Falls the Shadow (32 page)

The men came to an abrupt halt. There was a moment of hushed silence, and then a confused babble of voices. But for Simon, there was no need to speculate. As he gazed up at the billowing smoke, he knew. “Christ Jesus, those fools have set fire to the abbey!”

Long before they were in sight of the abbey walls, Simon’s fears had been borne out. Most of the English soldiers had not been as diligent in their pursuit as Simon and Will, and once the Welsh faded away into the woods, they had fallen back upon the abbey. It had begun with a few men breaking into the buttery in search of wine, had rapidly gotten out of hand. After plundering the abbey casks of wine and ale, the soldiers had stripped bare all the shelves of the bake-house, created havoc in the kitchens. Inevitably, some of them began to want more than bread or ale.

A soldier’s life was not an easy one, but many thought it gave them a license to loot. And few had any great liking for monks; the Cistercians in particular were viewed with suspicion, for they were known to cooperate closely with the Welsh Princes. Men began to mutter about gold, to swap stories of abbots who lived like fine lords. Soon they were ransacking the Abbot’s house, the guest hall, the monks’ dorters, wherever they thought they might find coins, silver plate, jeweled rings. The monks had so far offered no resistance, but then a few soldiers drunker or bolder than their fellows forced the church doors, sought to steal from God. An outraged monk tried to stop them; his body was later found crumpled in the shadow of the marble tomb of Llewelyn Fawr. No one seemed to know who set the first fire. But by the time Simon and Will came upon the scene, most of the abbey buildings were in flames, and the garth was filled with smoke, with gleeful looters no longer caring about the worth of what they stole, grabbing at anything that could be carried away.

Simon was appalled. He plunged into their midst, shouting for them to stop, but few paid him any heed. Will, too, attempted to reassert discipline, rather half-heartedly, for he knew that, once begun, looting was almost impossible to check. Like plague, it infected at random, few were immune, and men could only wait for it to run its course. But Simon was not willing to wait, not when he saw soldiers carrying off church candlesticks and chalices, even the sacred silver pyx that held the Host. He grabbed for this last man, and the pyx went spinning through the air, bounced along the ground like a pig’s-bladder football. Before Simon could retrieve it, though, another looter snatched it up, darted away.

In the doorway of the church, one of the monks was struggling with a soldier, clinging desperately to an ivory reliquary. “No,” he panted, “you’ll not have it,” refusing to relinquish his hold even as the other man beat him about the head and shoulders. Simon reached them just as the English soldier lost all patience, fumbled for his dagger. Before he could unsheathe it, Simon grasped his arm, spun him around and sent him sprawling. He rose spitting oaths, but at sight of Simon’s drawn sword, he decided that Simon was a more formidable foe than the aged monk and retreated, cursing them both.

The monk did not thank Simon. Clutching the reliquary to his chest, he said defiantly, “This casket contains our greatest treasures, a lock of St Davydd’s hair and straw from the Christ Child’s manger. You’ll have to kill me to take it.”

While Simon would have dearly loved to possess such sacred objects, he could imagine few sacrileges so great as the theft of holy relics. “Take the reliquary back into the church,” he said. “Hide it well.”

The monk was badly bruised; the white of his tunic was almost as dark as his scapular, so smudged and soiled was it with smoke and cinders. One eye was blackened, swollen shut, but the other blazed with feverish fury. Looking past Simon to a soldier brandishing one of the abbey’s cherished chalices, he cried, “God smite you English for this! May He curse you one and all, shrivel your crops in the field, dry up your wells, strike down your firstborn sons just as He destroyed the sons of Egypt! May He—”

Simon crossed himself, backed away. He was too stubborn to concede defeat, though. Long after another man would have given up, he still sought to turn the tide, swearing and shouting at soldiers too drunk to listen, even striking about him with the flat of his sword. What at last brought him to his senses was not Will’s plea to “let it lie,” but the sudden heat upon his face.

“The wind has shifted, Will!” He gestured toward the burning bakehouse, at the sparks and cinders swirling up into the darkening sky. “Unless we have men sober enough to fight the fire, it’ll spread to the church. We’ve got to get back to the camp.”

When they reached the river, they saw that the Irish supply ship was now safely in English hands. But the beach was littered with bodies. Simon recognized the coat of arms on a surcoat still with blood. Turning the man over, he removed the helm, stared down into the face of Alan Buscell. Even after twenty years of war, he still found himself shocked by the random suddenness of death, found himself remembering the knight who a few short hours before had run into the hall to warn them of the Welsh attack. Reaching out, he closed the dead man’s eyes, then gestured for his men to enter the nearest boat.

Dusk was fast falling. As their boat pulled away from the shore, Simon gazed back over his shoulder at the surging, wind-blown flames. He did not doubt that Henry would heed his appeal, dispatch men to save the church. But why did Henry need to be asked? The fire must be visible from the castle. Why did Henry never take action on his own? Why did he not act as a King ought?

They had almost reached the east bank when the screaming began. Suddenly the beach was full of fleeing men, shouting and shoving as they sprinted for the boats. But most were too drunk to run far, were reluctant, too, to discard their plunder, and they were soon overtaken by the Welsh riders who now galloped out onto the sands. What followed was a slaughter.

Some of the quicker, more sober soldiers had managed to launch boats, but they were not yet out of arrow range. They were endangered, as well, by their own comrades, for the estuary was full of drowning men, men who clutched at oars, sought to clamber into boats already riding low in the water. As one swamped boat tipped over, hurling all its occupants into the river, Simon exclaimed,

“We’ve got to go back for them!” When Will protested, voicing the opinion of them all that the whoresons deserved to drown, Simon gestured toward one of the floundering men. “That is Humphrey de Bohun,” he said, and ordered his reluctant oarsmen to row toward the sinking flatboat.

Humphrey had kept enough wit to abandon his great helm, but he was still weighed down by thirty pounds of chain-mail, and he clung desperately to the side of the boat, measuring his life in minutes until he heard Simon’s shout. He managed to tread water just long enough to grasp an outstretched oar, was hauled, gasping and choking, into their boat. They plucked a few fortunate others from the river, too, before their own craft began to lurch dangerously. Abandoning the others to their fate, they rowed rapidly for the far shore.

The cries of dying men followed them, carried clearly across the water. Back on the beach, the Welsh were triumphant. Some were helping the monks to fight the fire, while others were surveying the ship. Watching from a safe distance, Simon found himself admiring the military precision of the Welsh assault; he knew it was no easy task to muster a counter-attack with such speed. Granted, the Welsh had a powerful motivation—outrage—for Aberconwy Abbey was their Canterbury. But their rapid response spoke also of a shrewd grasp of martial tactics, and Simon was soldier enough to recognize it, and to salute it.

Will was equally impressed. “That was a rally worthy of Llewelyn Fawr.”

Humphrey had been slumped in the bottom of the boat, having vomited up a remarkable amount of river water. He roused himself at that, mumbled, “His grandson.”

That information meant more to Simon than to the other men, for Elen was his window to the Welsh world, and he’d often heard her speak fondly of her young nephew. “Llewelyn ap Gruffydd? Are you sure, Humphrey?”

“That’s his household guard, his teulu.” Humphrey sat up, pointed. “There…that youth on the sorrel stallion. Now there’s one Welshman worth taking; he’d fetch a prince’s ransom.”

Almost as if he knew they were speaking of him, Llewelyn reined in his stallion at the water’s edge, looked across the river toward them. He turned then, gestured to a nearby bowman. They watched as the archer fit an arrow into the linen string, bent back the elm bow, but without alarm, sure they were beyond range. A moment later an arrow thudded into the stern of their boat. Behind them, the sun sank into the sea, and darkness descended upon the vale of Conwy.

From Deganwy’s battlements, Henry had an unobstructed view of the river estuary—and the abbey. In the soft light of dawn, the devastation was even more dreadful than Henry had anticipated. Some of the buildings still smoldered and the church was smoke-blackened; down on the beach, he could see bodies, stiffened in the ungainly sprawl of death. He had never seen a sight so sad. He leaned over the parapet, not moving until Simon joined him on the walkway. They stood in silence for a time, gazing across at the abbey ruins. The sun was rising over the mountains; a sea-salted breeze stirred up foaming breakers out in the harbor. It should have been a beautiful day.

“Simon…do you think that God was punishing us?”

“Yes,” Simon said, but then could not keep from adding, “With some diabolically inspired help from the Welsh.”

Henry’s head swiveled around; after a moment, he gave a wan smile. “It is a terrible sin to burn a church,” he said mournfully, “to burn God’s House…”

There was sudden activity across the river. Now that the tide was going out, the Welsh were making another attempt to seize the ship. From their triumphant shouts, they had just discovered what Simon and Henry already knew, that the ship was deserted. The besieged crew had waited till high tide, then sneaked down into the waiting boats and paddled to safety under cover of darkness. But they’d had to leave the cargo behind, and Henry and Simon could only watch helplessly as the Welsh laid claim to the corn and flour and bacon meant for Deganwy’s larders, Henry’s soldiers.

“What a botch,” Henry said, almost inaudibly. “What a bloody botch…”

“More than you know, Cousin.” They turned at the sound of Will’s voice, watched as he hastened up the walkway toward them. “I just talked to that whoreson of a captain,” he said, before letting loose with a particularly profane oath, one that earned him a frown from Henry. Will didn’t even notice. “There was more than food on that ship,” he said, making an obscene gesture in the general direction of the beach. “There were sixty casks of good wine, and those God-cursed Welsh got all but one!”

The rains came in October, and the English encampment soon began to resemble a quagmire. Men huddled miserably in their tents, having neither warm winter clothing for their backs nor full rations for their bellies. Cold, homesick, and hungry, Henry’s army was denied even restful nights, for the Welsh were still determined to thwart the construction of Deganwy Castle, and they soon learned that their raids were most demoralizing when made in those unsettling early hours before dawn. No soldier with any sense ever looked forward to service in Wales, a land without towns or villages, a poor place to plunder, to find women, but an easy place to die. Yet rarely had a campaign been so wretched as this one, and as the days grew shorter, as snow began to appear on the heights of Eryri, scarcely a soul in Henry’s encampment—save Henry himself—believed that this was a war he could win.

Although it was only noon, the clouds were so thick and the rain so unrelenting that it seemed more like dusk. Even a blazing fire in the center hearth could not keep the chill from the hall, nor could it dispel the gloom. For more than an hour, Henry had listened as his barons voiced their complaints about the Welsh war. He was reminded that all they’d gained was a partially constructed castle, that their foraging parties were ambushed every time they ventured from camp, that their larders were as barren as their expectations of victory. They pointed out that his scheme to divide the Welsh by making use of Gruffydd’s son Owain had so far come to naught; he had released Owain from the Tower, granted him a house in Cheshire, but few rallied to his cause. They argued that they were not equipped for a winter campaign, and they pressed Henry from all sides, demanding that he lead them home.

Henry was not surprised by this lack of support. More and more, he was convinced that there were none he could rely upon, none he could truly trust. None who understood why he was so reluctant to retreat. None who understood his hunger for a victory, his need to blot out the shaming memories of his last military campaign, that costly, inglorious war with France.

He had moved closer to the hearth, although this was a chill of the spirit as much as of the body. Now he turned back, let his eyes move slowly from man to man, but not finding what he sought. Theirs was a common discontent; he saw it mirrored in the faces of his brother Richard, his cousin Will, the Earl of Winchester, even Marcher lords like the Earl of Gloucester and Humphrey de Bohun. As ever, he thought, I stand alone.

It was Richard’s resentment that bothered Henry the most. He could acknowledge that Richard had some cause for disgruntlement; Alan Buscell was the third of his household knights to die in Wales. But from the first, Richard had shown little enthusiasm for this campaign, had voiced his opposition so freely that rumors had begun to circulate, rumors that had Richard siding with his nephew Davydd rather than his brother the King. Henry knew better than that. The irony of such rumors was that he was probably more sympathetic to Davydd’s plight than Richard, for family ties had always meant more to him, and as angry as he was with his nephew’s intransigence, as determined to punish the Welsh, he had never sought Davydd’s utter destruction.

But as Henry looked at his silent brother, he felt an unease that went beyond Richard’s objections to this war, for he knew that there lay between them the shadow of Gascony, Gascony that he had promised to Richard, only to renege at Eleanor’s urgings. Upon their return from France, Richard had married Sanchia, Eleanor’s younger sister, and he and his new wife were often at Henry’s court. On the surface, their quarrel seemed to have been forgotten, peace restored…or so Henry had tried to believe. Yet he could never quite stifle a secret fear—that of all he’d lost in France, his greatest loss was not to be measured in terms of money spent or lands forfeited, but in the distance he now saw reflected in his brother’s eyes.