Hood (6 page)
For some reason—probably for decorum’s sake in Lundein—his father had left all the warbows behind. He picked one up, tried it, and slung it over his shoulder. He tucked a red-rusted sword into his belt, grabbed up a sheaf of arrows and several of the least blunt spears, and then raced to the stables. Dumping the weapons on the floor, Bran commanded Cefn to saddle another of the mares. “When you’re finished, bring it to the yard. Brother Ffreol is on his way here by foot; I want to leave the moment he arrives.”
Cefn, wan and distraught, made no move to obey. “Is it true?”
“The massacre?” Bran asked. “Yes, it’s true. Ffreol and I ride now to Lundein to see the Red King, swear allegiance, and secure the return of our lands. As soon as I leave, run and find Maelgwnt—do everything he says.We’re moving everything to the monastery. Never fear, you will be safe there. Understand?”
Cefn nodded.
“Good. Hurry now. There is not much time.”
Bran returned to the kitchen to find the old cook comforting her young helpers. They were huddled beneath her ample arms like chicks beneath the wings of a hen, and she held them, patting their shoulders and stroking their heads.
“Mairead, I need provisions,” Bran said, striding quickly into the room. “Brother Ffreol and I are riding to Lundein at once.”
“Bran! Oh, Bran!” wailed the woman. “Rhi Brychan is dead!”
“He is,” Bran replied, pulling the two whimpering girls from her grasp.
“And all who rode with him?”
“Gone,” he confirmed. “And we will mourn them properly when we have rid ourselves of these scabby Ffreinc thieves. But you must listen to me now. As soon as I am gone, Maelgwnt will take everyone to Llanelli. Stay there until I return. The Ffreinc will not harm you if you remain at the monastery with the monks. Do you hear me?”
The woman nodded, her eyes filled with unshed tears. Bran turned her and pushed her gently away. “Off with you now! Hurry and bring the food to the yard.”
Next, Bran dashed to his father’s chamber and to the small wooden casket where the king kept his ready money. The real treasure was kept in the strongbox that Maelgwnt would see hidden at the monastery—two hundred marks in English silver. The smaller casket contained but a few marks used for buying at the market, paying for favours, bestowing largesse on the tenants, and other occasional uses.
There were four bags of coins in all—more than enough to see them safely to Lundein and back. Bran scooped up the little leather bags, stuffed them into his shirt, then ran back out to the yard, where Brother Ffreol was just coming through the gate, leading Iwan on horseback behind him.
“Iwan, what are you doing here?” Bran asked, running to meet them. “You should stay at the monastery where they can tend you.”
“Save your breath,” advised Ffreol. “I’ve already tried to dissuade him, but he refuses to heed a word I say.”
“I am going with you,” the battlechief declared flatly.
“That is the end of it.”
“You are wounded,” Bran pointed out needlessly.
“Not so badly that I cannot sit in a saddle,” answered the big man. “I want to see the look in the Red King’s eye when we stand before him and demand justice. And,” he added, “if a witness to this outrage is required, then you will have one.”
Bran opened his mouth to object once more, but Ffreol said, “Let him be. If he feels that way about it, nothing we say will discourage him, and stubborn as he is, he’d only follow us anyway.”
Glancing toward the stable, Bran muttered, “What is keeping Cefn?” He shouted for the groom to hurry; when that brought no response, he started for the stable to see what was taking so long.
Brother Ffreol held him back, saying, “Calm yourself, Bran. You’ve been running all day. Rest when you can. We will be on our way soon enough.”
“Not soon enough for me,” he cried, racing off to the stable to help Cefn finish saddling the horses. They were leading two mares into the yard when Mairead appeared with her two kitchen helpers, each carrying a cloth sack bulging with provisions. While the priest blessed the women and prayed over them, Bran and Cefn arranged the tuck bags behind the saddles and strapped them down, secreting the money in the folds. “Come, Ffreol,” Bran said, taking the reins from the groom and mounting the saddle, “if they catch us here, all is lost.”
“. . . and may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and give you his peace through all things whatsoever may befall you,” intoned the priest, bestowing a kiss on the bowed head of each woman in turn. “Amen. Now off with you! Help Maelgwnt, and then all of you hie to Llanelli as soon as you can.”
The sun was already low in the west by the time the three riders crossed the stream and started up the long rising slope toward the edge of the forest; their shadows stretched long on the road, going before them like spindly, misshapen ghosts. They rode in silence until entering the shady margin of the trees.
Coed Cadw, the Guarding Wood, was a dense tangle of ancient trees: oak, elm, lime, plane—all the titans of the wood. Growing amongst and beneath these giants were younger, smaller trees and thickets of hazel and beech. The road itself was lined with blackberry brambles that formed a hedge wall along either side so thick and lush that three paces off the road in any direction and a person could no longer be seen from the path.
“Is it wise, do you think,” asked the priest, “to keep to the road? The marchogi are certain to be on it too.”
“I do not doubt it,” replied Bran, “but going any other way would take far too long. If we keep our wits about us, we will hear them long before they hear us, and we can easily get off the road and out of sight.”
Iwan, his face tight with pain, said nothing. Brother Ffreol accepted Bran’s assurances, and they rode on.
“Do you think we should have seen the Ffreinc by now?” asked the monk after a while. “If they had been in a hurry to reach Elfael, we would certainly have met them. They probably stopped to make camp for the night. God be praised.”
“You praise God for that?”
“I do,” admitted the monk. “It means the Cymry have at least one night to hide their valuables and get to safety.”
“One night,” mocked Bran. “As much as all that!”
“Wars have turned on less,” the priest pointed out. “If the Conqueror’s arrow had flown but a finger’s breadth to the right of Harold’s eye, the Ffreinc would not be here now.”
“Yes, well, it seems to me that if God really wanted praising, he’d have prevented the filthy Ffreinc and their foul mar-chogi from coming here in the first place.”
“Do you have the mind of God now that you know all things good and ill for each and every one of his creatures?”
“It does not take the mind of God,” replied Bran carelessly, “to know that anytime a Norman stands at your gate it is for ill and never good. That is a doctrine more worthy than any Bishop Asaph ever professed.”
“Jesu forgive you,” sighed the priest. “Such irreverence.”
“Irreverent or not, it is true.”
They fell silent and rode on. As the sun sank lower, the shadows on the trail gathered, deepening beneath the trees and brushwood; the sounds became hushed and furtive as the forest drew in upon itself for the night.
The road began to rise more steeply toward the spine of the ridge, and Bran slowed the pace. In a little while the gloom had spread so that the gap between trees was as dark as the black boles themselves, and the road shone as a ghost-pale ribbon stretching dimly away into the deepening night.
“I think we should stop,” suggested Brother Ffreol. “It will soon be too dark to see. We could rest and eat something. Also, I want to tend Iwan’s wound.”
Bran was of a mind to ride all night, but one look at the wounded warrior argued otherwise, so he gave in and allowed the monk to have his way. They picketed the horses and made camp at the base of an oak just out of sight of the road, ate a few mouthfuls of bread and a little hard cheese, and then settled down to sleep beneath the tree’s protecting limbs. Wrapped in his cloak, Bran slept uneasily, rising again as it became light enough to tell tree from shadow.
He roused Ffreol and then went to Iwan, who came awake at his touch. “How do you feel?” he asked, kneeling beside the champion.
“Never better,” Iwan said as he tried to sit up. The pain hit him hard and slammed him back once more. He grimaced and blew air through his mouth, panting like a winded hound. “Perhaps I will try that again,” he said through clenched teeth, “more slowly this time.”
“Wait a moment,” said Ffreol, putting out his hand. “Let me see your binding.” He pulled open the big man’s shirt and looked at the bandage wrapped around his upper chest. “It is clean still. There is little blood,” he announced, greatly reassured.
“Then it is time we made a start.”
“When we have prayed,” said the monk.
“Oh, very well,” sighed Bran. “Just get on with it.”
The priest gathered his robe around him, and folding his hands, he closed his eyes and began to pray for the speedy and sure success of their mission. Bran followed the sound of his voice more than the words and imagined that he heard a low, rhythmic drumming marking out the cadence. He listened for a while before realising that he was not imagining the sound. “Quiet!” he hissed. “Someone’s coming.”
Ffreol helped Iwan to his feet, and the two disappeared into the underbrush; Bran darted to the horses and threw his cloak over their heads to keep them quiet, then stood and held the cloak in place so the animals would not shake it off. Brother Ffreol, flat on the ground, watched the narrow slice of road that he could see from beneath his bush. “Ffreinc!” he whispered a few moments later. “Scores of them.” He paused, then added, “Hundreds.”
Bran, holding the horses’ heads, heard the creak and rattle of wagon wheels, followed by the dull, hollow clop of hundreds of hooves and the tramp of leather-shod feet—a pulsing beat that seemed to go on and on and on.
At long last, the sound gradually faded and the bird-fretted silence of the forest returned. “I believe they have gone,” said Ffreol softly. He rose and brushed off his robe. Bran stood listening for a moment longer, and when no one else appeared on the road, he uncovered the horses’ heads.Working quickly and quietly, he saddled the horses and then led the animals through the forest, within sight of the road. When, after walking a fair distance, no more marchogi appeared, he allowed them to leave the forest path and return to the road. The three travellers took to the saddle once more and bolted for Lundein.
B
y midmorning Bran, Iwan, and Brother Ffreol had begun the long, sloping ascent of the ridge overlooking the Vale of Wye. Upon reaching the top, they paused and looked down into the broad valley and the glittering sweep of the lazy green river. In the distance they could see the dark flecks of birds circling and swooping in the cloudless sky. Bran saw them, and his stomach tightened with apprehension.
As the men approached the river ford, the strident calls of carrion feeders filled the air—ravens, rooks, and crows for the most part, but there were others. Hawks, buzzards, and even an owl or two wheeled in tight circles above the trees.
Bran stopped at the water’s edge. The soft ground of the riverbank was raggedly churned and chewed, as if a herd of giant boar had undertaken to plough the water marge with their tusks. There were no corpses to be seen, but here and there flies buzzed in thick black clouds over congealing puddles where blood had collected in a horse’s hoofprint. The air was heavy and rank with the sickly sweet stench of death.
Bran dismounted and walked back toward the road, where most of the fighting had taken place. He looked down and saw that in the place where he stood the earth took on a deeper, ruddy hue where a warrior’s lifeblood had stained the ground on which he died.
“This is where it happened,” mused Brother Ffreol with quiet reverence. “This is where the warriors of Elfael were overthrown.”
“Aye,” confirmed Iwan, his face grim and grey with fatigue and pain. “This is where we were ambushed and massacred.” He lifted his hand and pointed to the wide bend of the river. “Rhi Brychan fell there,” he said. “By the time I reached him, his body had been washed away.”
Bran, mouth pressed into a thin white line, stared at the water and said nothing. Once he might have felt a twinge of regret at his father’s passing, but not now. Years of accumulated grievances had long ago removed his father from his affections. Sorrow alone could not surmount the rancour and bitterness, nor span the aching distance between them. He whispered a cold farewell and turned once more to the battleground.
Images of chaos sprang into his mind—a desperate battle between woefully outnumbered and lightly armed Britons and heavy, hulking, mail-clad Ffreinc knights. He saw the blood haze hang like a mist in the air above the slaughter and heard the echoed clash of steel on steel, of blade on wood and bone, the fast-fading shouts and screams of men and horses as they died.
Looking toward the wood to the north, he saw the birds flocking to their feeding frenzy. Squawking, shrieking, they fought and fluttered, battering wings against one another in their greed. Grabbing up stones from the riverbank, he ran to the place, throwing rocks into the midst of the feathered scavengers as he ran.
Reluctant to leave the mound on which they fed, the scolding birds fluttered up and settled again as the angry stones sailed past. Stooping once more, he took up another handful of rocks and, screaming at the top of his lungs, let fly. One of the missiles struck a greedy red-beaked crow and snapped its neck. The wounded bird flopped, beating its wings in a last frantic effort to rise; Bran threw again and the bird lay still.
The hillock was covered with brush and branches cut from the thickets and trees along the riverbank. Pulling a stick from the pile, Bran began beating at the flesh eaters; they hopped and dodged, reluctant to give ground. Bran, screaming like a demon, lashed with the branch, driving the scavengers away. They fled with angry reluctance, crying their outrage to the sky as Bran pulled brushwood from the stack to lay bare a massed heap of corpses.
