Chapter One

The Summoning

The Midst of October, 1243 A.D.

 

Brom looked deep into the pale blue eyes, nestling beneath strawberry blonde hair, and knew that they were some of the scariest eyes he’d ever seen—scarier than the reptilian gaze of a ferocious dragon, more heart-wrenching than the piercing stare of a feral wolf, and more knee-trembling than the psychotic glare of a Welsh wild-man warrior wielding his lethal blood-axe. He’d definitely put his foot in it, in a grand way, and made his wife very angry.

   “Brom Bumblewood, you’re the most oafish, priggish, frustrating lump of a man I have ever had the sorry excuse to know, let alone marry!” Maddie screamed as she threw a cushion at him.

His wife was petite, with a small, upturned nose and delicate, elfin features. In other words, she looked like the sort of person who’d weep when a kitten dies. But this pixie-like exterior hid a firebrand personality that Brom was totally unaware of until after their marriage.

   “But my sweet, I’m a junior knight. And being a knight is a full-time job,” he replied, then added when she scowled, “what with all the long hours, back-breaking labours, and untold dangers—or so Lord Roger says.”

   Brom was a tall, well-built man in his early twenties, with shoulder-length brown hair, thick eyebrows, and a short beard. He was softly spoken, amiable in nature and gentle with his wife, sisters, and all the farm animals. But his sword skills were exceptional, and he’d knocked most men with more bluster off their horses in the jousts at High Hill. He was at home in his nightgown, sitting at a table, eating his breakfast of rolled oats and goat’s milk. He usually enjoyed breakfast, but that morning felt a little careworn, what with all the ranting and whatnot.

   Maddie stomped a small foot and glared. “Pah! to Lord Roger. You go off every morning and don’t come home until late. Sometimes very late.”

   “Yes, sorry. But I had a lot on yesterday. A crazy hermit came out of his cave, terrorising the women of Buckley, what with wearing no clothes, popping up unexpectedly, and ranting about the end of the world; he’s a right old nuisance. Lord Roger told Percy and me to ride over there and sort him out. It was a long job.”

   “And I’m stuck here, feeding swill to the pigs, mucking out the stables or washing the clothes and bedding. I’m exhausted!”

   “You’re exhausted? I’m exhausted. We’re all exhausted.”

   “We need a few servants around here to take the load off. And not those bargain-basement ones with boils and filthy habits. I want upmarket ones who know how to use a privy and don’t pick their toe fungus in public. My back’s killing, and I’m sick of being covered in dung. Contrary to my mother’s opinion, it does nothing for the skin.”

   “But Maddie, you must see, servants used to be cheap, but since that plague wiped a lot of them out, they’ve become pricey, you know that.” As Brom mentioned the plague, his heart sank. He didn’t like to think about the terrible plague of ’40. The black veil swept the land like a hurricane. It had been three years since his parents died, but it felt more like three minutes.

   “What’s the point of all your work if we have no money, eh?”

   “But love, a junior knight doesn’t get a huge salary. I do it for the servitude of the appointment, you know that. It is a great honour to be appointed a Knight of the Order of Saint Septimus, or so Lord Roger says. I couldn’t go and ask for a pay rise, it’s a bit cheeky.”

   Maddie’s eyes grew tender as she gave him an imploring look. “Oh, Brom, I’ll scrub the floors, wash the sheets, muck out the pigs, I’ll do it if we can’t afford help. But when was the last time you took me out? We never go to the fire-pit anymore, or a decent hanging. Last month, there was a mystery play, but you were away on a stupid quest. Work, work, work, that’s all you think about. There’s more to life, you know.”

   Brom hated fighting with his wife, whom he loved dearly, but it was happening more and more often. Something was coming to a head—he could feel it in his water. Maddie was getting angrier by the day.

   Brom’s sixteen-year-old sister, Ellie, wandered into the living room, clutching a woodcut comic. Her pale, thin face wore its usual bored and sleepy expression.

   “Let me guess,” she said, “you two are arguing again. Whatever you do, don’t get a divorce. My friends think you two are weird enough already, and I couldn’t stand the shame of it, heathen practice that it is.”

   Brom looked at his sister, who now had her face stuck in the woodcut comic book, the kind she swapped with friends and spent hours reading in her bedroom. “Of course we’re not getting a divorce, Ellie. Maddie and I love each other very much.”

   “Something has to change, Brom, or I may just consider it,” Maddie said.

   Brom’s heart sank. “What? Not really?”

   Maddie gave him another imploring look. “Of course not, silly! I love you. Let’s go out tonight. The Bromwick Players are staging an interesting-sounding play, all about an Egyptian king getting stabbed by a Nubian princess. It’ll be fun. We’ll go to the Snuffling Pig for a couple of ales afterwards. Ellie will watch Lizzie, won’t you, Ellie?”

   “Five pennies for babysitting. A very reasonable rate.”

   Brom was about to agree. The Bromwick Players put on some good stuff, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a drink with Maddie. But before he could speak, there was a hammering at the front door. The hammering was very loud and urgent. It went on for some time.

   “Who could that be at this time in the morning?” Brom said.

   “I’ll go and see, shall I?” Ellie said, rolling her eyes and groaning.

   Ellie left the room, but only for a few moments. When she came back, she looked worried.

   “What?” Brom said.

   “It’s a messenger boy, said it was very urgent, a matter of utmost importance. Said it was something terrible and highly dangerous. He wants to speak with you.”

Brom went to the front door, wondering what was going on, and saw a young, slightly portly boy with a paranoid expression. “Ho! Sir! It’s urgent! Lord Roger says he wants you to sort out a terrible thing. You must come forthwith on pain of death!”

   Brom’s heart sank. “Tell me, boy, what’s this terrible thing he wants me to sort out?”

   “Just come. Forthwith! On pain of death!”

   “What’s it about?”

   The messenger boy patted his finger on his nose, winked in a very conspiratorial manner and said that Welsh spies are everywhere. Then he looked left and right, turned on his heels and fled.

   “God in heaven help me, I’ve got to go. Now!”

   Brom rushed into his bedroom, whipped off his night things, quickly put on his green tunic and striped socks, and, hopping, went back into the parlour. He looked over the fireplace, but his sword was not in its stand. “Have you seen my sword? I’m going to be late!”

   Brom suspected Lizzie, his six-year-old sister, had been playing with it. He reasoned it was probably lost forever or would be found covered in jam or slobber.

   “Lizzie,” he said to his cute yet mischievous sister, who was sitting on the floor, playing with a live toad, “have you had my sword? It’s sharp. Don’t touch it!”

   “Yes, Brom! I wanted to see if a dragon, with its horrid, fiery breath, could melt it and gobble you up. So, I checked.”

   Brom nodded as a glimmer of understanding dawned. He looked inside the fireplace and saw it amongst the embers.

   “My sword! It’s all covered in ash! I love that Lizzie wants to play at being a knight, but it’s mucky now.”

   “Who was at the door?” Maddie said.

   “Sorry, love. Really sorry. Don’t be mad, but I can’t go out tonight. Lord Roger has summoned me. It could be a long job.”

   “Pah! to Lord Roger. He has you at his beck and call night and day. No wonder we can’t do anything.”

   “I’m lucky to get to work for Lord Roger. That, at least, is what Lord Roger says.”

   “Pah! again, to Lord Roger.”

   “If it weren’t for this job, we’d be destitute, you know that. You should be happy that I’m working, not complaining so much.” Brom thought his job meant they’d come up in the world. His father and grandfather were huntsmen, worked in the forests, looked after the hives, the bumblebees, hence his family name: Bumblewood. But this here job, working for a lord as his knight, was surely a great step up in the world.

   Maddie scowled. “That’s it! Get out, Brom! You love work more than you love me. I’m going to do something, you’ll see. Something just for myself, something drastic that’ll make you sorry you neglected such a good wife.”

   Brom felt awkward and didn’t know what to do. He knew he was already late for his appointment with Lord Roger, so he couldn’t stay and talk his wife down, even though he dearly wanted to.

   “Sorry, love, I have to go, it’s urgent, on pain of death stuff, but I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

Maddie glared.

   “Heard that one before, Brom,” Ellie said, rolling her eyes.

   Brom kissed Lizzie, refused her offer to kiss the toad, then kissed Ellie and Maddie. His wife still had the angry eye, so he shrugged by way of an apology and rushed out of the living room. He went through the hall and out through the front door.

​

It was early morning, and the air was already warming the chill away. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful autumntide day. Birds were tweeting furiously in Crick-hollow woods, and butterflies and bees were flying about the purple heather. The close-knit, thatched houses of Bromwick that spread down the lane were waking up, with people out and about. Brom took a deep breath of brisk, sweet-scented air—to try to calm down after his argument with Maddie—as he made his way over to the stables. He told Jim, his young and eager squire, of his summoning and asked him to saddle up his white horse, Flash. Shortly after, Brom mounted and set off, with Jim following close behind on the pony called Pebbles.

   As they rode down Bromwick High Street, he pondered his thorny predicament. On one side was Lord Roger. He expected his knights to be on call twenty-four hours a day, to serve with gratitude their wonderful Marcher-baron, to think about nothing but knightly duties, and ponder with seriousness and care on how best to serve his interests. And on the other hand, there was Maddie. She wanted him to work, so they had plenty of pennies and could keep the family living nicely. But she also wanted him to be at home, being romantic, taking her out, being just how he’d been five years ago when they’d first met—when he was but a huntsman’s apprentice working with his dad and she was but the young and flighty daughter of Mister and Missus Ramsbottom, the apothecary shop owners. These were two irreconcilable forces, and Brom was stuck in the middle, pulled both ways.

   “So, Jim, how are you today?” he said to his squire, doing his best to forget about demanding lords and irate wives.

   “I’m okay, sir. How’s your Ellie, sir?”

   Brom smiled. Jim had quite a thing for Ellie. “She’s fine, Jim, same as usual.”

   “Good. Tell her I’ve got some new woodcut comics to swap, if you’ll tell her, sir, really odds-bodkins they are, super odds-bodkins.”

   Odds-bodkins was a new expression that all the young people were liberally inserting into any sentence they happened to mutter. Brom was not entirely sure what it meant, but he guessed it was the same as gadzooks, something he and his friends used to say a few years ago, when he was Jim’s age. “I’ll let her know, Jim. She’ll be pleased.” Brom knew Ellie wasn’t interested in Jim, rolled her eyes at the very mention of his name, said he smelled of horse dung and picked weevils out of his hair. But Jim was holding on, hoping she’d come around eventually. Brom smiled as he looked at Jim, who did have a certain horsey aroma and was currently picking a weevil out of his hair.

   “How’s your dad, Jim? Still at the forge?” Brom said. He’d known Jim’s father; he’d been a family friend all through his childhood—had been around a lot when his father was still alive, before he was taken by the plague three summers ago. Brom had made Jim his squire because he was Robert’s son. Brom missed his dad and thought of him every single day. And he missed his dear sweet mum, who’d died giving birth to Lizzie. It was a big responsibility for Maddie, looking after two young girls when she herself was not much older than Ellie. She’d become almost like their mother, and he like their father, which made him feel even more guilty about not taking Maddie out. He was only young himself, sometimes felt like a boy, not a man. But he was the breadwinner, a married man no less, with a wife and two young sisters to support. It was a big responsibility.

   “He’s not doing too well, I’m afraid, sir. There’s been more trouble with the Welsh. A raiding party came into Brokett Hole village last night and stole the sheep, goats, and pigs, and most of the contents of the shops. Auntie and Uncle Pocket, along with some of their friends, ran over to our house. Went right through Wolf Wood in the middle of the night, they did, and told Mum and Dad all about it. They’re sleeping in our spare rooms and the stables right now. You don’t think those crazy Welshmen will come raiding Bromwick, do you, sir? Odds-bodkins, they’re scary! I hope they don’t!”

   Brom frowned. Bromwick was in Dudestan Hundred, close to the Welsh border. And just over that border was the odd-sounding principality of Gwynedd, a place Brom had never visited and hoped he’d never have to. Its towns were full of gangs, tavern brawling, and criminal troublemakers, or so he’d been told.  He thought these wild and out of control Welsh loonies, these crass and uneducated barbarians, needed a good and fair ruler, like his trusty king Henry, to teach them how to be civilised.

   Brom and Jim left Bromwick behind and were soon following the drovers’ road past farmlands and through woods, heading north. It had got a little hotter, and Brom felt himself sweating slightly under his tunic. He wished it were a little lighter and the worsted woollen vest he’d put on was a little thinner. Still, late summer in England was a wonderful thing, and Brom couldn’t help but admire the flowers by the roadside, the majestic hills in the distance and the cawing of the rooks in the ancient oaks.

   “What a lovely day, sir,” Jim said, then with a ponderous frown added, “What do you think Lord Roger wants with us, I mean you, sir?”

Brom shook his head. “The messenger boy didn’t say. Except that it was very urgent and highly dangerous.”

   “But what was it exactly, sir? You’re not making yourself clear, not at all, sir, if you don’t mind me saying, sir.”

   “You know as much as I do, Jim.”

   “Very mysterious. But I knew somehow that those Welsh fopdoddles would be at the bottom of it. Odds-bodkins, sir!”

   “Odds-bodkins indeed.”

   They forded a low crest and came down into Mold. This vast, bustling metropolis was the buzzing heart of the Hundred, with a population of well over a thousand people, a number almost impossible to count in Brom’s estimation. It featured all of human life, from a lord, a bishop, and high-born ladies, to guttersnipes, pickpockets and ladies of the night.

   “I feel almost dizzy with excitement, sir,” Jim said. “Just look at those towers, must be four floors tall at least! And look at the people, so many people, sir.”

   As they passed through the gates, with the gatekeeper bowing politely, Brom sniffed up and smelt the contents of a thousand toilet bowls that had been tossed out into the gutters that very morning, to lie on top of the contents tossed out the previous morning. “Impressive, yes, but it doesn’t half pong in some parts.”

   “Everything in this here world pongs, sir. I don’t mind pongs. I pong myself, sir.”

   They made their way through the bustling streets, avoiding pigs, chickens, ragged children, hawkers and flies. Soon they were outside the castle, an impressive fortress with a large bailey and flagpole proudly flying Lord Roger’s colours. They dropped off Flash and Pebbles in the stables, entrusting their steeds with a gang of spotty stable lads, went through the arched stone entrance and into the castle.

   “Very impressive, sir,” Jim said as he looked all around, slack-jawed, at the tall turrets, ramparts and thick stone walls.

   “Yes, Jim, it is. The Marcher lords certainly know how to build a ginormous pile of stones. There are many castles along the Welsh border, but this must be the biggest.”

   They went through a wide door and into the main hall, where Lord Roger was holding court.

Lord Roger de Montalt had been at Mold castle for two years. He’d been commanded to repair there by the king himself, along with other Marcher barons, to repair into other castles along the Marches. ‘And there to reside for the defence of the country,’ the king had told him. Roger was not as brave or as intelligent as his father, Robert, or as industrious as his grandfather, Robert, who’d built Mold castle. He felt that the Welsh presence over in the neighbouring Kingdom of Gwynedd was ever looming. The castle had been in Welsh control just before he’d arrived, but the king’s forces had kicked them out. But now the king’s forces were long gone, and he was here to do his duty of defence. It was all a bit scary.

   To allay his fears, he’d stumped up some money and bought the services of a few knights-errant for protection, Sir Richard de Runcie, Sir Percy Purbeck and Sir Godfrey Greylock. But with the Welsh becoming more boisterous, he wanted more protection, so he started a joust at High Hill, with the winner made into a new ‘knight’, despite having no formal training, lands, nobility or education.

   Lord Roger wasn’t sure about this plan, but as it had been suggested to him by the queen’s cousin Béatrice, he’d gone along with it anyway. His doubts soon evaporated when he realised that any brand-new green-as-grass so-called ‘knight’ would not cost much money.

   Brom (with his huntsman’s keen eye, his love of horse riding and his luck with the joust) had won the first contest in the spring, so had been a ‘knight’ for six months. Jo Potterson, a young woman of about Brom’s age (who dressed as a man and cut her hair short), was a strong, keen swordsmith who had won the second contest, held in high summer, and had been celebrating ever since. She partied and joked so much that she’d now acquired the nickname Jo of Japes.

   Brom looked around the grand hall and could see that the other knights were already there. He was beginning to wonder if he’d got the time wrong, but he could see that Lord Roger and his wife Cecily were not yet up on the dais, in their highchairs. Percy Purbeck, the Black Knight—trying to look all moody and mysterious dressed in black, as he played the chuck-a-luck dice game with his squire Mungo—waved, and Brom waved back. Godfrey Greylock, the ageing grey knight, so-called because of his tufty grey beard and wispy grey hair—who was deep in discussion with a serving wench about some insect he’d found swimming in his beaker of cider—gave Brom a quick nod. Brom nodded back but decided it was best to go and chat directly with the fellow knight he was best friends with—a man somewhat older than himself, married with children about the same age as Lizzie and Ellie—to see if he knew what was going on.

    He strode over to Richard de Runcie, the Purple Knight, who was cleaning his fingernails with a dagger and chatting to his oldest son about this and that. Richard looked quite splendid in his purple tabard, but Brom wasn’t wearing his orange one. Lizzie had been playing with it last week in the woods, making a tent, and it had gone missing. But Brom wasn’t too bothered. He didn’t particularly like being the Orange Knight and thought the tabard made him look a bit silly. It was the queen’s cousin Béatrice who’d had the bright idea of making each knight a different colour, of getting the seamstresses to run up the tabards. She’d always dressed very flamboyantly, loved fluttering her silk handkerchiefs at the knights as favours for this and that frivolity, had the knights running around on all sorts of silly errands and minor ‘quests’ as she called them—she was obviously an avid reader of the more fanciful woodcut comics and wanted it all to be real. Brom gritted his teeth at such nonsense but smiled and went along with it because he didn’t want to upset the queen’s cousin, as this would upset the queen, which would bother the king, which meant Lord Roger would sack him forthwith. And he could not afford to lose his job, being the breadwinner and all.

   “Richard. Hello, my friend,” Brom said, shaking Richard’s hand. His friend had long, thin black hair and a pointed black beard.

   “Hello, Brom. Looking good, although I do think Mademoiselle Béatrice may make some derogatory comment when she sees you without your tabard. She’s such a nuisance, but don’t tell her I said that.”

   “It’s in the wash, and we got called out urgently. Do you know what’s going on?”

   “There are rumours, strange rumours, but nothing definite. Jo heard something in the Boar’s Head tavern last night.” Richard shouted over to Jo, who was rubbing her forehead and moaning slightly, obviously hungover from a hard night of revelling. “Hey, Jo, we want a word.”

   Jo came over with her gangly squire, Edmund, her best friend. Jo was a strong-armed young woman, flat-nosed and jug-eared, with doleful eyes and a prominent chin. She looked tired and a little worse for wear.

   “What was that thing you heard last night?” Richard said.

   “Well, I had a strumpet on my knee, in the back room of the Boar’s Head, and she told me everything.”

   “How would a strumpet know the comings and goings of the high-born?”

   “She said there’s evil afoot. Bad things are coming out at night, bad things that love the Welsh but hate the English. We’ve got more than hairy Welshmen wielding blood-axes to worry about. We’ve now got to deal with strange things that go bump in the night. Evil things!”

Richard wasn’t convinced. “And you believed this strumpet? She sounds like a rambling crone with no more sense than a weasel.”

   “You’d be surprised at how many high and noblemen visit strumpets, get drunk and chat about all sorts of secret, stately things. I know a lot of strumpets; they gossip atrociously.”

Brom frowned. “How do you fight strange things that go bump in the night? Do you mean ghosts?”

   Jo shrugged. “I was going to get her to elaborate, but I fell asleep. Too much mead, I think.”

Jim had been standing beside Brom, listening to every word. “I don’t like the sound of that, sir. Ghosties and ghoulies are right scary things, sir. I saw one once, my grandma in the orchard, toothless old biddy, laughing like a crazy person, been dead ten years afore that.”

   Richard snorted. “Stuff and nonsense. Lord Roger is probably raising tithe taxes again.”

There was a sudden blast of trumpets. Only then did Brom notice that six trumpeters had been standing to the dais’s left-hand side, giving the signal that Lord Roger and Cecily were about to arrive. The knights and their squires, the serving wenches and the trumpeters all turned and looked expectantly toward the dais.

   From a door on the right came a great and noble bishop, the king’s advisor, Silvester the Wise, an older man with a long beard, a bald head, a hooked nose, and black robes, who looked more vulture-like than any man alive. His full name was Silvester de Everdon, and he was a holy man who’d become a powerful clerk in the chancery and the king’s friend and advisor.

   Following him were three other important people: Mademoiselle Katherine, Mademoiselle Marguerite and Mademoiselle Béatrice. When the queen had come over from Aix-en-Provence, seven years ago, she’d brought with her nearly two hundred of her French relatives, known locally as ‘the Savoyards’, who some said were taking over the London court. The king wanted to appease the people by marrying off these relatives to English barons, so he sent the three girls with Silvester up to the County Palatine of Chester to marry some wealthy barons’ sons. They’d been staying with Lord Roger and his wife for six months now, whilst husband-hunting in Chester’s nearby baronial halls.

   Next came Cecily of Arundel, Lord Roger’s wife, hand in hand with their spoilt five-year-old son John. She was tall, graceful, and pale-skinned, with her curly blonde hair covered by a jaunty pillbox hat, a fashion accessory she called it. She also wore a heavily embroidered maroon silk dress with a tight bodice. Cecily was almost thirty-five, intelligent, an ageing beauty and kind. But it was evident that she considered her husband to be a trifle lacking in the brain department.

   Lastly came Lord Roger himself, a stocky man with a bushy beard, long curly hair, a watchful eye and a purple doublet. He wore his feathered hat, a bit lopsided, and a pair of bodkin boots, the latest fashion, with toes so long and pointed he had to concentrate hard to keep from falling over.

Lord Roger and Lady Cecily sat on their highchairs, and the knights waited patiently for their lord to fix his trousers and get comfortable.

   “Ho! my warriors, so glad you’re all here,” Lord Roger said, at last, adjusting his hat. “Very glad you’re here, very glad indeed, what with what I have to tell you. It’s bad, eh, Cecily, very bad?” He glanced over at his wife, who looked at her husband, nodded and rolled her eyes in a long-suffering way. “Anyway, as I was saying, I have some bad news for you all. You must embark on a perilous quest. A quest to solve a most intriguing mystery, so to speak.”

   They each let out an audible groan. Quests were always such a pain in the neck and took you away from home for a long time. Woodcut comics were filled with fanciful tales of quests. They usually involved fighting horrible men or big-horned creatures in strange lands, retrieving chalices or other such treasure, or rescuing some silly girl who’d got herself kidnapped or locked in a tall tower.

   Jo put her hand up. “Excuse me, sire, I’m a bit rubbish at solving mysteries. Whenever I lose my socks, I can never find them.”

   “That’s because you’re usually drunk in a tavern when you take them off,” Godfrey said with a chuckle.

   Jo considered for a moment. “True.”

   “Anyway, goodly knights,” Brom said, “let’s hear what Lord Roger has to say.”

   The knights nodded their apology and turned back toward their lord, who was looking a little annoyed with the distraction.

“Anyway,” he said, “this particular quest, a most horrible and dangerous one, is about the Welsh.”

The knights groaned again. If there was one thing that made their job difficult, it was the Welsh. Troublemakers all.

   “Anyway,” Lord Roger said in a louder voice, looking a little peeved, “my spies have reported something very annoying, very annoying indeed. The Welsh have acquired one of our castles. Castle Hen Blas, over in Bagiltt. This place is right on the border, so it has been attacked many times over the last few years. So, we got the builders in to have it fortified, built up a bit more.

Well, you know what it’s like when you have the builders in, mess everywhere, I should know as I love getting things built. So, most of the English cleared off whilst the building work was on, and then those pesky Welsh barbarians marched right in and took over! Last month this was, and nobody thought to tell me.”

   Silvester the Wise nodded his agreement, as he added, “And now the locals in Bagiltt are calling it Fawr Gorthwr, a name in their own tongue-”

   “As if it’s theirs!” exclaimed Lord Roger. “How rubbish are our spies not to find out until now?”

   The knights all agreed that their spies were rubbish. Everyone felt honour-bound to agree with their lord when he asked a question, even if they didn’t personally agree. Brom thought they had excellent spies and considered the job to be quite glamorous and exciting.

   “Anyway,” Lord Roger continued, “now that we know what’s going on, I want you all to head on down there and find out the lay of the land, find out how we can get our castle back. They’re up to no good, we know it.”

   The knights muttered their astonishment. A massive hoard of angry and violent Welsh wild-man warriors, holed up in a nearby fortified castle? This was not good.

   “But stay, my knights! There is more. Much more. It gets worse, much worse.”

   “How can it be worse than that, sire?” Brom said.

   “Let me explain. When I say the Welsh, I don’t mean the disorganised rabble of tribes we’ve got just over the border. No! I mean that snivelling vermin of a man that goes by the name of Prince Dafydd, son of that other troublemaker Llywelyn ‘Fawr’ Lorweth, ruler of all Wales some years ago, who thankfully died a few years back, allowing the king take over again.”

   The queen raised an eyebrow and added, “You’re rambling, my dear.”

   Lord Roger cleared his throat. “Yes. Sorry. Anyway, this Dafydd chap and his gang, the powerful and ruthless Fawr Clan, or tribe or whatever they call themselves, for some mysterious reason, have left Dafydd’s court at Aber Garth Celyn. I think it’s called that or something equally unpronounceable. It’s in the Kingdom of Gwynedd, way over in the west. They’ve come way out east to Bagiltt, to the Marches border. And I know why they have, oh yes, I do! The Clan of Fawr are formidable, terrible and merciless. They are coming for us, for the English.”

   “But my dear,” Cecily said, “we have defeated this man before. He is not a tremendous force. He tried to take over all of Wales three years ago, but the king put a stop to it, remember?”

   Lord Roger looked a little nonplussed.

   “The king made him give up all his lands outside of Gwynedd.”

   Lord Roger shook his head and looked confused.

   “You know, dear,” Cecily said, trying again. “Dafydd signed that peace treaty at Gwerneigron. Agreed to the king’s terms.”

   Lord Roger scratched his head and looked blankly at his wife.

   “That’s why Mold castle became free of the Welsh invading horde, and that’s why the king sent us here, to defend it. The first night we arrived, we had giant lemon posset.”

A light suddenly shone in Lord Roger’s eyes. “Ah, yes. I remember. The posset, the treaty! He’s supposed to stay in Gwynedd. The evil man! But now he’s in our Hundred, in Dudestan, and shouldn’t be here unless he’s up to no good. I know he is.”

   Sir Richard held up his hand to ask a question. “But tell me, my lord, what’s the problem? We have previously subdued Dafydd and have many other castles along the Marches, not taken over by the Welsh and filled with Marcher army guards. And we have our army in London, who could march here within the week and send him back to Gwynedd, as per that treaty he signed.”

   Lord Roger held up his hand and gave the knights a dark look. “Stay! Stay goodly knights. You still have not heard the worst of it. My spies also tell me that the Welsh have a new weapon. Not just any old weapon, but a diabolically evil witch-weapon. It makes them invincible in battle.”

   “What sort of weapon did you say?” Brom said. “A witch weapon? Is it supernatural?”

   “We do not know as yet,” Silvester the Wise said. “It could simply be a new form of ballista, or trebuchet, or a new type of sword, or it could be something much more mysterious and sinister. Even supernatural, like you say. Something evil and magical that we cannot fight against, allegedly, even with the pope and God’s help. We have heard some whispered rumours. People are calling it ‘Satan’s Warhammer’.”

   Brom eyed up Silvester the Wise. “But our army in London. Surely, they will come, your holiness. Surely, they are invincible?”

   Silvester shook his head. “Part of the king’s army in London is busy repressing the barons, who are revolting yet again, the sixth time this year they’ve complained about foreigners at court and high taxes. And the king’s other forces are currently with him in France, at war with Louis. I have news that it is not going well. The army is encamped at Bordeaux, felled by sickness, as is Louis’ army. So, the king is retreating, sailing for Portsmouth and will be back around now. A sick army will not march here on rumour.”

   “The barons are always revolting,” Jo said, cracking the same joke as she’d done earlier and not listening to Silvester. She fervently believed that if a joke was worth cracking once, it was worth cracking a hundred times. Everyone else disagreed.

   “Anyway, Jo of the ancient jokes,” interrupted Lord Roger, “what I want you all to do is find out what the hell this witch-weapon is and how to stop the Welsh from using it. I don’t want Prince Dafydd and his Fawr gang marching into Mold castle, sitting on my highchair, slaughtering me with this ‘Satan’s Warhammer’ and probably all of you lot, then seducing all the women, including my good wife here.” Lord Roger indicated his wife, who shook her head, solemnly agreeing with her husband, but secretly imagining what being seduced by a wild, hairy Welshman would be like. Fairly pleasant, she guessed.

   Brom put up his hand. “But excuse me for saying so, lord, we are, but five and the Marches Army is not that big, a few dozen men, just castle guards really, and Gwynedd has an entire kingdom’s worth of army, backed by some weapon that is wicked and all-powerful. How are we going to find out what this wicked weapon is? If it makes them invincible, how will we defeat thousands of hairy, crazed Welshmen, helped by evil magic? How are we to stop them taking over all the Hundreds around here, taking over all the lands to Chester? How do we stop them taking over the whole of England, Scotland and France?”

   Lord Roger snorted and waved his hand dismissively. “That’s your problem. I only give out the quests. I don’t tell you how to complete them. I don’t believe in micro-managing my knights. You will probably all die like dogs in the dirt after having been consumed by evil forces, or chopped up by lethally sharp blood-axes, or trampled underfoot by the Fawr Clan army’s rampaging horses. But there you go.”

   Brom nodded at the undeniable logic of Lord Roger’s reply, but panic grew in his heart. This quest sounded more difficult than any other quest ever undertaken—it made those in the woodcut comics seem trivial by comparison. It would probably involve a lot of extra work that would take him away from home for long stretches, making Maddie even unhappier. It would also mean that he’d undoubtedly have to risk his life countless times. And that was even if, as Lord Roger so unkindly pointed out, he survived.

   He was a novice knight, just like Jo, who had never seen battle or even a Welsh wild-man warrior. His job suddenly seemed like less of a game for young men—of riding, swordplay and showing off—and more like a soldier’s grim job in a terrible war.

   But he couldn’t possibly refuse to go. He was the one who earned all the money and couldn’t bear to see Maddie, Ellie, and Lizzie destitute. He couldn’t let them starve in the gutter.

   Brom gulped hard and went pale.