Wulf the Saxon: A Story of the Norman Conquest

by G. A. Henty

Porthwyn was forty miles distant, and Beorn and Wulf determined to march some thirty of these, and then to push forward at daybreak so as to obtain a view of the fortress in the early morning. They took with them a Welsh boy as a guide. He had been spared in the last village captured, and had been told that his life depended upon his guiding them faithfully. The places of ten men who had fallen during the various fights had been filled up by an equal number of Gurth's own housecarls. The seventy soldiers kept with their leaders and the guide, the levies spreading out on either side.

Two of the irregulars who spoke a little Welsh accompanied the young thanes to question the guide if necessary. The march was a heavy one. At times they passed through thick forests in the valleys and on the lower hillsides, at times crossed over bare hills, on whose summits the ground was frequently so boggy that the men had to march with the greatest caution. The guide, a sullen lad with matted hair, whose only attire was a sheep-skin, was several times questioned sharply as to whether he was certain of the way. He answered in monosyllables, saying that he knew every foot of the road, and indeed he never hesitated for a moment.

"I suppose he is right," Wulf said, "although I thought it lay more to the west than we are going, but we have wound about so among these forests and hills that I am quite confused. There is one comfort, Beorn, if the guide proves treacherous and we lose ourselves altogether, we have but to set our faces to the rising sun and we shall find ourselves back on the border, for I am sure that we could not retrace our steps to Gurth's camp."

The sun was just setting when they found themselves on a bare plateau on the crest of a range of hills higher than any they had before crossed.

"Ask him how far we are from Porthwyn," Wulf said to the interpreter.

"He says twelve miles, my lord."

"Then when we get across this flat, which looks full two miles wide, we will camp in the first valley we come to."

As they advanced the ground became more and more boggy, and the troops had to move carefully, stepping from one tussock of coarse grass to another, the intervals being filled with black slimy mud.

"Ask him if this gets deeper," Beorn said angrily, "for if it does so we are like to be all swallowed up. I believe he must be leading us wrong."

Osgod had charge of the boy, and was walking close beside him. As the question was put by the interpreter the boy muttered that he knew the way. The man turned to translate his answer to Beorn, when there was a sudden shout. At the moment that Osgod was making a long step from one tuft to another the boy stooped and caught his foot, and with a roar of surprise and fury Osgod fell head-foremost into the morass. At the same moment the lad darted away with a yell of defiance, leaping from tuft to tuft with the agility of a hare. Several of the men started after him, but unaccustomed to the treacherous bog four or five were immersed in it to their waist before they had gone a dozen paces.