Winter of Discontent

Alan took fitzOsbern’s grunt of a reply as consent and returned to his men. Moving over to de Montgomerie’s men he found the man in charge of the squadron to be Guy de Craon, who held several manors near Shrewsbury. Guy was less than enthusiastic about having Englishmen in his command, the rest of whom were Normans, Flemings or French, but accepted that in Wales the English would be just as useful as his own men, despite their reputation as poor fighters ahorse, as a set-piece battle was very unlikely. Alan and Guy were very polite to each other, Alan being Guy’s social and political superior, but Guy being endowed with leadership by default due to the mantle of his powerful master.

The column started to move soon afterwards, with most of the men in the column trudging slowly on foot. Alan’s men, together with those of de Montgomerie, were on horseback about one-third of the way down the column. Even there it wasn’t safe. In the four miles to Denbigh the column was attacked twice more from ambush, arrows suddenly flying from close range into the densely-packed Anglo-Normans. The arrows flew for about two minutes, ten to twelve shafts for each Welsh bowman, and then as the Normans reacted and formed up the Welsh melted away into the trees.

“Fuck this shite for a lark!” shouted Edric in Anglo-Saxon English as he brought his sidling horse up alongside Alan, three arrows stuck in his kite-shaped shield. “These stupid Norman bastards are going to be the death of us all if we keep this up! I don’t mind getting a sword in the guts after I’ve cracked a few heads with my axe, but I’m buggered if I’m going to get an arrow in the back from a man I never see!” he roared in frustration.

Alan was shaking his head, trying to clear the ringing sound caused by receiving a glancing blow from an arrow on his helmet- a yard-long arrow thicker than a man’s thumb fired at close range packed a considerable punch. Two of de Montgomerie’s men were lying on the ground and not moving- injured or dead Alan couldn’t tell. His own men were uninjured, but one of their horses had been badly hit and would require to be put down. The rider was already securing the horse of one of the fallen Normans as a replacement mount.

They emerged from the narrow valley through the hills into the broad fertile valley of the Afon Clewyd. Denbigh lay about a mile and a half further on, over a ford through the river. Despite the thick vegetation in the valley there was no further attack as they approached the village.

Denbigh was totally abandoned. All livestock, down to the last chicken, had been removed. Every bale of hay and every sack of grain was gone. Only a few unpicked vegetables remained in the cottage gardens. Inside the roughly-made thatched cottages were only worthless bedding and easily replaced household items- pottery, basic furniture and the like. After scouring through the village some of the men dug through recently turned over soil near the cottages, looking for possible buried caches of coins or jewels, without success.

William fitzOsbern was sitting on a bench at a roughly-made table in the manor Hall, Denbigh being the local commote village, talking forcefully with Bernard de Neufmarche, Guy de Craon, Aubrey Maubanc, Raoul Painel and Osmond Basset. Alan walked up quietly and took a seat, listening in to fitzOsbern giving the rough edge of his tongue to everybody.

After a few minutes he asked politely, “My Lord William, can you please explain to me the objectives of the expedition?”

FitzOsbern blinked in surprise. “Objectives? To punish the Welsh for last year’s invasion and make sure they don’t do it again, of course! I’ve been campaigning in South Wales for the last few months. Bleddyn and Rhiwallon of Powys attacked my town of Hereford, so I’m up here in the north attacking their own lands to see how they like it!”

“Shock and awe,” nodded Alan in understanding. “Godwin and Harold tried that, without any real success in their various campaigns. It didn’t work.” After a moment’s pause to carefully choose his words he continued, “But what is the immediate objective. What are we going to do in the next week? Do we know where we are going? Have we sent out scouts or obtained intelligence about the enemy? Could you show me on the map where we are bound next?”

FitzOsbern looked embarrassed and Alan asked with asperity, “You do have a map don’t you?”

“Not with me,” replied fitzOsbern. “I have one at my castle, but I’ve learned in the last few months not to trust that very much. I’ve got a couple of good local scouts.”

Alan beckoned Leof over, gave him whispered instructions and the youth hurried out to the tent that Alan’s men had erected on the village green. “While we’re waiting, what’s our supply position? You said earlier today that supplies aren’t getting through.”

Osmond Basset answered, as there was no fault to be levied against him. “We marched with each man carrying three days rations.”

“And tomorrow is the third day,” concluded Alan, at which the others nodded. Leof came hurrying back with a rolled piece of parchment. “A peculiarity of mine,” said Alan. “I like to know where I am and where I’m going. This is a very rough map, drawn by a Welshman who never lived hereabouts, but who did campaign here five years ago. Here’s Denbigh. Here’s Buckley, eighteen miles east, towards Chester. We can expect our supply wagons to be attacked for the whole of that distance. Chester’s a further ten miles east. Our options are to go south down the River Clwyd Valley to Ruthin. Why we’d do that, heading into the mountains, and what we’d do after that, I don’t know. But that is one direction we could go.

“We could head west, across open hill-land. Why, again I don’t know, because there’s fuck-all there. Or we can go north, up the Clwyd Valley to St Asaph and Rhuddlan. It’s about eight miles to St Asaph, then about three miles to Rhuddlan. Then the options are to move east to Prestatyn, or west to Betws and Abergele. Going west, we can continue through to the Afon Conwy, which near the coast has to be crossed by ferry. I’m sure we can expect the ferry to be tied up on the other side,” he concluded dryly. “That wouldn’t matter anyway, because in two days you’ve lost one in ten of your men and nearly run out of supplies. By the time we get we get to the River Conwy at the rate we’re going we wouldn’t have enough men left to mount a guard on a privy. Or we can head east, back to Chester with our tails between our legs, which is not something that would appeal to anybody and isn’t required just yet, but again is an option.

“Logically, that gives us one choice for our next move. North. Bleddyn is not stupid and will know that. After that we can head east and home via the coast, or go west and cause some havoc in the direction of Caernafon. Realistically, Abergele is probably as far west as we can go, and there are some coastal fishing towns that way. There won’t be anything to loot and little enough to eat, so what we’d be achieving I don’t know, but certainly no less than we have so far. We can burn people’s houses, which they can rebuild in a few days. We can possibly burn some fishing boats, although if the fishermen have any sense they’ll just sail them up the coast a little way as we approach.

“The main problem is logistics, as in most campaigns. Food for man and beast. You’ve got as much chance of getting a wagonload of supplies through to your men as a chicken has of surviving in a henhouse with half a dozen hungry foxes. We aren’t fighting in a densely populated area with lots of towns and villages where you can demand and expect the population to provide what supplies you want. I suggest that you send a message back to Chester with somebody who looks wounded- several riders in fact. Get them to have a sailing cog off the harbor at either Prestatyn or Abergele, whichever direction you want to go, in three days time. They can have a load of whatever food you want. Then have the boats follow us along the coast. The Welsh have no warships, so the cogs should be safe enough and will be much more effective than trying to bring supplies through the hills.

“Speed. Every Welsh warrior is mounted on a pony and can move large distances every day, even through forests and hills- and move fast. Most of our army is on foot and plods along. Next time I suggest you have every man on a horse, so you can move fast enough that the Welsh can never catch up and don’t know where you are.

“Scouting. I want every man in the army who has been a poacher, gamekeeper or huntsman here in an hour. Most of your men are probably from the towns, so I don’t expect much from this.

“We’ll spend tomorrow here gathering food before we move off. Ah… another thought. If we move west along the coast we do not burn the villages. We’ll then have to return east, and if you really want you can burn them after we use them for shelter in both directions.”

FitzOsbern and the others looked stunned at the stream of information. Osmond Basset said in some perplexity, “But there’s no food here to gather!”

Alan gave a bark of laughter. “Of course there is! There are the vegetables in the gardens, which we can gather. The forests around here will be swarming with deer, boar and wild cattle and wild fruit. The huntsmen can get to work, protected by our other men. There are fish in the river just to the east. I’m sure there will still be a net or two amongst the cottages. And you can’t move a herd of cattle, sheep, swine or whatever very far, and certainly