Hood (33 page)
Listening to Iwan and Siarles, Bran grew more certain than ever that his future lay in the north amongst his mother’s kinsmen. Elfael was lost—it had been so from the moment his father was cut down in the road—and there was nothing he could do to change that. Better to accept the grim reality and live than to die chasing a glorious delusion.
He looked sadly at the two men across from him, their faces eager in the firelight. They burned with zeal to drive the enemy from the valley and redeem their homeland.
Why stop
there?
Bran thought.
They might as well hope to reclaim Cymru,
England, and Scotland, too—for all the good it would do them.
Unable to endure the futile hope of those keen expressions, Bran rose suddenly and left the hut.
He stepped out into the moonlight and stood for a moment, feeling the cool night air wash over him. Gradually, he became aware that he was not alone. Angharad was sitting on a stump beside the door. “They have no one else,” she said. “And nowhere else to go.”
“What they want—,” Bran began, then halted. Did anyone have even the slightest notion of the effort in time and money that it would take to raise a sufficiently large army to do what Iwan suggested? “It is impossible,” he declared after a moment. “They are deluded.”
“Then you must tell them. Tell them now. Explain why they are wrong to want what they want. Then you can leave knowing that, as their king, you did all you could.”
Her words rankled. “What do you expect of me, Angharad?” He spoke softly so those inside would not overhear. “What they propose is madness—as you and I know.”
“Perhaps,” she conceded. “But they have nothing else.
They have no kinsmen in the north waiting to take them in.
Elfael is all they have. It is all they know. If their hope is mistaken, you must tell them.”
“I will,” said Bran, drawing himself up, “and let that be the end.” He went back into the hut, taking his place at the fire once more.
“We could go to Lord Rhys in the south,” Iwan was saying. “He has returned from Ireland with a large warband. If we convinced him to help us, he might loan us the troops we need.”
“No,” Bran said quietly. “There is no plunder to be had, and we have nothing to offer them. King Rhys ap Tewdwr will not get dragged into a war for nothing, and he has enough worries of his own.”
“What do you suggest?” asked Iwan. “Is there someone else?”
Bran looked at his friend, the light still burning in his eyes; he could not bring himself to snuff out that fragile flame.
Angharad was right: the people had no one to lead them and nowhere else to go. For Iwan, and for them all, it was Elfael or nothing.
Bran hesitated, wrestling with the decision.
God have mercy,
he thought,
I cannot abandon them.
In that instant, a new path opened before him, and Bran saw the way ahead. “We don’t have to fight the Ffreinc,” he declared abruptly.
“No?” wondered Iwan. “I think they won’t surrender for asking—a pleasant thought even so.”
“Have you forgotten, Iwan? We went to Lundein and spoke to the king’s justiciar,” Bran said. “Do you remember what he said?”
“Aye,” conceded the big man, “I remember. What help is that to us now?”
“It is our very salvation!” Iwan and Siarles exchanged puzzled glances across the fire. Clearly, they did not see, so Bran explained, “The cardinal said he would annul Baron de Braose’s grant for six hundred marks. So we will simply
buy
Elfael from the king.”
“Six hundred marks!” muttered Siarles in dull amazement.
“Have you ever seen that much?”
“Never,” allowed Bran. “In truth, I don’t know if there is that much silver to be had beyond the March. But the terms were laid down by William’s own man. The cardinal said we could have Elfael for six hundred marks.”
“Aye,” mused Iwan, rubbing his chin doubtfully, “that is what he said—and it is just as impossible now as it was then.”
“A high price, yes, but not impossible. Anyway, it is far less than what would be needed to raise and feed an army of a thousand men—not to mention weapons and armour. For that, we’d need ten times more than the cardinal is asking.”
The two others fell silent gazing at him, calculating the enormity of the sums involved. Bran let his words work for a moment and then added, “That aside, I agree about the horses.”
“You do?” wondered Siarles, much impressed.
“Yes, but not a thousand. Three or four will suffice.”
“What can we do with three horses?” scoffed the young forester.
“We can begin raising the six hundred marks to redeem our homeland.”
T
en wagons laden with sacks of barley and rye, bags of dried beans and peas, and whole sides of beef and smoked pork trundled along the rising trackway through the forest. The supply van of Baron Neufmarché had spent all morning toiling up the winding incline of the ridge, and the crest was now in sight. Along with the wagons, the baron had sent an armed escort: five men-at-arms under the command of a knight, all of them in mail hauberks and armed with swords and lances, their shields and steel helmets slung behind their saddles. Their presence dared Count Falkes, or anyone else, to divert the consignment of supplies intended for the starving folk of Elfael.
The day had turned hazy and hot in the open places, the skies clear for the most part with but a smudgy suggestion of cloud to the west. The road, though deeply rutted and lumpy, was as dry as parchment. A drowsy hush lay over the rising woodland, as if the trees themselves dozed in the heat. The drivers did not press their teams too hard; the day was hot, the wagons were heavy, and they were loath to hurry. The food would arrive when it arrived, and that would be soon enough.
The six advance guards paused on the spine of the ridge and waited for the ox train to reach the top. From their high vantage point, the soldiers could see the Vale of Elfael spreading green and inviting to the north. “This is tedious work,” muttered the knight leading the escort. Turning to one of his men, he said, “Richard, go down and tell them that we will ride on. There is a ford ahead—just there.” He pointed down the descending slope to a place where a stream cut through the road as it pursued its switchback descent into the valley. “We will water the horses and wait for them there.”
The man-at-arms gave a nod, put spurs to his horse, and trotted back down the slope. “This way,” said the knight, and they rode down to the fording place, where they dismounted and stretched. After the animals had drunk their fill, the men drank, too, removing their round leather caps to lave cool water over their sweating heads. Kneeling in a sunny patch on the bank of the stream, the knight saw a shadow pass over him.
He watched the shade slowly engulf him, and thinking nothing more than that an errant cloud had passed over the sun, he ducked his head and continued cupping water to his mouth. Behind him, and a little way above, he heard the rustling of feathers and, still on his knees, craned his neck around to see a huge, dark, winglike shape disappear into the undergrowth—nothing more than a dull glimmering of black feathers, and then it was gone.
The sunlight returned, and the kneeling soldier was left with the strong sensation that something strange and unnatural had been watching him and, for all he knew, watched him still. The skin of his belly tightened beneath his chain mail tunic. Fear stretched both ways along his spine. The knight rose to his feet, replaced his leather cap, drew his sword, and prepared to fight. “To arms, men!” he cried. “To arms!”
Instantly, the soldiers unsheathed swords and levelled lances. They drew together to form a protective line and waited for the anticipated onslaught. The moment stretched and passed. The attack did not come.
The knight advanced cautiously to the place in the brush where the dark shape had disappeared. Gesturing for his men to maintain silence, he summoned them to him, indicating that the enemy was hiding in the underbrush. They paused at the ready, and then, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, they started into the brushwood, where they discovered a narrow trail used by animals when passing to and from the stream.
Stopping every few steps to listen, the five soldiers advanced cautiously along the trackway.
A hundred paces farther along, the trail divided. One way led into a deep-shaded game run; arched over by intertwining limbs, it was straight and narrow and dark as any underground tunnel. The other was more open and meandered amongst the trees, below which stunted saplings formed a scrubby underbrush where an enemy might hide.
It could have been his overwrought imagination, but the knight felt dank and chill air seeping along the darker path. It came spilling out from the entrance of the game run like a vapour, invisible to the eye; nevertheless, he could feel it curling and coiling around his feet and ankles, climbing his legs. He stopped in his tracks and motioned the others behind him to halt as well.
Loath to take the darker path, the knight was considering their position when he heard a far-off whinny. It seemed to come from behind them in the direction of the stream. “The horses!”
Turning as one, the warriors ran back the way they had come, stumbling in their haste as they emerged once again on the low banks of the stream to find that their horses had vanished.
“God in heaven!” cried the knight. “We have been tricked!
Get up there,” he shouted, pushing two men along the upstream bank. “Find them!”
He sent his other two men-at-arms to search downstream and then ran to the road and hurried back to the ridgetop to see the ox-drawn wagons still some way off, creeping slowly up the last rise.
He returned to the fording place and sat down on a rock with his sword across his knees. Eventually, the two who had gone upstream returned to say they had found not so much as a hoofprint on the muddy bank. One of the guards who had been searching downstream returned with the same report—neither hide nor hair of any horse did he see.
“Where is Laurent?” asked the knight. “He was with you; what happened to him?”
“I thought he came back here,” replied the soldier, glancing around quickly. “Did he not?”
“He did not,” retorted the knight angrily. “As you can well see, he did not!”
“But he was just behind me,” insisted the man-at-arms.
Looking back along the bank, he said, “He must have turned aside to relieve himself.”
Assuming this to be the case, they waited for a time to see if their missing comrade would reappear. When he failed to show up, the knight and his men walked back along the downstream bank. They shouted and called his name and listened for sounds of the absent soldier thrashing through the brush. The surrounding wood remained deathly still and quiet.
The five guardsmen were still shouting when the rider sent with the message for the wagons appeared. The knight turned on him. “Have you seen him?”
“Who, my lord?”
“Laurent—he’s disappeared. Did you see anything amiss on the road?”
Catching the wild cast of the knight’s eyes and frantic tone, he replied with studied caution. “Nothing amiss, my lord. All is well. The wagons will be here soon.”
“All is
not
well, by heaven!” roared the knight. “Our horses have vanished, too.”
“Vanished?”
“Spirited away!”
The rider’s bald brow furrowed, and tiny creases formed at the corners of his eyes. “But I—are you certain, sire?”
“We watered the horses and knelt down to get a mouthful ourselves,” explained one of the men-at-arms, pushing forward. “When we looked up”—he glanced around to gather the assent of his companions—“the horses had disappeared.”
“One moment there, and the next gone?” wondered the rider. “And you saw nothing?”
“If we had, would we waste breath talking to you?” the knight charged angrily. Still gripping the hilt of his sword, he scanned the forest round about, a great, green, all-embracing wall. “Mark me, there is some witchery hereabouts. I can feel it.”
They waited at the ford, armed and ready for whatever might happen next, however uncanny, but nothing more sinister than clouds of flies gathering about their heads had befallen them by the time the first of the ox-drawn wagons reached them. The driver stopped to allow his team to rest before continuing the descent into the Vale of Elfael. While they waited, the knight questioned the lead wagoner closely, and then all the rest in turn as they drew up to water their animals, but none of the drivers had seen or heard anything strange or disturbing on the road.
When the oxen had rested, the wagon van of supplies resumed its journey to the monastery at Llanelli. While they were still some little way off, the wagons were seen by the guards at the count’s fortress. Hoping for a way to ingratiate himself with the baron—and to distance himself from any whiff of thievery or misuse of this second shipment—Count Falkes sent his own contingent of soldiers down to help convey the much-needed food supplies the short remaining distance to the monastery.
The baron’s guards grudgingly tolerated the count’s men-at-arms, and the party continued on to Llanelli to supervise the unloading of the wagons at what remained of the monastery.
