[Norman Conquest 02] Winter of Discontent (10 page)

“Do it
!
I don’t want to send my men into a confused fight to defend a village that isn’t my responsibility.
If I do
I’
ll
lose ten or fifteen men. I don’t intend to lose a single one,” instructed Alan.

Minutes later the haystacks burst into flame, like giant beacons drawing attention. Shortly afterwards the Welshmen appeared, either carrying sacks of booty or with a woman draped over their shoulder. After a brief discussion, they mov
ed as a body towards the trees.

Alan was standing with the archers in the shadow of the trees. “Loose!” he instructed. At a range of barely thirty paces it was impossible to miss. Fifteen Welshmen fell riddled with arrows, several being double-targeted. “And again
! L
oose!” Another nine Welshmen fell and Alan instructed the swordsmen to take the few remaining survivors into custody.

Riding into the village Alan was unable to locate the village head-cheorl and after leaving a message
he
departed back to the camp at Mansell Gamage.

Of the Welshmen
,
29
of the
42 raiders
were dead, shot down by the archers in ambush. There were no wounded
.
T
he
13
survivors, hands bound, were marched under guard to the camp. The only English casualty was a swordsman who had tripped over a log in the dark and sprained an ankle.

While the dead Welshmen were collected and thrown into Offa’s Dyke, Alan and a dozen men escorted the bewildered freed captives back into the village and
returned
that part of the portable wealth of the village that the Welsh had stolen
and
which his men had not had the
opportunity to purloin. In the dark they were still unable to locate the village headman. Whether dead, fled or in hiding nobody knew. Instead Alan spoke to several of the older cheorls. Several dead bodies were being brought out and taken to the church, presumably men who had shown resistance. Alan felt a pang of guilt about that but accepted Brand’s assurance that had he and his men rushed into the village with swords drawn it was most likely that even more villagers would have died, as both his men and the Welsh would have struck first and asked questions later. At least the firing of the haystacks had interrupted the Welsh and prevented them from burning down the village and killing all the livestock. Anyway
,
it wasn’t his village and they were not his
gebur
s. Defending them was somebody else’s
responsibility
and getting his own men killed or injured unnecessarily was something to be avoided if possible.

Alan arrived back at the camp shortly before dawn, feeling weary and fatigued. Baldwin the Norman man-at-arms and Ranulf the Saxon huscarle had tried to question the Welsh captives without success. The latter were pretending they spoke only Welsh. Alan
chose not to disclose that he had some knowledge of the Celtic language, learned as a child from a Celtic-speaking nursemaid from Brittany, and
dispatched a man to Staunton to summon two or three interpreters
,
and to advise Robert that the foray intended for that night would be delayed to allow his men to rest. The
42
captured Welsh hill-pon
ies
were fed
,
watered and allocated to some of those who had hitherto traveled on foot.

*
* 
*
  *

At dawn two days later Alan, in full
chain-mail
harness, was sitting
astride
his warhorse Odin outside the village of Talgarth in
Welsh
Brycheiniog
. The village of Hay-on-
Wye, eight miles to the north-west and just on the Welsh side of the border, had been sacked
but not burned
the evening before as the raiding party had moved west following the path of the river
. This provided
much easier movement in a landscape of steep barren hills and mountains cut
by deep fertile river valleys.

Alan expected that the other half of his force under Robert and Brand should be at Builth Wells to the north-west after an overnight march of
nineteen
miles. He looked to check that the men surrounding the village were in place and standing in plain view, an archer every
thirty
paces and three groups of armoured foot-soldiers. Thirty mounted men-at-arms and mounted thegns were at his back. Turning he looked to the north-west and could in the distance see the gray pall of smoke
now
issuing from Hay-on-Wye.

The village was stirring, men and women emerging from their ramshackle thatched cottages. After a few moments the villagers saw first one then another of the English soldiers and shouts of alarm could be heard. Men ran to the
l
ord’s Hall, a long building near the middle of the village. Apart from the church it was the only substantial building in the village. There was a palisade of sorts around the Hall, built of wood pos
ts and piles of thorn branches.

The church bell began to peal a warning. Odin fidgeted, tossing his head
,
and Alan leaned over to pat his neck. Several messengers could be seen running back from the
Hall
to the thirty or so huts and cottages that comprised the village and after a few moments men, women and children began to hurry to the Hall, glancing fearfully over their shoulders at the silent and still warriors surrounding the village.

After a pause of perhaps fifteen minutes a small group appeared from the Hall. Two were mounted on hill ponies and another six marched
behind
on foot. The
ir leader, a
stockily-
built man with mid-length dark hair was wearing a
chain-mail
byrnie and
woolen
trews, with a sword at his belt. The others were armed with swords, but unarmoured. The six
men
on foot were clearly warriors and Alan assumed that the other mounted man, thin and elderly, was an adviser.

The Welshman’s eyes cast about, taking in the fact that the archers carried longbows and were dressed in uniform padded armour, the uniform equipment and clothing of the men-at-arms, and the more motley appearance and equipment of the thegns and their retainers. He also noticed that all the mounted soldiers facing him were horsed on big strong animals totally unlike the small hill-pony he rode. Their appearance clearly marked them as English. “God hael!” he said in Anglo-Saxon English as he halted some five paces from Alan.

“You are Idwallon ap Gryfydd?” demanded Alan,
in the Celtic tongue
.
The Welshman nodded in reply. “Then I bid you greeting, Prince of Brycheiniog,” continued Alan
, switching to Anglo-Saxon English as he was more comfortable with that language
. “I am Sir Alan of Thorrington and Staunton.” Idwallon took in the full-length sleeved hauberk, the Norman-style helmet with nasal guard that was
placed
on the saddle pommel and the massive destrier on which Alan was mounted. Alan continued abruptly
,
“I bring y
ou a message in several parts.”

Here he threw a sheathed sword to Idwallon, who caught it. After a brief look
the Welshman’s
already strained face blanched. “That is the first part. The second is the smoke rising over there
at Haye-on-Wye
,” Alan indicted with a jerk of his head before looking up at the rising sun and then continuing
,
“And also the smoke which you will shortly see rising from the north-west, where as we speak most of my men will be sacking Builth Wells. In a few minutes my men will enter your village and strip it bare. I see all your people are in the Hall. As long as you and they stay there until I
say
they may leave, which will probably be in two days, they will not be interfered with. This time. I give the people of your village more consideration than your men showed my people either last summer, or those at Norton Canon a
few
weeks ago. This time. My local vassal, Robert of Staunton, who is currently visiting Builth Wells, wanted to be less generous and to mutilate every man caught in Brycheiniog by removing his index finger so he could not hold sword or bow. I said no. This time.

“This time we are stripping the Wye Valley clean, the proceeds of which will be given to those in my villages in Staple Hundred which have suffered the depredations of your people. If there is a
next time
, we will totally depopulate the Valley and kill or enslave every man, woman and child. This… little exercise… is a
friendly
warning. I know that you Welsh take pride in your raiding and see it as youthful fun, a manly activity. Your land is poor and
your men gain
some profit from r
aiding their richer neighbors.”

Alan pointed at the sword held by Idwallon. “It is an activity with some
risk
both to those involved and to their kin
,
and now has no profit. Ah! My men have
arrived
at Builth Wells.” Alan pointed
to
a thick cloud of smoke starting to rise in the distance to the north-west. “If Brycheiniog still had a king, I would be making that point to him, rather
than the l
ord of Cantref Selyf. Your men are skilled raiders
,
and the local English tell me
the Welsh
are renowned for their ability to catch their enemy in ambush.” Alan paused, pointed at the squadron of Wolves sitting silent and menacing on their horses, before continuing
,
“I don’t think you would want them to visit again,
next time
with all restraint removed. Sow the wind and you will reap the whirlwind. Let not one of your men set foot in Staple Hundred. Also, every captive taken from England is to be delivered here within the hour.”

“The village?” asked the old man next to Idwallon.

Alan looked calculatingly at the ramshackle collection of huts, cottages and sheds. “Your people are poor enough. I’ll instruct my men not to torch the village. This time.”

“And my son?” asked Idwallon, looking at the sword in his hand.

“Lies in a ditch near Yazor,” replied Alan.

“
What of
Twedr ap Rhein?”
queried
the old adviser.

“The son of
your brother Rhein ap Grfydd, l
ord of Cantref Twedos?” asked Alan addressing Idwallon. “I know not. If he’s not in the ditch, he’ll shortly be arriving at York on
his way to Northumbria to be sold as a slave. Nobody of that name introduced themselves after they were captured.”

Idwallon asked
,
“My son’s body. May I recover it?”

Alan gave him a piercing look and then nodded. “I’ll give you that courtesy. Also that of Twedr ap Rhein, if he
’
s
also
in the ditch. Provide two unarmed men who knew them both and I’ll have them escorted to Yazor and
then
back to the border.”

“And the other bodies?” asked the adviser.

“Don’t push me too far, old man,” replied Alan. “I’m showing some courtesy to the
l
ords of Selyf and Tewdos. The others stay in the ditch to be eaten by the crows
as
the carrion they are. If there is a
next time
, they’ll be joined in
h
ell by hundreds of their countrymen. You may leave.”

Every horse, cow, pig and sheep in the village and from the surrounding hills was gathered up and driven down the valley towards Staunton, together with the bags of flour from the granary. Alan left some sacks of grain seedstock, and the village had sprouting crops in its few fields. Fourteen English who had been held captive as slaves, five men and nine women, were received, questioned and escorted away towards home. The men ate the village chickens as they waited to hear that the force sent to Builth Wells had successfully withdrawn, which took two days as the animals and wagons seized from that village were driven down the winding and often overgrown and marshy valley. The Welsh sat quietly behind the wooden palisade
,
offering no resistance and no offence. The English set a strong guard and slept in the cottages vacated by the Welsh.

Alan and the thegns hunted the next day in the overgrown valley with its ancient trees and tangled thickets, bringing back deer, boar and wild cattle for the men to eat. No alcohol was permitted and the few barrels of ale or mead in the village
had been
broached and the contents spilled
on their arrival
. Rigorous discipline was imposed, something that some of the Anglo-Saxons, particularly the thegns and their retainers, ha
d some difficulty in accepting.