Cedric, the Forester

by Bernard Gay Marshall

“We saw many hundreds of them on the crags above,” put in the messenger.

“And what if we ride forward?” demanded the Constable. “Have we a clearer road on that side?”

“Aye, my lord,” returned my father, “once, years agone, I rode through this valley a hawking. There is another gateway, called the Pass of the Eagles, three leagues farther west. It is much broader than the other, and if we hasten, Rhys can scarcely gather a force that can hold it against us. Then beyond is the good wide valley of Owain, adown which, in ten hours hard riding we may gain the Marches once more.”

The Lord Constable gazed at the ground before him for a moment. Then he lifted his head and spake so that all around might hear.

“My lords: this Welsh freebooter hath shown himself a better general than I. He hath enticed us into this valley, and then hath closed the gate behind us, as one entraps a bear or wolf. The storm, it seems, hath given him respite; he fights in his own land, and doubtless the night hath brought many recruits to his banner. Now ride we on to force this other gateway ere he gather an army that can close that also. Forward, for Saint George.”

At the full trot we rode away, and for an hour and more we slackened not our speed. By the sides of the pathway, or crouching under crags on the hillside, we saw at intervals the huts of stones and turf of the Welsh mountain folk; but all stood silent and deserted with never a wisp of smoke from chimney or sight of woman or child.

When the sun was an hour high, the valley narrowed again around us; and we came in sight of the Pass of the Eagles. Then indeed we knew that if any of us returned alive from this adventure, ’twould be by the favor of all the Saints and by the utmost might of our arms. For the army of Rhys stood before us, drawn up in twenty ranks across the defile which was there of a furlong’s width. In the front rank stood the spearmen with the butts of their weapons firmly planted in the ground and the points held at the height of a horse’s breast; in the next the King and his sons, the leaders of tribes and all of those who bore the heaviest arms and iron shields; behind them, rank after rank of swordsmen and javelin throwers, and, rearmost, their archers with bows in hand and arrows ready notched.

The flanks of the Welsh array were protected by high and rocky slopes where scrubby oaks and thorns found scant foothold amidst the crags and where no horse could tread. On both sides of the valley where it narrowed to the pass were broken cliffs that not a mountain goat could scale. Beyond these lay the heather-covered mountainsides and faraway rocky peaks where already snow had come.

At the word our men wheeled into line of battle, the armored knights in the van, in two open ranks, then the men-at-arms in three more of closer array. The archers were not to charge with us, but, with a dozen knights and a hundred men-at-arms under Lord Mountjoy, were to form a rearguard lest other bodies of the Welsh close in upon us. Both Sir Geoffrey and I had won favor in the Lord Constable’s eyes by somewhat we had accomplished in the fighting at the ford; and now I led the forces of Mountjoy at his right and Geoffrey those of Carleton and Teramore on his left hand.

In a moment came the furious shock of battle and all the frightful scenes of the struggle by the river’s edge—with the vantage now on the side of our enemies. Many of the steeds of our gallant knights transfixed themselves upon the Welsh lances; and their riders, brought to the ground, fell victims to swords or javelins or were crushed beneath the hoofs of our own oncoming ranks. But the line of spears was utterly broken; and the other knights and men-at-arms drove furiously into the mass before them. Swords and lances did their terrible work, and in the briefest time hundreds of our enemies had fallen. The Constable fought that day with a huge mace, and, swinging it about his head as it were a willow wand, he seemed like the great god Thor of the heathen worship of old.