People of the Black Mountains Vol.II: The Eggs of the Eagle by Raymond Williams

Author:Raymond Williams [Raymond Williams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

Signs of a Vengeance

IN THE COLD bright April morning, the black twigs of the heather and the grey upper branches of the beech wood shone in drops from the overnight rain. On the lower branches, as the wood spread down to the valley, new buds, tightly folded in fawn, curved to push away the brittle bronze leaves of the old season.

The grass track from Bal Mawr was sodden, after the heavy winter rains. Iorwerth ap Owain, riding south, heard the squelch of his pony’s hooves even at this soft pace. He looked ahead to the dark patch where the track from Ystradwy rose steeply through the trees. It was the only significant beech wood of the mountains: Ffawyddog, trailing south from Coed Euas.

In any spring, in the island, eyes widen, still dazed from the dark storms of winter. The new light dazzles and the traveller’s eyes are restless, for there is too little growth to absorb the lengthening days.

Iorwerth, touching his reins, tried to shift his mind forward from the extraordinary winter just ended: a winter still dark and active in memory, which this spring light scoured.

Henry King of England had died in France, on the first day of December, 1135. Before the news reached Wales heavy rainstorms rushed in, on wild gales from the west. A dammed lake in Elfael burst its banks and flooded a village. Along the valley of the Wye all the meadows were flooded. New highwater marks were recorded in the churches. Through Christmas and into the new year the relentless rains continued. Only the people of the upland villages and settlements could stay in their houses. From the lower villages straggling families and their animals moved up to the nearest high ground.

Within the chaos of dislocation, and while more fierce rainstorms still swept the mountains, the news of the distant death of a king might have passed unnoticed. But it was found that on the very day that Henry died the first great storm had drenched Wales. Now this foreign king’s corpse, wrapped in bullock skins against its deliquescence, was being transported back to a memorial in England. The heavy rains and the dissolution of a feared and hated body were then known to be signs.

Iorwerth halted and called the greyhaired bard Gwalchmai forward. They looked along the spur to the rise of the old British camp. Beyond it, to the right, rose the great slope of Penyfal, and to the left, beyond Brynarw, the tawny body of Ysgyryd, that strong animal ready to rise. Iorwerth had eleven knights and more than a hundred footmen. His elder brother Morgan had a larger force, more than five hundred men, in the valley of the Usk, blocking the old Roman road from Abergavenny to the West.

The whole country had now risen, as if Ysgyryd had moved. On the news of Henry’s death, Hywel ap Maredudd led an army from western Brycheiniog into the plains of Gower. On New Year’s Day more than five hundred Normans and the English under their protection were killed.

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