Perhaps they mistook us for some of their kinsfolk, or perhaps they simply refused to believe that any raiding-army would venture so far beyond the dyke, for at first the villagers did nothing. Only once we had ridden down from the ridge and approached close enough that they could see our banners, our hauberks, the devices painted on our shields, was the cry finally raised. All across the valley men abandoned their oxen and their flocks, threw down their spades and their pails, while their wives and daughters scooped the younger ones up into their arms as they scattered, some making for the safety of the woods, others for the collapsed mill that stood by the river: anywhere they could escape our swords.
No more than half a dozen remained to fight us — the brave and the foolhardy — and they were the ones who fell. They were few and we were many, and whereas they armed themselves with sickles and hayforks and one with an axe, we came upon them with lances and swords and mail. There was little glory to be had in killing peasants and few knights took much pleasure in doing so. Nonetheless, in choosing to make a stand rather than flee with their families they understood that they were also choosing to die. A part of me admired them, for in spite of their meagre numbers and their lack of skill they were fearless fighters, between them managing to unhorse two of our knights as well as wound another on his sword-arm, which was no small feat.
Quickly, however, they were overwhelmed and we set to work, tearing thatch from roof-beams and pulling up floorboards in search of anything of value the people might have hidden there, putting to slaughter the hogs in their sties and the sheep in their folds, laying the torch to storehouses and to the mill. The village was not large and we did not take long to scour it, and when we had finished there was little left of that place save for a trail of animal carcasses, broken fences, collapsed timbers and blackened ruins. Plumes of smoke and ash billowed in the breeze, blowing in my face, choking my lungs, the heat and the dust stinging my eyes and forcing an unwelcome tear that I quickly blinked away.
The people who once had lived here would not return. Instead, if they had any sense, they would go on to the next village and spread word to their kinsfolk of what had happened here, so that in time Rhiwallon, Bleddyn, Wild Eadric and all their men would also hear and know that we were coming for them.
Before long broad river plains gave way to steep-sided hills, which in turn became sharp-ridged mountains whose peaks I could not see for the cloud. The going was rougher now, the paths less well travelled and harder to follow amidst the tufts of long grasses and the woods that clung to the slopes. In all my travels across Christendom I had not known country like this. Certainly it was not the sort of place in which I would have liked to fight a pitched battle, for there was not much open ground in which to make a mounted charge, and that which there was was by turns either too soft or too uneven, crossed by small rivulets and riddled with holes where badgers and other animals had made their homes. All the while I kept watching the woods for signs of movement. I never saw anything, but one could not be too careful, and as much as possible I tried to keep our column out of arrowshot of the trees.
‘Once we reach the pass at the top of the valley the country will be easier,’ Maredudd assured me.
Ithel sounded less certain, but being the younger of the two he was content to defer to his brother. I would have asked Haerarddur, who seemed to know these parts well, but the longer the day went on the less I trusted what he said. Indeed now that the threat of death no longer seemed imminent he seemed to have found his confidence again. His earlier fear had diminished, and despite the fact that he was supposed to be our hostage, he kept trying to make conversation with the men guarding him, even at one point sharing what must have been a joke, for afterwards none of them could stop laughing. I soon put a stop to that, instead placing the Welshman with Eudo, under whose charge I hoped he would prove less talkative.
We came upon a number of other villages that afternoon, and for the most part we left them alone, sometimes harrying their cattle or else stealing sheep that we could kill that evening for meat, but no more than that. An army of several hundred men quickly grows hungry, and what supplies we had brought with us from Scrobbesburh were dwindling, so we had little choice but to live off what we could find. Besides, the more smoke spires we sent up, the more easily the enemy would find us, and I wanted to avoid meeting them in battle if at all possible, for almost without question they would outnumber us. So long as they knew we were roaming, it was better that they did not know our exact movements, since then we could appear to be everywhere at once.
We raided in the same fashion for the better part of a week, making what I trusted was a great circle west of the valley of Mathrafal. But for all the miles that passed beneath our horses’ hooves, for all the woods we circled, the hills we crossed and the rivers we forded, none of the enemy ever showed themselves. There was growing discontent among our men, many of whom were tiring of wandering with seemingly no purpose in a land they did not recognise, especially since the higher we ventured into those hills and the further from the dyke we found ourselves, the fewer people we saw and the less plunder there was to be had. For, as I had learnt, a man will follow you anywhere so long as he has meat and drink enough to satisfy his stomach and the promise of silver to fill his coin-pouch. Take away either one of those things and he soon grows restless, and a restless ally is often as good as an enemy: dangerous and unpredictable.
And so it proved then. It didn’t help that Berengar was still seeking to stir up resentment, although many of the barons were beginning to grow tired of his remarks and jibes, which I supposed was reason to be thankful. Whenever we stopped to fill our water bottles I could hear him. No longer content to voice his disquiet behind my back, instead he made sure that whenever he spoke out I was within earshot, as if taunting me. For a while after Caerswys he had said hardly a word in my presence, and I’d wondered if what had happened had finally cowed him into silence. Clearly that had been wishful thinking.
‘From what I’ve heard he used to be held in high favour by both the king and Fitz Osbern,’ Wace told me when next I saw him. ‘He won his fame at H?stinges. His was the hand that slew the usurper’s brother Gyrth; the one who rallied the English forces after Harold himself fell.’
That part of the battle had been among the hardest fought, as I remembered. It had been late in the day; we had managed to force our way on to the ridge above the field of blood, but still their shield-wall had held. Thousands of their countrymen lay dead and yet Gyrth and his huscarls continued to fight on, defending his family’s wyvern banner to the last. Only after he had fallen to the charge did their line crumble and the rout finally begin. But that Berengar was the man who made that happen — round-bellied, pudgy-faced Berengar — I found hard to believe.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked.
‘It’s what they say.’
‘You mentioned that the king used to hold him in favour. What happened?’
‘It seems he was rewarded generously with lands and for the next couple of years there he sat, growing ever fatter on the wealth of his estates. The next time he was called upon to fight, apparently his arse was so large that his horse collapsed under his weight. Some months after that he somehow managed to kill his two young nephews in a training match and was made to forfeit most of his lands in recompense. All he has left now is one manor near to Hereford, and not a rich one at that.’
‘That still doesn’t explain why he hates me so much.’
‘It ought to,’ Wace said. ‘Don’t you see? He’s you, except that you haven’t yet eaten your own weight in mutton or beaten your sister’s sons to death. He used to be the one who was lauded. Now he finds himself ridiculed and shouted down in council, while you’ve taken his place. Of course he hates you.’