“Not all hunts are done for sport, Uncle.” But even as he mocked Ranulf, Henry’s gaze wandered back toward Rosamund. As their eyes met, she smiled, then blushed, and after a moment, he sighed regretfully. “Hellfire… you’re right, I know. A lass’s maidenhead ought not to be sacrificed for a night’s pleasure-even if the pleasure was to be mine. I’d not want to jeopardize her chances of making a good marriage.”
“What is this talk about marriage?” Rainald demanded, weaving toward them so unsteadily that they hastily made room for him in the window seat.
“I was just taking counsel with the king’s conscience,” Henry said, unable to resist a good-natured jab at his uncle, whose scruples were both admirable and occasionally inconvenient.
Ranulf smiled, too, with a heartfelt hope that his nephew would listen to the king’s conscience during the war with Wales.
From Ludlow, Henry continued on to Shrewsbury, where his army was assembling. He’d hired mercenaries from Flanders, summoned vassals from Normandy, Anjou, Poitou, and Aquitaine as well as England, and had even arranged for the services of a fleet with the Danes of Dublin. By the end of July, he was ready to take the offensive, and the largest English army ever to invade Wales crossed into Powys, heading for the town known as Oswestry by the Welsh and Blancminster by the English. Owain Gwynedd and the other Welsh princes awaited their coming at Corwen in the vale of Edeyrnion.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
August 1165
Powys, Wales
The sun did not linger, soon plunged behind the mountain range that protected the Welsh army from the righteous wrath of the English king. For that was how Henry’s men were coming to view this campaign, as a crusade against the godless and the guilty. It had not begun as such. They’d marched out of Blancminster in good order, eager to bring these Welsh rebels to heel and return back across the border, for word had soon spread among them that Wales was a cheerless, barren land with no towns for the plundering, not even taverns or alehouses where a soldier could quench his thirst and find female company.
But nothing had gone as expected. The Welsh proved to be infuriatingly elusive, phantom foes who refused to take the field against them. The roads were so narrow that the men were constantly getting slapped in the face by overhanging branches or tripping over hidden roots. When it rained, they were slogging through mud, and when it was dry, they were choking on the dust kicked up by so many marching feet. The insects were relentless, tormenting horses and men alike. During the day, they sweated in sultry, humid heat, but at night, they shivered in their bedrolls, for the temperature dropped sharply once the sun set.
A soldier’s lot was never an easy one and most of the men were inured to hardship. But this was like no war they’d ever fought. At first, they’d advanced unchallenged, passing through a ghost country bereft of life. The few houses they found were deserted, empty shells hardly worth torching, for the people had fled with their livestock and all the belongings they could carry off. They’d not be able to forage for food, to live off the land as soldiers so often had to do. Wales was like an oyster shell, closed tight against them.
But it all changed once they reached the forest known to the Welsh as Ceiriog, stretching before them like a towering, tangled wall. Most had never seen woods like this, so densely grown that not even the sun could penetrate that rustling, leafy canopy above their heads. The road became a deer trail, easier to lose than follow, and those men unfortunate enough to have an unease of enclosed spaces began to feel as if they were struggling through a dark, green tunnel, with no end in sight. It was in these eerie, alien woods that first blood was drawn-English blood.
The Welsh came in the night, with flaming torches and wild yells, and, as suddenly, they were gone, leaving in their wake burning wagons and mass confusion and crumpled bodies. There had been no repetition of that abrupt midnight raid, but men went to sleep with their weapons at the ready and awoke each time a horse snorted, a twig snapped underfoot. The daily pace speeded up noticeably after stragglers began to disappear. No one ever heard or saw anything, just a tired soldier trudging along in the rear, falling farther and farther behind. Yet when his companions glanced back, he was gone. Men got cricks in their necks from looking over their shoulders and headaches from squinting into the deep shadows on both sides of the road. Fights flared up over trifles and tempers soured. But the English army continued to press on into the Ceiriog Valley, toward the looming silhouettes of the Berwyn Mountains.
None objected when Kort moved to the front of the line, for he was a battle-scarred veteran who’d done more fighting-for pay-in his thirty-four years than most men would ever see in a lifetime. Moreover, he was a member of that elite, a crossbowman. So awesome was the crossbow’s lethal power that the Church had sought to prohibit its use, proclaiming at the Fourth Lateran Council that it must be restricted to campaigns against infidels. But the weapon’s deadly force was irresistible to even the most devout of Christian battle commanders, and crossbowmen were eagerly recruited.
The twenty men in Kort’s unit were Flemings, and the wild, mountainous terrain of Wales was stirring in many of them a yearning for the low-lying, fertile plains of their homeland. They liked to see the enemy coming, they muttered; here even the sunsets were sudden, more like an ambush than a natural duskfall. Kort paid their grumbling no heed, for such campfire complaints were routine, a familiar soldier’s lament. Many took a contrary pride in the privations they endured. And even the worst of the malcontents were not likely to desert now, for where could they go?
Once his share of the bean pottage had been ladled into his bowl, Kort sat cross-legged under a gnarled oak and ate hungrily, using his bread as a spoon. The soup was heavily salted and the bread gritty, but he’d eaten worse. He was washing his meal down with ale when Jan joined him, lolling in the grass with the boneless abandon of youth.
Jan was never too tired to talk and as the sky darkened and night came on, he chattered on cheerfully about a multitude of topics, flitting from one to another like a dragonfly. Did Kort think the Welsh would ever be brought to bay? A poor, pitiful country it was that had no taverns. Was it true the Welsh spurned good ale for a sickly-sweet drink called mead? Had Kort ever visited the alehouse on Wolle Straete? They had a serving-maid riper than summer plums… what was her name? Anna… no, Jutka! He’d wager no Welshwoman ever born could pleasure a man like Jutka could. Rolling over onto his back, he gave Kort a companionable poke in the ribs. “What am I doing in this God-cursed hellhole when I could be back home with Jutka on my lap and a brimming ale at my elbow?”
“For the money, of course,” Kort said laconically and Jan grinned.
“Speaking of money, do you want to join in our dicing tonight? Be warned, though, for I am feeling lucky.”
Kort snorted “The last time you felt ‘lucky,’ you lost a fortnight’s wages, a good dagger, and your mantle. Try to walk away tonight whilst you still have the shirt on your back.”
As usual, Jan took no offense; to men of more volatile temperament, his constant equanimity could be irksome. “If you do not want to play, at least come to watch. That way you can help me carry off my winnings.”
As he sauntered away, another man took his place beside Kort under the huge oak. “That one prattles on like a drunken parrot,” Klaas said dourly. “Why you befriended him, I cannot for the life of me understand.”
“Ah, he is not such a bad sort,” Kort insisted, “just in need of seasoning,” and Klaas flung him a skeptical look, for he was not usually so tolerant of the foibles of the very young. Kort could have explained that he and Jan had drunk from the same well, both of them born and bred in the beautiful city of Brugge. They’d each fished in the Rijver Rei, skated upon the iced-over canals, frequented the same taverns and browsed in the Grote Markt and mourned their dead in the great church, Onze Lieve Vrouwkert. But Kort was not a man to whom explanations came naturally, and so he merely shrugged, then watched in bemusement as Klaas shared some of his pottage with a hungry dog who’d been tagging after the soldiers.