Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XVII

Gruffudd Goch, captain of the guard of Bishop Urban, had not always been a soldier for hire. He was the younger son of one of the teulu of King Morgan's father, who had died alongside his master when he had been murdered at Carmarthen in 1116. As a result Gruffudd had been taken into Morgan's household as a page. He had trained alongside Morgan Ddu as a youth before joining a mercenary band and fighting for Irish kings across the sea on the war-torn island called Iwerddon or Hibernia.

Nonetheless Gruffudd had kept up his friendly contacts with the royal house of Glamorgan and Urban was not surprised to discover that Prince Morgan, as well as detailing Gruffudd to keep Urban safe had charged him to begin training his son Cynan in arms. Indeed he had provided Gruffudd with a parcel of arms, and military clothing and boy-sized armour, not just for Cynan but his brothers, if he judged them ready for it.

'Cyngwin, my lord?' Gruffudd said when questioned on the subject, 'Poets have made great warriors, but he's not that sort. He's in a dream a lot of the time. Cyngen on the other hand … he's a bloodthirsty little animal. He was a master of the slingshot before he left his fostering, and he claims to have taken down a wolf stalking the flock he was minding on a hillside near Cwmbran. He has an aptitude for the bow too. So I shall be taking him in hand so far as he lets me. Cynan. of course, is his father's boy, and it's not just about weaponry with him, but horse management, command and strategy.'

Urban laughed. 'Other parents might be interested in the sort of tuition you can offer their sons, Gruffudd, if it gets around. It's a bit of an unconventional addition to the trivium and quadrivium, but I don't suppose it would have been that alien to the sons of Roman equites and senators who were destined to be legionary prefects, tribunes and legates.'

Gruffudd returned the laugh, and then sobered up to discuss the latest word from the royal court at Caerleon. 'The armed host of Glamorgan is to assemble at Usk on the feast of Epiphany, and carry provisions for a month, my lord. And the bishop of Caerleon has to provide a levy of twenty warriors.'

Urban nodded. 'Yes, my friend, so the king's writ said. The bishop himself intends to ride with the host, but my presence doesn't contribute to the head count of warriors, obviously. I understand young Cynan will ride alongside his father as his page or squire, which is I think no more than a stratagem so his father can make up the total assessed on Llefnydd. So, do I assume this conversation is your prelude for asking me to have a talk about his future with our young warrior, Cynan ap Morgan Ddu?'

Gruffudd chuckled. 'Yes, my lord. He is not at all like his father. He's inherited Morgan Ddu's intelligence and judgement; the man's wildness and strangeness have been decanted into the youngest, Cyngen. No point your talking to him, sir. But Cynan you can reach, though be careful.'

'Careful? Why?'

'Cynan is a deep youth as well as charming. He may well be more than a match for you.'

'I shall bear that in mind. Thank you Gruffudd.'

A knock on Urban's study door announced Cynan's arrival. The boy smiled a little shyly as he was welcomed within, and took the indicated chair next to the bishop's. Urban had placed a bowl of sweet berries and a plate of Megan's almond biscuits in front of him and invited the boy to help himself.

'Thank you, your grace. That is most kind. Not of course that I and my brothers are not well-fed in your hall. Mistress Megan is a very fine cook, and your table is varied. Its dinners are conducted by your steward as those of a noble hall should be. I am learning much in the way of noble manners which as I understand differ little between those of Wales and those of France.'

'Good, my boy. That is why you are here, of course.' Urban had not before had an opportunity to observe the boy closely. He was a handsome lad for sure, with fine-grained brown skin and clear large eyes, his hair rich, curled and dark like his father's. His bodily proportions were perfect, graceful and muscular, and the curve of his jaw absolutely correct for his elegant long neck.

Looking at Cynan with the assessing eye of an artist, one would have to say the boy was remarkably beautiful in his physical perfection. Yet there was something about him that made the word seem quite inapplicable to him. Whether it was his intense physicality, the curl of command that lingered around his mouth, or the sharp dark eyes that seemed to look through people. It was the power of the boy's glance and stance that registered with the observer, not his beauty.

Urban smiled to himself. This was not a 'huggable' boy. Yet there was something rather sad about that conclusion. All children deserved to be cherished, and Cynan no less than any other. But not even his devoted brother Cyngwin ever hugged him, for Cyngwin acted toward him as a servant would to a beloved and respected lord, or maybe more accurately as a dog worshipping at the feet of his master. Maybe Cynan's father might have hugged the boy but they two had not been together much through the child's infancy and boyhood.

'My lord Cynan,' he said, immediately himself acknowledging the boy's princely untouchability. 'I have no doubt that you will be excited to be joining your father, your great uncle Iorwerth and your grandfather the king on their campaign into England. Master Gruffudd Goch tells me that your studies with him in the management of blade and bow are more than satisfactory. He has few concerns about your presence on campaign. He believes your father will keep you by his side as his armed page.'

'That is good, your grace. My father is a brave and fearsome warrior. He has spent freely in equipping me for the campaign … perhaps too much. I shall not waste his generosity, I shall pass the arms he gave me on to my brother Cyngwin as I grow, though I wonder if warfare will ever be Cyngwin's interest outside his poetry, even though he is the son of a prince. Still there is Cyngen, who has inherited our father's military … temper.'

Cynan was silent for a little while after speaking, his hand resting lightly on the edge of the table, as though he had forgotten the fruit set before him. Urban did not interrupt. He had the sense—rare, and not entirely comfortable—that anything he might say would diminish rather than enlarge what had already been revealed by the boy.

At length the boy spoke again, more quietly. 'My father believes this campaign will teach me what it is to be a man.'

Urban inclined his head. 'And do you think it will?'

Cynan's mouth moved towards something that was not quite a smile.

'I think,' he said, 'that it will show me what sort of men those of the House of Morgan Hen now are.'

The bishop regarded him steadily. There was no bravado in the words, no boyish hunger for glory. If anything, there was a weight in them—an anticipation not of triumph, but of knowledge, and perhaps of disillusion.

'And your brothers?' Urban asked, after a pause. 'You spoke of them with … discernment.'

At that, something shifted in Cynan's expression—not a softening, exactly, but a flicker of inwardness, as though his thoughts had turned upon themselves. 'Cyngen will find what he seeks,' he said. 'Blood calls to him, and he answers readily.'

'And Cyngwin?'

This time the silence lingered longer. Cynan's gaze had drifted, not to the window, but somewhere closer, as though he were studying a presence only he could see.

'Cyngwin …' he began, and then stopped. Urban waited. 'He believes in me,' the boy said at last. 'Entirely. As though I were already… something finished.'

'And that troubles you?'

Cynan's eyes flickered back to him, sharp again. 'His trust and love bind me,' he said simply. 'More than any oath.'

For a moment the two regarded one another—priest and prince's son—each measuring, each withholding something of himself. Then Cynan rose, with that same unstudied grace Urban had already noted, and bowed his head. 'Your grace has been kind to me.'

'And you have been frank with me,' Urban replied. 'I much value that as your father in Christ.'

The boy hesitated, as though he might add something further. But whatever thought had stirred did not find its way into speech. Instead he inclined his head once more and turned toward the door. At the threshold he paused. 'I will ride well,' he said, without turning. 'Whatever else I learn, I will not shame my father.'

'I do not think you will,' Urban said quietly.

Cynan gave a slight nod, and was gone. Urban remained seated for some time after the door had closed. He found himelf marveling at the way the youth's self-possession had taken control of their dialogue.

The berries lay untouched. One of the almond biscuits had been broken, but not eaten. The small, almost absent-minded gesture struck him more forcibly than anything the boy had said.

He had expected eagerness, perhaps anxiety, the bright edge of a princely youth on the cusp of his first campaign. Instead he had found a solemn youth of unusual judgement. And something else besides—something not yet formed, but already potent. A depth that did not sit easily within the ordinary measures of boyhood, nor even of early manhood.

Gruffudd had warned him to be careful of the boy. Urban smiled faintly to himself.

Yes. There was cause for that. For Cynan ap Morgan was not merely going to war.

He was already, in some quieter and more dangerous fashion, at war within himself—and gathering, with a patience that belied his years, the means to master the doubts and fears that beset him and so the more easily come to command fully-grown men, for that was clearly to be his destiny.

The host of Glamorgan gathered at Usk in a manner that was at once impressive and yet faintly disordered, as though each man had come not so much to join an army as to display himself within one. The banners of the uchelwyr and princes snapped over their tents and pavilions in the cold air, their colours bright against a sky of hard winter blue, while below them men moved in knots and companies—some well-equipped and practised, others raw, loud, and uncertain, their courage finding its voice in noise rather than in discipline.

Horses stamped and tossed their heads in the frosty air, their breath rising in pale clouds. Armour clashed, harness creaked, and everywhere there was the restless shifting of men not yet set in motion, waiting upon a purpose that had not been fully declared.

Bishop Urban, riding in the company of Prince Morgan, observed it all with a composed expression and his alert eye missed little. If this was to be an army, it had yet to learn the habit of discipline.

Morgan Ddu, by contrast, seemed entirely at ease within the confusion. He sat his horse loosely and unarmoured, one hand resting upon the pommel, his gaze moving not over the mass, but through it—marking men, weighing them, dismissing most.

'A fine show in its way,' he said at length, with a cynical curl of amusement at the corner of his mouth. 'If the English could be defeated by colour and noise, we should be in Lincoln by Candlemas.'

Urban allowed himself the smallest of smiles. 'You do not think highly of your countrymen today, my lord.'

'I think of them exactly as they are,' Morgan replied. 'Each man here is brave enough, in his own fashion. Brave for his kin, for his honour, for the tale that will be told of him. But an army requires men to be brave for something they do not entirely see, and under orders they do not entirely like. That is a rarer gift. These fellows don't necessarily have it.'

He gestured lightly with his riding crop toward a cluster of young warriors who were loudly recounting some past skirmish, their laughter carrying above the general murmur.

'Those boys will fight well enough, until the moment comes when they must choose to stand rather than charge. Then they will remember their mothers, their girls and their cattle, and the road home.'

'And you?' Urban asked mildly.

Morgan's glance flicked toward him, sharp and briefly amused. 'I let none of those things confound me, your grace. That is why I am still alive.'

Before Urban could reply, a stir passed through the gathered host, not loud at first but perceptible, like a change in the wind. Men turned in their saddles, voices dropped, and a space began to open, not by command, but by instinct.

Into that space rode the retinue of Robert, earl of Gloucester. There was no mistaking him. He carried no ostentation beyond what his rank required, yet the order and uniform gear of his company, the discipline of his men, and the quiet certainty of his bearing set him apart more clearly than any banner. Where the Welsh host was for now a mere gathering, his was already a formation under order.

Morgan watched him approach, his expression unreadable. 'There,' he said softly, 'is a man who can make an army out of a rabble with swords. They are men for war, old King Henry's earls.'

Earl Robert reined in before the assembled princes, his greeting brief, his manner direct. There was courtesy in it, but no deference. He spoke as one accustomed to being heard.

'My lords,' he said, his voice carrying without strain, 'you are welcome—and you are needed. What is gathered here is not the sum of our strength, but only its beginning.'

A murmur passed through the Welsh ranks, quickly stilled.

'The King,' he continued, without naming him, 'has taken Lincoln, we hear, and with it the lands of those lords who stand with us. Earl Ranulf of Chester has been driven from what is his by right. His brother, William de Roumare, has also lost what should be his, the honor of Bolingbroke. This dispossession cannot be allowed to stand.' He paused, letting the words settle in the minds of his audience. 'We march north, not as a raiding host, but as part of a greater muster to assert this. The Earl of Chester gathers his strength at Barrow-on-Soar. There we shall join him, and from there advance upon Lincoln. This is no squalid border foray, my lords. It is a matter of right, and of order and the disposition of the kingdom.'

Silence followed, deeper now, as the scale of what had been spoken began to take hold.

Morgan Ddu gave a low, almost appreciative, growl. 'Well,' he said, 'there it is. Some of us may have come to plunder, but we find ourselves invited to reform the realm of England.'

Urban glanced at him. 'You do not approve?'

Morgan shrugged lightly. 'I approve of clarity. And now we have it. We are not here for ourselves, nor even for the cause of Britain. We are here because a Norman lord has been wronged by a French-born king, and requires Welsh spears to set the balance right.'

He leaned slightly forward in the saddle, watching Robert as though assessing a worthy opponent. 'It is a fine game,' he went on. 'One almost envies them the scale of it. To lose a city, to gather an army, to take it back again—all in the name of property rights. We Britons raid a valley and call it victory. The English upend a kingdom and call it justice.'

'And you will ride with him,' Urban said.

Morgan smiled then, a thin smile and without illusion. 'Of course. A man does not refuse such an invitation. There will be silver in it, and perhaps land, if the game is played well enough. And if not …' He spread his hands slightly. 'Then we shall at least have seen how kings are made and unmade. That is a lesson worth the journey.'

Around them, the host had begun to shift in earnest now, the earlier looseness tightening, if not into discipline, then into direction. Standards were raised, orders called, and the long road north seemed, all at once, less a rumour than a journey on which they had already taken the first steps.

Morgan turned his horse with an easy movement. 'Come, your grace,' he said. 'Let us go and make history for other men to argue about.'

And with that, the host of Glamorgan gathered in pride and uncertainty by the river at Usk and set itself upon the road, no longer merely a company of Welsh magnates assembled in a raid for cattle and slaves across the frontier, but part of a greater design, whose full shape few among them yet understood, though the princes of the house of Morgan Hen clearly sensed it as a long-awaited opportunity.

Bishop Urban and his brother, Bishop Nicholas of Llandaff, escorted only by Gruffudd Goch and the boy prince, Cynan ap Morgan Ddu, rode up the steep track to the castle of Mountsorrel on its hill above Barrow. They drew up at the castle gate, a timber tower in the circuit of the bailey from which fluttered the wolf banner of Chester. It was an old-fashioned castle, its square timber keep set up on a mound.

Gruffudd tutted and observed to Cynan in one of his not infrequent didactic asides for the boy's benefit. 'You'll see, bachgen, how useless this old place is. Such fortresses do not last nor do they serve their masters well. Mountsorrel would translate as Mynydd Suran in our language. And it's the hill alone which gives it any strength. The earl of Leicester, who is the twin brother of the Count of Meulan, Gloucester's enemy, took it with ease from his local rival, Earl Ranulf, some dozen years ago. And Earl Ranulf took it back with equal ease a month gone by, after he was ousted from Lincoln. In neither case did the earls commit troops and resources to garrisoning a castle which had little potential for any long resistance.

'We Welsh have developed an eye for castles' weaknesses, for reasons you'll appreciate. And we build them better ourselves, Your grandfather's fortress of Machen is far more formidable than an old motte-and-bailey like this. And what Earl Robert's done with his own fortress at Cardiff is an object lesson as to the expense a lord must go to to make such a fortification worth defending.'

The boy nodded wisely, his eyes roving over the site and very possibly plotting its storming and pillage in his head. The small party was admitted and escorted to the rather decrepit hall in the bailey where Earl Ranulf was lodging. In its dingy interior they found the earl occupying his seat on the dais, sheathed sword upright in his hand, for he had been sitting in judgement. And in a seat beside him was enthroned a very richly dressed man wrapped in a befurred brocade cloak, a gold talaith on his brow.

'Ffych,' Gruffudd muttered, 'It's King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd. He's answered the call too. King Morgan won't be happy.'

'Oh? Why's that?'

'Tell you later, your grace. It's about Deheubarth and who should be its rightful ruler.'

The earl finished his current business and turned to Morgan Ddu, whom he favoured with a lengthy and silent consideration before commencing. 'You will be the son of King Morgan of Glamorgan, am I right, my lord?' He did not wait for confirmation before continuing. 'My father-in-law, Earl Robert, has had much to say about the military capacities of the southern Welsh, especially their cavalry after they humiliated the Marcher knights at the now infamous meeting between Caerleon and Newport.'

Morgan chuckled. 'I profited from that infamous meeting to the sum of £520 in silver, my lord.'

'That's as maybe, Prince Morgan,' riposted Ranulf. 'However it is not cavalry that will defeat King Stephen at Lincoln, sir. It is solid ranks of spearmen and skilled and disciplined bowmen. His strength there is the mesnies of his magnates and his Flemish mercenary knights.'

Morgan shrugged with a nonchalance that Urban imagined was meant to be insulting. 'Just such bowmen we have brought, lord earl. I expect King Cadwaladr has the spearmen, though I could not answer to their solidity or their possession of shoes. Gwynedd is not much good for anything else … so I have heard.' Morgan gave a simpering giggle intended to infuriate, and succeeded.

King Cadwaladr stood and growled in Welsh. 'You damnable murderous puppy, you live up to your reputation as your father's conscienceless assassin and would do well to keep a civil tongue in your head, lest it be cut from you.'

Morgan Ddu rose at once, his hand falling lightly—almost lazily—upon the hilt of his sword, though he did not draw. His expression, far from cowed, seemed to brighten with interest.

'And you, Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd,' he replied in the same language, his voice soft and cutting, 'would do well to remember how often you have been driven from your own kingdom, and by whom. If we are to speak of reputations, yours is that of a landless wanderer.'

Gruffudd Goch shifted uneasily, glancing from one to the other, while the boy Cynan watched with avid attention, his earlier curiosity now sharpened into something more dangerous—admiration, perhaps, or calculation.

Before either prince could advance the quarrel further, Earl Ranulf struck the butt of his sword's scabbard hard upon the timber floor. He had understood the tone of their exchange, if not the words.

'Enough.' The single word cracked through the hall like a whip. Both Welshmen turned their heads toward him. 'You are not here to settle your own ancient grievances,' the earl continued, his voice low but edged with iron. 'Nor do I intend that my hall should become the place for it. You have both answered the summons of my lord Gloucester and of the Empress. If you mean to serve them, you will do so as allies—or not at all.' He fixed Cadwaladr with a stare first. 'You bring me spears, I am told. Good. They will be needed.'

Then Morgan. 'And you bring bowmen and horse. Also good. They too will be needed.'

Ranulf leaned forward slightly on his seat. 'King Stephen sits at Lincoln with what remains of his strength. If we are to break him, we can only do so together. If you prefer to quarrel amongst yourselves, then you may as well take your men back into your mountains and leave England to settle its own affairs.'

There was a pause. The tension did not dissipate, but it was forced down, like a boiling pot taken off a fire.

Cadwaladr spoke first, his tone still hot but controlled. 'My spears will stand to arms, lord earl. Whether others stand with them is yet to be seen.'

Morgan gave a slight bow, the ghost of a smile still playing about his lips. 'And my bowmen will let loose, my lord. At my king's enemies—whoever they may prove to be.'

Urban closed his eyes briefly, as though in prayer, though in truth it was weariness that overcame him. Nicholas leaned toward him and murmured, 'A blessed company we keep.'

'The Lord has worked with worse,' Urban replied under his breath.

Ranulf rose, signalling that the audience was at an end. 'You will encamp your men below the hill,' he said briskly. 'We march within three days. Provisions will be issued if more are needed. Cheshire's barns have offered more than a tithe to meet its lord's needs. I will have no disorder, no foraging without leave, and especially no private wars among my allies. Any man who breaks that peace will answer to me.' His gaze lingered deliberately on both Welsh princes. 'You may go.'

As they were led back out into the cold air of the bailey, Gruffudd let out a long breath. 'Well, bachgen,' he said to Cynan, 'you have now seen how kings make war together.'

The boy looked back once toward the hall. 'They do not trust one another,' he said, 'if my lords the bishops had not been there it might have been swordplay.'

Gruffudd gave a thin smile. 'Indeed,' he replied. 'But sometimes enemies hate the same man more. And for a little while, that is enough. Now let me tell you, Cynan my lad, why it is your taid, King Morgan, is no friend to King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd, both of whom think they should by right rule Ceredigion.'

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Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XVII