Alan rolled to his right, pulling his sword out from under the still twitching body, as Edric offered him a hand and helped him to his feet. “That accursed unges?lig ruined my trews!” said Edric looking at his blood-drenched legs.
“I owe you a flagon of ale, Edric.”
“Well, I thought that for a wealh you aren’t a bad herer?swa. The Welsh have all pissed off into the trees, so lets get the men together,” replied Edric.
Alan used his sword to quickly dispatch the still kicking and struggling Fayne and took possession of one of the chargers that was wandering ownerless on the battlefield. Seven of his eleven men were still in the saddle, elated at their first taste of victory in a serious fight. They retraced their path to find the missing four men, two of whom were dead and two injured, one severely as he had received a spear in the belly.
FitzOsbern had some men repairing the bridge and soon the dead and injured Anglo-Normans were able to be taken back to the village. Within minutes the dead of both sides had been stripped of anything useful- armour, weapons, jewellery and occasionally clothes and boots. The remaining villagers who had not had the opportunity to flee were instructed to cross the river and gather up the Welsh dead, under careful guard to ensure that they didn’t collect any weapons that may be found in the long grass.
The village head-man decided that the Welsh dead would be buried in a common grave-pit near the church. A similar pit was dug for the Anglo-Normans, again using the villager’s labour. There were about 250 Welsh dead, and about 50 wounded- probably about half the number that had been in the field that day. Nearly 100 Anglo-Normans were dead, mainly from the cavalry that had borne the brunt of the fighting, and 30 seriously wounded.
FitzOsbern had won his battle over the Welsh king, but at a high price. Fully one third of his cavalry, the cream of his army, was dead or wounded- and this despite the fact that the Anglo-Norman surprise attack, being on one flank of the Welsh army and accordingly meaning that only a part of the Welsh army was able to fight the Normans at any one time, had been made under the most advantageous conditions possible.
The Welsh women of the village were instructed to care for the wounded, which they did conscientiously and without apparent favour.
The battle had taken less than an hour from start to finish and had started very early. It was still only mid-morning when fitzOsbern called into the Cantref Hall where the injured were being treated. He was still in armour when he entered, walking with a slight limp, dirty, disheveled and covered in blood. Some was his own blood from cuts to his cheek from an arrow and his thigh from a spear. He moved amongst the wounded, dropping onto one knee next to each Norman or Englishman with words of encouragement and thanks, before approaching Alan, who was assisting the village wise woman to tend a severe arm wound suffered by a Welshman.
“Warm work this morning, Sir Alan!” commented fitzOsbern. “Those Welsh buggers fought damn well, considering the tactical disadvantages they had.”
Alan nodded and replied, “Nobody has ever doubted their courage or skill, just their lack of training. Fuck!” he exclaimed as a ligature slipped and blood spurted from the arm he was working on. “I don’t think this man is going to make it. Can you get the village priest in here? There are quite a few men who need to be shriven before they die, and I’m sure our men would rather be prayed over than not- even if the prayers are in Welsh.”
“He’s doing burials at the moment,” replied de Neufmarche, who had followed fitzOsbern into the Hall.
“The dead can wait. They have all eternity. Just get him!” instructed Alan. De Neufmarche nodded and gave instructions to one of his men.
“We managed to get the attention of the ship that we had arranged go to Abergele, as it was sailing past,” commented fitzOsbern. “It’s unloading some supplies near the bridge at the moment.”
Alan nodded and suggested, “Get the less badly wounded men taken on board and have the ship sail back to Chester. They’ll probably get there by tonight and it’ll be much easier for the injured than traveling on a bumping wagon on a rutted dirt track. If we get two ships tomorrow, we can send back the more seriously injured once they’ve had a chance to stabilize, and also the captured weapons and armour. If we send that booty back by road the Welsh will almost certainly take it back,” he suggested.
“Good idea,” replied fitzOsbern. “How long until you are finished here? The men will be resting for the day and tonight.”
“Another couple of hours. I’ll have something to eat then,” said Alan.
“Good. I’ve got a few flagons of fairly indifferent wine we found here in the Hall. It’s probably Bleddyn’s. We’ll drink that over roast swine and boiled beef. The cooks are busy with some of the fresh meat from the village’s herds.”
“Isn’t it Friday?” asked Alan.
FitzOsbern frowned in concentration for a moment. “Possibly. I’m not sure just what day it is. But I don’t hold with that on campaign anyway. Just call it Thursday!”
****
Alan washed himself at the horse-trough outside the tavern after stripping off his sweaty and river-sodden armour and padded gambeson. Then, free of sweat, blood and grime, he donned a clean rough tunic and trews without armour. He was confident that there was no chance of an attack by the Welsh for the next few days.
FitzOsbern had taken over the tavern as his headquarters. None of the soldiers were unhappy about that as they knew that they’d cleaned out all of the ale barrels before the commanders took possession. FitzOsbern, Guy de Craon, Raoul Painel, Osmond Basset and Bernard de Neufmarche were seated; all were still wearing armour, although all appeared to have at least washed their heads and hands. Aubrey Maubanc was amongst the seriously injured in the Hall and Alan was doubtful as to his chances.
The expedition leaders chatted about the battle for several minutes before fitzOsbern called them to attention. “Right, mesires! Let’s get to business. A hard-won victory this morning, but a win nevertheless. Bleddyn appears to have escaped, along with about 400 men. We have supplies from the village. The wounded are being sent back by ship and we’ve been re-supplied with both food and arrows, so we won’t have to provide guards for the wagons. What do you suggest we do next?”
“Strike while the iron is hot! God is clearly on our side!” said de Neufmarche with fervour. Several others joined in with suggestions, some with expressions of caution regarding the reduced strength of their forces.
After a few minutes Alan said, “Lord William, mesires! We need to look at what our objectives are. The main objective was to bring Bleddyn and his warriors to battle. We’ve achieved that and achieved victory, although at a high cost- but that’s what happens in battle. We discussed the other day what our capabilities were. That’s not changed, except the number of men in our force has decreased. We can’t force a way across the River Conwy. We had enough trouble getting over the Clwyd. We can’t fight our way through the hills and go around the river. What we can do is sack Abergele, Betws and a few smaller villages.