The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

As Eifion collected the empty ale-pots, he gave his opinion before going back to his line of kegs at the back of the taproom.

‘I’d say leave well alone, Owain. Keep your head down and it may remain on your shoulders,’ he muttered.

Dewi lifted his cow-pox-raddled face to follow Eifion with his eyes as the inn-keeper walked away. ‘I’d be careful what we say in front of that man,’ he advised. ‘I’ve got my doubts about how true he is to our cause.’

‘He is beholden to the Sergeant of the Hundred who rents his room upstairs for their court,’ added the old man with the rheumy eyes. His reddened lids leaked tears, as the cold was still intense, though the wind had dropped.

As no one had answered his question, Owain repeated it impatiently. ‘So what are we to do? Are we to retrieve these relics and try to get them up to Dolwyddelan?’

The half-dozen looked at each other uneasily.

‘So where are they now?’ ventured Caradoc.

Owain shook his head. ‘That secret has been guarded for over ninety years. I’m not going to divulge it in a public alehouse, especially when we’ve not yet decided what to do about them.’

After some further muttered discussion, Dewi’s son Caradoc and two of the younger men agreed that they would support Owain if he really did intend trying to smuggle the relics up to North Wales to join the prince’s depleted army. The others decided that their lives and their families outweighed the slim chance of success for such a hazardous journey – and the even more doubtful outcome of trying to defeat the massive forces of Edward Plantagenet that now formed an iron ring around Snowdonia.

‘Come with me a moment, while your wives sit and gossip in the church,’ Owain commanded, beckoning his two nephews into Garway’s sloping churchyard. It was after morning Mass on this special day of Christ’s birth, and their feet crunched through a thin layer of frozen snow that lay on the grass outside the strangely shaped building. The Knights Templar, who had a preceptory in the tiny village, had recently built a circular nave on to the old chancel in imitation of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, with a separate fortified tower a few yards away.

‘Where are you taking us? It’s damned cold today,’ grumbled Madoc, at twenty-five a couple of years older than his brother, Arwyn. He was a big-boned young man with abundant brown hair and the family’s deep-set eyes.

‘Let’s walk down to the Holy Well, out of earshot of those nosy folk,’ growled Owain, looking at the trickle of parishioners coming out of the south door.

As they trudged the hundred paces down to the bottom of the churchyard, Arwyn pulled his heavy woollen cloak more tightly around him and shivered. ‘Don’t be too long, Uncle, for Bronwen has a goose to cook for us all.’ He felt the cold most, as unlike his brother, he was thin and wiry, with darker hair.

‘This is more important than a damned goose, even for dinner on the day of Christ!’ retorted Owain, and the two younger men fell silent. He had been virtually their father since they were children, and his word was not to be questioned.

In the corner, against the boundary wall, a small stone-lined well normally provided water that was claimed to cure eye ailments, but today it was frozen solid. A couple of raised slabs formed benches, but today they were too cold to sit on, so the three men stood by the well, the two nephews waiting expectantly for Owain to speak.

Gravely he explained the whole history of Arthur’s bones and their removal from Glastonbury by their great-great-grandfather, as well as the solemn vow of the Guardians to pass on the secret of their hiding place through the generations. At first incredulous, the two younger men were by no means lacking in intelligence and quickly grasped the significance of the relics.

‘But that swinish king, Edward Longshanks, caused them to be moved to a new shrine near the High Altar in Glastonbury only four years ago,’ protested Madoc. ‘He went with all pomp and ceremony to the abbey there and made sure that everyone knew that Arthur was really dead and unable to rise again to save the true Britons.’

Madoc was more aware of current news than most people, as he was the reeve to the Templars’ farm at Garway and often had conversations with the three monkish knights who lived in the nearby preceptory.

Owain grinned, the first time he had smiled since the news of Llewelyn’s fatal ambush. ‘Then they are fakes, substituted by the Benedictines there. We have the real bones of Arthur.’

He went on to tell them that as he had no sons himself to whom to pass on the secret, he was going to impart it to them. ‘It is fitting, as your father, Idwal, was the eldest son and he would have told you, had he lived.’

‘Why are you telling us this now, Uncle?’ asked Arwyn. ‘You are not all that many years older than us, and you have a long time before you need contemplate death.’

Owain began to explain the present crisis and his intention to take the relics north to Prince Dafydd. ‘I may never return, either because I will be killed before I reach Gwynedd – or die in the battles that must come. In that case the bones will be lost and your duty will never be called on.’

‘So why are you telling us?’ persisted Arwyn.

‘The relics are still in the hiding place where they have rested for almost a century. There are many people in this area I do not trust, and it may be that I will be prevented from retrieving them – possibly prevented by death!’

He banged his hands together to get some warmth into them.

‘In that case someone must still keep the knowledge of where they are, for some future occasion. You are the only ones I can trust, as Ralph and his brood cannot be relied on not to go running to their English masters.’

Madoc frowned. ‘My masters are the Templars and they are Normans. Why do you trust me?’

‘Because you are the son of Idwal, and grandson of Hywel, who, thank God, still survives, though he cannot last for long.’

He turned to Arwyn. ‘And that goes for you too. You are both true Welshmen, and if I can’t trust you both I may as well lie down and die this minute.’

Madoc looked at his uncle in concern. ‘Are you going to ask us to leave Garway and go with you to fight in Snowdonia? We both have wives and children.’

Owain placed a fatherly arm around their shoulders. ‘No, never fear, I’ll not prise you from your Bronwen and Olwen. It may be that I will need you to help me hide these bones, which are within a few miles of here. But that is all, apart from learning of their hiding place, in case I am killed tomorrow!’

He pulled them closer and their heads bent together so that they almost touched, as he whispered the old secret into their ears.

On the morning after the day of Christ, the hooves of a pony clattered to a halt on the frozen track outside Owain’s cottage in the tiny hamlet of Hoadalbert. This was a handful of dwellings midway between Pandy and Grosmont Castle.

The carter, who lived alone in the single-roomed bwthyn that used to belong to his father, rose from putting fresh logs on his fire to peer through a crack in the boards of the door. Seeing a lad slide off a shaggy mountain pony, his first thought was that this was a message to say that his father had died, until he realized that the boy had come from the direction of Grosmont, not from his sister’s home. In fact the messenger was a stable-boy from Kentchurch Court, just beyond Grosmont on the English side of the Monnow.

Owain opened the door and waited for the lad to come in. His nose was bright red from the cold, and he was beating his arms to get warm. Around his thin shoulders he wore two oat sacks as a cloak, and his hands were wrapped with rags in lieu of gloves.