves of a pony clattered to a halt on the frozen track outside Owain’s cottage in the tiny hamlet of Hoadalbert. This was a handful of dwellings midway between Pandy and Grosmont Castle.

The carter, who lived alone in the single-roomed
bwthyn
that used to belong to his father, rose from putting fresh logs on his fire to peer through a crack in the boards of the door. Seeing a lad slide off a shaggy mountain pony, his first thought was that this was a message to say that his father had died, until he realized that the boy had come from the direction of Grosmont, not from his sister’s home. In fact the messenger was a stable-boy from Kentchurch Court, just beyond Grosmont on the English side of the Monnow.

Owain opened the door and waited for the lad to come in. His nose was bright red from the cold, and he was beating his arms to get warm. Around his thin shoulders he wore two oat sacks as a cloak, and his hands were wrapped with rags in lieu of gloves.

‘I come with a message from Bailiff Merrick, sir,’ he announced, using the English language. ‘He says that he wishes you to come to a family meeting at his house at noon and bring your sister with you.’

‘Is that all he said?’ Owain was surprised, as his elder brother rarely communicated with him and never invited him to his home, which was in the grounds of the large fortified manor house where the Scudamore family lived.

Taking pity on the lad’s frozen appearance, Owain ladled some
cawl
from an iron pot at the side of the fire and handed him a wooden bowl of the leek and mutton stew. Gratified, the groom fished a spoon fashioned from a cow’s horn from his pouch and, between appreciative slurps, confirmed that Ralph Merrick had said nothing else at all but had appeared to be in a bad temper – though this seemed to be his usual state of mind.

The boy knew nothing else and after warming himself at the fire for a few moments, he rode off towards Grosmont, this being the
caput
of the barony, held by Prince Edmund Crouchback, brother of the hated King Edward.

Owain pondered for a while, wondering what crisis could have caused his brother to deign to summon him. Possibly their father’s imminent demise had prompted Ralph to talk about the division of Hywel’s property, though there was precious little of that, as he had not been able to work on his smallholding in Hoadalbert for years, due to his chest troubles. He had given it to Owain for his home and had moved in with Rhiannon.

Owain shrugged and thought he would let events take their course. He decided not to use the cart to take his sister to Kentchurch, but instead saddled up his old mare. Rhiannon could sit behind him on the blanket that underlaid the simple saddle. When he reached Pandy, she was as surprised as he was to learn of their brother’s invitation – or rather command – but she refused to leave her father, who was getting weaker and was now only half-conscious. Her husband was working in the mill, and she would not leave her two children alone with a dying man.

Owain knew better than to try to persuade her, for she was a strong-willed woman – and indeed, by the looks of his father, he was not likely to last the day.

‘I’ll come back as soon as I can,
cariad
,’ he promised, ‘to tell you what our dear brother wanted and to sit with
Tâd
for the rest of the day – and night, if needs be.’

As it was approaching mid-morning, he rode back along the track, taking care to avoid the worst patches of ice so that his mare would not lose her footing. The wind had dropped and it was a clear, still day, with patches of pale blue sky appearing between the clouds. As he passed through the village of Grosmont, he saw that work had already restarted on the castle after the holy day break. Prince Edmund was strengthening the fortifications of the compact but menacing fortress and increasing the living accommodation. Edmund Crouchback, so called from the Cross he had emblazoned on his shoulders at the Crusades, was Earl of Lancaster and Leicester and, though he had numerous possessions elsewhere, he seemed intent on making this remote corner of the Welsh Marches his principal home.

Cursing Edmund, Edward and all the damned Plantagenet brood as he rode past, Owain crossed the little bridge over the Monnow and turned down the long track that led through the wide Scudamore lands to Kentchurch Court. However, he did not need to ride that far, as his brother’s house was near the barton, the demesne farm that served the domestic needs of the Scudamores. As bailiff, the controller of all outside work at the manor and overseer of all the bound and free workers, he had a substantial dwelling. It was a stone building with three rooms and a stable at one end. A chimney protruded from the other end, as there was a hearth instead of the cruder fire-pit, and it was in this room that Ralph Merrick had assembled his family for the meeting.

His wife, Alice, a thin woman with a sharp face and a tongue to match, sat on a settle near the fire, with her pretty daughter, Rosamund, seated alongside her, looking pale and nervous.

The two sons sat on a bench opposite, looking ill at ease in their father’s presence. The elder was John, at twenty-five a huntsman for the Scudamores, in charge of the hounds. He was a stocky fellow, with fair hair inherited from his Saxon mother, and a narrow rim of beard running around his jaw. He wore a dark green tunic over breeches and riding boots, with a hunting horn hanging from a thick leather belt.

His brother, William, two years younger, was heavily built like his father. He had a mop of dark brown hair, shaved up to a line above his ears in the old Norman style. A jerkin and serge breeches were usually covered by a thick leather apron, but he had left this in the stable, as his job as the estate butcher and slaughterman had fouled it with bloodstains. His otherwise comely features were marred by a bad turn in his left eye, which failed to follow the movements of the other.