The Silver Stag of Bunratty (9 page)

CHAPTER 12

T
HE
C
ATTLE
R
AIDERS

nd Sir Richard prepared to go to war. The lords and ladies who had gathered for the hunt all left during the morning, subdued and silent. Originally, the plan had been to have a feast that night, with musicians and dancing in the Great Hall. Lady Johanna looked on furiously as her guests made their apologies and called for their horses from the stables.

‘Well, we shall have the dancing in any case. It is all organised. And you, Richard, be sure that you are back for it.’

Her husband shrugged. ‘My first duty is to ensure the safety of the lands around the castle. There have been rumours of cattle raids in the valleys to the east. I am going to ride out to see if they are true. I will bring Fat John and some of the guards with me – we can get rid of one menace,
at least.’

He noticed Matthieu, who was trying to make himself as invisible as possible against the background of a tapestry.

He beckoned the boy over. ‘Matthieu! You will come along too. It will be good experience for you. You need to see some real battles to prepare for your future as a knight.’

Matthieu swallowed and made his way to the stables.

Cliar went to see him off. ‘Don’t worry too much,’ she said, with a confidence she did not feel. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine. But where’s Maude?’

Matthieu made a face. ‘She’s with Lady Johanna. She would love to be heading out instead of me!’

As the soldiers rode away, Cliar thought that poor Matthieu looked a miserable figure, hunched over his saddle. She looked up towards the window of the north west tower. She could just make out the long white hair and black gown of Dame Anna, who seemed to be watching as the patrol rode eastwards. But when she looked again, the figure was gone.

Maude, meanwhile, was arguing with Lady Johanna.

‘What about me?’ said Maude. ‘Why couldn’t I go with the patrol?’

‘Because you are a young lady!’ said Lady Johanna. ‘You may help me organise things for the feast!’

Maude said angrily: ‘I don’t want to organise things for the stupid feast! I want to ride out and see the battle!’

Lady Johanna grabbed Maude’s shoulder and pulled her upstairs to her bedroom. She pushed the girl onto her knees at the
prie-dieu
and told her brusquely: ‘Pray to Saint Agnes, the patron of young girls, and at least try to follow her in the ways of obedience.’

Maude knelt with her hands over her face, but she did not pray to St Agnes. Most female saints were, in her view, a waste of space. They were obedient and patient and did nothing interesting. It was all very well being long-suffering, but it didn’t get you anywhere. She preferred the warrior saints like St George and the hunters like Julian and Matthieu, but on this occasion she did not pray to them either. Instead she thought hard.

As soon as Lady Johanna had left, she went to the chest where Matthieu’s clothes were kept and began searching through them … She had seen the look on her brother’s face when Sir Richard had ordered him to go. The boy had been terrified. She had to go with him; she had promised her father to look after her younger brother. And, anyway, Matthieu was not going to be the only one to have an adventure. She hoped that the rumours of cattle-rustling were true. She didn’t want life in the castle to get boring
again.

Matthieu, riding behind Fat John and his lookalike son, whom he and Maude had privately named Even Fatter Godric, fervently hoped the opposite. Godric kept shouting at Matthieu to sit up in the saddle, occasionally poking him in the side with his sword to try to make him sit straighter. Godric was a worthy son of his father. He spent his time killing things and eating them. You could generally tell what he had eaten for dinner from the remains on his clothes and his moustache. He also smelt even worse than his father; his nickname in the kitchen was Stinker Two. And yet, despite his unpleasant appearance, he was incredibly vain. He did not seem to realise that the space that cleared around him as he made his way through the castle was not because people were in awe of him, but because nobody liked to be near him. Maude had seen him once, peering in a pewter plate to burst a pustule on his face. ‘If I had a face like his,’ she had said to Matthieu, ‘I would avoid anything that gave a reflection for fear of catching sight of myself!’

The fact that it was a lovely day and that the lands they were travelling through were bright with cowslips and hawthorn didn’t help Matthieu’s mood at all. Normally, he
would have enjoyed seeing all this beauty around him. But today all he could think of was the possibility of battle. They were travelling eastwards, towards the forest and uplands where the Mac Conmaras, Tuan’s people, lived. Far too soon for Matthieu’s liking, they had reached the hill that marked the boundary of Sir Richard’s lands. A green field, cropped short by sheep and cows, stretched up towards a scatter of large, grey rocks at the top of the hill. There were some cattle grazing there, looking peaceful and content. The slope was covered in daisies and a small scattering of golden gorse bushes, bent almost double from the western wind. But it was also marked with the hooves of horses.

‘The Irish have been here – look, we can follow their trail now,’ said Sir Richard. ‘There is a ravine on the eastern side of the hill, it falls steeply down onto the rocks there, down to the riverbed. Be very careful when we reach the other side. It would be easy to slip and I don’t want any of the horses hurt.’

The patrol began the climb up the hill. It was very still and quiet, as if all the world was at peace. But suddenly the silence was broken by a wild roar. From the shelter of the rocks a gang of horsemen appeared, waving swords and axes and yelling curses on Sir Richard and his soldiers.

When Maude, who had crept from the castle and quietly borrowed one of the faster ponies from the stable, caught up with the patrol, she stopped her pony at the bottom of the hill and gazed in horror at what she saw. The gold of the gorse bushes was spattered with blood and the bodies of men and cattle lay scattered over the hillside. The grey rocks had hidden a raiding party of Mac Conmaras and though the Normans had outnumbered the Irish, the battle had been fierce. It was still going on. Steel met steel and rang out. Steel met flesh and sliced through it. Riderless horses raced around in panic, causing even more confusion. Men and beasts screamed as they were driven over the side of the hill, falling to their death on the rocks in the ravine below.

Through the chaos of shouts and cries, Maude frantically tried to hear Matthieu’s voice. She could not see him anywhere. But there was his horse, riderless, fleeing home towards the west. Her heart stopped. Where was her brother? If he has been hurt, I’ll kill whoever did it, she thought fiercely, and with a wild cry she urged her horse into the heart of the fighting. But even as she did so, she saw that the Irish were beginning to retreat. Their wild hair was streaming out behind them, and they were moving away from the Normans,
calling out to one another in the barbarous language Maude had never tried to understand. She fitted an arrow into her bow and took aim; but the rustlers had disappeared into the shelter of the forest to the north of the hill, and the trees muffled their cries. Sir Richard, unhorsed, stood with his sword in his hand, looking after them with a terrible expression on his face. Maude ran to him.

‘Where is Matthieu?’ she screamed. ‘What’s happened to my brother?’

Sir Richard ignored her. He made his way to where his horse lay panting on the ground. Beauvallet’s fine black coat was covered in a sheen of sweat and harsh breaths came from his throat. As she looked, Maude realised in horror that the animal’s legs were broken. Sir Richard knelt and rubbed the horse’s forehead gently.

He said quietly, ‘Sleep now, Beauvallet, best of friends.’

Then he walked away and nodded to Fat John, who sent a merciful arrow through Beauvallet’s heart.

Maude was standing still, trying to force her legs to take her to the edge of the ravine to look down to where the river flowed. She knew she had to see if Matthieu’s body lay down there with the others who had fallen. But she couldn’t move. She stood there, hoping she was not going to be sick, trying to force her legs forward. Let me not fall over, she
thought, let them not see my fear.

‘Holloa!’ Matthieu appeared out from under a gorse bush. He had done his best to fight, waving his sword and shouting at the top of his voice, but the Irish had ignored him. Knocked off his horse in collision with one of Sir Richard’s own soldiers, he had rolled under the bush, and kept as quiet as possible while the battle raged on around him.

Maude ran to him and hugged him furiously. She held on so long Matthieu began to protest and tried to free himself. Then he realised that his sister was holding on because she was afraid her legs were going to give way underneath her.

Fat John had surveyed the battlefield and now reported back to Sir Richard.

‘One dead – young Patrick, the miller’s nephew – and four wounded, two badly. Ten of the cattle dead. Three of the horses. Five of the Irish killed, all of them of the western Mac Conmara clan, by the look of them. There is still one of them alive over there, wounded. What do you want me to do with him?’

‘Kill him. Throw him with the other bodies into the ravine. Then strip them all of anything of value they may have on them. Take their horses.’ Sir Richard spoke abruptly. ‘Then get our wounded onto the horses and we
will make our way back. Leave two men to drive the cattle to safety and two to dig a grave for Beauvallet. I would not have his body left for whatever comes from the woods to desecrate it. I swear to you, John, the Mac Conmaras will rue this day.’

Maude looked around her at the scene of carnage. Cows lay with their necks ripped open. Men’s bodies lay in positions they could never have taken in life, legs bent underneath their bodies, their heads dangling to one side. There was blood everywhere. The smell of it made her want to throw up. There was no sign of Patrick – his body lay twisted on the rocks in the shallow river bed. Patrick had been tow-headed and tongue-tied, but a wonderful archer. He had often helped Maude when she was practising. And Beauvallet, noble Beauvallet, lay still now, his dark eyes filmed with death. Maude realised that this was not an adventure. This was a nightmare.

And as the silent procession made its way home, something else struck her. The Mac Conmara clan had killed Sir Richard’s man and his favourite horse, and they had made war on Sir Richard’s soldiers. The truce with the clan was broken. What would happen to Tuan?