Caradoc of the North Wind - By Allan Frewin Jones Page 0,21

into Dera’s face.

‘No,’ she gasped, amazed to find herself alive. She stared around. One Saxon horse lay dead in the bloody snow, and several Saxons were sprawled motionless on the battlefield. But of the Gwyn Braw, none seemed to have been injured.

‘Why were the gates closed?’ shouted Rhodri.

‘They were closed on Angor’s orders,’ said Dera, her face angry. ‘Only by threatening death to any who disobeyed me was I able to force the gate guards to raise the bars and come to your aid.’

‘Treacherous lickspittle of a treacherous lord!’ snarled Branwen. ‘He would have seen us cut to collops before the gates and not raised a finger in our aid.’

‘It was in good time that you came, Dera,’ growled Aberfa. ‘Much longer and we may have been overborne.’

Branwen hunkered down, wiping her sword on the cloak of a dead Saxon. Now that the immediate danger was past, she began to feel a new, sharp anger building in her. She stood up, sheathing her sword and striding over to where Terrwyn stood snorting and sweating, the steam rising from him in clouds.

‘I will speak with Angor ap Pellyn,’ she said, climbing into the saddle. ‘I will have a reckoning with him, even if it comes to death blows.’

She twitched the reins and rode Terrwyn back across the causeway. She passed Iwan, who watched her with shining eyes. One of his arms was about Linette’s waist, the other hand held her forehead so that her head was resting on his shoulder. Her eyes were blearily half open. She smiled weakly and Branwen nodded in response. Old Gods be praised! The injured girl had survived the journey.

Despite the best efforts of Captain Angor of Doeth Palas, they had all survived the journey.

The king’s court at Pengwern stood in a bend of the wide River Hefren, guarded from the east by the deep, fast-flowing waters and by a high dyke that had been thrown up in ages past on the river’s western bank. Only by crossing the river and climbing the steep dyke could an enemy come to the citadel of the kings of Powys from that side, and then they would find themselves trapped under a timber palisade that reared up to the height of five grown men.

To the west, a deep ditch and the continuation of the solid wall of tree trunks guarded the citadel. A narrow earthen bridge led to the gateway, upon either side of which stood defensive towers of square-trimmed timbers. Even if an enemy stormed the wooden wall and broke through the gates, they would only have gained access to an empty bailey, and would be confronted by a high rampart of packed stone.

A path wound up the side of the rampart to another gateway that could be closed against invaders and defended to the last. Only if that second gate were burst open would the enemy have reached the heart of the citadel, where over five hundred peasants, merchants, lords and soldiers had their homes.

Some said that the king was unwise to keep court in such an exposed place, hardly a day’s hard ride from the Saxon stronghold of Chester, but never in all the wars that had raged over the wide, wild lands east of the Clwydian Mountains had an armed Saxon ever set foot within its walls.

And while Branwen had breath in her body and a sword in her hand, none ever would! She rode through the wide-thrown gates and into the circular bailey that ringed the inner ramparts of the citadel. A few soldiers watched her from the walls, shrouded in their cloaks, stamping their feet for warmth.

She had led the warrior band that had brought the daughters of Prince Llew of Bras Mynydd safe to Pengwern, and yet there was no cheering for her return, no glad faces, no hands reached up in friendship as she passed.

Branwen of the Old Gods, she was, a useful tool in the wars, but trusted no more than a snake whose venom might be used to poison the enemy.

She urged Terrwyn on to the slithery earthen slope that wound up to the second gateway. The path had been cleared and the snow lay in heaps on either side. There was no sign of Meredith or her sister. Captain Angor waited for her astride his horse, alone in the open gateway, his sword sheathed, his manner unconcerned, watching her with cold eyes.

Branwen brought Terrwyn up sharp, a few paces from Angor. Beyond him she could see the crowded