going and what they would do when they arrived. “Brand, move the men through. It’s nearly dark and the gates will be closing soon. Get them to their lodgings and get them fed.”
“Does Earl William know you’re coming?” asked the sheriff with annoyance, as the few men he had standing in front of the gate were shouldered aside.
“Possibly, but I’m sure we’ll be welcome when we arrive,” said Alan vaguely. “Now, please excuse me, Sir! I’m tired, dirty, hungry and thirsty. I’ll proceed to my lodgings.” He made a mental note that if he needed to move men around in the future it would be in smaller groups of 20 or 30 at a time, so as not to attract attention.
When the next day they crossed the bridge over the River Wye in the early afternoon, Alan turned the force west along the road leading up the Wye River valley and towards the border instead of proceeding into the city of Hereford.
Near Byford, about two miles east of Staunton, they came across Osmund and three men sitting alongside the road under a tree which was just bursting into leaf. Osmund rose to his feet and walked the few paces to the road where Alan was at the head of his men. “Good afternoon, my lord,” said Osmund, as if the meeting were occurring in Alan’s Hall instead of the wilds of Herefordshire. “The mens’ weapons are in a clearing in the trees just to the north,” here he nodded towards a large stand of trees on the hills by the farm of Mansell Gamage. “There’s provender also. I bought that yesterday in Hereford and brought it here this morning. There are cooked cold meats, beef and swine; bread; cheese; boiled vegetables; fruit and ale. There’s fodder for the horses and a stream with fresh water for man and beast. There are more than enough provisions- although they cost a small fortune!”
“No questions were asked?” queried Alan.
Osmund gave him a look so ‘old-fashioned’ that its bones were bare, which expressed his disapproval. “I purchased from over a dozen different suppliers. I used our own carts. It took all fucking day!” he said sourly.
The men and horses disappeared into the trees. Firm instructions were given that no fires were to be lit. The infantry collected their armour, or in the case of the archers their extra sheaves of arrows, and set up the leather ten-man tents that Alan had provided. Guards and scouts were set for the first time on the expedition. The men ate as darkness gathered before heading to their tents. Alan met with Robert and the three spies who had been surveying the Wye valley on the Welsh side of the border for several months, gathering the information Alan needed. He intended to rest the men and horses all of the next day and to use the light of the full moon to move into position to attack the following night.
He had hardly seemed to close his eyes when Alan woke with his shoulder being shaken. “What the fuck…?” he queried as he sat up with the blanket draped over him falling away.
Brand was bending over him. “The scouts to the north report movement. Thirty or forty men moving towards Yazor on horseback.”
“Shite!” Alan said as his brain snapped into action “Get the men-at-arms awake. There’s no time to put on harness, so we’ll fight without armour. Get the archers and some infantry on the backs of the extra horses- all are to be my men, no fyrdmen.” Alan looked longingly at his rolled up chain-mail hauberk and instead quickly pulled on his padded jacket with sewn-in metal plate inserts, acknowledging that donning mail armour took at least fifteen minutes- which time he didn’t have.
The men were on horse and moving within ten minutes, most of that time taken with putting the tack on the horses. Then they were moving north on horseback between the trees of the forest, the bright light of the full moon making movement relatively easy. After a ride of several minutes they came to Offa’s Dyke. This deep ditch with the spoil piled on the eastern side had been constructed several centuries before by the Saxons to try to prevent Welsh raiding parties moving east. Without maintenance it had fallen into disrepair but it was still a considerable obstacle and the men had to dismount and lead their horses over a section where the ditch and wall had collapsed.
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
