Tuck Page 6

  “You need not whip that dead horse any longer, Marshal,”growled Abbot Hugo, slamming down the pewter jar. Wine splashed out and spattered the table linen, leaving a deep crimson stain. “I am only too aware of the price we are paying to maintain this accursed realm.”

  “My point, Abbot, was that without hope of raising any more soldiers, the cantref is lost already. Sooner or later, the rogues will discover how few men we have, and when they do, they will attack and we will not be able to repel them. That, or they will simply wear us down. Either way, they win.”

  “Possibly.” Hugo shook the wine from his hand, raised his cup, and drank.

  “Their Raven King has made us an offer of peace—take it, I say, and let us be done with this godforsaken realm. I wish to heaven I’d never heard of it.”

  “Be that as it may,” Hugo said, staring into his cup, “King William has given the governance of the realm to me, and I will not suffer that ridiculous King Raven and his scabrous minions to hold sway over it. They will be defeated.”

  “Have you heard a single word I’ve said?”

  “I heard, Marshal, but I do not think you understand the depth of my resolve. For I propose we root out King Raven and his brood for once and all.”

  “Then just you tell me how do you propose we do that?” Guy de Gysburne glared at the abbot, daring him to put up something that could not be knocked down with a single blow. “As many times as we have gone against them, we have been forced to retreat. Swords and spears are no use against those infernal longbows because we cannot get close enough to use them. Pitched battle is no good: they will not stand and fight. They hide in the woods where our horses cannot go. They know the land hereabouts far better than we do, so they can sit back and slaughter us at will.”

  Abbot Hugo was in no mood to listen to yet another litany of Guy’s complaints. They never advanced the cause and always fell back on the tired observation that unless they found a powerful patron to supply men and weapons, and provisions, the realm would fall. The battle in the grove had cost them more than either one of them cared to contemplate—though Guy had not allowed anyone within hearing distance to forget it. Of the thirty-three knights and men-at-arms left to them after the departure of the exiled Baron de Braose, only twenty-one remained. And Elfael, nestled in its valley and surrounded by forest on three sides, was far too vulnerable to the predation of Bran and his outlaw band, who had proven time and again that they could come and go as they pleased.

  “If we cannot get to them,” replied Hugo, adopting a more conciliatory air, “then we will bring the so-called Raven and his flock to us.”

  “Easier said than done,” muttered Guy. “Our Raven is a canny bird. Not easy to trick, not easy to catch.”

  “Nor am I an adversary easily defeated.” Hugo raised his cup to his mouth and took a deep draught before continuing. “Simply put, we will entice them, draw them out into the open where they cannot attack us from behind trees and such. Their bows will be no good to them at close quarters.”

  Guy stared at the abbot in amazement and shook his head. “The forest is their fortress. They will not leave it—not for any enticement you might offer.”

  “But I need offer nothing,” the abbot remarked. “Don’t you see?

  They have outwitted themselves this time. Under pretence of accepting the peace, we will lure them into the open. Once they have shown themselves, we will slice them to ribbons.”

  “Just like that?” scoffed the marshal, shaking his head.

  “If you have a better plan, let us hear it,” snapped the abbot.

  Growing weary of arguing with Gysburne at every turn, he decided to end the discussion. “Count Falkes was no match for the Welsh, as we all know. He paid the price for his mistakes and he is gone. I rule here now, and our enemies will find in me a more ruthless and cunning adversary than that de Braose ninny.”

  Clearly, they had reached an impasse, and Marshal Guy could think of nothing more to say. So he simply dashed the wine from his cup and took his leave.

  “If all goes well, Marshal,” said the abbot as Guy reached the door, “we will have that viper’s nest cleaned out in three days’ time.”

  How very optimistic,” observed Sheriff de Glanville when the marshal told him what the abbot had said. “So far, in all our encounters with these brigands, we’ve always come off the worse—while they get away with neither scratch nor scrape.”

  “Putting more men in the field only gives them more targets for their accursed arrows,” Guy pointed out.

  “Precisely,” granted the sheriff. He removed the leather hood from his falcon and blew gently on the bird’s sleek head. With his free hand he picked up a gobbet of raw meat from a bowl on the table and flipped it to the keen-eyed bird on his glove. “Still, the abbot has a point—we might fare better if we could lure the outlaws from the wood. Have you any idea what the abbot has planned?”

  “The outlaws have sent a message offering a truce of some kind.”

  “Have they indeed?”

  “They have,” confirmed Gysburne, “and the abbot thinks to use that to draw them out. He didn’t say how it would be done.”

  The sheriff lifted a finger and gently stroked the falcon’s head. “Well, I suppose there is no point in trying to guess what goes on in our devious abbot’s mind. I have no doubt he’ll tell us as soon as he is ready.”

  They did not have long to wait. At sundown, just after compline, the abbot summoned his two commanders to his private chambers, where he put forth his plan to rid the realm of King Raven and his flock.

  “When the abbey bell goes,” Abbot Hugo explained for the third time. “I want everyone in place. We don’t know—”

  “We don’t know how many will come, so we must be ready for anything,” grumbled Marshal Gysburne irritably. “For the love of Peter, there is no need to hammer us over the head with it.”

  The abbot arched an eyebrow. “If I desire to lay stress upon the readiness—or lack of it—of your men,” he replied tartly, “be assured that I think it necessary.”

  “The point is taken, Abbot,” offered the sheriff, entering the fray, “and after what happened in the grove at Winchester I think a little prudence cannot go amiss.”

  Marshal Guy flinched at the insinuation. “You weren’t there, Sheriff. Were you? Were you there?”

  “You know very well that I was not.”

  “Then I will thank you to shut your stinking mouth. You don’t know a thing about what happened that day.”

  “Au contraire, mon ami,” answered de Glanville with a cold, superior smile. “I know that you left eight good knights in that grove, and four more along the way. Twelve men died as a result, and we are no closer to ridding ourselves of these outlaws than we ever were.”

  The marshal regarded the sheriff from beneath lowered brows. “You smug swine,” he muttered. “You dare sit in judgement of me?”

  “Judge you?” inquired de Glanville innocently. “I merely state a fact. If that stings, then perhaps—”

  “Enough!” said Abbot Hugo, slapping the arm of his chair with his palm. “Save your spite for the enemy.”

  Sheriff de Glanville gave the abbot a curt nod and said, “Forgive me, Abbot. As I was about to say, we will never have a better chance to take the enemy unawares. If the outlaws escape into the forest, it will be just like the massacre in the grove. We cannot allow that to happen. This is, I fear, our last best chance to take them. We must succeed this time, or all is lost.”

  “I agree, of course,” replied the abbot. “That goes without saying.”

  “I beg your pardon, Abbot,” remarked the sheriff, “but in matters of war, nothing ever goes without saying.”

  “Well then,” sniffed Gysburne, “we have no worries there. You’ve seen to that—most abundantly.”

  “Get out of here—both of you,” said the abbot. Rising abruptly, he flapped his hands at them as if driving away bothersome birds. “Go on. Just remember, I want you to h
ave your men ready to attack the moment I draw the rogues out of hiding. And strike swiftly. I will not be made to stand waiting out there alone.”

  “You will not be alone, Abbot. Far from it,” said de Glanville. “Gysburne and I will be hidden in the forest, and some of my men will be among your monks. We have thought of everything, I assure you.”

  “Just you match deed to word, Sheriff, and I will consider myself assured.”

  The two commanders left the abbey, each to look after his own preparations. Sometime later, when the moon was low and near to setting, but dawn was still a long way off, a company of soldiers departed Saint Martin’s. Moving like slow shadows across the valley, ten mounted knights in two columns—their armour and horses’ tack muffled with rags to prevent the slightest sound, their weapons dulled with sooted grease so that no glint or shine could betray them—rode in silence to the edge of the forest. Upon reaching the dark canopy of the trees, they dismounted and walked a short distance into the wood, hid their horses and themselves in the thick underbrush, then settled back to wait.

  CHAPTER 7

  Coed Cadw

  With the approach of dawn, the forest awakened around the hidden soldiers—first with birdsong, and then with the furtive twitching and scratching of squirrels and mice and other small creatures. A light mist rose in the low places of the valley, pale and silvery in the early-morning light; it vanished as the sun warmed the ground, leaving a spray of glistening dew on the deep green grass. A family of wild pigs—a sow and six yearling piglets under the watchful eye of a hulking great boar—appeared at the margin of the trees to snuffle along the streambed and dig among the roots. The world began another day while the hidden soldiers dozed with their weapons in their hands. Slowly, the sun climbed higher in a cloud-ruffled sky.

  And they waited.

  Some little while before midday, there came a sound of movement further back in the forest—the rustling of leaves where there was no breeze, the slight creak of low branches, a sudden flight of sitting birds—and the soldiers who were awake clutched their weapons and nudged those still sleeping beside them. The ghosts of the greenwood were coming. King Raven would soon appear.

  But the sounds died away. Nothing happened.

  The sun continued its climb until it soared directly overhead. The soldiers, awake now and ready, strained their ears in the drowsy quiet of the wood as, above the whir and buzz of insects, the first faint chimes of a church bell sounded across the valley—far off, but distinct: three peals.

  Then silence.

  They listened, and they heard the signal repeated. After another lengthy pause, the sequence of three peals sounded for the third and last time.

  After the second sequence had sounded, Marshal Gysburne, pressing himself to the ground, craned his neck from his hiding place behind an ash tree and looked down the long slope and into the bowl of the valley, where he saw a faint glimmering: Abbot Hugo and his white-robed monks making their way toward the forest. They came on, slow as snails it seemed to an increasingly impatient Gysburne, who like the other knights was sweating and stiff inside his armour. He inched back behind the tree and listened to the greenwood, hoping to catch any telltale sign of the outlaws’ presence.

  When at last the abbot’s party came within arrow-flight of the edge of the wood, a call like that of a raven sounded from the upper branches of a massive elm tree. The party of white-robed monks surrounding the abbot heard it, too, and as if acting upon a previously agreed signal, stopped at once.

  The raucous croak sounded twice more—not quite a bird’s cry, Gysburne thought, but certainly not human, either. He scanned the upper branches for the source of the sound, and when he looked back, there, poised at the edge of the tree line, stood the slender young man known as Bran ap Brychan.

  “Ah!” gasped Gysburne in surprise.

  “Where the devil did he come from?” muttered Sergeant Jeremias from his place on the other side of the ash tree.

  Dressed all in black, his dark hair lifting in the breeze, for an instant it seemed to the soldiers that he might indeed have been a raven dropped out of the sky to assume the form of a man. He stood motionless, clutching a longbow in his left hand; at his belt hung a bag of dark arrows.

  “Had I one of those bows,” Jeremias whispered, “I’d take him now, and save us all a load of bother.”

  “Shh!” hissed Gysburne in a tense whisper. “He’ll hear you.”

  When the outlaw made no move to approach the group of monks, the abbot called out, “M’entendre! Nous avons fait comme vous avez ordonné. Quel est pour arriver maintenant?”

  Marshal Gysburne heard this with a sinking heart. You old fool! he thought, the outlaws don’t speak French. He’ll have no idea what you’re saying.

  But to the marshal’s surprise, the young man answered, “Attente!Un moment!”

  He turned and gestured toward the wood behind him, and there was a rustling of leaves in the brush like a bear waking up; and out from the greenwood stepped the slump-shouldered Norman scribe—the one called Odo.

  The two advanced a few more paces into the open, and then halted. At a nod from Bran, the scribe called out, “Have you come to swear peace?”

  “I have come as requested,” replied Abbot Hugo, “to hear what this man has proposed.” Regarding the young scribe, he said, “Greetings, Odo. I suppose I should not be surprised to see you here—traitors and thieves flock together, eh?”

  Odo cringed at his former master’s abuse, but turned and explained to Bran what the abbot had said, received his lord’s answer, and replied, “The proposal is simple. Lord Bran says that you will agree to the terms put to you, or he will pursue the war he has begun.”

  “Even if I were to agree,” replied the abbot, “we must still discuss how the rule of Elfael is to be divided, and how we are to conduct the peace. Come, let us sit down together and talk as men.”

  Odo and Bran exchanged a quick word, then Odo replied, “First, my lord would have you swear a truce. You must promise to cease all aggression against himself and his people. Then he will parlera with you.”

  The abbot and his monks held a quick consultation, and the abbot replied, “Come closer, if you please. My throat grows raw shouting like this.”

  “I am close enough,” Bran replied. “Swear to the truce.”

  Abbot Hugo took a step forward, spreading his arms wide. “Come,” he said, “let us be reasonable. Let us sit down together like reasonable men and discuss how best to fulfil your demands.”

  “First you must swear to the truce,” answered Bran through Odo. “There will be no peace unless you pledge a sacred vow to uphold the truce.”

  Frowning, the abbot drew himself up and said, “In the name of Our Lord, I swear to uphold the truce, ceasing all aggression against the people of Elfael from this day hence.”

  “Then it is done,” said Bran through Odo. “You may come forward—alone. Your monks are to stay where they are.”

  “A moment, pray,” called the abbot. “There is more . . . I wish to—”

  Bran halted. One of the monks behind Hugo dropped his hand to his side, and Bran caught the movement and glimpsed a solid shape beneath the folds of the monk’s robe. Grabbing Odo by the arm, Bran whispered something, and the two began backing away.

  “He’s onto them!” whispered Sergeant Jeremias from his hiding place among the roots.

  “I see that!” spat Gysburne. “What do you expect me to do?”

  “Stop him!” urged the sergeant. “Stop him now before he reaches the wood.”

  “Wait!” cried Abbot Hugo from the clearing. “We need safe conduct back to the village. Send some of your men to guard us.”

  When Odo had relayed these words to Bran, the young man called over his shoulder and said, “You came here under guard—you can leave the same way. There is no truce.”

  The two outlaws started for the wood again, and again Hugo called out, but Bran took no further notice of him.

  “B
last his cursed bones!” muttered Gysburne.

  “Stop him!” urged Jeremias with a nudge in the marshal’s ribs.

  With a growl between his teeth, Guy rose from his hiding place and, stepping out from behind the ash tree, called out, “Halt! We would speak to you!”

  At the sudden appearance of the marshal, Bran shoved Odo toward the nearest tree. Dropping to one knee, he raised his bow, the arrow already on the string. Gysburne had time but to throw himself to the ground as the missile streaked toward him. In the same moment, the nine knights hidden since midnight in anticipation of this moment rose with a shout, charging up out of the undergrowth. Odo gave out a yelp of fright and stumbled backwards to where Bran was drawing aim on the wriggling figure of Gysburne as he snaked through the grass toward the safety of the bracken.

  Swinging away from the marshal, Bran drew and let fly at the soldiers just then bolting from the wood to his left. His single arrow was miraculously multiplied as five more joined his single shaft in flight. Hidden since dawn in the upper branches of the great oaks and elms, the Grellon took aim and released a rain of whistling death on the knights scrambling below. Shields before them, the Ffreinc soldiers tried to keep themselves protected from the falling shafts. One knight stumbled, momentarily dropping his guard. An arrow flashed and the knight slewed wildly sideways, as if swatted down by a giant, unseen hand. A second arrow found its mark before the wounded man stopped rolling on the ground.

  Three more knights were down just that quick, and the five remaining soldiers moved surprisingly fast in their mail and padded leather tunics. Ten running paces carried them across the open ground between the wood and the lone kneeling archer. Swords drawn, they roared their vengeance and fell upon him.

  In the instant the soldiers raised their arms to strike, there came a sound like that of a hard slap of a gauntleted fist smashing into a leather saddle. Arrows streaked down from the upper branches of the surrounding trees, and the cracking thump was repeated so quickly the individual sounds merged to become one. The foremost knight seemed to rise and dangle on his tiptoes, as if jerked upright by a rope, only to crumple when his feet touched earth again. He collapsed in the grass, three arrows in his back.