Klaas’s legs, barking frantically. Scooping her up into his arms, Klaas swore to disembowel any man who laid a hand upon her, and since he was known to be very handy with a knife, that was no idle threat. Shoving forward into their midst, Kort demanded to know the cause of this brawl.
Klaas glared at his dog’s tormentors. “I got up to take a piss. But as soon as I started off into those trees over there, Gerda began to bark and she kept it up. I think she heard some Welshmen on the prowl-”
He was hooted down by the other men. When someone rudely suggested that the dog had likely been scared by a rabbit, Kort had to step between them. “Whatever caused the dog to bark, it’s done and we’re all up now. There’s not a dog alive worth shedding blood over, so let’s rouse the cooks for an early breakfast.”
Hunger won out over irritation, as Kort expected it would. Klaas fell in step beside him, still insisting that his dog had warned him of unseen danger. Only half-listening, Kort found himself gazing over at a blanket-clad form beside a smoldering campfire. Recognizing that shock of bright blond hair, so fair it was almost white, he said, “I know Jan is a heavy sleeper, but even so… Jan? Wake up, lad!”
Unable to explain his own urgency, even to himself, he strode forward. “Jan, you hear me-God in Heaven!”
Klaas was now close enough to see, too, and sucked in his breath. Jan’s eyes were open, staring up sightlessly at them. There was no horror on his face, no contorted grimace, just a look of puzzlement There was blood on his blanket. Kneeling by Jan’s body, Kort pulled the blanket back and exposed the death wound: a lethal thrust to the jugular vein. Kort’s fists clenched. After a moment, he said in a scratchy, harsh voice, “There are faint bruises on his cheeks. A hand was clamped over his mouth to stifle any outcry as the dagger was driven home. The whoreson knew what he was about.”
Flies were already buzzing about the body and if Jan were left unprotected, they’d soon be laying their eggs in his mouth and nose. In less than a day, his flesh would be crawling with maggots. It occurred to Kort that he’d seen too many corpses, buried too many friends.
Klaas leaned over to close Jan’s eyes, for there was something unnerving, even accusing, about that blind, blue-white stare, only to recoil as soon as he touched the dead man’s skin. “Jesu! He’s still warm!”
“I know,” Kort said grimly. There was no need to say more. Jan had died as the night waned, slain by a killer bold enough to venture alone into an enemy encampment, his presence observed only by a small stray dog.
Henry’s wrath was volcanic. Seething and swearing, he paced the cramped confines of his command tent, raging at the murder of his men and the treachery of the Welsh and the appalling ineptitude of his guards. No one interrupted his harangue, knowing from experience that it was safer just to let his furies burn themselves out.
“A half dozen men dead, throats slit! And no one hears or sees a bloody thing? I’ve a mind to hang some of the sentries. I daresay that would encourage the rest of them to stay awake on duty!”
Rainald didn’t really think his nephew would carry out that threat, but he deemed it prudent, nevertheless, to deflect his anger away from the sentries and back onto a more legitimate target. “The Welsh know these woods the way one of our soldiers knows his local alehouse. They can shadow us at their ease, knowing they’re well nigh invisible in that God-awful tangle of trees and brush, awaiting their chance to strike. If you ask me, it is a craven way to fight a war, a coward’s way.”
“It is that,” Henry said tersely. “There is no honor in stabbing a man whilst he sleeps.”
The other men echoed their heartfelt agreement, all but Ranulf, who was conspicuously silent. Henry’s eyes narrowed. “What say you, Uncle? Surely you have some thoughts about these loathsome killings?”
Ranulf knew he should keep quiet. But he’d been keeping quiet for far too long, a mute and unwilling accomplice to this English invasion of his homeland. “If my house was broken into, my only concern would be to protect my family and my home-any way I could.”
“That is a peculiar comparison, by God,” Henry said incredulously. “You would equate an outlaw’s crime with a king’s campaign to punish disloyal vassals?”
“The Welsh do not see themselves as disloyal vassals.”
“Do they not? Well, they will soon learn different, that I can promise you. For all their delusions of grandeur, they are no more than malcon tented rebels on the run, afraid to face us in the field.”
“If you truly believe that, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
“Indeed?” Henry’s tone was sardonic. “So you think, then, that they might yet find enough backbone to fight us fairly?”
Ranulf’s mouth twisted. “If by that, you mean in the field, one army against another, no, they will not do that. Why should they? They are winning, after all.”
“The Devil they are!” Henry strode forward to glare at his uncle, as the others marveled at Ranulf’s audacity. “I have enough Welsh foes skulking about in the woods, need none in my own tent!”
“I thought this was why I was here-to tell you what the Welsh are thinking. Or am I only to say what you want to hear? Like it or not, my lord king, the Welsh do think they are winning this war, and why not? Those men we are burying this morn are not Welsh, and I’d wager that the next graves dug won’t be for the Welsh, either.”
Henry’s breath hissed between his teeth. He made an abrupt gesture of dismissal, which Ranulf was more than willing to obey. Ducking under the tent flap, he began to walk through the camp. The sky was overcast, the air uncomfortably humid; within a few steps, his tunic was damp with sweat and his hauberk felt as heavy as lead. Off to his right, a small group of men were conducting a brief funeral for one of the night’s victims, soldiers standing somberly around a shallow grave. The guttural murmurs of Flemish caught Ranulf’s ear as he passed and he paused for a moment, feeling a prickle of pity for any man who’d died so far from his own homeland. At least if he was struck down in this accursed war, he’d be dying on Welsh soil.
He had not expected his emotions to be so raw, his anger so close to the surface. He had thought that he could handle the pull of conflicting loyalties, as he had in the past. But this time it was different. He was betraying the Welsh by fighting with the English, betraying the English by hoping the Welsh would win, and betraying himself with each stifled breath he drew. And the end was not yet in sight.
Ranulf was seated upon a fallen log, gazing out upon the forest fastness of Ceiriog, when Henry finally found him. “I’ve been scouring the entire damned camp for you, Uncle, began to think you’d ridden off on your own.”
“I thought about it,” Ranulf said tonelessly, and Henry grimaced, then sat down beside him upon the log.
“I know you do not want to be here,” he said after a long silence. “If truth be told, neither do I, Ranulf. I’ve never hungered for Welsh conquest; what man in his senses would? Look around you,” he said, gesturing toward the encroaching wall of trees and brambles. “This whole wretched country is a fortress. And we have not even gotten into the mountains yet. This campaign has not gone at all as I planned-and I do not always take it with good grace when my plans go awry.”
“Do tell,” Ranulf murmured, but there was a softening beneath the sarcasm, for that was as close to an apology as Henry could get and they both knew it. “So now what, Harry? Do I lie the next time you ask me how I think your war is going?”
“You know better. There are precious few people I can trust to tell me the truth, but you are one of them.”
“The truth, then. I think you will be making a great mistake to continue on with this campaign. The Welsh will keep on harassing us with their contrary tactics, bleeding away your army’s strength with quick raids and retreats, fading back into the woods ere you can retaliate. War by attrition, the wearing down of the enemy. In your words, it may indeed not be honorable. But it works, Harry. It works.”
“I know,” Henry admitted. “But I am not about to give up, Ranulf. I cannot do that, for a king who lets one rebellion go unpunished will soon see others springing up all over his domains. Think of weeds in a garden, if you will. Stop pulling them up and the garden is lost.”
“What will you do, then? Just press ahead by day, keep losing men by night?”
“No,” Henry said, “that would be a fool’s play. The rules of this game are too heavily slanted in Owain Gwynedd’s favor. So-I mean to change the rules.”
From their vantage point upon the heights of the Berwyn Mountains, they looked out upon the vast, green expanse of the Ceiriog Valley. They had come to see for themselves if their scouts’ reports were accurate, and they
