The scouts sent on ahead returned to advise that the Welsh had dismounted and left their horses in the trees just to the west of the village of Yazor, along with five attendants. Alan sent ten of his men who were foresters or poachers ahead and soon received the signal that it was clear to proceed. On arriving at the tree line he ignored a pair of booted feet projecting from behind a bush, other than to think that his men must have been busy- otherwise the boots would have been removed by now.
Screams and shouts could be heard from the village that lay just ahead.
“What men have we got?” Alan demanded of Brand.
“Thirty mounted men-at-arms and ten swordsmen. Twenty archers,” replied Brand.
“If we send them into the village, the villagers will attack us and we’ll be blundering about not knowing what we’re doing,” said Alan, expressing uncharacteristic caution.
“The best course is to stay here and wait for the Welsh to come back for their horses,” agreed Brand. “Of course, that doesn’t help the villagers!”
Alan grunted in reply and looked about. It appeared that Yazor had largely been spared the ravages of the summer invasion, which was presumably why the Welsh were paying their visit tonight. “They aren’t my villagers! There are several haystacks over to the north, just past those houses. Set fire to them. That should get the Welsh moving out of the village when it attracts their attention.”
It was Brand’s turn to grunt. “Probably,” he said. “But apart from our men at Staunton they wouldn’t expect to see a man-at-arms closer than Hereford, six miles away.”
“Do it! I don’t want to send my men into a confused fight to defend a village that isn’t my responsibility. If I do I’ll lose ten or fifteen men. I don’t intend to lose a single one,” instructed Alan.
Minutes later the haystacks burst into flame, like giant beacons drawing attention. Shortly afterwards the Welshmen appeared, either carrying sacks of booty or with a woman draped over their shoulder. After a brief discussion, they moved as a body towards the trees.
Alan was standing with the archers in the shadow of the trees. “Loose!” he instructed. At a range of barely thirty paces it was impossible to miss. Fifteen Welshmen fell riddled with arrows, several being double-targeted. “And again! Loose!” Another nine Welshmen fell and Alan instructed the swordsmen to take the few remaining survivors into custody.
Riding into the village Alan was unable to locate the village head-cheorl and after leaving a message he departed back to the camp at Mansell Gamage.
Of the Welshmen, 29 of the 42 raiders were dead, shot down by the archers in ambush. There were no wounded. The 13 survivors, hands bound, were marched under guard to the camp. The only English casualty was a swordsman who had tripped over a log in the dark and sprained an ankle.
While the dead Welshmen were collected and thrown into Offa’s Dyke, Alan and a dozen men escorted the bewildered freed captives back into the village and returned that part of the portable wealth of the village that the Welsh had stolen and which his men had not had the opportunity to purloin. In the dark they were still unable to locate the village headman. Whether dead, fled or in hiding nobody knew. Instead Alan spoke to several of the older cheorls. Several dead bodies were being brought out and taken to the church, presumably men who had shown resistance. Alan felt a pang of guilt about that but accepted Brand’s assurance that had he and his men rushed into the village with swords drawn it was most likely that even more villagers would have died, as both his men and the Welsh would have struck first and asked questions later. At least the firing of the haystacks had interrupted the Welsh and prevented them from burning down the village and killing all the livestock. Anyway, it wasn’t his village and they were not his geburs. Defending them was somebody else’s responsibility and getting his own men killed or injured unnecessarily was something to be avoided if possible.
Alan arrived back at the camp shortly before dawn, feeling weary and fatigued. Baldwin the Norman man-at-arms and Ranulf the Saxon huscarle had tried to question the Welsh captives without success. The latter were pretending they spoke only Welsh. Alan chose not to disclose that he had some knowledge of the Celtic language, learned as a child from a Celtic-speaking nursemaid from Brittany, and dispatched a man to Staunton to summon two or three interpreters, and to advise Robert that the foray intended for that night would be delayed to allow his men to rest. The 42 captured Welsh hill-ponies were fed, watered and allocated to some of those who had hitherto traveled on foot.
At dawn two days later Alan, in full chain-mail harness, was sitting astride his warhorse Odin outside the village of Talgarth in Welsh Brycheiniog. The village of Hay-on-Wye, eight miles to the north-west and just on the Welsh side of the border, had been sacked but not burned the evening before as the raiding party had moved west following the path of the river. This provided much easier movement in a landscape of steep barren hills and mountains cut by deep fertile river valleys.
Alan expected that the other half of his force under Robert and Brand should be at Builth Wells to the north-west after an overnight march of nineteen miles. He looked to check that the men surrounding the village were in place and standing in plain view, an archer every thirty paces and three groups of armoured foot-soldiers. Thirty mounted men-at-arms and mounted thegns were at his back. Turning he looked to the north-west and could in the distance see the gray pall of smoke now issuing from Hay-on-Wye.
The village was stirring, men and women emerging from their ramshackle thatched cottages. After a few moments the villagers saw first one then another of the English soldiers and shouts of alarm could be heard. Men ran to the lord’s Hall, a long building near the middle of the village. Apart from the church it was the only substantial building in the village. There was a palisade of sorts around the Hall, built of wood posts and piles of thorn branches.
The church bell began to peal a warning. Odin fidgeted, tossing his head, and Alan leaned over to pat his neck. Several messengers could be seen running back from the Hall to the thirty or so huts and cottages that comprised the village and after a few moments men, women and children began to hurry to the Hall, glancing fearfully over their shoulders at the silent and still warriors surrounding the village.
After a pause of perhaps fifteen minutes a small group appeared from the Hall. Two were mounted on hill ponies and another six marched behind on foot. Their leader, a stockily-built man with mid-length dark hair was wearing a chain-mail byrnie and woolen trews, with a sword at his belt. The others were armed with swords, but unarmoured. The six men on foot were clearly warriors and Alan assumed that the other mounted man, thin and elderly, was an adviser.
The Welshman’s eyes cast about, taking in the fact that the archers carried longbows and were dressed in uniform padded armour, the uniform equipment and clothing of the men-at-arms, and the more motley appearance and equipment of the thegns and their retainers. He also noticed that all the mounted soldiers facing him were horsed on big strong animals totally unlike the small hill-pony he rode. Their appearance clearly marked them as English. “God hael!” he said in Anglo-Saxon English as he halted some five paces from Alan.
“You are Idwallon ap Gryfydd?” demanded Alan, in the Celtic tongue. The Welshman nodded in reply. “Then I bid you greeting, Prince of Brycheiniog,” continued Alan, switching to Anglo-Saxon English as he was more comfortable with that language. “I am Sir Alan of Thorrington and Staunton.” Idwallon took in the full-length sleeved hauberk, the Norman-style helmet with nasal guard that was placed on the saddle pommel and the massive destrier on which Alan was mounted. Alan continued abruptly, “I bring you a message in several parts.”