It was turning into a hard winter, and this year’s harvest had been poor; the monastery was still sheltering a dozen or so people who, for one reason or another, could not escape to Saint Dyfrig’s.
Thus, the bishop was concerned about the stock of food on hand and wanted to know how long it would last.
Together with Brother Brocmal, he was examining the monastery’s modest storerooms, making an exact accounting, when the riders arrived to fetch him. “Bishop Asaph!” called the porter, running across the yard. “The Ffreinc—the Ffreinc have come for you!”
“Calm yourself, brother,” Asaph said. “Deliver your charge with some measure of decorum, if you please.”
The porter gulped down a mouthful of air. “Three riders in de Braose livery have come,” he said. “They have a horse for you and say you are to accompany them to Caer Cadarn.”
“I see.Well, go back and tell them I am busy just now but will attend them as soon as I have finished.”
“They said I was to bring you at once,” countered the porter.
“If you refused, they said they would come and drag you away by your ears!”
“Did they indeed!” exclaimed the bishop. “Well, I will save them the trouble.” Handing the tally scroll to the kitchener, he said, “Continue with the accounting, Brother Brocmal, while I deal with our impatient guests.”
“Of course, bishop,” replied Brother Brocmal.
Asaph returned with the porter and found three marchogi on horseback waiting with a saddled fourth horse. “Pax vobis-cum,” said the bishop, “I am Father Asaph. How may I be of assistance?” He spoke his best Latin, slowly, so they would understand.
“Count de Braose wants you,” said the foremost rider.
“So I have been given to understand,” replied the bishop, who explained that he was in the midst of a necessary undertaking and would come as soon as he was finished.
“No,” said the horseman. “He wants you now.”
“Now,” explained the bishop, still smiling, “is not convenient. I will come when my duties allow.”
“He doesn’t care if it is convenient,” replied the soldier.
“We have orders to bring you without delay.”
He nodded to his two companions, who began dismounting. “Oh, very well,” said Asaph, moving quickly to the waiting horse. “The sooner gone, the sooner finished.”
With the help of the porter, the bishop mounted the saddle and took up the reins. “Well? Are you coming?” he asked in a voice thick with sarcasm. “Apparently, it does not do to keep the count waiting.”
Without another word, the marchogi turned their mounts and rode from the yard out into a dazzling, sun-bright day.
The soldiers led the way across the snow-covered valley, and the bishop followed at an unhurried pace, letting his mind wander as it would. He was still trying to get the measure of these new overlords, and each encounter taught him a new lesson in how to deal with the Ffreinc invaders.
Strictly speaking, they were not Ffreinc, or Franks, at all; they were Normans. There was a difference—not that any of the Britons he knew cared for such fine distinctions. To the people of the valleys beyond the March, the tall strangers were invaders from France—that was all they knew, or needed to know. To the Britons, be they Ffreinc, Angevin, or Norman, they were merely the latest in a long line of would-be conquerors.
Before the Normans, there were the English, and before the English, the Danes, and the Saxons before them. And each invader had carved out dominions for themselves and had gradually been gathered in and woven into the many-coloured mantle that was the Island of the Mighty.
These Normans were, from what he knew of them, ambitious and industrious, capable of great acts of piety and even greater brutality. They built churches wherever they went and filled them on holy days with devout worshippers, who nevertheless lived like hellions the rest of the time. It was said of the Ffreinc that they would blithely burn a village, slaughter all the men, and hang all the women and children, and then hurry off to church lest they miss a Mass.
Be that as it may, the Normans were Christian at least— which was more than could be said for the Danes or English when they had first arrived on Britain’s fair shores. That being the case, the Church had decided that the Normans were to be treated as brothers in Christ—albeit as one would treat a domineering, wildly violent, and unpredictable older brother.
There was, so far as Bishop Asaph could see, no other alternative. Had he not urged