Here Be Dragons - 1 by Sharon Kay Penman

was unmitigated misery, and as he tripped and sprawled into the mud, blistered and sore and soaked to the skin, Edwin wished fervently that he'd never even heard of Godfrey, that he'd never laid eyes upon Hawarden
Castle.
Of their mission, he knew only that the young knight they were
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escorting had an urgent message for Davydd ab Owain, a Welsh Prince who had allied himself with the Normans. Godfrey had told him the Welsh Prince was encamped at Rhuddlan Castle, some twenty-five miles from Hawarden, and he wondered how long the journey would take. He wondered, too, why they were no longer following the coast, why they'd swung inland at Basingwerk Abbey.
"Godfrey?" He quickened his pace, caught his cousin's arm. "Godfrey, why did we change our route? Are we not more vulnerable to attack in the hills?"
"You'd bloody well better believe it!" Godfrey tripped, cursed as the mud sucked at one of his boots. "But our guide told de Hodnet that this is a quicker way, a road made long past by the Romans. And that Norman whoreson is set upon getting us to Rhuddlan as fast he can, no matter the risk."
Edwin had been about to ask who were these Romans, but with his cousin's last words, he forgot all else, stared at Godfrey in amazement. De Hodnet was a
Norman, a knight; to Edwin, that made him a being beyond criticism. He glanced ahead at the knight, his eyes lingering admiringly upon the man's roan stallion, the silvery chain-mail armor. He felt no resentment that de Hodnet should ride while they walked. That was just the way of it, and now he ventured a timid protest.
"But Godfrey, surely he knows what he's doing. After all, he's a knight."
"So? Does that make him the Lord Jesus Christ come down to earth again?"
Godfrey sneezed. "Think you that no man Norman-born can be a fool? As for his
Norman knighthood, that'll count for naught against a Welsh longbow."
"Should you speak so?" Edwin asked uneasily, provoking a snort of derisive laughter from his cousin.
"You think he'll hear? Nay, he knows just enough English to order us about."
Godfrey reached out, grasped Edwin's arm. "If a man is like to lead you over a cliff, Little Cousin, you'd best see him for what he is. De Hodnet wears a long sword and sits a horse well, but he's no more fit to wage war against the
Welsh than our Aunt Edith. He's as green as grass, lad, and as arrogant as
Lucifer, and there are no more dangerous traits known to man or God."
Edwin stared at him, dismayed. "But . . . but he's been taught the ways of war. All knights ..."
"Aye, and I daresay he'd fare well enough on a battlefield in France or
Flanders. But what does he know of the Welsh? He was in service with Lord Fitz
Warin for a time, did garrison duty at Fitz Warin's manor of Lambourne in
Berkshire. After that, he found a place with a Wiltshire lord. Then his lord took the cross like King Richard, and de Hodnet
I
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had no urge to see the Holy Land." Godfrey sneezed again, spat into the road.
"Shropshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire. But not Wales, Edwin, not Wales."
He shook his head, said bitterly, "Giles tried to tell him, warned him that the risk be too great, what with Llewelyn known to be in the area. But what
Norman ever heeded Saxon advice? He does not know his arse from his elbow when it comes to fighting the Welsh, but he gives the orders, we obey, and if we reach Rhuddlan Castle, it'll be only by the grace of the Almighty."
Edwin glanced over his shoulder at the shadowed, wet woods that rose up around them, dark spruce and pine blotting out the sky, giving shelter behind every bush to a Welsh bowman. The Welsh scorned the crossbow, preferred a weapon called a longbow, and they used it with deadly skill. According to Godfrey, a
Welsh bowman could fire twelve arrows in the time it took to aim and fire one crossbow; he swore he once saw a Welsh bowman send an arrow through an oaken door fully four inches thick. Remembering that, Edwin hunched his shoulders forward, suddenly sure that even at that moment a