Hood Page 15

  The delay Neufmarché complained of had allowed the count’s uncle to make good the de Braose clan’s first foray into Wales without interference from the lords of neighbouring territories. While Neufmarché was idling in Lundein, Count Falkes had, with uncommon swiftness and ease, conquered Elfael. The whole campaign had been closely planned to avoid extraneous entanglements from the likes of rival lords such as Neufmarché, for if Baron de Braose had had to beg Neufmarché for permission to cross his lands that lay between Norman England and the Welsh provinces, Falkes was fairly certain they would all be waiting still.

  “You have done well,” the baron said, gazing around the hall approvingly, “and in a very short time. I take it the Welsh gave you no trouble?”

  “Very little,” affirmed Falkes. “There is a monastery nearby, with a few monks and some women and children in hiding. The rest seem to have scattered to the hills. I expect we won’t see them until the spring.” He cut into a plump roast fowl on the wooden trencher before him. “By then we will be well fortified hereabouts, and opposition will be futile.” He sliced into the succulent breast of the bird, raised a bite on his knife, and nibbled daintily.

  Neufmarché caught the veiled reference to increased fortification. No one builds fortresses to hold down a few monks and some women and children, he thought and guessed the rest. “They are a strange people,” he observed, and several of his knights grunted their agreement. “Sly and secretive.”

  “Bien sûr,” Falkes replied. He chewed thoughtfully and asked, trying to sound casual, “Do you plan to make a foray yourself ?”

  The bluntness of the question caught the baron off guard.

  “Me? I have no plans,” he lied. “But now that you mention it, the thought has crossed my mind.” He raised his cup to give himself time to think and then continued, “I confess, your example gives me heart. If I imagined that acquiring land would be so easy, I might give it some serious consideration.”

  He paused as if entertaining the possibility of an attack in Wales for the very first time. “Busy as I am ruling the estates under my command, I’m not at all certain a campaign just now would be wise.”

  “You would know better than I,” Falkes conceded. “This is my first experience ruling an estate of any size. No doubt I have much to learn.”

  “You are too modest,” Neufmarché replied with a wide, expansive smile. “From what I have seen, you learn very quickly.” He drained his cup and held it aloft. A servant appeared and refilled it at once. “I drink to your every success!”

  “And I to yours, mon ami,” said Count Falkes de Braose.

  “And I to yours.”

  The next morning, the baron departed with an invitation for Falkes to visit him whenever he passed through his lands in Herefordshire. “I will look forward to it with keenest pleasure,” said the count as he waved his visitors away. He then hurried to his chamber, where he drafted a hasty letter to his uncle, informing him of the progress with the ongoing survey of the building sites—as well as his adversary’s unannounced visit. Falkes sealed the letter and dispatched a messenger the moment his guests were out of sight.

  CHAPTER 18

  Angharad stirred the simmering contents of the cauldron with a long wooden spoon and listened to the slow plip, plip, plip of the rain falling from the rim of stone onto the wet leaves at the entrance to the cave. She took up the bound sprig of a plant she had gathered during the summer and with a deft motion rolled the dry leaves back and forth between her palms, crumbling the herb into the broth. The aroma of her potion was growing ever more pungent in the close air of the cave.

  Every now and then she would cast a glance toward the fleece-wrapped bundle lying on a bed of pine boughs and covered with moss and deer pelts. Sometimes the man inside the bundle would moan softly, but for the most part his sleep was as silent as the dead. Her skill with healing unguents and potions extended to that small mercy if nothing more.

  When the infusion was ready, she lifted the cauldron from the fire and carried it to a nearby rock, where it was left to cool. Then, taking up an armful of twigs from the heap just inside the cave entrance, she returned to her place by the fire.

  “One for the Great King on his throne so white,” she said, tossing a twig onto the embers. She waited until the small branch flared into flame, then reached for another, saying, “Two for the Son the King begat.”

  This curious ritual continued for some time—taking up a twig and consigning it to the flames with a little verse spoken in a child’s rhythmic singsong—and the simple chant reached the young man in his pain-fretted sleep.

  Three for the Errant Goose both swift and wild.

  Four for Pangur Ban the cat.

  Five for the Martyrs undefiled—

  Aye, five for the Martyrs undefiled.

  She paused and cupped a hand above the fire for a moment, allowing the smoke to gather, then turned her palm, releasing a little white cloud. As the smoke floated up and dispersed, she continued her verse.

  Six for the Virgins who watch and wait.

  Seven for the Bards in halls of oak.

  Eight for the patches on Padraig’s cloak.

  Nine for the lepers at the gate.

  Ten for the rays of Love’s pure light—

  Aye, ten for the rays of Love’s pure light.

  Though the young man did not wake, the softly droning words and the simple rhythm seemed to soothe him. His breathing slowed and deepened, and his stiff muscles eased.

  Angharad heard the change in his breathing and smiled to herself. She went to test the heat of the potion in the cauldron; it was still hot but no longer bubbling. Picking up the big copper kettle, she carried it to where Bran lay, drew her three-legged stool near, and began gently pulling away the fleeces that covered him.

  His flesh was dull and waxen, his wounds livid and angry. The right side of his face was roundly swollen, the skin discoloured. The teeth marks on his arm where the hound had fastened its jaws were puncture wounds, deep but clean—as was the slash between his shoulder blades. Painful as any of these wounds might have been, none were life-threatening. Rather, it was the ragged gash in the centre of his chest that worried her most. The iron blade had not pricked a lung, nor pierced the watery sac of the heart; but the lance head had driven cloth from his tunic and hair from the hound deep into the cut. These things, in her experience, could make even insignificant injuries fester and turn sour, bringing on fever, delirium, and finally death.

  She sighed as she placed her fingertips on the bulbous swelling. The flesh was hot beneath her gentle fingertips, oozing watery blood and yellow pus. He had been wandering a few days before she had found him, and the wounds had already begun to go rancid. Therefore, she had taken great pains to prepare the proper infusion with which to wash the wound and had gathered the instruments to enlarge it so she could carefully dig out any scraps of foreign matter.

  Angharad had expected him to come to her injured. She had foreseen the fight and knew the outcome, but the wounds he had suffered would tax her skill sorely. He was a strong one, his strength green and potent; even so, he would need all of it, and more besides, if he was to survive.

  Bending to the cauldron, she took up a bit of clean cloth from a neat stack she had prepared; she folded the cloth and soaked it in the hot liquid and then gently, gently applied it to the gash in his chest. The heat caused him to moan in his sleep, but he did not wake. She let the cloth remain and, taking up another, soaked it and placed it on the side of his face.

  When the second cloth had been carefully arranged, she returned to the first, removed it, placed it back in the cauldron, and began again.

  So it went.

  All through the night, the old woman remained hunched on her little stool, moving with slow purpose from one wound to the next, removing the cloth, dipping it, and replacing it.When the potion in the cauldron cooled, she returned it to the embers of her fire and brought it back to the boil. Heat was needed to draw out the poison o
f the wounds.

  While she worked, she sang—an old song in the Elder Tongue, something she had learned from her own banfáith many, many years ago—the tale of Bran the Blesséd and his journey to Tir na’ Nog. It was a song about a champion who, after a long sojourn in the Otherworld, had returned to perform the Hero Feat for his people: a tale full of hope, longing, and triumph—fitting, she thought, for the man beneath her care.

  As dawn seeped into the rainy sky to the east, Angharad finished. She set aside the cauldron and rose slowly, arching her back to ease the ache there. Then she knelt once more and, taking up a handful of dried moss, placed it gently over the young man’s wounds before covering him with the sheepskins. Later that day, she would begin the purification procedure all over again, and the next day, too, and perhaps the next. But for now, it was enough.

  She rose and returned the cauldron to the edge of the fire ring, and settling herself once more on the three-legged stool, she pulled her cloak around her shoulders and closed her eyes on the day.

  Bran did not know how long he had been lying in the dark, listening to the rain: a day, perhaps many days. Try as he might, he could not remember ever hearing such a sound before. He could vaguely remember what rain was and what it looked like, but so far as he could recall, this was the first time he had ever heard it patter down on earth and rocks and drip from the canopy of leaves to the sodden forest pathways below.

  Unable to move, he was content to lie with his eyes closed, listening to the oddly musical sound. He did not want to open his eyes for fear of what he might see. Flitting through his shattered memory were weird and worrisome images: a snarling dog that snapped at his throat; a body floating in a pool; a black-shadowed hole in the ground that was both stronghold and tomb; and a hideous, decrepit old woman bearing a steaming cauldron. It was a nightmare, he told himself: the dreams of a pain-haunted man and nothing more.

  He knew he was badly injured. He did not know how this had come to be nor even how he knew it to be true.

  Nevertheless, he accepted this fact without question. Then again, perhaps it was part of the same nightmare as the old crone—who could say?

  However it was, the woman seemed to be intimately connected with another curious image that kept spinning through his mind: that of himself, wrapped in soft white fleece and lying full-length on a bed of pine boughs and moss covered by deerskins. Now and then, the image changed, taking on the quality of a dream—a peculiar reverie made familiar through repetition. In this dream he hovered in the air like a hawk, gazing down upon his own body from some place high above. At first he did not know who this hapless fellow in the rude bed might be. The young man’s face was round and oddly misshapen, one side purple black and bloated beyond all recognition. His skin was dull and lustreless and of an awful waxy colour; no breath stirred the unfortunate’s lungs. The poor wretch was dead, Bran concluded.

  And that is when the old woman had first appeared. A hag with a bent back and a face like a dried apple, she limped to the dead man’s bed, carrying the gurgling pot fresh from the fire. She leaned low and peered into the fellow’s face, shaking her head slowly as she carefully positioned the cauldron and settled herself cross-legged on the ground beside him. Then, rocking back and forth, she began to sing. Bran thought he had heard the song before but could not say where. And then, abruptly, the dream ended—always at the same place.

  The injured man and the old woman simply vanished in a blinding white haze, and most upsetting, Bran found himself waking in the dark and occupying the injured man’s place.

  This distressing transformation did not upset him as much as it might have because of the overwhelming sympathy Bran felt for the unfortunate fellow. Not only did he feel sorry for the young man, but he felt as if they might have been friends in the past. At the same time, he resented the repulsive old woman’s intrusions. If not for her, Bran imagined he and the wounded man would have been free to leave that dark place and roam at will in the fields of light.

  He knew about these far-off fields because he had seen them, caught fleeting glimpses of them in his other dreams. In these dreams he was often flying, soaring above an endless landscape of softly rounded hills over which the most wonderful, delicate, crystalline rays of sunlight played in ever-shifting colours—as if the soft summer breeze had become somehow visible as it drifted over the tall grass in richly variegated hues to delight the eye. Nor was this all, for accompanying the blithe colours was a soft flutelike music, buoyant as goose down on the breeze, far-off as the remembered echo of a whisper. Soft and sweet and low, it gradually modulated from one note to the next in fine harmony.

  The first time he saw the fields of light, the sight made his heart ache with yearning; he wanted nothing more than to go there, to explore that wondrous place, but something prevented him. Once, in his dream, he had made a determined rush toward the glorious fields, and it appeared he would at last succeed in reaching them. But the old woman suddenly arose before him—it was Angharad; he knew her by the quick glance of her dark eye—except that she was no longer the hideous hag who dwelt in the darksome hole. Gone were her bent back and filthy tangles of stringy hair; gone her withered limbs, gone her coarse-woven, shapeless dress.

  The woman before him was beauty made flesh. Her tresses were long and golden hued, her skin flawless, soft, and supple; her gown was woven of glistening white samite and trimmed in ermine; the slippers on her feet were scarlet silk, beaded with tiny pearls. She gazed upon him with large, dark eyes that held a look of mild disapproval. He moved to step past her, but she simply raised her hand.

  “Where do you go, mo croi?” she asked, her voice falling like gentle laughter on his ear.

  He opened his mouth to frame a reply but could make no sound.

  “Come,” she said, smiling, “return with me now. It is not yet time for you to leave.”

  Reaching out, she touched him lightly on the arm, turning him to lead him away. He resisted, still staring at the wonderful fields beyond.

  “Dearest heart,” she said, pressing luscious lips to his ear, “yon meadow will remain, but you cannot. Come, return you must. We have work to do.”

  So she led him back from the edge of the field, back to the warm darkness and the slow plip, plip, plip of the falling rain. Sometime later—he could not say how long—Bran heard singing. It was the voice from his dream, and this time he opened his eyes to dim shadows moving gently on the rock walls of his primitive chamber.

  Slowly, he turned his head toward the sound, and there she was. Although it was dark as a dovecote inside the cave, he could see her lumpen, ungainly form as she stood silhouetted by the fitful, flickering flames. She was as hideous as the hag of his recent nightmares, but as he knew now, she was no dream. She, like the hole in the ground where he lay, was only too real.

  “Who are you?” asked Bran. His head throbbed with the effort of forming the words, and his voice cracked, barely a whisper. The old woman did not turn or look around but continued stirring the foul-smelling brew.

  It was some time before Bran could work up the strength to ask again, with slightly more breath, “Woman, who are you?”

  At this, the crone dropped her stirring stick and turned her wrinkled face to peer at him over a hunched shoulder, regarding him with a sharp, black, birdlike eye. Her manner put Bran in mind of a crow examining a possible meal or a bright bauble to steal away to a treetop nest.

  “Can you speak?” asked Bran. Each word sent a peal of agony crashing through his head, and he winced. The side of his face felt as stiff and unyielding as a plank of oak.

  “Aye, speak and sing,” she replied, and her voice was far less unpleasant than her appearance suggested. “The question is, methinks, can thee?”

  Bran opened his mouth, but a reply seemed too much effort. He simply shook his head—and instantly wished he had not moved at all, for even this slight motion sent towering waves of pain and nausea surging through his gut. He closed his eyes and waited for the unpleas
antness to pass and the world to right itself once more.

  “I thought not,” the old woman told him. “Thou best not speak until I bid thee.”

  She turned from him then, and he watched her as she rose slowly and, bending from her wide hips, removed the pot from the flames and set it on a nearby rock to cool. She then came to his bed, where she sat for some time, gazing at him with that direct, unsettling glance. At length, she said, “Thou art hungry. Some broth have I made thee.”

  Bran, unable to make a coherent reply, merely blinked his eyes in silent assent. She busied herself by the fire, returning a short time later with a wooden bowl. Taking up a spoon made from a stag’s horn, she dipped it into the bowl and brought it to Bran’s mouth, parting his lips with a gentle yet insistent pressure.

  Barely able to open his mouth, he allowed some of the lukewarm liquid to slide over his teeth and down his throat.

  It had a dusky, herb-rich flavour that reminded him of a greenwood glen in deep autumn.

  She lifted the spoon once more, and he sucked down the broth. “There, and may it well become you,” she said soothingly. “Thou mayest yet make good your return to Tir na’ Nog.”

  An inexplicable sense of pride and accomplishment flushed his cheeks, and he suddenly found himself eager to please her with this trifling display of infant skill. The broth, although thin and clear, was strangely filling, and Bran found that after only a few more sips from the spoon, he could hold no more.

  The food settled his stomach, and exhausted with the small effort expended, he closed his eyes and slept.

  When he woke again, it was brighter in the cave, and he was hungry again. As before, the old woman was there to serve him some of the herbal broth. He ate gratefully, but without trying to speak, and then slept after his meal.