Выбрать главу

In the evening, after a filling but peculiar meal of bread pebbly with beans and a root-vegetable stew that tasted much like the bread, Owen sought out a last word with Burley.

‘Are we likely to meet more of your men between here and Cydweli? If so, I might ask for the loan of one of your men to assure them we had already explained our mission to you.’

Burley coughed up phlegm and spit just past Owen’s boots. ‘Would my men and I spend the night in this stinking stable if we did not plan to escort you ourselves?’

That was precisely what Owen had wondered — why they had not had their talk and then parted ways. The storm had eased to a gentle rain. Without a cart they might risk moving on to more comfortable accommodations at Whitland Abbey. ‘I do not mean to delay you in your business. The loan of one man. .’

‘I should attend Reine’s requiem Mass,’ Burley said. ‘You are a captain, you understand the importance of showing respect for the fallen. My men will expect it.’

‘Aye,’ Owen said. ‘Then we shall meet in the yard at first light.’

‘We shall meet when we wake to piss, Captain. Or did you expect me to sleep with my men and the horses?’

Seven

CYDWELI

They crossed the Towy on the ferry at Llansteffan, where the river widened to join the sea in the shadow of the castle set high on the bluff. It had begun to rain again, no more than a mist, but it made what would normally be a damp crossing even more unpleasant. The current was choppy, the river swollen with the spring rains, and Owen watched in sympathy as Tom, the youngest of his men, tried to hide his sickness from the others.

‘Never sailed the sea?’ Iolo asked softly as he steadied the young man’s horse, frightened by his handler’s jerky movements.

Tom shook his head.

‘You have done the right thing, letting the sickness come. Best not to fight it. Oft-times a man will discover he is fine once he is empty.’

Edern handed Tom a wineskin. ‘Get rid of the taste.’ He nodded at the young man’s thanks, but did not smile. Still angry about Burley’s men taking over the care of the cart, no doubt.

Once across, they had to wait for the second load, which included the cart. Owen lifted his hood as the soft rain quickened. Midday and he already felt a chill in his left shoulder. An old wound. Steel left its mark, caught the cold ever after. His mother had predicted such wounds. On his parting from her many years before, she had given him a jar of mustard, warned him to keep a supply with him always. Mustard heats the lingering ghost of the sword. Why his shoulder, but not his eye? It was a dagger that had sliced his eye and blinded him. Why did his eye not ache in the cold damp?

Fragmented childhood memories bedevilled him. The pain when his foot slipped between two frosty rocks as he searched for a lost dog in the mountains, his cries for help echoing loudly in the wintry silence, holding his breath then, terrified that his cries might invite an avalanche of snow. His mother’s mash of rosemary and sage to heat the children’s blood in winter. Lighting her along a steep track to help with the birth of a neighbour’s child. The back-breaking work of reclaiming the kitchen garden in a spring thaw, removing the rocks that had rolled down from the heights in the snow and rain. He had expected his thoughts to turn to Cydweli, but all these were of a far earlier time, in the north, in Gwynedd.

When Owen was fifteen his family lost their sheep to a murrain. Their kin shared what they could, but Owen’s father said it was a charity his brothers and cousins could ill afford, as they, too, were struggling. It did not help that Rhodri ap Maredudd, Owen’s father, was a proud man. When he heard that in the south Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster and lord of Cydweli, was allowing families to settle on escheated land if they had a son who would join his army as an archer, Rhodri ap Maredudd saw a way to save his honour and his family. Owen was an excellent archer. And Cydweli was south — the land would be kinder. But Owen’s mother had found it difficult enough to leave Clwyd for Gwynedd when she married; to move south — it had sounded like death to her.

It was a measure of Rhodri’s desperation that he uprooted the family and took them south before ascertaining the truth of the rumour, for rumour it was; the Duke of Lancaster had made no such offer. But the constable of Cydweli, a man who knew the worth of a good archer, asked to see Owen shoot. Impressed, he had spoken to the steward. Rhodri ap Maredudd was given a small farm north of the town. It was what he had wished for, but it proved a disappointment. The soil was thin, though better than in the north, and their neighbours resented them for taking over the land of a man whose family had lived there for many generations, which he had forfeited for little else than being a Welshman with a careless tongue.

‘Are they good memories?’ Geoffrey asked, breaking into Owen’s reverie.

Owen threw back his hood, let the rain cool him, glanced round. The cart had arrived across the river, and the men were remounting their horses. ‘It is a hard thing, returning after all this time.’

It was early afternoon before they crested the hill known as Mons Salomonis that separated Cydweli from the Towy. At last Owen saw before him the white walls of Cydweli Castle.

‘You can see why the Duke calls it the pride of his Marcher holdings,’ Burley said, joining Owen at the edge of the track.

‘The pride? It looks to me as if he finds it wanting.’ Stonemasons stood on scaffolding surrounding the south gatehouse, which already looked much larger than Owen remembered.

‘All castles in the Marches require improved fortifications with the years else the natives grow too confident.’

Owen felt Burley watching him for a reaction. He did not oblige him, but quietly studied the castle. It was within the magnificent whitewashed walls of the stronghold that his skill at archery had won him a place among Henry of Grosmont’s Welsh archers. As Owen watched, a man atop one of the towers turned their way, then ducked down and disappeared. To announce their approach, no doubt.

Geoffrey slipped in between Owen and Burley. ‘It is a poor introduction, to come bearing the corpse of one of their own,’ he said, nodding towards the castle.

It was true that Lascelles must both wish for and dread their news. And now they would arrive with the worst news a father can hear. Owen had not yet experienced such a dark day, but he well remembered his despair when Jasper, not even yet his adopted son, disappeared and they feared him dead.

‘At least we have brought him the body, so that he may know that his son is buried in hallowed ground.’

‘A small comfort.’ Geoffrey’s eyes were dull and sunken. He had found it difficult to sleep since they left St David’s.

‘We shall walk lighter once we have delivered our burden.’

‘True. For that I am deeply grateful.’

In a little while they resumed their slow approach, dipping down into Scholand, the ragtag cluster of tenements that led into Ditch Street and so to the south gate of Cydweli. The cart drew the curious and then sent them scurrying away, full of dread.

At the town’s south gate, the gatekeeper walked forth to meet the party. One great hand on the hilt of his sword, the other on his dagger, he rocked towards them in an awkward, bow-legged waddle.

Geoffrey leaned close to Owen and muttered, ‘I wonder whether he must needs let go his sword to press back his belly in order to withdraw his dagger.’

Happily unaware of his comical appearance, the gatekeeper demanded to know their business in a swaggering manner and an English so accented that it sounded like Welsh.

‘These men are with me,’ Burley barked.

The gatekeeper bowed stiffly towards the constable. ‘That is as may be, Constable, but my orders are to confront all strangers.’