Winter's Blossom: The Seasons of Arthur

Chapter 46

Ambrosius granted Owain huge swathes of lands to the east of Viroconium as a dowry, as well as large gifts of gold, silver and other gems. He was very aware that Owain was all but disowned and as such, unlike most other noblemen, he had no access to his family's wealth through their incomes.

Owain may not have had the income one would have expected from t nobility, he was by no means poor though. The war had been good to Owain in other ways too, and his war chest was full from the spoils of war, even after he had paid out a significant amount to his men and an even bigger cut to we, his officers. Ambrosius, by granting Owain's such rich lands had removed his reliance on a finite amount of money and in one fell swoop made him as rich as any man in Powys after the king.

I was not so lucky. Ambrosius, despite his anger at me, did decide that I too needed rewarding and made a gift of land a little to the south of Ratae by the eastern borders of Powys, and made a promise of further lands upon my wedding and I initially marvelled at what I thought was undeserved generosity.

But Ambrosius was a shrewd man. The lands would prove to be rich land, when I eventually visited them, rich and rolling farmland with a deep river that ran through the land. However, that river was the border to the Disputed Lands, that corridor of land raided by Britons and Angles alike, where poor farmers from both people would risk their lives trying to farm for profits. British and Angle outlaws lived in small, vicious bands in these lands and they too would prey on these farmers, or exact a crippling toll on them while raiding both kingdoms and hiding in the woods and forests from the warbands that would be sent out after them or simply through the territory.

And so it meant that there were few farmers on the land that I had been granted. To gain any income from such lands I would have to invest in the land, and most importantly I would have to fight for it. Ambrosius had been very shrewd in how he had nurtured my loyalty while directing my course to one of his choosing. Of course, I did not understand any of this at the time, and it was only when I spoke excitedly about my new lands and plans for it that Merlin punctured my bubble by pointing out how naïve I had been.

I was trying to enact those plans with the excited haste of youth though. I had ridden to inspect the lands I had simply gotten excited. The previous owner of the land had been a minor lord, but had managed the land had died with his family as their farm had been burned down with them inside it leaving no heir and thus for the king to dispense it as a gift. The people who had lived there and farmed the land had been mostly killed, carried off as slaves or had fled not to return.

I had felt no trepidation or superstition of the ghosts of those who had died though. I was young and I had not known them. Instead I had just selfishly seen my own personal gain in the scarred land that marked where his hall had been, and callously commented that it had been a stupid place for a hall.

Instead I noted the small hill by the river that still hand a handful of sheep upon its slopes, of which only the western stretch of the hill was approachable without finding a means to cross the river. To hell with the sheep, I thought, that was the perfect place to build your hall. With thick walls around it nobody would be able to burn that. The river was very defensible, I knew, with the ford a mile down from the hill the only crossing point.

The fortress would be easily held though, bot how to hold defend my new lands? The river was a strong defensive barrier I knew, with only a single ford by the ashes of the hall a half mile away from the hill. But my lands would sprawl across both sides of the river, how did I defend that with fifty men? I wondered, knowing most of it's defence would have to be conducted by my reputation. As such the I decided to call my new home Caer Blaidd, the Castle of the Wolf, and the Angles would tremble to come near it!