‘The cost isn’t what worries me,’ I said. ‘It’s more your idea of pretty. Last time I remember ending up with a great sow of a girl who smelt as if she hadn’t washed in about ten years.’
He laughed. ‘You always did have an eye for the slim ones. I’ll keep a lookout next time I’m there and see if there are any you might like.’
‘In any case,’ I said, ‘what happened to Censwith?’
Of all the girls Eudo had known, she was the only one he had kept going back to; the very fact that he had often spoken of her by name marked her out. As long as I had known him he had never cared much for matters of the heart, and I had thought nothing about it at the time, but since Eoferwic last year he had often spoken of buying her freedom from the man in Sudwerca who owned her, and even of taking her for his wife.
‘She died is what happened,’ Eudo said. ‘Caught a fever last spring and never recovered. I saw her for the last time as she lay on her deathbed. I’ll never forget how weak she looked and how fragile, though I’m not sure she even recognised who I was.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I could not think of anything else to say.
Eudo sighed. ‘I never did get the chance to free her. Still, if there are whorehouses in heaven then I hope to find her there someday.’
I rested my hand on his shoulder in sympathy. We were nearing the great pavilion when from behind came the blast of a war-horn. I turned to see a column of men approaching on the other side of the river but making for the bridge, towards our camp: several hundred of them, most riding what looked like short draught horses or else sturdy ponies, and flying a banner I did not recognise, depicting a yellow-gold serpent on a green field.
‘Whose device is that?’ Eudo asked.
‘I’m not sure.’ It didn’t belong to Earl Hugues; that much was certain. In fact I couldn’t think of any of the Marcher lords who used a snake as their device. To be able to raise a host numbering in the hundreds such as they had brought, they must hold a great deal of power, with estates and vassals spread across several shires. And yet were that the case then I was fairly certain I would have heard of them before now.
They halted on the open ground on the approach to the river; again their horns sounded. A few dismounted and waved to the knights guarding the crossing, who had already formed a shield-wall several men deep across the bridge in case they should try to attack. It did not look to me as if they had come to fight, though, but rather as if they were requesting a parley.
Two of them rode forwards from the ranks with their banner-bearer a short way behind them, waving the green and yellow flag high for all to see. From so far away it was hard to make out much, but even so I could see that both men had come dressed for war, with sword-hilts inlaid with glittering rubies, helmets with nasal-pieces and cheek-plates inlaid with shining gold. Evidently they were men of some wealth, and they were not afraid to flaunt it either.
‘Fitz Osbern,’ one of them called out, cupping his hands around his mouth. ‘We wish to speak with Fitz Osbern!’
His French was halting, as if it were not his natural tongue, and I wondered if they were Englishmen: some of those thegns, perhaps, who had submitted to King Guillaume instead of continuing the struggle in the weeks after H?stinges. In return for being allowed to keep their lands they were required to fight against their countrymen, and they often joined us on campaign, though as turncoats they were held in little regard, and the oaths they had given were seen by many as less than worthless. But their names and the colours of their banners were commonly known, and the golden snake was not one of them.
Fitz Osbern was not in his pavilion and a message had to be sent to the castle where he was in council with the castellan — a kinsman of his by the name of Roger de Montgommeri, who was also a vicomte in Normandy — as well as some of the other nobles, Lord Robert among them. It was some time before he appeared but eventually I spied him, and I knew it was him because of his balding pate and greying hair. He rode at the head of a score of mailed knights to meet the two men upon the bridge. What was said I could not make out, but they knelt down before him, removing their gilded helms and bowing their heads. After a while Fitz Osbern motioned them to their feet and the two men, each accompanied by a dozen spearmen, followed him on horse to the castle.
‘They’re Welshmen,’ Robert told us when he returned a few hours later.
‘Welshmen?’ I echoed, disbelieving. I could see that I spoke for everyone else warming themselves by the dwindling campfire too. ‘What do they want with Fitz Osbern?’
‘They’ve come to join us, or so they say. Their names are Maredudd and Ithel; they’re the sons of the great King Gruffydd who used to hold sway over all of Wales, until he was overthrown and slain by the hand of a certain Harold Godwineson some seven years ago.’
‘Harold the usurper?’ asked Turold.
‘The very same,’ Robert replied. ‘Although this was long before he seized the crown, when he was merely earl of Hereford and Wessex, although he was a powerful man even then. They say that the kingdoms of Powys and Gwynedd belong to them by right; that they were deprived of their inheritance by the brothers Bleddyn and Rhiwallon whom Harold set up as rulers in the wake of his campaign.’
‘I don’t like it,’ I said. ‘If they truly wanted to win back their inheritance then why have they waited seven years before finally marching?’
‘Until recently it seems they lacked the support of the other highborn families,’ Robert replied. ‘But since Bleddyn and Rhiwallon made common cause with the exiled English thegns it seems that there has been growing discontent. Many of those families remember Harold’s campaign and the slaughter that the English visited upon their lands. Many lost their homes and their sons to the sword-edges of those same men who now seek help from them.’
‘Any enemy of the usurper is surely a friend of ours,’ put in Turold. ‘As long as they bring men, what does it matter?’
At the very least I supposed they were taking away men who might otherwise have filled out the ranks of the enemy shield-wall. But though I could well believe the extent of their hatred for the English, it was hard to imagine they would simply swear their allegiance to another foreign lord without some design of their own.
‘There must be more to it than that; some other prize on offer,’ I said. ‘Otherwise why would they take up arms against their own countrymen and in doing so risk losing the lands they already hold?’
‘You’re quite right,’ said Robert. ‘In return for them bringing their men to fight under our banners, Gruffydd’s sons want nothing less than our help in regaining their birthright and restoring their titles to them.’
Serlo spluttered; droplets of wine dribbled down his chin and he dried it on his sleeve. ‘For the sake of a few hundred spears they would have us deliver them an entire kingdom?’
‘Two kingdoms,’ Pons said sourly. ‘Powys and Gwynedd both.’
Of course if Maredudd and Ithel succeeded, then those who had sided with them would be generously rewarded. Not only must they have great faith in Gruffydd’s sons, then, but they must be very confident too that we would accept their price, steep though it was.
‘Fitz Osbern will never agree to that,’ Serlo muttered. ‘Only a fool makes a bargain with a Welshman. They have no sense of honour; they’re oath-breakers, every one of them.’
Usually I would have sided with Serlo; experience of living on the March this past year had taught me to trust the Welsh even less than the English. But at the same time I understood that this was about far more than just inheritance or power. For if Fitz Osbern could ensure that the rulers across the dyke were friendly to us, sworn to him personally through the giving of hostages and by oaths of fealty, and that they paid tribute to King Guillaume, then we might never need to fear raids by the Welsh again. At a time when the realm was beset with threats on all sides, it would give us the respite we sorely needed to quell our other enemies.
‘If it can buy us peace on the March, maybe that’s a bargain worth making,’ I said. ‘Even if that peace lasts only for a while. And God knows we need the men.’
We had been in Scrobbesburh five days already; in that time we had received no word from Ceastre, and I knew that Fitz Osbern was growing anxious about whether Earl Hugues would come at all. Nor had the spies he had sent to scout the lands beyond the dyke yet returned, which meant we had no way of knowing how soon it would be before the enemy marched in force.
‘I don’t trust them,’ Serlo said. ‘Who’s to say their coming here isn’t part of some ruse designed to trap us?’
‘Why go to so much trouble, though?’ I asked him. ‘Why bring such an army all this way if there’s a chance that Fitz Osbern will just send them away?’
