And now the bailiff and his friend were back to question him again. Smyth rubbed his eye. He was tired after the horrors of the morning, and suddenly sickened.
“Let’s get away from this spectacle,” he muttered, and led them to the door. Simon was pleased to see he stopped often on the way, patting a shoulder or the back of a wounded man, and always having a word or two with his men. He cared for them, Simon saw, and they knew it. As he approached, some even tried to sit upright, as if to show their respect.
Simon was relieved to be out of the room and back in the open air again. The aura of pain and death in the hall was depressing, and he inhaled deeply, strolling behind the tinner, who meandered over to the stream, his head down and hands in his belt. There was a bench overlooking the water, and Thomas Smyth sat here, glowering ahead. Simon and Baldwin stood before him, Edgar waiting a little behind.
It was Simon who broke the silence. Casting a suspicious eye at his friend, which told Baldwin more precisely than any words that the bailiff still had no idea of the direction his thoughts were taking him in, Simon said, “Thomas, we have been to visit Wat Meavy at his farm since we left you at the camp. He has confirmed that he saw John Beauscyr on the night that your son was killed.”
“He saw Beauscyr that night?” The miner’s puzzled glance rose to meet Simon’s firm stare. “I don’t… You mean Beauscyr was there when Peter was murdered? It wasn’t him who killed Peter?”
“No. From what we’ve heard, it wasn’t John.”
The tinner was overwhelmed. He looked away, over the moors to the east. “My God! And I’ve caused the death of my men for… But how can this man Meavy be so sure? Are you saying that…”
Baldwin intervened smoothly. “Thomas, this morning I was very impressed by your method of setting out your defense – the way that you sited the archers compared to the footsoldiers, and forced any frontal attack to concentrate just where you wanted it. Yes, it was masterly.” The tinner stared at the knight in silence. Imperturbably, Baldwin carried on. “If it was not for the second attack over the river, you would surely have carried the day with ease, wouldn’t you? There would have been a great massacre there. Where did you learn to fight like that?”
Thomas shrugged. “It was just luck, that’s all. It seemed the best way to put the men.”
“So it was not from your experience as a soldier in the wars with Sir William?”
“He told you?” The astonishment could not have been faked.
Baldwin smiled, his moustache lifting wolfishly. “Why shouldn’t he?”
“Because it only serves to discredit the man,” he said shortly. “Why should he tell you about it? It’s true, I fought in the Welsh wars, and I knew Sir William there. That was part of the reason I came here, because I had heard from his men about tinning, and thought I might as well try it myself.”
Simon was looking from one to the other with confusion, and the knight noticed. Gesturing mildly toward his friend, he said, “Perhaps you should explain. The bailiff was too young to have been involved in the wars.”
“Very well,” said Thomas, throwing a faintly disgusted glance in Simon’s direction as if at the bailiff’s lack of knowledge of recent history. “It was back in the ’80s. King Edward, father to our Edward and much the greater man, called on his lords to help him put down the Welsh once and for all, even offering to pay the troops himself. The Welsh had always been a thorn in his side, and back then, before his son proved so incompetent at Bannockburn, he had the Scots under control and could spend time in bringing the Welsh to his will. My lord joined the army, and I went with him to join with the men under Luke de Tany. I was only twenty then, back in ’82, but strong, and prepared to win some honor from a battle, and I soon became the leader of a small company.”
“Sir William was there too?”
“Oh yes, and like his son Robert he was as arrogant as a young knight can be. I think it was his first war, though he’s been on many a raid since. But he was a knight, and wouldn’t speak to me. I was just there to obey orders and nothing else. We were there under de Tany for ages. I remember we marched in Maytime, early in the month, and had to go to Neston, in the Dee estuary. I was a crossbowman, and I was one of the group put on the fleet of over sixty ships called from the Cinque ports. Many of us bowmen were there on the ships to serve as marines when we arrived in Anglesey. We took the island and built a bridge over the Menai Strait so that we could attack through to Bangor, but then that was it. By the end of September we were ready, but we had to wait until we had an instruction from the King to carry on, for we were to throw the enemy into confusion by diverting his armies just when the King’s own men started a new attack.
“It went well. The King and the Earl of Lincoln moved up the Clwyd Valley, Earl Warenne advanced along the middle Dee, and Reginald de Grey went on from Hope. The Welsh had no chance against such forces, and the whole affair should have been finished quickly, but Archbishop Pecham decided to try to stop the killing. He mediated for some time and held up the attack – a stupid waste of time. It was obvious that the Welsh were merely taking the opportunity to regroup their men for more fighting.
“Meanwhile, we in Anglesey were stuck with nothing to do. It was miserable, with no decent camp and too many men in a small area. Men fell ill, and we were all fretful and bored. We just wanted to get on with it and push the Welsh back. Well,” he glanced up at his attentive audience, “that was why Sir William did it, I think. Boredom!”
A faraway look came to his face as he continued, every now and then his hand rising to his cheek to scratch at an insect bite. “You have to understand, first, that until then the soldiers had been well enough behaved. We had attacked the island and won it, we had set up camp as ordered, and we had built the bridge as we had been told. But the tedium of just sitting out there with nothing to do was dreadful! We knew that at any time we could be thrown over the bridge to meet the Welsh, and that was worrying. Those madmen with their long knives are vicious warriors. In the heat, and with more and more men falling ill from fevers and then dying, fights began to break out – little disputes flaring like charcoal when the bellows blow. Normally they would have been forgotten, but there they became reason to kill. And for a young knight seeking glory and wealth, it was maddening.
“It was November when we began to move. We had waited there for months, and I think de Tany was as keen as the rest of us to get moving, so we crossed over the bridge and into Snowdonia. Our leader thought he could make a decisive attack which would throw the Welsh into disorder and end the war. It’s been said de Tany wanted to ruin the peace negotiations – I don’t know, he might have – but all I can say is that we all wanted to go by then.
“At first, things went well. We rode out into the country, but the main host got entangled in a fight with Welshmen. When this happened, I was out on the flank with Sir William, and he ordered me to join him. We thought it was to attack the rear of the Welsh, but no, he took us round behind and then on into the country.”
Now his eyes rose to meet Baldwin’s. “He had heard of a nunnery some miles away – I still don’t know the name of it – where the nuns had gold and jewels. That was his aim, not to fight in some vainglorious battle, but to make a profit from a war he thought foolish. He took us there and we attacked it. They had no chance. There were some hundred and fifty of us, and the nuns only had twenty-odd men to protect them. They were all killed, including the women, but not of course before they were raped.” His voice was cold and bitter as his face hardened. “And Sir William was the first, taking two women before he let his soldiers in.”