Caergwynn: Difference between revisions

The Caeric forces were duly reinforced with men raised from across the realm, paid for by an emergency loan floated by a Cyngor summoned into special session, and led in person by Arlywydd Dewi ap Euan ap Hywel. Dewi gradually maneuvered southwards, shadowed by the Fhain at every step. But by October, he was getting impatient-the regular meeting of the Cyngor was due next month, and the Arlywydd dearly wanted a victory to crown his reelection bid. When the Fhain army dawdled a bit too long in a mountain valley on its way south, Dei charged at them on the morning of October 5th. It was not a deliberate trap, but the Caeric attackers were gradually worn down, and the haistily-raised army gradually dissolved into its constituent units, as noble retinues broke ranks to protect their liege lords. The Arlywydd died bravely in the van, starting the rout in earnest. Amid the chaos, a unit of spearmen held their ground, buying enough time for most of the army to escape, even as several of the mounted magnates ignominiously fled. The leaderless army would have been easy pickings for the Fhain, but darkness and their own heavy losses dissuaded them from pursuit.  

The army gradually re-formed on the retreat, rallying around the captain of the spearmen, one Rhys ap Macsen, who had miraculously fought his way off the field, picking up stragglers as it tramped northwards. An effective defense was now almost impossible, and to keep the army from shattering again (and thus leaving the men easy prey for Fhain outriders), Rhys and his fellow officers embarked on a desperate gambit. They would march the army to Dol Awraidd (relying on the winter to keep the Fhain at bay), show up at the Cyngor's doorstep, and petition for more support and new commanders-ideally themselves. This mutiny worked at inspiring and distracting the common soldiers, and as word spread of the nobles' shameful flight and the foot-soldiers' ferocious bravery, more and more Caeric men felt themselves in sympathy with it. By the time the army reached Dol Awraidd in mid-December, it more resembled a victorious host than a defeated one. Yeomen and common peasants, flocked to its banner, to kick out the incompetents who had lost the campaign and wasted so many lives. And the very presence of the mutinous army dissuaded most of the lords from attending or offering their side of the story, lest they become scapegoats for the army's wrath. And when the sea-traders and rich men of the cities were told that raising another army to suppress this one, or even just to keep the war going another year, would require another huge loan to replace the one that had been frittered away, their sympathies also fell towards Rhys and his mutineers. The Cyngor acknowledged the army at their gates as the legitimate army of the realm, invited many of its officers in to sit in their ranks, and summarily expelled and attainted the nobles involved in the fiasco.The cities would not give their coin, nor the yeomen of the cantrefs their blood, to an army and a state run by incompetent nobles. The radicalized Cyngor did raise enough in taxes (rather than just loans extracted from the merchant class) to fund another campaigning season, but it also enacted laws to firm up central administration in the cantrefs, suppress any noble retinues beyond small bands of bodyguards, and ensure that the (prosperous yeomen) farmers of the interior elected their representatives without lordly interference. Still in shock from the great defeat, and staring down the awful prospect of their only remaining fighting force abandoning them, the cowed nobility acquiesced. The Cyngor elected a new Arlywydd, a merchant from the north coast, and he led the renewed army to face off with the Fhain.