Rhuddlan (94 page)

Guri ordered Longsword brought to his table
and food and drink placed before him. “Where’s Olwen?” he asked,
looking around.

“She isn’t here, lord,” Dylan said, breathing
easier now. He rolled his right shoulder as if it had been injured
during the fight and was sore. “The guard at the Norman’s door said
she had come to speak with him almost as soon as the commotion
outside began and he had allowed her to see him,” he glanced in
Longsword’s direction, “but he waited in the door while she was
there and watched them. He saw nothing unusual. He said she was
hysterical when she first came to the house but appeared calmer
when she left.”

Guri was silent for a moment. It was a
problem because now he had no way of communicating with his
prisoner but on the whole, he didn’t need Olwen. It would be just
as well if she never returned. She was only another reminder of
Rhirid.

“How did she leave?” he asked quietly.

“She lied to the man on the back gate.” Dylan
suddenly lowered his voice, aware he had a large audience and
slightly embarrassed on behalf of the young man who’d been deceived
by the woman. “She told him that you had given her permission to
leave. He’d heard all the shouting and she told him that all the
Normans were at the front gate, calling for you to negotiate and
since they had their own translator, you didn’t need her any
longer. She told him she missed her sons and you had agreed she
could go to them. The boy had no idea her sons were hostages until
I told him so. He said he tried to dissuade her, saying it was too
dangerous beyond the wall, that he had seen Normans riding their
horses outside that gate, but she told him everyone, even all of
us, was at the front now, listening to the Normans demands,
listening to your responses. She said again that you had agreed she
could leave…So, he opened the gate enough for her to slip through
and she went…”

Chapter 56

June, 1178

Llanlleyn, Gwynedd

At last it was midday. The fog and chill of
dawn had burned off long ago and the day was bright and hot and
increasingly uncomfortable for men dressed in heavy mail, their
heads and feet encased in smothering metal and leather. For the
most part, that group belonged to Warin fitz Maurice, who had
assembled his entire army in the field while awaiting his master’s
release.

Roger of Haworth, who had spent the remainder
of the morning honing his sword and his plan, was not subjecting
his men to the relentless sun. He waited with only his translator,
a handful of knights and the three hostages. The other men had been
divided into two groups; one waited at the fringe of the forest,
seemingly unconcerned with the proceedings at the fortress; most
were lounging on the grass, bareheaded, joking with each other,
while the second group waited out of sight, further in the forest.
Haworth’s dispostion of his soldiers was more purposeful than mere
concern for any sensitivity to the sun: it was imperative that fitz
Maurice remain unsuspicious of his intention and seeing Hawarden
arrayed in all its strength before him might not have that desired
effect.

Although Haworth was beginning to imagine
fitz Maurice would swallow just about anything he told him. He’d
thought fitz Maurice would balk at the decision that Longsword
should be released to him and not his own soldiers, but he hadn’t.
The men from Rhuddlan were apparently content to believe the earl
of Chester was now their most faithful ally and were willing to
take direction from his commander.

That was fine with Haworth because there
wasn’t any time to be wasted in argument. And it was important that
the Bastard be given over to him because he’d decided the quickest
way to get back to Rhuddlan with his army more or less intact was
to kill the man.

He’d thought it all through. Longsword alive
would be hard to control. He knew the truth of the situation at
Rhuddlan and might call out to fitz Maurice and order his men to
attack Haworth. Fitz Maurice would fight strenuously on behalf of
his lord and this would cost Haworth a lot of time. If Longsword
were dead, however, fitz Maurice and his men would perhaps be
demoralized and not inclined to fight. Or if there were a response
by fitz Maurice, Haworth’s first group of soldiers, who weren’t
really lolling but waiting for a signal, would rush in to beat it
back and the second group would be ready to reinforce their
comrades.

But Haworth was betting there would be little
fighting.

The countryside was
strangely quiet for all the men assembled on it. There was the
occasional snort from a horse and the far-off birdcalls in the
forest but nothing more. The stillness of the air and the lack of
visible activity at Llanlleyn made Haworth suddenly doubt his plan.
Why
should
the
Welsh give up Longsword when his presence in their fortress was the
only reason two Norman armies hadn’t yet flattened it? He glanced
at the hostages. He’d recognized the children at once as those he
had seen with the earl’s daughter at Richard Delamere’s manor and
the woman who’d been with them in the forest had been with
Delamere’s Welsh whore the last time he’d visited Llanlleyn. He had
a good memory for faces. He had seized the children because he
believed they meant something to Longsword and, of course, to their
mother who he knew was in the fortress with him. Haworth hoped that
between the two of them they’d convince Guri to do what Haworth
wanted him to do. But he didn’t know much about Guri. He remembered
him vaguely from the time the Welsh had spent at Hawarden; he’d
seemed capable enough, but so had all the warriors in Rhirid’s
little force. What kind of chief Guri was remained
unknown.

“My lord,” the translator said and Haworth
looked in the direction of the fortress. Guri now appeared in the
tower, surrounded by his entourage. Haworth and his man walked
their horses forward.

“It is midday, Lord Guri!” Haworth called.
“Do we have an exchange?”

“Sir Roger, we are prepared to give you Lord
William in exchange for our people, but we must have assurances
that once he’s in your hands, you’ll leave Llanlleyn without
causing further harm!”

“You have my word!”

Guri sounded patient but firm. “We also had
an agreement of peace for three years, Sir Roger. We would like
something more tangible.”

Haworth was angry. A Welshman doubting his
word? Under normal circumstances, he would have abandoned the
pleasantries and attacked the puny fortress with zealous ferocity
but current circumstances were not ordinary. He desperately needed
the Bastard. When the earl was freed, he might return to Llanlleyn
and teach Guri a lesson.

“What do you want?” He could curse the Welsh
underbreath and give his disdain for them a free rein in his tone
of voice; they heard none of it. His man translated only the
relevant sentences and his voice was monotonous and neutral.

“Three of your knights to be given up to us
for keeping until we are certain all you Normans have well and
truly gone!”

Haworth snorted. That was easy enough.
“Agreed!”

“They will enter the fortress first and then
we will send out Lord William as you send forward your
hostages!”

“Tell him I agree,” Haworth said to the
translator. He turned his horse and trotted back to the small group
of hostages and their guards. He gestured to one man. “Go tell fitz
Maurice to send me three of his knights. The Welsh want a few
hostages of their own.”

More waiting, but Haworth was no longer
apprehensive that Guri would reject his deal. Instead, he planned
the rest of his day: the exchanges, Longsword’s murder, a small
skirmish against fitz Maurice…The moon was waning now but still
nearly full and if the fine weather held, his men could march all
night and be at the gates of Rhuddlan by mid-morning. Even if
several of fitz Maurice’s men managed to arrive before him, it was
no matter. The Bastard would still be dead. Haworth couldn’t
imagine Rhuddlan standing for a dead man.

The three knights sent by the
ever-accommodating Warin fitz Maurice were finally at the gate; it
opened, they passed through and it closed behind them. Haworth
glanced up at the tower but Guri was no longer visible among the
men there. He frowned; was it possible that he and Longsword were
planning something? He stared hard at the closed gate, feeling the
time slipping by, becoming nervous despite his previous optimism.
His hostages were restless from the waiting and their fright; the
children were crying again and the woman seemed to have lost her
desire to comfort them.

He leaned towards his translator, preparing
to tell him to shout for Guri when the man himself re-appeared in
the tower. At the same time, the gate opened slowly and Haworth’s
pulse quickened at the sight of the Bastard, blindfolded and hands
tied behind his back, being helped onto his horse. Haworth was
tempted to call out and ask that the blindfold at least be removed;
not for chivalry but because he wanted the Bastard to see death
coming at him, but decided against it. It would only mean another
delay.

Longsword was led by a large, heavily
mustachioed man whom Haworth remembered as Rhirid’s champion. He’d
often wondered how he would fare against him in an open contest,
but that was another battle to be saved for the future. The woman
behind Haworth caught sight of him and half-cried a word, probably
his name.

The two men were drawing closer. Haworth
heard nothing and saw nothing now but the steady clomps of their
horses and their growing figures. Without removing his gaze, he
slowly put an arm behind his back and made a small signal with his
hand. One of the knights guarding the hostages walked his horse a
few steps up and into the empty space behind Haworth’s left side,
and slid a javelin into his grip. A moment passed; the approaching
men came into his range. With one smooth motion, the knight cocked
his elbow, hoisted the javelin over his shoulder and hurled it with
great force, straight at Longsword.

A flicker of movement in the corner of his
eye caught Guri’s attention and he reflexively looked from
Longsword’s receding back to its source, which was the group of the
Norman’s own soldiers waiting a short distance away from Roger of
Haworth and his men. Guri started to turn back to this latter group
and then did a double-take. Was an archer, apparently unseen by
anyone but Guri, fitting an arrow to his bow, one of longbows
favored by some Welsh, and drawing the cord back to his ear? He
squinted. Yes. Having gained Guri’s attention with that one brief
motion, the archer now stood unmoving as a statue, poised and
prepared to shoot at the first syllable of the order. But at whom?
Dylan, who was leading the Norman’s horse straight towards Haworth
and the hostages? Longsword, blindfolded and bound with his arms
behind his back? Goewyn, craning her neck to get a better glimpse
of her husband? Guri followed the line of the bowman’s sight as
best as he could imagine it.

“Look over there,” he remarked to the man
standing next to him in the tower. “Do you think that archer is
aiming an arrow at Sir Roger?”

The other man stared hard at the scene for a
moment and nodded.

Guri nodded as well. “I wonder why…” But he
suddenly knew he’d been right about one thing: there was tension
between Hawarden and Rhuddlan that had nothing to do with
Llanlleyn. In fact, he thought, it was actually fortunate for
Llanlleyn that Hawarden had shown up because this action had
diverted Rhuddlan’s attention from its original opponent.

He felt his decision to give up his hostage
was now vindicated. Let these foreigners fight each other. He had
saved Llanlleyn.

And then he thought: if that archer kills Sir
Roger, then Hawarden will scatter. If Hawarden scatters, then
Rhuddlan is left alone on the field. Only this time, with Lord
William as its leader and no impediment to attacking Llanlleyn.

He didn’t know how to speak the Norman
language, but it really wasn’t necessary. All he had to do to warn
Sir Roger was shout his name until he gained the knight’s attention
and point towards the archer from Rhuddlan.

It would be a month or so before Longsword
acknowledged that Dylan ab Owain had saved his life when it seemed
for no reason at all that he had suddenly urged his horse to swerve
hard right, which had caused the animal to crash into his own
horse, an action which had knocked him off-balance and sent him
plunging to the ground. A rush of thoughts and not a few curses
flashed through his mind; at first he thought Dylan was finishing
the fight he had started that morning in the feasting hall. He was
incredulous; he thought the man was insane. Here they were on a
solemn business transaction and the Welshman had to involve his
personal revenge.

But then he heard shouting and the clanging
of armor and swords and the dizzying tumult of a melee and realized
that although Dylan had indeed pushed him on purpose, it hadn’t
been for his own revenge. Something unplanned had occurred, but
Longsword, blindfolded and bound, didn’t know what it was.

And then all he felt was an incredible pain.
He had landed directly on his right side, onto something hard.
Instinctively, he had sought to put out his arms as he fell but as
they were bound behind his back at the wrists this had been an
impossible contortion. He had managed, at least, to pull most of
his right arm around so that it was underneath his body when he
finally hit the ground. The maneuver had probably saved his
shoulder from being shattered; the arm itself didn’t fare as well.
It snapped on the large, flat rock beneath it and he felt a warm
rush of blood on his skin. All thoughts of Dylan’s insanity
evaporated and all sound from the unseen conflict ended as every
nerve and muscle in his arm screamed in outraged protest. He
screamed as well.