LION OF WAR
A Medieval Romance
Sons of Christopher de Lohr
Part of the de Lohr Dynasty
By Kathryn Le Veque
PROLOGUE
Year of Our Lord 1228
Brython Castle, Welsh Marches
“What, exactly, didhe say?”
The question came from a man whose query was not meant to be ignored. Not even slightly avoided. Christopher de Lohr, the Earl of Hereford and Worcester, was making the demand in the middle of what had been a horrific siege. The English, led by de Lohr, had been trying to gain control of a much-coveted Welsh castle for almost a month on the command of Henry III. Henry wanted that castle to keep it away from the control of Llewelyn, who had defeated the family of a rival Welsh prince, Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, to gain the castle and a foothold on the Welsh marches.
Brython Castle was that target.
That was what de Lohr was trying to negotiate. Standing in his open tent at the base of the hill that led up to Brython, he was surrounded by wounded men, raw sewage, mud, horses, and weary soldiers who had been at war for weeks on end. There had been conflicting reports before and during the siege that Llewelyn didn’t hold the castle at all, that it was some other Welsh lord who hated the English, hated Llewelyn, and wastrying to make a name for himself. Whoever it was, the English had been battling for sixteen brutal days before finally damaging the sewers and water supply enough to make a difference. Now, seven days later and with no rain in sight, the castle was starting to falter. No water, no drainage, and, undoubtedly, any food supplies were dwindling.
But de Lohr kept up the barrage.
He was a man with decades of experience in battle, going all the way back to the days of Richard the Lionheart and his bloody crusades into the Levant. There wasn’t much Christopher had not faced in battle, and there wasn’t a battle commander anywhere who could outsmart him. Particularly not a Welsh. He kept up with the siege engines, which had been built from the fine ash forests near the castle and then rolled up to the moat, where they could hurl any number of projectiles over, and at, the walls. Sometimes they used tree stumps covered in oil and lit on fire, swinging those over the walls and hoping to catch something on fire.
They had been successful more than they had been unsuccessful.
In addition to the siege engines, Christopher had put his men to building pontoons and ladders to get across the moat and scale the walls. Led by his sons, his men hauled wood across the pontoons and built a scaffold against the side of the eastern wall because there was enough ground footing. Dozens of men could get up on that platform at once. Christopher had been wise enough to have his men soak the wood in water so nothing flaming could burn it down. The other walls were too close to the moat, and it was difficult for any of the ladders to gain a foothold, so the focus was concentrated on the eastern wall.
As the platform was built and the siege engines were swinging away, Christopher positioned two enormous trebuchets directly across the moat from the western wall and,using those terrible engines, flung boulders into the actual wall. One individual boulder wouldn’t do a lot of damage, but many boulders in successive order could do quite a bit. The western wall had holes and giant cracks as Christopher continued to beat the wall down with the boulders his men were bringing in from the nearby mountains—the rough-cut chunks of ancient black rock that could be hurled into the walls, hard enough to break the sandstone they were made from.
The holes in the western wall grew, but de Lohr’s patience wasn’t infinite. A month into the siege, he’d received word from Henry, demanding that he make short work of the siege by any means necessary. Also contained within that message was the suggestion that the castle not be demolished, and peace was often attained without use of flaming projectiles and swords. Hints were brought about that an alliance between de Lohr and the Gwenwynwyn family still living in the castle should be explored. Then the suggestion became plain—perhaps a marriage offer was in order.
Curtis, Christopher’s eldest son and heir, was not married.
Henry wasn’t hinting. He was commanding.
Curtis de Lohr was slated for the sacrificial altar of peace.
Christopher had to think about that, long and hard. Curtis was his shining star, a knight with no equal. He was big, powerful, brave, tough, and everything that came with a man of his stature. War flowed through his veins. Even now, as the siege raged onward, Curtis was working on the eastern scaffolding, supervising the rebuild of the section knocked away by the Welsh the previous night. Christopher had put it on him specifically because he wanted Curtis out of the way while he tried to negotiate a peaceful end to a siege that threatened to go on for as long as the plucky Welsh could hold out.
God only knew how long that would be.
But now, with Curtis managing the scaffold, Christopher was faced with a Welsh scout who served him, a man who knew the language and customs and had shouted de Lohr’s offer to the Welsh commanders on the western wall.
The answer he received was not one that Christopher was willing to accept.
“Be plain,” Christopher said when the scout was too slow to answer. “What,exactly, did he say?”
The scout took a deep breath for courage. “I was told that the Lord ofCastell Brythonigwould rather—”
He was cut off by Christopher. “Call the castle by its rightful name in my presence.”
The scout nodded quickly. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said. “It is Brython Castle. But the Welsh will only call it by the Welsh name ofBrythonig. After their ancestors.”
Christopher waved him off irritably. “Never mind that,” he said. “What, exactly, did the commander say?”
