Free [Norman Conquest 02] Winter of Discontent by Iain Campbell

survivors into custody.
    Riding into the village Alan was unable to locate the village head-cheorl and after leaving a message he departed back to the camp at Mansell Gamage.
    Of the Welshmen , 29 of the 42 raiders were dead, shot down by the archers in ambush. There were no wounded . T he 13 survivors, hands bound, were marched under guard to the camp. The only English casualty was a swordsman who had tripped over a log in the dark and sprained an ankle.
    While the dead Welshmen were collected and thrown into Offa’s Dyke, Alan and a dozen men escorted the bewildered freed captives back into the village and returned that part of the portable wealth of the village that the Welsh had stolen and which his men had not had the opportunity to purloin. In the dark they were still unable to locate the village headman. Whether dead, fled or in hiding nobody knew. Instead Alan spoke to several of the older cheorls. Several dead bodies were being brought out and taken to the church, presumably men who had shown resistance. Alan felt a pang of guilt about that but accepted Brand’s assurance that had he and his men rushed into the village with swords drawn it was most likely that even more villagers would have died, as both his men and the Welsh would have struck first and asked questions later. At least the firing of the haystacks had interrupted the Welsh and prevented them from burning down the village and killing all the livestock. Anyway , it wasn’t his village and they were not his gebur s. Defending them was somebody else’s responsibility and getting his own men killed or injured unnecessarily was something to be avoided if possible.
    Alan arrived back at the camp shortly before dawn, feeling weary and fatigued. Baldwin the Norman man-at-arms and Ranulf the Saxon huscarle had tried to question the Welsh captives without success. The latter were pretending they spoke only Welsh. Alan chose not to disclose that he had some knowledge of the Celtic language, learned as a child from a Celtic-speaking nursemaid from Brittany, and dispatched a man to Staunton to summon two or three interpreters , and to advise Robert that the foray intended for that night would be delayed to allow his men to rest. The 42 captured Welsh hill-pon ies were fed , watered and allocated to some of those who had hitherto traveled on foot.
    * *  *   *
    At dawn two days later Alan, in full chain-mail harness, was sitting astride his warhorse Odin outside the village of Talgarth in Welsh Brycheiniog . The village of Hay-on- Wye, eight miles to the north-west and just on the Welsh side of the border, had been sacked but not burned the evening before as the raiding party had moved west following the path of the river . This provided much easier movement in a landscape of steep barren hills and mountains cut by deep fertile river valleys.
    Alan expected that the other half of his force under Robert and Brand should be at Builth Wells to the north-west after an overnight march of nineteen miles. He looked to check that the men surrounding the village were in place and standing in plain view, an archer every thirty paces and three groups of armoured foot-soldiers. Thirty mounted men-at-arms and mounted thegns were at his back. Turning he looked to the north-west and could in the distance see the gray pall of smoke now issuing from Hay-on-Wye.
    The village was stirring, men and women emerging from their ramshackle thatched cottages. After a few moments the villagers saw first one then another of the English soldiers and shouts of alarm could be heard. Men ran to the l ord’s Hall, a long building near the middle of the village. Apart from the church it was the only substantial building in the village. There was a palisade of sorts around the Hall, built of wood pos ts and piles of thorn branches.
    The church bell began to peal a warning. Odin fidgeted, tossing his head , and Alan leaned over to pat his neck. Several messengers could be seen running back from