Chapter 12: Kings and Men

(Will Archer narrates)

Because of the plague inflicted upon us, I dare not let people pass through from the Riverside quarter to the other three quarters of the town. No one allowed in or out of the town. But still people are selfish and defy my orders.

My pickets catch a group of passing merchants, who were trapped in the town when I imposed martial law yesterday. They were brought before me to judge. Martial law allows me that privilege but, even if it didn’t, all four of the town’s magistrates are beset by the plague. I put each of the transgressors in the stocks for an hour, but this is a sport that the three quarters of the town, who have access to the market square where the stocks are set up, feel unable to rise to. I put them in the lock up, under the Mayor’s house, but one of them develops the ague by the end of the day and goes downhill fast, appearing to have little resistance to the effects of the sickness. He is older than the rest and much more corpulent, and used to more comfort than the lock-up affords. Thus I move him to a better room, the only better room that is available, my own, which I barely need now as I rarely leave my office.

Although I am tired, a regular routine of washing, wearing my face mask and not physically touching anyone appears to be keeping me free of sickness. This inspires others likewise. We will beat this curse soon, as I long to see and embrace Alwen. The separation when we were a day or more apart was not so painful as when she is only an hour’s hard ride away.

These arrested merchants tell me they arrived from Chester, which they say a few days earlier was sacked by the Welsh Prince of Powys, which I can scarcely believe. We Welsh are tough, but the Prince Maredudd must be in his seventies! The Earl of Chester, who has contained law and order with some success in the Welsh Marches, was drowned with the crown Prince William last year, leaving the Shire of Cheshire open to invasion at the earliest opportunity, the Spring.

I confess in the past that I have fought once upon the side of Powys princes, and twice for the King of Gwynedd. Sometimes it is impossible to avoid the draft, but they were all mercifully short campaigns. Powys had been peaceful for fully five years, when their last uprising was easily defeated by Henry, at the cost of ten thousand cattle before Maredudd was able to return to his palace. It seems that even princes never learn their lessons and cannot look after their own territories without coverting someone else’s. Old age doesn’t always harvest wisdom.

I find there are moments of inactivity when I have time on my hands, to think, particularly about how I feel about playing the role of Shire Reeve, me, a Welshman, a sworn enemy of the English in some times past and particularly the Normans, who have harried us so much, all my life it seems to me. It was an unexpected honour to be appointed and knighted by the King, a man I have been forced to serve in battle many times, but always pressed into service, by being in the wrong place and the wrong time. And, being valued for the skills I have, I was often not allowed to leave at battle end, but was sold with others like chattels from one Earl to another. I saw action in Flanders, Normandy, Burgundy, France, Gascony and Naples, among other places I know not even the names of.