Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XI

The banners and pennons appearing from the south were those of the 'away' team (ces dehors) based at Newport, the English and French knights who had taken up the challenge of King Morgan to tourney with his Welsh cavalry. In the lead was the blue and gold banner of Lord Roger, son of the Lord Warden Miles, a powerful knight in his thirties, as well-equipped and armed as Lord Morgan Ddu, though his mesnie of knights seemed less formidable than Morgan's retinue to Urban's untutored eye.

The heralds standing on the lists were soon broadcasting the names and reputations of the Anglo-French team. So Urban and Leofric learned that amongst them was the Lord Philip, a younger son of Earl Robert of Gloucester, and thus a grandson of the late King Henry. Like all those in the review parade he was unhelmeted, so Philip could be seen to be a very handsome young man with a clear complexion and unusually long dark hair, which got him the favourable attention of the female element in the crowd.

The lists were now cleared and the marshals rode out between the two companies, white staves held upright as signs of truce. Trumpets rang thin and bright in the air, and the hum of the crowd fell to a tense murmur.

The ground before the lists lay broad and gently sloping, bounded to the west by a dark edge of woodland and to the east by a shallow rise where Morgan's household cavalry had drawn up. The turf was firm; the river Usk beyond lay still and brown between wet banks of tidal mud.

On the western side of the field Lord Roger's mesnie formed in ordered ranks, the smaller households of lesser barons extending the Anglo-French line. The Anglo-French knights adjusted their ventails and settled their conical helmets. Ash-wood lances were couched. Shields settled against mailed shoulders. The blue and gold banner dipped once and steadied.

Opposite them, Morgan Ddu took his place before his teulu. He did not hurry, for calm competence was what he wanted to project in such an unfamiliar environment for a Welsh warrior. His whole line caught his mood and stood in unnerving silence. There was no nervous clatter of harness, no shifting of restive mounts. Their horses were as battle-hardened as their riders. The line was gathered, compact and disciplined; each rider sat light and balanced, spears for the moment upright like a thicket of ash poles against the sky. Their shields were mostly round and painted, not triangular like those of their opponents. Their mail was no lighter than the heavy hauberks of the Marchers, but perhaps better worked and more expensive and flexible. Their formation was tight.

Urban, watching from the rail, felt the difference between the adversaries without quite knowing how to name it. Nor was he alone in that. The benches of the stands were full of surprised comment amongst the aficionados. Spectators of both nations had not expected the Welsh to radiate such calm competence in what was for them an alien sport.

A trumpet sounded. The marshals called out final instructions to both sides, then wheeled aside. For a heartbeat nothing moved. Then Lord Roger spurred forward, and his line advanced in good order, hooves rhythmically striking into the turf. The ground trembled perceptibly beneath the weight of armoured horseflesh. Their charge gathered pace, lances dipping as one as their riders selected a likely target from amongst the opposition. The Welsh line too began to move — not in ragged acceleration but as a single body, like a hawk folding its wings. And then they were flying. The estor met not with the shuddering crash and burst of fragmenting ash-wood spears the Marchers expected, but with a sudden, unexpectedly subtle meshing. 'Oh!' remarked a lady seated behind Urban. 'Not many spears breaking!'

At the last instant Morgan's front rank had shifted half a spear's length to the left, opening a seam. The Anglo-French centre plunged into it — and found no solid wall to break, just motion as the skilled Welsh horsemen and their disciplined mounts swerved. The Welsh line split and closed and reformed, circling to come at the English from the rear. Ranks collapsed and the estor became knots of men, twisting and turning in the saddle to reclaim some advantage.

Lord Roger's mesnie had struck, but their weight was absorbed, like a sword striking a well-stuffed pillow. Horses collided. Lances sagged uselessly against empty air or glanced from angled shields. The disciplined mass of Morgan's teulu re-formed almost immediately behind the first shock, wheeling inward like a tightening net. A thunderbolt, Urban thought — but one that curved.

Within moments the Anglo-French line had lost its shape and discipline. Knights who had expected a straightforward crash of ash spear into leather shield, which would hopefully carry the enemy rider over the back of his saddle and on to the ground, found themselves pressed from flank and rear, their mounts struggling to turn on ground now churned to slick turf. Welsh riders darted in pairs, spears thrusting low at reins and saddle-straps, unhorsing men with ruthless economy. Lord Roger fought fiercely, cutting down a rider who came too close, but his banner dipped and vanished in the press as his mesnie desperately fought to prevent his capture.

And there — Philip. He had broken through the first confusion by sheer skill, his long dark hair streaming behind his helm as he wheeled his destrier with admirable control. He saw Morgan too late. Morgan did not strike him. Instead he did something few on that field had ever seen. Riding hard across Philip's path, Morgan leaned from his saddle with astonishing suppleness, seized the bridle of Philip's mount just below the bit, and wrenched it sideways with all the power of his arm and knee, wrenching the reins out of Philip's mailed fist. The destrier, shocked and overbalanced by the sudden torque, reared and twisted.

Philip's lance flew from his grasp. Before he could recover, Morgan had spurred on, dragging horse and rider towards his knot of squires by the list gate. The Welsh prince's mount outmatched Philip's heavier beast by its sheer agility. Philip fought to regain control, but his reins were no longer his own.

The pair careered across the field in a spray of torn turf, Morgan half-turned in the saddle, iron grip never loosening. The crowd gasped as one. At the list-gates Morgan hauled the captured horse short. Armed squires surged forward — Godwin at their head, grim and efficient. They seized Philip's bridle, then his leg, pulling him cleanly from the saddle before he could draw sword. His helm was torn free as he made his surrender. For a heartbeat his face was bare — flushed, furious, humiliated — and yet, unmistakably alive with something else: astonishment.

Morgan inclined his head once, perfectly courteous. 'My Lord Philip,' he said, audibly enough for those nearest the lists to hear, 'you ride well.'

Then he wheeled away, leaving the late king's grandson, and present king's first cousin, in the custody of his Welsh squires. The field had already dissolved, the Anglo-French routed. What had begun as an ordered estor became a pursuit of shattered Anglo-French mesnies, many heading south to the lists outside Newport, behind which by custom the Welsh could not pursue them. Others sought more immediate safety hiding in woodland or turning barns and mill houses into temporary refuges.

Morgan's teulu did not lose discipline in the chase for ransoms. Trumpet-calls, short and sharp, sent parties peeling off in well-marshalled groups. They rode in threes and fours, cutting off stragglers, unhorsing isolated knights, driving them toward waiting men-at-arms, harvesting ransoms. One French knight plunged his horse straight into the river's mudflats in panic and was hauled out sputtering to the laughter of the Welsh boy squires who were sent to retrieve him.

By late afternoon the banners of Newport were trampled, their riders dispersed across field and copse, while Morgan's banner fluttered proudly over his disciplined and happy teulu.

And at the list gates, under guard but treated with formal honour, sat Philip — grandson of King Henry — forced to watch the methodical undoing of his tourneying nation. He had come expecting sport. Instead he had seen discipline, unity, and a young and talented prince who had taken on the Marcher lords at their own game and had played them off the field.

Morning mass on Christmas day in King Morgan's well-provisioned palace chapel of Ss Dyfrig, Julius and Aaron was a little intimidating to Urban and Leofric. Urban had thought that attendance at the vigil mass of the previous evening would have licensed the king's guests to sleep late on Christmas morning, but apparently not.

Urban could not avoid smiling at the number of Anglo-French knights standing in the congregation, tournament captives who were not released because they could not immediately meet the ransom demands. Urban was intrigued to see the Lord Philip of Gloucester among them. It appeared from this that Morgan Ddu would want more than the man's horses and arms to release the young royal.

As Urban returned to the chapel after divesting himself of the gorgeous white and gold silk chasuble and stole the king had provided, he found Philip examining the rather fine murals adorning the chapel's plastered walls. 'Good morning, Lord Urban,' the young man said with a pleasant smile. 'it seems to me that our host employed some very practised painters here.' He was admiring a mural that adorned the north wall. 'Ah!' said Urban, 'Julius and Aaron, the protomartyrs of Wales. Executed here in Caerleon during the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian, perhaps in that amphitheatre whose remains you can still see outside the fortress.'

'I was wondering at the theme.' The two men stood side by side for a long moment, neither speaking. The candle bracket hissed softly, and the glow played over the ochre lines of the saints' faces.

Urban mused, 'They look so… composed, don't they? As if the stroke about to fall is nothing more than a change of weather.'

Lord Philip replied, 'Composure, yes. But there's grief here too. See Aaron's mouth — just the faintest downturn. Whoever painted this knew how to draw a man who is ready, yet reluctant to leave the world.'

Urban held his hands behind him, leaning in a little. 'It's no real wonder why King Morgan chose these saints for his chapel. Not fashionable martyrs of course. Not the ones every abbey in England shows off. But these are our own.'

Lord Philip smiled as he said 'That's precisely it. No real need for surprise in these days of change. Julius and Aaron died in Caerleon. They may have been Roman imperial soldiers but their blood soaked into Welsh soil. A king who is called Morgan ab Owain and knows how to deploy history for his own purposes is reminding everyone where holiness begins. England may have stolen the Roman-British protomartyr Alban, but King Morgan has made Julius and Aaron safe from hagiographical thieving. The man is a marvel. An Arthur for the modern age.' He smiled wryly and then said in Welsh, 'Bydded i'r Seisnau ymwared.'

Urban was surprised. ''Let the Saxons beware'. You speak the British tongue, my lord?'

'Indeed, Lord Urban. I was nursed out to a Welsh family in Cardiff till I was four years of age and was packed off to Caen for my education in French. My foster-brother, Cadog, is my body squire and will be knighted when he can get his lazy ass into proper training. He's laughing at me this morning, though.'

'Oh, why's that, sir?'

Philip rolled his eyes in a very adolescent gesture. Well, apart from the fact that for all my puffing up of French knightliness, I got thoroughly humiliated by a savage Welsh bandit chief, you mean?'

'Morgan Ddu is no bandit chief, my lord, though I would not dispute that he can be savage, in every sense of the word.'

Philip laughed again. 'He's a good host, and one hell of a politician, for sure. He amused and entertained me and Cadog last night, while extorting a scandalous amount of money for my ransom, then took a smitten Cadog off to his bed, his and his boy Godwin's. It was part of the deal. He wanted a ride on my bum-boy, he said charmingly, as much as my horses. You could hear all three of them at it nearly till dawn. Cadog was still starry-eyed when he woke me with breakfast, proud of the fact he got no sleep last night, the other two were so urgent.'

'So, you and Cadog …?'

'Not since we were fourteen, he slept in my bed till then and when hair began to grow on our balls he was very willing. He kisses better than any woman in my experience.' He paused a moment. Before resuming with some urgency. 'My lord Urban, I would appreciate some moments of your time. People mention your name with respect as a knowledgeable and wise young priest intimate with both English and Welsh, clergy and laity, and able to talk to all sides and most of all, a friend to peace in a troubled time.'

'Certainly, my lord. It's time to break our fast. Bread and ale is laid out in the hall, I believe.'

Half an hour later, Philip of Gloucester relaxed in his seat and said to Urban. 'How much do you know of recent events in Normandy, my lord?'

'Only that King Stephen finally crossed into the duchy last March, put down the rebels who supported the Empress Matilda and gained the support of his elder brother Count Theobald of Blois-Chartres for the usurpation of the throne of England, which by rights Theobald himself might have claimed. Border lords have submitted and the Empress's campaign in Maine and southern Normandy has foundered, as King Louis has moved against her. So a three-year truce was negotiated between our king and her husband, the count of Anjou. So much the latest newsletters from the Norman bishops and abbots tell us. But what of your noble father, Lord Philip?'

Philip sighed. 'Not much good news. My father joined King Stephen's court before Easter bringing a great force of Welsh bowmen and spearmen to augment his army, and expecting to be welcomed and, maybe, rewarded for his loyalty. But all he experienced was slights from the exulting faction of Count Waleran, the lieutenant of Normandy, who was claiming all credit for the successes, and that the Welsh mercenaries were ineffective compared to the Flemish knights and soldiers of William of Ypres.

'He was so enraged by these calculated insults and by William of Ypres's public threat to do to my father what King Morgan had done to the traitor Richard fitz Gilbert in Grwyne Fawr, that he wrote out in his own hand his formal defiance to King Stephen, and returned to him the homage he had sworn last year.'

Urban was intrigued; he had not heard this. 'So he has joined the cause of his half-sister, the Empress?'

'He has yet to swear homage to her, but my father is now with her supporters in the Cotentin, while Count Waleran ruthlessly pillaged his estates in Central Normandy. Waleran and King Stephen returned to England in Advent and are currently besieging Bedford. Once they've finished there, I fear they will turn their attentions to my father's lands in the March. And that is when the attitude of your patron, the Lord Miles, will become critical. So tell me, Lord Urban, which way will Miles jump?'

Snow had begun by the time a thoughtful Urban reached Llantrisant, the second day after Christmas. It fell in small, hurried flakes, dusting his cloak and the thatch of the hall that he had ordered the same masons who had rebuilt his church to construct. It stood solid in its even courses of lias limestone and well carved freestone dressings, the only house in the village with a chimney stack, which was spiralling with blue smoke. The village lay quiet under the Christmastide hush: sheep huddled in the byres, and the wind blowing the gritty snow, thin and cold along the ridge as though reluctant to disturb the peace.

He had just pushed open his door when a shout rose from a shepherd in the lane. 'Father Urban! There's riders coming — Normans, by the look!'

Urban turned. Three men-at-arms and a black-robed cleric rode at the head of a small company. Behind them came a tall man wrapped in a travel-stained mantle of dark wool, his helm hanging from his saddlebow and a beard as white as the falling snow. Even from a distance, the authority in his seat was unmistakable. Brian fitz Count, Lord of Wallingford and of Abergavenny, had come to Llantrisant.

Urban felt his breath catch. Of all men — why him? And why here?

The company halted before the door. Brian swung down from his horse with the unstudied grace of a man who had lived his life in the saddle. His eyes, sharp and dark, studied Urban with a quick, measuring intelligence.

'My lord archdeacon,' he said — in flawless Welsh, though with the Breton accent acquired in his childhood upbringing at Nantes. 'Yours is a fine if lonely house.'

'I returned to it only this morning,' Urban replied. 'You honour it beyond its worth.'

Brian smiled faintly. 'Worth is never measured in timber and stone.' He gestured toward the doorway. 'May we come in? The road from Gloucester to Abergavenny grows less friendly every week.'

Urban bowed and ushered them inside, Megan and his other servants flocking round like a field of sheep disturbed by a prowling dog, taking cloaks and offering hot spiced wine. The men-at-arms remained in the yard, stamping their feet and blowing into numb hands. Only Brian and the hooded monk entered. The monk slipped in with a bowed head and an expression that seemed caught somewhere between hope and dread.

Urban turned to offer him greeting — and the monk pushed back his hood to reveal a handsome face not dissimilar to the one that Urban saw in his own reflections.

Urban's breath caught in his throat, 'Nicholas?' he stammered.

The monk's eyes, the same eyes as Urban's, softened. 'Urban. It has been many years. I only met you once before, in the Llys Esgob at Llandaff, swaddled after your birth.' He laughed. 'You've certainly grown.'

His brother. His father's son by the same woman as had borne him, and who had died in tth birthing. Now a distinguished Welsh Benedictine and the subprior of Gloucester abbey.

Brian watched the exchange with a tactful neutrality. 'You recognise one another, I see. Good. Providence works more swiftly than any king.'

They warmed themselves at the hearth. The small room filled quickly with the scents of damp wool, sweat, and woodsmoke. After a few moments of silence, Brian unpinned a leather case from his belt and laid it on the table. 'I bring you greetings from my lady,' he said. 'The Lady of the English.'

Urban stared. 'The Empress herself?'

'The same.' Brian's voice was quiet but carried the force of iron. 'She knows your name, Urban mab Esgob. She has heard its importance in Caerleon, in Gloucester, and in the March. And she believes you may serve a greater purpose than saying Mass in a snowbound parish.'

Urban opened the case with careful fingers. Inside lay a folded letter, an oval imperial seal in green wax stamped on its parchment tag. The weight of it seemed to tilt the room. Urban read the address with some wonder: Urbano filio Urbani episcopi archidiacono Gwentie et electo Castri Legionis, Matildis imperatrix domina Anglorum, salutes in deo omnipotenti. Good God, an astonished Urban thought, she greets me as the bishop-elect of Caerleon! The letter continued: We have heard of your learning, of your counsel among the Welsh princes, and of the trust placed in you by the Lord Miles. We have need of men who understand both tongues, both peoples, and the heart of the March. If your conscience inclines you to the cause of the sanctity of an oath once sworn, and of rightful rule under God, send us word by the Lord Brian, our steadfast friend. Vale in Christo.

Urban lowered the letter slowly. 'I am no nobleman,' he said at last. 'I have no men to command.'

'No,' Brian agreed, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. 'You have something rarer. The ear of men who do command. Morgan of Caerleon. Miles of Gloucester. Even the young Philip of Gloucester speaks well of you after but one night's acquaintance.'

Urban coloured faintly; Brian's keen smile showed he had noticed.

Brother Nicholas stepped forward. 'Urban,' he said softly, 'I sought you for this very reason. Wales looks to men who can speak for her, and you stand between two worlds in a way neither of us could when we were boys.'

Brian nodded. 'Stephen gathers his supporters. Waleran pillages without mercy. He is now lord of the Worcester where you spent your youth. In retaliation for his own wasted lands in Normandy Earl Robert will turn fire and sword against that city very soon. The March will be a battleground before Candlemas.' He fixed Urban with a gaze as steady as the winter hills. 'The Empress calls those who can keep Wales from being trampled under the hooves of men who care nothing for her.'

Urban felt the room shift — something vast and inevitable pressing against the walls of his little house. Snow rattled lightly at the shutter, like a messenger tapping for entry. 'What would you have me do?' he asked.

Brian rose. 'Think. Pray. Speak to Miles when next you are summoned. Persuade him that neutrality in this conflict is but death and serves no one. And when the roads are safer, come to Abergavenny. My hall is open to you. The Empress's cause will welcome your voice.'

He placed a small silver token in Urban's hand — a silver privy seal die worked in Brian's name. 'For safe passage at my gates,' Brian said. 'And so you will not doubt that this summons is sincere.'

A very commendable dinner soon filled the table to the appreciation of their unexpected visitors. The company returned to their horses. Brother Nicholas clasped Urban's arm before following.

'I will pray for you, brother,' he murmured. 'And for our country. We will meet again. I will travel back by Llantrisant after my business in Llancarfan and Ewenny.' Then they were gone — hoofbeats fading down the hard winter road, swallowed by snow and the grey of the hills.

Urban stood in the doorway long after the last sounds of their passage had died. The Empress's letter lay warm in his hand. The silver die gleamed faintly in the white light.

He gave out a breath that misted the air before him. There would be no quiet winter in Llantrisant. Not now. Not for him.

Previous
Chapter

We support Ukraine — Мы поддерживаем Украину — Ми підтримуємо Україну

We support the Palestinian people in their struggle against oppression

Iomfats.org

Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XI