Rhiannon (42 page)

The sun was just above the horizon when faint bird calls
reached Rhiannon’s guards. It might be only crows that had discovered a dead
animal, but Twm promptly set out to see. Sion looked at his mistress’s
daughter, who was sleeping soundly, and decided not to wake her yet. When Twm
came back would be soon enough. But then Sion heard what might be horses, and
Twm had not returned. He had begun to tighten the girths of the mounts when Twm
burst through the trees.

“A hundred or more,” he gasped, “and they are ranging the
wood, beating for game.”

Shaken awake, Rhiannon was half-dazed. They mounted and rode
southwest as quickly as possible. It was the only direction they could go. The
river was northwest, and they did not know whether it was fordable; east was
all king’s country. At first they thought they would make good their escape.
The hunting party was making so much noise of their own that the sound of their
horses would be insignificant. There was no pursuit, and they drove their
mounts harder as they came out of the trees into more open land.

This was a grave mistake. The thunder of their own horses’
hooves and the sun full in their eyes masked sights and sounds they would have
noticed had their progress been more careful. Suddenly, cries rang out from
ahead, a challenge in French and English. They could not answer. Rhiannon’s men
spoke neither French nor English, and a woman’s voice would be no way to reduce
curiosity and obtain freedom. Desperate, they wheeled east, but it was too
late. Warnings were sounding before, behind, all over. Sion and Twm reached for
their bows.

“No!” Rhiannon cried. “You cannot fight an army.”

“Welsh! Spies! Have a care!” rang from every side.

Several men-at-arms rose with crossbows ready out of a
screen of bushes along the side of a stream about twenty feet away. Rhiannon
reined in her horse.

“I am no spy,” she said in French. “I am a Welsh
gentlewoman, and my men and I are lost.”

The cultured language and the quality of the horses and their
trappings saved Rhiannon and her men from excessively rough handling. There
were some Welsh gentlemen who, from violent opposition to anything Prince
Llewelyn did, were attached to the king’s cause, and the leaders of the men on
patrol and scavenging expeditions knew better than to take the chance of
offending any of their womenfolk. They also had strict instructions that any
Welsh person caught must be brought to an officer for question­ing. It seemed
impossible that any woman should be a spy, but if she were brought politely to
their commander, they would have obeyed both orders.

Excusing himself but nonetheless firmly, the captain of the
patrol relieved Sion and Twm of everything that could conceivably be a weapon
and bound their feet beneath their horses’ bellies and their hands to the
saddles. This indignity was not forced upon Rhiannon, but she was as securely
bound as her men because, in spite of their urging that she escape, she would
not leave them.

Until Rhiannon saw the keep itself, she had been uselessly
castigating herself for her lunacy in leaving Builth, but she had not been
personally afraid. As soon as she identified herself, she knew she would be
treated with the utmost courtesy. When she saw Grosmount, however, she realized
that, respect or no respect, she would be asked what she was doing in the area.
And even if she told them nothing, her very presence would proclaim that her
father must be somewhere near.

Not only that, she would be a prisoner and would remain one
until the war was over. Simon might be brought to heel by her predicament, and
he would love her no better for placing him in such a position. And if the king
tried to use her as a bargaining counter, her father would be so angry that he
would probably plead with Henry to drop her down the deepest castle well that
could be found. Better, far better, to suffer whatever indignity was necessary
now. It could not be long before the attack took place. Surely during that
confusion she would be able to escape.

“Twm, tell them I am Rhiannon, wife of Pwyll, if they ask,”
she called out in Welsh, “and that my husband put me away because I am barren.
You were taking me home to my father, Heffydd Hen. You know the place and the
rest of the tale.”

“What are you saying? What are you saying?” the captain of
the guard demanded angrily.

“I told them to tell the truth if they are questioned, that
we have nothing to hide. I am Rhiannon, wife of Pwyll of Dyfedd, and I am going
home to my father, Heffydd the Old.”

“What was there in that to laugh about?” the man insisted
suspiciously.

Obviously Rhiannon could not admit that her men were amused
because she had adapted an old fairy tale to fit her needs. “That I will not
tell you,” she said with dignity. “It is personal to me, and I love them less
for they laugh at my shame.”

This answer scarcely satisfied him, but he did not wish to
take responsibility for more than telling her firmly not to address her men in
their own language again. This Rhiannon readily promised, for the details of
the old fairy tale were so well known that she was sure her story and her men’s
would fit together perfectly. They soon came to the camp where the officer in
charge was as puzzled as the patrol leader had been as to what to do with a
Welshwoman of good class—he knew well enough what to do with the others.

His first move was to ask whether she knew anyone in the
king’s entourage who would vouch for her. Naturally enough she denied
vehemently that she had any connection of any kind at all with the Saeson or
those who loved the Saeson. She reiterated that she was no spy, that the
officer should allow her and her men to pass on in peace. Since this was
impossible, she was passed up the chain of command, arriving at last in the
tent of Baldwin de Guisnes, the castellan of Monmouth keep, and the most
important man—and best soldier—in the camp.

By then it was completely dark. The men were already
quieting for the night. About half of them had only reached the camp that
morning and had spent the afternoon putting up tents. Those who had come in the
day before had either been out on patrol, had been scavenging, or had been
collecting and distributing supplies under the eyes of their officers. De
Guisnes, however, was not tired. His activities had been confined to riding the
distance the men-at-arms had walked and then riding around the camp on a tour
of inspection. He had just been considering whether he should go up to the keep
for a little male companionship or send his squire out to procure a woman for
him when Rhiannon was brought to his tent.

He listened to her story with creased brows. “Take the men
away and get an interpreter to question them. No torture yet. And you, my lady,
get down from that horse.”

Rhiannon did so without comment, only turning to unlash
Math’s basket before the horse could be led away. Hands grabbed the basket from
her and fastened on the lid. “No! Do not!” she cried. So, naturally, the lid
was pulled off at once. Math’s yowl and the shriek of the man who had opened
the basket mingled and were loud enough to drown the single choke of laughter
she could not restrain.

“I told you not to open it,” she said, still choking and
hoping her mirth would be mistaken for grief. “Now my cat is lost.”

“Cat?” de Guisnes repeated, looking at the slashes which had
torn the unwise man-at-arms’ forehead, nose, and jaw so that blood was pouring
down his face. “That looks like the work of a lion.”

Then he transferred his eyes to Rhiannon’s face, which he
could see more clearly now that she had dismounted. In a moment all thought of
riding up to the keep or using a camp follower disappeared from his mind. He
reviewed the story he had heard. No claim of influential friends or relatives.
Who did she say her husband was? Pwyll of Dyfedd? He had never heard that
name—or had he? It was vaguely familiar. But the father’s name, Heffydd Hen, he
had never heard that. No male relative he need worry about offending. She was a
nobody—but a very pretty nobody.

“I do not understand how you came to be so conveniently lost
right here,” de Guisnes said. “It is not common for a woman to act the spy—but
it is not impossible. You had better explain yourself more clearly.”

“There is nothing to explain,” Rhiannon insisted, but she
entered the tent without protest when he gestured her inside.

He dropped the tent flap, but there was no reason to tie it.
His eyes were on Rhiannon, whose beauty, although a little marred by dust and
fatigue, was quite striking in the better light provided by candles. Thus, he
did not notice the gray shadow that slipped under the flap and then melted away
under his bed. Rhiannon’s eyes flicked to it and away. The sidelong glance was
unintentionally provocative, for she had just been replying to the question of
why her men had laughed.

De Guisnes seized on that, called it a lie, and insisted on
an answer. But he neither wanted nor expected one, he simply needed an excuse
to punish Rhiannon. The questioning continued for almost half an hour, with
Rhiannon pretending to weep but refusing to answer “for shame”. Then, feeling
he had justification in case the Pwyll she had mentioned was more important
than he thought, he began to threaten her. Rhiannon realized she would have to
offer something new, and admitted with more false tears that her husband had
put her away for being barren. The men he had sent to escort her back to her
father’s house had laughed at her in mockery.

This was better than de Guisnes had expected. The name Pwyll
of Dyfedd had seemed familiar to him—which was not surprising since the story
of Pwyll was one of the commonest legends in Wales—and de Guisnes had felt a
touch of uneasiness about raping the wife of a man who might be important. But
if he had rejected the woman already, there could be no harm in it. De Guisnes
cocked his head as some faint sounds in the distance caught his ear. Then,
someone closer cried a challenge. An authoritative voice answered in cultured
French. De Guisnes dismissed the matter from his mind, grasped Rhiannon’s
wrist, and drew her toward him.

“I think your husband was a great fool,” he said.

The commanders at Grosmount were no more intelligent about
patrols after they camped than on the march. Some men did ride around, but they
went no farther than the banks of the Dore two miles away. Not a quarter of a
mile west of the bank, most of Prince Llewelyn’s army had slept away the hours
between dinnertime and dusk. By then sufficient places had been found in the
river that could be used as fords with a line slung from bank to bank to
prevent men from being swept away and drowned.

A few advance posts had also been set up by the mercenary
captains, but these were on the road. It was quite fixed in the minds of
continental mercenaries that armies carried huge siege trains and supply wagons
and, therefore, traveled on roads. By dusk the advance posts were gone and the
strangled bodies quietly removed. Before it was completely dark, Prince
Llewelyn’s army was across both road and river and advancing quietly on the
main camp behind a fan of scouts who cleaned up the few men wandering out of
the camp for one reason or another.

Just beyond the perimeter of the fields several hundred
chosen men waited, watching the activity die down and the fires burn low. There
were guards, but not very many. Soon shadows began to flit across the fields and
there were fewer guards, then fewer still. Then the whole open area seemed to
darken and crawl and heave. Prince Llewelyn’s army was on the move. They were
not aimed toward the rows of tents where the men-at-arms slept, but toward the
area closest to the keep, where the draught animals were tethered and the
baggage wains lay. It was not completely silent, it was impossible that so many
men should not make some noise, but the camp was not completely silent either,
and the invaders did not raise any alarms.

Simon and his troop were in the second wave, although the
best of his men had worked with the scouts. When it came to actual battle,
Simon preferred to be in mail and on horseback. There were already a few cries
in the distance as Simon rode across the fields toward the camp. Here and there
a groom or a guard of the supply train could not be silenced quickly enough. It
would not be long before the whole camp was stirring.

Even as he thought it, a voice cried a sleepy challenge.
Simon could see well enough to make out a face peering from a tent. He answered
with an autocratic snap. The mail-clad form, shield on shoulder and sword
sheathed, together with the tone and the cultured voice and accent, were
enough. The sentries had not called any alarm, it was not the business of a
common man to question a knight riding through the camp with a few men on his
tail. No one would bother to inform a common soldier about any duty but his
own.

Simon went on, laughing silently. He was nearly to the
center of the camp. Pembroke’s forces must by now be poised at the edge of the
woods to come down the moment action started. His business, and that of others
like him, was to cause enough disturbance to prevent the men-at-arms from going
to the assistance of those guarding the baggage when the inevitable alarm came.
Then Pembroke’s men could come in and sweep up the remains. Simon was beginning
to wonder whether he would have to begin the disturbance himself, when a
violent outcry broke out almost simultaneously in the supply area and at the
southern end of the camp.

He had just time to notice that he was close to the largest
and most luxurious tent he had yet seen when there were shouts of alarm right
behind him. He swung his shield onto his arm, drew his sword—and almost dropped
it in shock. The most appalling squall he had ever heard burst from the tent
just ahead of him, followed by a man’s hoarse scream of pain, and then the
single word, “Math!” coming from the last voice Simon expected to hear. All
around him now men began to cry out warnings and alarms. His troop spread out,
shouting at the top of their lungs, cutting tent cords, knocking down lean-to
supports, striking men with the flats of their swords, and in general creating
the maximum amount of terror and confusion.

A male shout of rage had followed the scream of pain and the
woman’s cry of protest just before the chaos began, but the man’s third yell,
of surprise as much as pain, was almost drowned by the rising noise. Then the
tent flap billowed, emitting first a squalling fury of a cat and then—
Rhiannon
.
The whole thing took only five seconds, but Simon felt as if he had been
sitting mute and paralyzed for an hour. When the man burst from the tent behind
Rhiannon, Simon was at last galvanized into action and urged Ymlladd forward,
shouting a challenge.

He hoped for one moment in which to come close enough to
strike Rhiannon’s pursuer down. If the man rushed back into his tent, it would
be more difficult to deal with him. Either Simon’s shout or the sights and
sounds that met his eyes when he came out had just that effect. De Guisnes
stopped, his mouth and eyes distended. The flat of Simon’s sword caught him on
the side of the head hard enough to knock him two feet to the left.

As the blow fell, Simon could not help but feel sorry for
the man. He had had enough to stun him, apparently, before he came out of his
tent. His face and neck were covered with blood, as was the sleeve of his left
arm. Simon knew what had happened, and he did not have time to wonder why it
had happened. That would come later.

“Rhiannon!” he bellowed.

It never occurred to him that she might have run away in
terror, and indeed she had not. She slipped back around the side of the tent
instantly, crying out happily, “Oh, Simon, how fortunate! I came to find you.”

This statement, not unnaturally, had almost the effect on
Simon that his sword had had on de Guisnes, His stunned speechlessness gave
Rhiannon time to add, “My men are prisoners somewhere here—Twm and Sion. Will
you pass the word to look for them? And I must get Math’s basket.”

On the words she nipped back into the tent. Simon let out
another bellow, this time of rage. At once Siorl was at his elbow. “Get—” Simon
began, just as Rhiannon stepped out of the tent, calling for Math. Siorl’s eyes
nearly popped out of his head. He had heard Simon shout Rhiannon’s name just
after he struck down the owner of the tent, but he had been busy at the moment
and had assumed it was a war cry. It might be an odd one, but it would identify
Simon as attached to the Welsh party, and it was not unreasonable in Siorl’s
mind that his master would call his witch-woman’s name as a talisman. However,
Siorl had hardly expected the appearance of the witch herself in answer.

“Get her a horse, and get her out of here!” Simon roared.

“What about my men?” Rhiannon cried.

“Any Welsh prisoner will be freed,” Simon replied, then
turned to order Echtor to strip de Guisnes’ tent and found Rhiannon was gone.
“Rhiannon!” he bellowed.

“I am getting Math,” she shouted back.

She was not far, but he could hardly hear her. The whole
camp was a bedlam as Bassett with Pembroke’s troops poured into it. The
confusion was indescribable, for Henry’s whole army had been caught sleeping,
unarmed and unprepared, and was now in a state of total panic. Here and there a
captain would try to organize his men to resist, but by specific instructions
he would be struck down as the first target. The few knights and barons were
being immobilized by the simple expedient of cutting their tents down around
them, extracting them half-smothered, and rendering them unconscious.

The common men-at-arms were being rounded up and put to work
at loading everything movable on carts and pack animals and driving them out.
Welsh guards with arrows nocked to their bows patrolled up and down the line of
carts. The pack animals were fastened together in long trains, each led by a
single trustworthy man.

As Rhiannon came back around the side of the tent, Ewyn came
up with a cart, and Echtor drove forward some dazed, bloodied, and half-naked
Flemish mercenaries, who promptly fell on their knees, thinking they had been
brought before Simon for judging. They could not, of course, understand a word
Echtor said to them.

“Get up,” Simon said in French, “and load the goods into the
cart. No more harm will befall you than already has.”

Their relief was so great that they worked with more
enthusiasm than could have been expected. The tent was down and rolled, its
contents stowed away by the time Siorl returned with a great black brute of a stallion
that was kicking and plunging. Simon called his captain several improbable
things, but Siorl shouted back that the stallion was the only horse he could
find. Nothing but oxen were left. The stallion remained because he was too wild
to handle.

“Not in this noise,” Rhiannon cried. “I cannot quiet him in
the middle of this chaos.”

“Take Ymlladd,” Simon yelled.

Rhiannon ran to the horse’s head and stroked him. He, too,
was nervous and snorting, eager to rear and fight as the smell of blood excited
him more and more. Still, he did not attempt to savage Rhiannon, and she went
to the side and up into the saddle before Simon came down. It would not do in
the midst of such turmoil to leave the stallion with an empty saddle.

As it was, when Simon came down, Ymlladd plunged and reared,
fighting the lessening of the weight he was accustomed to bearing until he
realized there were still firm hands on the reins and a voice he knew well in
his ears. It took time to strap Math’s carrying basket on behind the saddle, as
even Simon was cautious about approaching the horse where he could not see and
Math was yowling like a banshee.

Then came the question of mounting the black destrier.
Shouts brought men to hang on the bridle so he could not rear, and at least he
was not as bad as Ymlladd and did not try to bite. Simon sprang into the
saddle, tore the reins from Siorl’s hands, and checked the horse as hard as he
could. The black rose, pawing the air; Simon roweled him hard.

“Go,” he bellowed. “Siorl, take her to Llewelyn before
Ymlladd starts to fight.”

The noise, which had lessened around them, began to swell
again. Groups of men who had run out of the camp in panic had been gathered by
some of the captains who had escaped. Once their shock diminished, so did their
terror. They began to realize that the army attacking them was far inferior in
numbers to their own. They had found weapons and scraps of armor and began to
return to try to drive the invaders away. Partly it was a matter of pride, but
an even stronger inducement was their own need for the supplies that were being
stolen. If they did not fight back, there would be no food for them, no money,
no tents, no shoes, no blankets—nothing. Some had gathered loot in past
battles. That was being taken, too, and they did not want to lose it.

Where these groups were fighting their way back into the
camp, the sounds were different—curses and cries of pain but no screams of
unreasoning terror. Rhiannon turned her head to listen and knew she must go.
Her eyes were blazing like emeralds even in the dim light.

“Give me a bow, and I will guard the wagon,” she cried.

Simon was battling with his new stallion and had no
attention to give to anything else. Siorl, who had listened to Rhiannon sing to
the voices in the wind around Dinas Emrys, would never question the orders of
the witch. He set up a cry for a light bow, and a man came running up with a
boy’s weapon as the wagon was started forward. Rhiannon swung the quiver over
her shoulder and then grasped the bow.

“Have a care, Simon,” she shouted back as she kicked Ymlladd
into forward motion, which finally stopped his dancing and plunging. “I will
marry you where and when you will, so have a care to yourself.”

Simon heard and for a moment his control of the black
destrier faltered. He started to rise and tip in the saddle, but his knees
gripped hard and he pulled back the rein until the animal’s mouth was forced
open. Then, as the wagon and its escort disappeared into the dark, he wrenched
his mount around to the direction from which the sounds of battle rather than
rout were coming, relaxed the rein and roweled the beast hard again. The horse
sprang forward. In moments they were among the fighters. Simon called warnings
in Welsh and then let his half-crazed mount attack.

That group broke soon, but there was more legitimate prey on
the way. Once the noise of the initial rout began, it was inevitable that the
keep should be warned. It had taken a little time for those within to
understand what was happening. Now the few nobles and the mercenary captains
who had been with the king inside Grosmount were leading out the garrison of
the keep in an attempt to drive away the attackers.

Before the defenders from the keep could reach the camp and
interfere with the systematic looting that was going on, they were met by both
Bassetts, Siward, Simon, and half a dozen others plus their mounted
men-at-arms. The black destrier now had his fill of work, and the strange,
cruel hands became kind and steadying. Spurs no longer raked his sides but
touched him gently, directing him here and there. The unfamiliar scent began to
mingle with the familiar and grow acceptable. His energy and fury could be
directed at opposing horses and men.

The clash was sharp, and half an hour of hard fighting
ensued, but those who had come out of Grosmount were driven back in. Several
were unhorsed and their animals caught and led away, but no attempt was made to
capture anyone, even after he became easy prey on foot. They were simply
prevented from coming anywhere near the camp where they might rally the men and
prevent the removal of every stick, shred, and crumb that might be useful for
any purpose at all.

Another sally from the keep was met and thrust back, and now
the sounds of battle within the camp were dying down as well. The defeated were
thoroughly cowed, and there was very little left to fight over. As the last of
the wagons and packtrains rolled out of the camp, Gilbert Bassett rode back and
ordered his men to begin an ordered retreat that would prevent any attack to recover
the loot. The Welsh were already gone. Organization was not a strong point of
their fighting style.