Time and Chance (43 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

HE SUN DID NOT LINGER, soon plunged behind the mountain range that protected the Welsh army from the righteous wrath of the English king. For that was how Henry’s men were coming to view this campaign, as a crusade against the godless and the guilty. It had not begun as such. They’d marched out of Blancminster in good order, eager to bring these Welsh rebels to heel and return back across the border, for word had soon spread among them that Wales was a cheerless, barren land with no towns for the plundering, not even taverns or alehouses where a soldier could quench his thirst and find female company.

But nothing had gone as expected. The Welsh proved to be infuriatingly elusive, phantom foes who refused to take the field against them. The roads were so narrow that the men were constantly getting slapped in the face by overhanging branches or tripping over hidden roots. When it rained, they were slogging through mud, and when it was dry, they were choking on the dust kicked up by so many marching feet. The insects were relentless, tormenting horses and men alike. During the day, they sweated in sultry, humid heat, but at night, they shivered in their bedrolls, for the temperature dropped sharply once the sun set.

A soldier’s lot was never an easy one and most of the men were inured to hardship. But this was like no war they’d ever fought. At first, they’d advanced unchallenged, passing through a ghost country bereft of life. The few houses they found were deserted, empty shells hardly worth torching, for the people had fled with their livestock and all the belongings they could carry off. They’d not be able to forage for food, to live off the land as soldiers so often had to do. Wales was like an oyster shell, closed tight against them.

But it all changed once they reached the forest known to the Welsh as Ceiriog, stretching before them like a towering, tangled wall. Most had never seen woods like this, so densely grown that not even the sun could penetrate that rustling, leafy canopy above their heads. The road became a deer trail, easier to lose than follow, and those men unfortunate enough to have an unease of enclosed spaces began to feel as if they were struggling through a dark, green tunnel, with no end in sight. It was in these eerie, alien woods that first blood was drawn—English blood.

The Welsh came in the night, with flaming torches and wild yells, and, as suddenly, they were gone, leaving in their wake burning wagons and mass confusion and crumpled bodies. There had been no repetition of that abrupt midnight raid, but men went to sleep with their weapons at the ready and awoke each time a horse snorted, a twig snapped underfoot. The daily pace speeded up noticeably after stragglers began to disappear. No one ever heard or saw anything, just a tired soldier trudging along in the rear, falling farther and farther behind. Yet when his companions glanced back, he was gone. Men got cricks in their necks from looking over their shoulders and headaches from squinting into the deep shadows on both sides of the road. Fights flared up over trifles and tempers soured. But the English army continued to press on into the Ceiriog Valley, toward the looming silhouettes of the Berwyn Mountains.

 

 

 

NONE OBJECTED when Kort moved to the front of the line, for he was a battle-scarred veteran who’d done more fighting—for pay—in his thirty-four years than most men would ever see in a lifetime. Moreover, he was a member of that elite, a crossbowman. So awesome was the crossbow’s lethal power that the Church had sought to prohibit its use, proclaiming at the Fourth Lateran Council that it must be restricted to campaigns against infidels. But the weapon’s deadly force was irresistible to even the most devout of Christian battle commanders, and crossbowmen were eagerly recruited.

The twenty men in Kort’s unit were Flemings, and the wild, mountainous terrain of Wales was stirring in many of them a yearning for the low-lying, fertile plains of their homeland. They liked to see the enemy coming, they muttered; here even the sunsets were sudden, more like an ambush than a natural duskfall. Kort paid their grumbling no heed, for such campfire complaints were routine, a familiar soldier’s lament. Many took a contrary pride in the privations they endured. And even the worst of the malcontents were not likely to desert now, for where could they go?

Once his share of the bean pottage had been ladled into his bowl, Kort sat cross-legged under a gnarled oak and ate hungrily, using his bread as a spoon. The soup was heavily salted and the bread gritty, but he’d eaten worse. He was washing his meal down with ale when Jan joined him, lolling in the grass with the boneless abandon of youth.

Jan was never too tired to talk and as the sky darkened and night came on, he chattered on cheerfully about a multitude of topics, flitting from one to another like a dragonfly. Did Kort think the Welsh would ever be brought to bay? A poor, pitiful country it was that had no taverns. Was it true the Welsh spurned good ale for a sickly-sweet drink called mead? Had Kort ever visited the alehouse on Wolle Straete? They had a serving-maid riper than summer plums . . . what was her name? Anna . . . no, Jutka! He’d wager no Welshwoman ever born could pleasure a man like Jutka could. Rolling over onto his back, he gave Kort a companionable poke in the ribs. “What am I doing in this God-cursed hellhole when I could be back home with Jutka on my lap and a brimming ale at my elbow?”

“For the money, of course,” Kort said laconically and Jan grinned.

“Speaking of money, do you want to join in our dicing tonight? Be warned, though, for I am feeling lucky.”

Kort snorted “The last time you felt ‘lucky,’ you lost a fortnight’s wages, a good dagger, and your mantle. Try to walk away tonight whilst you still have the shirt on your back.”

As usual, Jan took no offense; to men of more volatile temperament, his constant equanimity could be irksome. “If you do not want to play, at least come to watch. That way you can help me carry off my winnings.”

As he sauntered away, another man took his place beside Kort under the huge oak. “That one prattles on like a drunken parrot,” Klaas said dourly. “Why you befriended him, I cannot for the life of me understand.”

“Ah, he is not such a bad sort,” Kort insisted, “just in need of seasoning,” and Klaas flung him a skeptical look, for he was not usually so tolerant of the foibles of the very young. Kort could have explained that he and Jan had drunk from the same well, both of them born and bred in the beautiful city of Brugge. They’d each fished in the Rijver Rei, skated upon the iced-over canals, frequented the same taverns and browsed in the Grote Markt and mourned their dead in the great church, Onze Lieve Vrouwkert. But Kort was not a man to whom explanations came naturally, and so he merely shrugged, then watched in bemusement as Klaas shared some of his pottage with a hungry dog who’d been tagging after the soldiers.

“Why waste food on that flea-bitten cur?” he asked curiously. “Better it should fill your belly than his.”

“Hers,” Klaas corrected, tossing the dog the last of his bread. “I’ve named her Gerda, after a whore I once knew in Ieper.”

Kort did not comprehend the appeal of the scrawny brown beast curled up at Klaas’s feet. But as long as it wasn’t his ration of food the dog was eating, he was prepared to overlook his friend’s eccentricity. “I’m trying to decide who should be more insulted by your choice of names, the whore or the dog.”

“Well, they’re both bitches.” Klaas’s heart wasn’t in his bantering, though. Absently stroking the dog, he glanced sharply at Kort and then away. “I wish I’d never set foot in this accursed land . . .”

Kort’s jest died on his lips. “Why?”

“Did you hear that nightjar crying out last night after we made camp? A sound to make the hairs stand up on the back of a man’s neck. The Welsh call it Deryn Corff . . . the Corpse Bird.”

“Since when did you let yourself be spooked by a bird, even one of ill omen? Did you forget the time you brought down that raven on the wing with one well-aimed stone?”

Klaas’s fingers clenched in the dog’s fur, not loosening until she began to whine. “I heard it in my dream, too,” he muttered. “It was a bad dream, Kort. It foretold my death.”

Kort instinctively made the sign of the cross even as he scoffed, “Bah—dreams like that are as common as lice. Your nerves are on the raw and why not? I’d wager half the men in camp have had death dreams in the past fortnight.”

Kort continued on in that vein and eventually seemed to have convinced Klaas. He thought he’d convinced himself, too, but he was still awake hours later, staring up at a sky afire with stars and listening for the nightjar’s shrill whistle. When he finally slept, it was deep and dreamless and he awoke with a start, momentarily disoriented. The blackness of the night was retreating before the milky greyness of coming dawn and the air was cool and damp. All around him men were stirring, yawning, cursing.

The object of their wrath was Klaas’s little dog. Surrounded by shouting men, she was cowering between 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. “Jesú! 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?”