There was still an hour or so of daylight remaining when the English at last reached the foothills of the Berwyn range. But the wind had picked up and the clouds to the west looked like billowing black anvils. Henry was pleased with the progress they’d made and decided to reward the men by making camp instead of pushing on till dusk. They hastily set up their tents, laid out their bedrolls, and braced themselves to ride out the breaking storm.
Soon after dark, the rains began. It was immediately apparent that this was no mere summer soaker. The winds were shrieking through the camp, collapsing tents and terrifying the horses. Men who left their shelter were drenched within moments, half drowned in the downpour. Just before midnight, hail mixed with the rain, ice pellets the size of coins pelting the ground and stinging every inch of exposed skin on the unfortunate sentries. Sleep was the first casualty of the storm and, for all, it was a wakeful, nerve-racking night.
Although his command tent had withstood the tempest, Henry had gotten no more rest than his soldiers, listening to the howling of the wind and the occasional shouts when another tent was blown down. Daylight brought no respite from the gale. If anything, it seemed to intensify, and Henry had no choice but to order them to remain in camp until the storm passed. The day was torture for so impatient a soul as Henry’s. He might be drier than most of his men, but he was no less miserable, trapped in his tent as the hours dragged by and his frustration festered. The night was easier, for he finally fell into an exhausted sleep. But upon awakening, he discovered that the wind still raged and the rain continued to fall in torrents.
When Henry announced that they would break camp and head out, his audience looked at him as if he’d lost his senses. Watching as his men struggled to take down their tents and load the wagons and packhorses, he soon realized they were right. The meadow had become a quagmire and men slipped and lurched and sank to their knees in the muck. The wind hindered them as much as the mud, tearing at the tent stakes and blowing over one of the supply wagons. As sacks of flour split open and a keg rolled down the hillside, spewing out a spray of ale in its wake, Henry hastily countermanded himself, and his sodden, shivering soldiers gratefully pitched their tents again, seeking what small comfort they could find under wet blankets and dripping mantles.
For the rest of his days, Henry was to refer to the squall upon the Berwyns with the very worst of the obscenities he had at his considerable command. Never had he encountered a storm so savage, or so long-lasting. Ironically, the English would have fared better had they still been down in the Ceiriog Forest they’d been so eager to leave behind. Here upon the unsheltered moors, they were at the mercy of the elements. Fires could not be set as kindling was saturated, the ground soaked. The only food available was what could be eaten uncooked or raw, and men were soon sickening, stricken by chills, fever, and the feared bloody flux. Henry was far less superstitious than most of his contemporaries, with a skeptical streak that few besides Eleanor either understood or appreciated. But even he began to wonder if such foul weather could be dismissed as mere happenchance.
When the rain finally eased up two days later, the English army resumed its march, only to discover that the mountain road was washed away in places, the streams swollen with runoff water, and the moorlands pitted with newly formed bogs. Still, they pressed on, driven by the sheer force of Henry’s implacable will. By now some of the ailing men had begun to die. They were buried with indecent haste, left to molder in an alien, hostile land, and the army straggled on. They had a new concern now-their dwindling supplies, for some of their provisions had been lost or ruined during the storm. But when they sent out a hunting party to search for game, it did not come back. Hungry and dispirited, the soldiers trudged on, cursing the Welsh aloud and Henry under their breaths.
They were higher up now and the air held a surprising chill for August. Henry had dismounted and was wrapping a blindfold around his stallion’s eyes, for there was a narrow stretch of road ahead and English horses were not as accustomed to these heights as the surefooted animals the Welsh rode. The wind was still pursuing them, shrieking at night like the souls of the damned, chasing away sleep and catching their words in midsentence, so that men had to shout to make themselves heard. Now a sudden gust ripped the blindfold from Henry’s hand and sent it flying. He was turning to get another strip of cloth when the screams began.
One of the Flemish sergeants lay bleeding in the road, struck by a large rock that had come plummeting from the heights above them. Before anyone could reach the injured man, other rocks began to roll down the slope, and then there was a roaring sound and part of the cliff crumbled away, a wave of mud and turf and boulders engulfing the dazed soldier and those who’d hastened to his aid. Henry clung to his plunging stallion’s reins, somehow kept the petrified animal from bolting. Hitching it to the closest wagon, he ran forward. But there was nothing to be done. Their broken bodies swept along like debris in a floodtide, the men caught in the avalanche were gone.
As soon as they could find a suitable place to pitch camp, Henry ordered it done even though it was not yet dusk. He’d seen the stunned faces of his men, staring down mutely at the torn-up, flattened grass that marked the mudslide’s track, and he ordered, as well, an extra ration of ale with supper. But that night he was awakened by the sound he most dreaded to hear: the drumbeat of rain upon the canvas roof of his tent.
All eyes were upon Henry. But no one spoke. It had already been said, the arguments made for retreat. The wretched weather. The danger of another mudslide. Men with empty bellies and loose bowels and a weakened will to fight. The specter of hunger stalking them as relentlessly as the shadowy, unseen wolves who’d learned that armies were worth trailing. Henry knew that the arguments were right, rooted in common sense and a realistic assessment of their worsening plight. But still the words stuck in his throat as he turned and finally said, “So be it. Make ready to withdraw at first light.”
Every man in the tent was relieved by that grudging command, none more so than Ranulf. He sagged down on one of Henry’s coffers, drawing his first easy breath in weeks. But then Henry said grimly, “We will go back to Chester and await the arrival of the fleet I hired from the Danes in Dublin. This war is not over yet.”
The English retreat was disorderly and hurried, as retreats usually are. Harassed by the Welsh, Henry’s army retraced its route through the Ceiriog Forest and headed back toward the border. There was some skirmishing between the more zealous of the Welsh pursuers and the English rearguard, but eventually Henry’s men reached safety in Shropshire. After halting in Shrewsbury to treat the wounded and ailing, Henry collected the hostages surrendered to the Crown eight years earlier by the Welsh princes, and continued north to Chester. There he encamped his army on the Wirral Peninsula northeast of the city and settled in at Shotwick Castle to plan the next stage of his Welsh war.
Henry’s chamber in Shotwick Castle’s great square keep had been transformed into a council of war. The trestle table was littered with maps of Wales-none of them very accurate, for mapmaking was not an advanced science. As the men crowded around the table, Henry gestured with a quill pen, splattering ink upon the parchment as he pointed out the proposed route his army would follow upon their return-along the coast road toward Owain Gwynedd’s manor at Aber-while his fleet ravaged the fertile lands of the island called Mon by the Welsh and Anglesey by the English.
Glancing up as the door banged open, Henry flashed a smile at the sight of Ranulf. “Ah, there you are, Uncle. Come take a look at this new map-”