Bandit

Hey, you, come over here. You look like an intelligent type. I need you to help me.

I’m going before the steward soon, and they are going to find me guilty of banditry. Yes, of course they are – and I’ll be hanged before many more days are done.

But I need you to remember my name, in case my family come looking for me. Rhys ap David of Brecon – from the house by the stream. If my family comes, tell them I died bravely, will you?

Well, I’m not exactly innocent or guilty, since you ask. Yes, I have done my share of robbing, when times were hard. There are lots of pilgrims on these roads, going to St David’s shrine, and you can usually get a couple of pennies from them without too much violence. But when they caught me I wasn’t robbing – I was just poaching for hares in the Lord of Carew’s park. Not that it matters why you’re being hanged, poaching or banditry.

You know what - they should have strung me up on the spot. But instead they made me stay in their stinking prison until the monthly court session. So remember, Rhys ap David of Brecon, from the house by the stream – if anyone asks, he died bravely, and not stinking of prison and filth.