Damville accepted the covert reproach in his steward’s gaze. Huegon was, as usual, correct. In the short term, the pleasures of the chase had to be forsaken. They could be enjoyed at a later date. To postpone a delight was to intensify its quality. Damville was content.
His mind swung back to more immediate problems.
“Did we handle the royal commissioners aright?”
“We did what was needful, my lord.”
“It grieved me to give Orbec that land gratis.”
“What is given can as easily be taken back.”
Damville chuckled. “I’ll have the whole of his demesne in my grasp.
His house I’d destroy, but I’ll let his chapel stand as a privy.” He looked down over the battlement. “If only Richard Orbec were at my door right now.”
“He way well be so in due course.”
“I will be ready for him, Huegon.”
Grunting noises made Maurice Damville turn. Two slaves were struggling to carry a large boulder between them. They dropped it onto a waiting pile then hurried off. Damville swooped on the missile and picked it up without effort. Heaving the jagged stone over the battlement, he let out a wild cry of triumph.
“Richard Orbec!”
With an awesome thud, the boulder sank deep into the ground.
The messenger was waiting for him as he came out of the tiny chapel.
Richard Orbec was bareheaded and wore only a tunic. His mind was still exercised by the febrile thoughts with which he had wrestled before the altar. It took him a few seconds to collect himself.
“Well?” he said.
“They are heading this way, my lord.”
“The whole commission?”
“Three only,” said the man. “Their leader rode off towards Llanwarne with the sheriff, taking four of his men-at-arms with him. The others escort the three who travel towards your demesne.”
“What speed do they make?”
“Slow but steady. An hour will get them here.”
“They must be stopped,” said Orbec, decisively. “When they sit behind a table in Hereford, commissioners with a royal warrant have some power. It turns to vapour when they dare to encroach on my property.
A show of force will teach them their place. Have twenty men armed and ready to ride.”
“Yes, my lord. How will I deploy them?”
“I’ll lead them myself,” said Orbec. “If I speak directly to these interlopers, they will more readily understand the danger that they court.”
He glanced guiltily back at the chapel, then moved quickly away.
“Fetch my sword and armour! We leave immediately!”
They were shocked when they saw the scene of devastation. Warnod’s house had been reduced to ashes. Only a few charred timbers remained to show where he had once lived with his doomed family. Golde let out a gasp of horror and brought her hands up to her mouth. Idwal sighed with compassion. Even Ralph Delchard was initially jarred.
He walked around the perimeter of the house.
“What could one man do to deserve all this?” he said.
“The blameless often suffer the most in this world,” observed Idwal, darkly. “Thank heaven his suffering is over!”
“There were no witnesses, my lord sheriff?”
“None that will come forward,” said Ilbert.
“An inferno like this? Think of the noise, the light.”
“Everyone was struck deaf and blind.”
“By fear.”
“Or by agreement,” said the sheriff. “I begin to wonder if they were all part of the conspiracy. The Welsh will always protect their own.”
“I deny your accusation with every breath in my body!” said Idwal, quivering with indignation. “Do not tie this crime around the necks of my compatriots when you do not have a shred of evidence to do so.”
“You forget the red dragon,” argued Ilbert.
“That is something I will never forget!” affirmed the archdeacon.
“But you have no proof that this emblem carved in the ground was put there by a Welshman. It could just as easily have been hacked out of the earth by a Saxon, Norman, or Breton. The shape of a dragon is not unknown to them.”
“Idwal has a point,” agreed Ralph, pensively.
“Remember the servants,” said Ilbert. “Elfig and Hywel. One beaten, one spared. One now dead, one alive. One scourged for his nationality, one saved by it.”
“He was not saved for long,” said Ralph, “if reports that we hear are true. This young servant is your most valuable witness. What has he vouchsafed?”
“Nothing beyond the fact that he was bound and gagged.”
“Did you not question him with sufficient vigour?”
“I used every threat I could to loosen his tongue.”
“To no avail?”
“Hywel is beyond us, my lord. He speaks only Welsh.”
“Then he is not beyond me,” said Idwal, confidently. “Where is the lad? Let me speak with him at once.”
“He was severely wounded by the attack upon him.”
“Then I will medicine his injuries while we talk.”
Ralph Delchard encouraged the idea. The softer arts of a Welsh archdeacon might succeed where the rough questioning of a Norman sheriff had failed. When Ilbert finally accepted this, they mounted their horses and rode off towards the village itself. Hywel was being cared for in a fetid hovel that belonged to his uncle. Idwal and Ralph were admitted to the dwelling. The former was at home in the mean surroundings, but the latter coughed as the stench hit his throat.
Hywel lay on a makeshift bed of straw. He was a sturdy youth with dark hair and a tufted beard, both still clotted with blood. One eye was hideously swollen, the other was ringed with a black bruise. A fresh scar had baptised his forehead and there were scratches all over his face. His tunic had been torn to expose gashes and bruises all over his body. One of his hands was swollen to twice its normal size, but it was his right leg which had suffered the worst damage.
Broken in two parts, it was bound tightly with strips of cloth to a wooden splint.
When the youth tried to move, he was clearly in agony.
“Rest, rest, Hywel,” soothed the archdeacon in Welsh. “We have not come to hurt you. I am Idwal of Llandaff. When I passed through here two days ago, your body was sound and your mind untroubled.
What miseries have befallen you since!”
Hywel said nothing. He glanced resentfully at Ralph.
“He comes as a friend,” reassured Idwal, inspecting the injuries as he talked. “Who set this leg for you?”
“The priest,” mumbled the youth.
“He was done his work well,” noted the other. “Mark that, Hywel.
The Church repairs what men break asunder.” He clicked tongue.
“But he might have bathed your wounds with more thoroughness.
Bring water!”
An old woman, who had been huddling with alarm in a corner, got up and scurried out. Idwal continued to soothe the patient with soft words before offering up a prayer for him. When the old woman came in with an earthenware pot, he took it from her and used the hem of his own garment to dip in the water. Squeezing it out, he knelt beside Hywel and bathed his face and hair with gentle strokes. Ralph did not understand a word, but he was intrigued by the way that Idwal was slowly winning the confidence of the wounded servant.
“Tell me what happened, Hywel.”
“I have told my story many times.”
“Tell it once more to me,” coaxed Idwal. “Men came to the house and bound you. Is that not true? Did you chance to get a close look at any of them?”
“They took me from behind, when I was chopping wood.”
“You are a strong lad. Did you not struggle?”
“There were too many of them.”
“Did you not cry out for help?”
“They gagged me and blindfolded my eyes.”
“Then you were still able to hear their voices.”
“No,” said Hywel, recalling memories that were branded into his young mind. “They said nothing. All I heard was poor Elfig’s screams as they beat him. And the crackle of the flames much later.”
“How much later?”
“An hour or two at least. I cannot be sure.”