Alan left his men and horses at an inn near the castle and walked the remaining short distance together with Osmund and four huscarles. He was dressed well, but not ostentatiously and was shown immediately into the castle Hall, where fitzOsbern was sitting at a table near the fire and doing business with a well-dressed Englishman, seemingly a merchant, with an elderly man in a monk’s habit sitting nearby and scribing onto pieces of parchment with a small quill pen. Immediately Earl William had dealt with the matter before him his steward had a word in his ear and came to usher Alan before the Lord of the Western Marches. Osmund followed and stood by Alan’s shoulder.
Alan was surprised that fitzOsbern, the king’s cousin, rose to clasp his hand in greeting and say, “Welcome, Sir Alan! Please sit and take a cup of wine. How fare your manors in Staple Hundred?”
“Much better now, thank you Lord William. We’ve overcome many of the problems caused by last year’s invasion and the geburs are sowing this year’s harvest as we speak. They had ploughed some land by hand, but now have oxen.”
FitzOsbern raised his eyebrows in surprise. “It was a bad thing when the Welsh king Bleddyn and his half-brother Rhiwallon led his men across the border in force. Not so much an invasion, as there was no attempt to hold onto any land they occupied, but a massive raid. They devastated nearly every damn village and manor from the border to the River Lugg. It was so bad that King William has granted a relief from taxes for three years, reduced the Heriot Redemption fee for the English to a quarter of the usual rate and deferred even that for three years- and William doesn’t give away a single penny unless he has to. The English have had the same problem for hundreds of years and we’re no closer to an answer. Now I hear that you have brought an army to Herefordshire. May I ask what you intend to do with it?” fitzOsbern asked.
“Hardly an army,” replied Alan. “And it’s no longer in Herefordshire. My manor of Norton Canon was raided and burnt a few weeks back and I brought some of my men to deliver… chastisement. I invited the freemen of my Hundred to come along and join in if they had nothing better to do. Most of them will be half way back to Essex by now.”
FitzOsbern frowned. “So quickly? What changed your mind? Did you decide it was too difficult?”
Alan laughed. “Not at all,” he replied. “They’d done their job. It’s never a good idea to have armed men sitting idle as they get into trouble, so I sent them home. Staunton now just has its usual garrison of twenty men.”
Even more confused, fitzOsbern gestured for Alan to continue.
“We crossed the border and sacked Hay-on-Wye, Builth Wells and Talgarth. You’ll have little trouble from the Welsh in Brecon for the next year or so. We passed on a very strong message to stay at home, killed a lot of warriors, and took every horse and animal we could find. We recovered a total of 37 English captives taken last summer. The lords of Brycheiniog now understand what the outcome will be if they cross the border again. I explained it to Idwallon myself at the same time I advised him we had killed one of his sons,” explained Alan.
“You had Idwallon in your hands and let him go?” asked fitzOsbern incredulously. “How much ransom did he pay?”
“Nothing. I didn’t ask for any ransom. Judging by the state of his village he wouldn’t have had two marks to rub together. And we took every animal they had. Every cow, pig and sheep- down to the last chicken. What wealth he and his Cantref had was in those animals.”
“How many men did you lose?” queried fitzOsbern.
“We had nine dead and seventeen wounded- eight seriously,” answered Alan.
FitzOsbern shook his head in wonder. “Every time my men cross the border we achieve nothing, as was the case with the English before us. The Wesh won’t stand and fight, disappear into their hills and kill us from ambush. They have a man with a bow behind every fucking bush. How did you do it?”
Alan had no intention of telling one of the foremost knights in Christendom, who had commanded the Norman right wing at Hastings, how to fight a battle. “Speed, strength, planning and intelligence,” he commented. “The Good Lord was kind to us in our endeavour.”
FitzOsbern frowned. Alan realised after a moment that the other had misunderstood what he meant. “By ‘intelligence’ I meant information,” he hurriedly explained. “I knew what Welshmen were where. We struck unexpectedly, with stealth and speed like the Welsh do when they attack us. Now, Lord William, I really must be on my way if I’m to be in Gloucester before they close the gates this evening.”
FitzOsbern waved a hand in dismissal. “I presume I’ll be seeing you again in about two weeks,” he said. “The king will be sitting at London on Ascension Day on the 1st of May, and Duchess Matilda is to be crowned as queen on 11th May. King William has called a meeting of the Curia for the 5th of May, two days after the Feast of the blessed Apostles St Philip and St James. You’ll probably find your Summons waiting for you at home.”
“Ah! The king has finally brought Duchess Matilda to England? Excellent! I’ll look forward to seeing you then, Lord William,” said Alan before taking his leave from the second most powerful man in the land.
CHAPTER FOUR
London May 1068
Alan and Anne sat at ease in comfortable chairs in the Solar of their London town-house at Holebourn Bridge, just outside the city walls at Newgate. The house had been substantially renovated and extended since their purchase of a bankrupt Englishman’s property the year before via Malachi the Jew. With them sat Alan’s English scribe Osmund. A slightly ferret-faced tall, thin and balding Englishman named Gareth was being shown into the room by Alan’s young servant Leof, who had been sent to the disreputable tavern in the Shambles called ‘The Dancing Bear’ to fetch the Londoner. Gareth was extremely unprepossessing, dressed in clean but poor clothing, but Anne had explained to Alan the importance of her relationship with the man who she had engaged as her spy after the failed assassination attempt made against Alan in late November.
It was Thursday the 28th of April 1068, three days before the Feast of the Ascension on 1st of May. King William’s wife Matilda was due to be crowned Queen of England on Pentecost, the 11th May. Alan and Anne had travelled south from Essex and arrived the day before after a leisurely two day journey from Thorrington in Tendring Hundred near Colchester, Anne and two maids travelling on a light cart in the beautiful spring weather.
“Thank you for agreeing to come to see me, Gareth,” she said, patting the small rotundity of her five-month pregnant belly.
“Congratulations, m’lady,” said Gareth in a gravelly voice that showed his origins near the wharves of London.
Anne nodded. “Thank you for a job well done before Christmas,” she said, referring to the fact that Gareth, unable to determine which of three important officials upset by Alan’s complaints on behalf of the English regarding financial abuses had attempted to assassinate him, had provided a warning by stabbing a long dagger into the bed next to the head of each as they slept and placing an arrow beside their pillow.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t find out which I was. I’m reasonably sure it was Ralph the Staller,” he said, referring to the earl of East Anglia. “One of his men left the hunt abruptly at about the point Sir Alan was shot in the back, but I wasn’t able to obtain confirmation.”