The few of the enemy who had chosen to lay down their weapons rather than fight on or flee were brought before me. There were only ten, but then there had not been that many of them to begin with. Among them were men of all ages, shapes and heights. Each had his hands tied behind his back and wore the same wide-eyed expression, as if amidst the expectation of death there remained the faintest flicker of hope that he might be spared. A single stroke of a sword across each of their necks was all it would take to finish their lives and allow them to join their fallen comrades. I had only to give the word and it would be done.
But I had no intention of killing them. Not yet, in any case. First they would tell us what they knew of the movements of the enemy host, or at the very least the whereabouts of their main camp, for that had to be where this band were marching: that much seemed clear to me.
‘Mathrafal,’ Ithel told me after he had spoken to them. He was translating while his brother marshalled the rest of our men and made ready to ride once more. His face was even ruddier than usual, if that were possible, flushed as he was after the exertion and the thrill of the fight. He was a good deal sturdier than most warriors I’d known, and even though I hadn’t seen how he’d acquitted himself, I trusted him to have played his part.
‘Mathrafal?’ I repeated, making sure that I had heard him correctly. It did not seem like a word at all, but rather the kind of noise one might make when drawing forth phlegm to spit. An evil-sounding name, for certain.
‘That is where the usurpers are mustering their forces,’ Ithel replied. ‘Or at least so they say.’
I had no fears regarding their honesty. Knowing that their very lives depended on giving us the answers we wanted, these men would not think to lie. ‘How far is it from here?’
He shrugged. ‘A full day’s march by the old road, I should think, and longer if we strike out across the hills. I have never been there, though I have heard of it, so I cannot say for certain.’
‘Then find me someone who has,’ I said.
The morning’s skirmish had not quenched my thirst for battle, and though I would not admit it I was contemplating riding ahead to this place Mathrafal, if only to see for myself the enemy camp and find out how many they truly numbered.
One of the captured foemen was soon dragged before me. Unlike most of his countrymen, who took care of their appearance and usually went clean-shaven, he wore a straggling beard, and most of his top row of teeth was either broken or missing, so that when he did speak it was with something of a lisp. He was decked out in mail, although it was too big for his frame, and I guessed he had won it as plunder, for he did not look rich enough to be able to afford it otherwise.
‘Who is this?’ I asked.
‘He calls himself Haerarddur,’ said Ithel. ‘He was the leader of this war-band.’
I raised an eyebrow. Their leader he might have been, but he was a poor one if he had thrown down his sword while around him his countrymen had continued to fight. From the way that he trembled as he was forced to his knees in front of me, certainly I would not trust him to hold the shield-wall or to rally a battle-line.
‘Tell him to describe Mathrafal for me,’ I said.
I waited while Ithel put the question to him and the answer was given.
‘He says it is some years since he was last there,’ said the ruddy-faced Welshman. ‘As he remembers, though, it is little more than a village. It sits at the bottom of a broad river plain, surrounded all about by pastureland and hay-meadows, with a great hall at its centre.’
‘Then why muster there?’ I mused aloud. It did not sound like a place that would be easily defensible.
‘It is the stronghold and ancestral home of Bleddyn and Rhiwallon. The heart of the kingdom of Powys, and, some would say, of Wales itself.’
A natural rallying point, from the sounds of it. ‘This hall,’ I said as my own back at Earnford rose to mind, ‘how well is it protected? Is there a wall, a rampart, a stockade?’
He frowned. ‘You aren’t thinking of attacking them, surely?’
‘Just ask him,’ I said, though I knew that Ithel was right. Regardless of what defences the enemy might or might not possess, we lacked the men to go marching straight into the heart of their camp. Besides, somewhere to the north Earl Hugues’s army would be beginning to march; his scouts would be watching them, waiting for the most opportune moment when he could make his attack. All I had to do was distract the enemy enough to divide their attention and draw them out. That was the task that Fitz Osbern had presented me with, and even though I did not much like it, that was what I had sworn to do.
‘A stockade, yes,’ Ithel again came back with the answer. ‘A water channel runs around the entire circuit, fed by the nearby river. There are two gates: one at the southern end and the other at the western side where the road descends from the village.’
I turned my gaze towards Haerarddur himself, trying to discern whether or not he was speaking the truth. There had been no mention of a tower or a mound, or anything more substantial than that. It was beginning to sound less like the castle that I imagined than a simple holdfast, a refuge in times of need. The trickiest obstacle to any potential attacker would be the moat, and yet depending on how wide and deep it proved, even that need not necessarily pose much of a problem. Still, useful though it was to have, none of that information was enough to tempt me: there was nothing to be had in risking our party unless victory could be all but assured, as it had been today.
‘Very well,’ I said to Ithel. ‘Unbind the others and let them go.’
‘And this one?’
‘We’ll bring him with us. If we discover that he’s been lying to us, then his life will be forfeit.’
Ithel nodded, then barked something at Haerarddur, who got to his feet, if somewhat clumsily, due to his bound wrists. He lifted his head proudly as he did so, challenging any who looked in his direction with a stare, though I didn’t see that he had much to be proud about.
I left him to the care of the Welshmen under the serpent banner while I returned to my conroi and to Nihtfeax. Already the crows were flocking in their scores to where we had piled the enemy’s bodies, their savage beaks digging into the open wounds, scratching at skin, tearing flesh from faces and gouging eyes from their sockets, as if they had not fed in a month or more. Others wheeled about above our heads, cawing in chorus, calling more of their kind from far and wide to partake of the feast that in kindness we had laid out for them. Their share in the spoils was our parting gift; they would finish what we had begun, and if we happened to pass by here again some days from now, not one of those corpses would be recognisable as the men they had once been. In death was every man made equal.
Only when Serlo offered me my banner did I manage to tear my gaze away. Unfurling the cloth, I raised it high for all to see at the same time as Pons sounded the horn and we started on our way. Yet even many hours later, still it seemed as though the stench of that place remained with me, rising off the blood spattered across my helmet and my hair, the blood that even now was congealing upon my mail, soaking through the chain links, staining my tunic, clinging to my skin. And somehow I sensed that, this time, it would take more than water to cleanse myself of that smell.
We did not make for Mathrafal; not straightaway at any rate. Instead of following the old road north we struck out west along the ridge above the wide river plains, where the brothers had assured me the raiding would be good and we might send further warnings to the enemy. True to their word, an hour after we had left Caerswys behind us we came upon a modest village, perhaps thirteen or fourteen hovels in all, which made it only slightly smaller than Earnford. Around it the fields grew thick with barley, while higher up the slopes sheep grazed: white specks against the green.