The Wild Hunt

CHAPTER 8

The Earl of Shrewsbury lounged in his saddle, his legs loosely straight, heels crowned by gilded prick spurs, supple boots reaching to mid-calf and laced by tasselled green thongs. His sword rode lightly in its scabbard, his left hand relaxed upon the curved pommel.

Behind him, sweet on the ear, the pony bell s jingled, the sturdy bays laden with the Earl's travelling accoutrements. Flanked by two guards, another pony bore a load of scarred brown leather sacks. Three hundred marks in sweet silver pennies. Guyon FitzMiles had been sufficiently wise to pay up. The only element that had surprised de Belleme was the bridegroom's ability to pay in full , although he suspected the effort had nigh on beggared the young man.

Magnanimous in victory, he had offered to take two hundred marks now and leave the balance until the Michaelmas rents had been paid, and for his pains had been told on a swallowed snarl where to put his largesse. A solicitous suggestion that FitzMiles could sell his mother-in-law to cut his losses had for a moment held them on the edge of an exciting precipice. He had felt his sword arm tingling with anticipation and de Lacey had begun to reach for his dagger, but FitzMiles, holding to the control he was later to lose in wine, had stalked from the room, crashing his fist into the door as he went.

De Belleme gave a superior smile, remembering the young man swilling his wine like a street drunkard, the loose-limbed grace growing clumsy, the cultured accent slurring, the eyes becoming slack-lidded and glazed. He had half expected it to happen. On more than one occasion at court, FitzMiles had roistered away the night with Prince Henry, drinking himself beneath the table, a woman on each arm. The lack of moral fibre was of no consequence to the Earl; it was the lack of self-discipline that gave him cause for scorn.

The bleating of sheep roused him from contemplation of a ripe future to the more immediate contemplation of the road before his eyes which was blocked by an enormous cloud of baaing, smelly sheep.

His horse lashed out as de Lacey's mount, brought up short, collided with its rump. De Lacey swore and wrenched on his bridle.

'God's eyes!' snarled de Belleme. 'Get these stinking, tick-ridden beasts out of my way!'

His words were smothered in a chorus of mournful bleating as the sheep advanced and closed around the troop. His destrier began to plunge in earnest. The pack ponies kicked.

Cursing, his men attempted to control them and their own mounts and draw their weapons at the same time.

Walter de Lacey swung his sword at a sheep, but stopped in mid-motion, his wrist arrested in response to the nocked arrow aimed at his breast. A range of ten yards made death a certainty.

There were men among the sheep, rising to their feet, their tunics wrong side out affording them a sheepskin camouflage, unseen until it was too late. Welshmen, dark and slender, with short swords at their hips and the deadly longbows in their hands.

' Yr cledd,' said the nearest Welshman gruffly, jerking his nocked bow at de Lacey's sword. The Baron's mouth tightened. For a moment the blade gleamed in his hand as he turned it, contemplating folly and then, as the Welshman adjusted his line of sight, he spat and threw it down among the sheep.

'You'll die for this,' he said thickly.

Without reply, the Welshman gestured him and his over-lord down from their horses.

Robert de Belleme was not afraid. It was an emotion he seldom experienced even in the teeth of death, but his fury at being trapped and helpless to extract himself, surrounded as he was by bumping, bleating sheep, raged so hot that he was incandescent. His hands were lashed behind was incandescent. His hands were lashed behind his back. A black hood was forced down over his head and tied there, clogging his sight. Barbarian Welsh jostled his muffled ears. De Lacey's invective was cut off by the sound of a dull blow and then retching. Someone laughed. Rage stuck in de Belleme's gull et and almost choked him.

Small coarse hairs from the cloth hood clung to his lips and tongue. He writhed and struggled and felt the bonds saw into his wrists.

Guyon lowered the bow, his eyes sparkling with laughter. His throat quivered as he controlled the impulse to shout his triumph aloud. Commands flickered in Welsh. Fresh pack ponies were brought and the loads transferred. Sheep, destriers and the now unladen ponies began their escorted journey deep into the wilds of Powys where, except by Welshmen, they would not soon be found.

Guyon murmured something to one of his companions, his voice warm with triumph as he studied the two men, bound like caterpillars in a web. In a single swift motion, he straddled the mount that Eric had brought him.

The words were lost upon his victims, but not the rich delight with which they were spoken and, had de Belleme not seen with his own eyes Guyon FitzMiles sliding beneath the trestle, overcome with drink and had not his assailant been so obviously Welsh, he would have known immediately at whose feet to lay the blame.

As it was, he lay in the road, struggling within his cocoon, hearing the curses of men similarly encapsulated fighting to win free. Horses circled and plunged around him. The Welsh tossed banter cheerfully hither and yon in dips and swoops of singsong language, haranguing each other and their victims alike and then, like autumn swallows, they were gone. A hoof caught de Belleme's side as the last horse departed and involuntarily he arched at the sudden buffet of pain.

Silence descended and it began to rain.