Hood

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Acclaim for Stephen R. Lawhead’s works

  “[Hood] will leave readers anxious for the next installment.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[Hood is] a highly imaginative, earthy adventure.”

  —Booklist

  “Hood is rich in the historical and sensory details Lawhead’s readers expect.”

  —Aspiring Retail

  “[T]he narrative has the excitement of a fantasy novel, a vivid historical setting, and a lengthy, credible, and satisfying plot —just the right elements, in fact, that have made Lawhead a commercial success time and again.”

  —Publishers Weekly review of Byzantium

  “In a style reminiscent of Tolkien, Lawhead presents a world of vivid imagery. This book is a delight.”

  —Bookstore Journal regarding The Paradise War

  “Patrick is unfailingly sympathetic and believable, and his story of losing and finding his faith will resonate with a wide spectrum of readers.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Celtic twilight shot with a brighter, fiercer light, and tinged with modern villainy . . . savagely beautiful.”

  —Michael Scott Rohan, author of the Winter of the

  World trilogy regarding The Endless Knot

  OTHER BOOKS BY STEPHEN R. LAWHEAD

  KING RAVEN TRILOGY:

  Hood

  Scarlet

  Tuck (Winter 2009)

  Patrick, Son of Ireland

  THE CELTIC CRUSADES:

  The Iron Lance

  The Black Rood

  The Mystic Rose

  Byzantium

  THE SONG OF ALBION:

  The Paradise War

  The Silver Hand

  The Endless Knot

  THE PENDRAGON CYCLE:

  Taliesin

  Merlin

  Arthur

  Pendragon

  Grail

  Avalon

  Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra

  Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome

  Dream Thief

  THE DRAGON KING TRILOGY:

  In the Hall of the Dragon King

  The Warlords of Nin

  The Sword and the Flame

  HOOD

  KING RAVEN: BOOK I

  STEPHEN R.

  LAWHEAD

  This book is dedicated to

  the Schloss Mittersill Community

  with heartfelt thanks and gratitude

  for their understanding,

  encouragement, and support.

  © 2006 by Stephen R. Lawhead

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Map illustration created by Mary Hooper.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lawhead, Steve.

  Hood / by Stephen R. Lawhead.

  p. cm.— (The King Raven trilogy ; bk. 1)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-085-0 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-088-1 (trade paper)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-329-5 (mass market)

  I. Title. II. Series: Lawhead, Steve. King Raven trilogy ; bk. 1.

  PS3562.A865H66 2006

  813'.54—dc22

  2006014183

  Printed in the United States of America

  08 09 10 11 12 QW 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE: DAY OF THE WOLF

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  PART TWO: IN COED CADW

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  PART THREE: THE MAY DANCE

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  PART FOUR: THE HAUNTING

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  PART FIVE: THE GRELLON

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  EPILOGUE

  ROBIN HOOD IN WALES?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

  PROLOGUE

  The pig was young and wary, a yearling boar timidly testing the wind for strange scents as it ventured out into the honey-coloured light of a fast-fading day. Bran ap Brychan, Prince of Elfael, had spent the entire day stalking the greenwood for a suitable prize, and he meant to have this one.

  Eight years old and the king’s sole heir, he knew well enough that he would never be allowed to go out into the forest alone. So rather than seek permission, he had simply taken his bow and four arrows early that morning and stolen from the caer unnoticed. This hunt, like the young boar, was dedicated to his mother, the queen.

  She loved the hunt and gloried in the wild beauty and visceral excitement of the chase. Even when she did not ride herself, she would ready a welcome for the hunters with a saddle cup and music, leading the women in song. “Don’t be afraid,” she told Bran when, as a toddling boy, he had been dazzled and a little frightened by the noise and revelry. “We belong to the land. Look, Bran!” She lifted a slender hand toward the hills and the forest rising like a living rampart beyond. “All that you see is the work of our Lord’s hand.We rejoice in his provision.”

  Stricken with a wasting fever, Queen Rhian had been sick most of the summer, and in his childish imaginings, Bran had determined that if he could present her with a stag or a boar that he had brought down all by himself, she would laugh and sing as she always did, and she would feel better. She would be well again.

  All it would take was a little more patience and . . .

  Still as stone, he waited in the deepening shadow. The young boar stepped nearer, its small pointed ears erect and proud. It took another step and stopped to sample the tender shoots of a mallow plant. Bran, an arrow already nocked to the string, pressed the bow forward, feeling the tension in his shoulder and back just the way Iwan said he should. “Do not aim the arrow,” the older youth had instructed him. “Just think it to the mark. Send it on your thought, and if your thought is true, so, too, will fly the arrow.”

  Pressing the bow to the limit of his strength, he took a steadying breath and released the string, feeling the sharp tingle on his fingertips. T
he arrow blazed across the distance, striking the young pig low in the chest behind the front legs. Startled, it flicked its tail rigid, and turned to bolt into the wood . . . but two steps later its legs tangled; it stumbled and went down. The stricken creature squealed once and tried to rise, then subsided, dead where it fell.

  Bran loosed a wild whoop of triumph. The prize was his!

  He ran to the pig and put his hand on the animal’s sleek, slightly speckled haunch, feeling the warmth there. “I am sorry, my friend, and I thank you,” he murmured as Iwan had taught him. “I need your life to live.”

  It was only when he tried to shoulder his kill that Bran realised his great mistake. The dead weight of the animal was more than he could lift by himself. With a sinking heart, he stood gazing at his glorious prize as tears came to his eyes. It was all for nothing if he could not carry the trophy home in triumph.

  Sinking down on the ground beside the warm carcass, Bran put his head in his hands. He could not carry it, and he would not leave it. What was he going to do?

  As he sat contemplating his predicament, the sounds of the forest grew loud in his ears: the chatter of a squirrel in a treetop, the busy click and hum of insects, the rustle of leaves, the hushed flutter of wings above him, and then . . .

  “Bran!”

  Bran started at the voice. He glanced around hopefully.

  “Here!” he called. “Here! I need help!”

  “Go back!” The voice seemed to come from above. He raised his eyes to see a huge black bird watching him from a branch directly over his head.

  It was only an old raven. “Shoo!”

  “Go back!” said the bird. “Go back!”

  “I won’t,” shouted Bran. He reached for a stick on the path, picked it up, drew back, and threw it at the bothersome bird. “Shut up!”

  The stick struck the raven’s perch, and the bird flew off with a cry that sounded to Bran like laughter. “Ha, ha, haw! Ha, ha, haw!”

  “Stupid bird,” he muttered. Turning again to the young pig beside him, he remembered what he had seen other hunters do with small game. Releasing the string on his bow, he gathered the creature’s short legs and tied the hooves together with the cord. Then, passing the stave through the bound hooves and gripping the stout length of oak in either hand, he tried to lift it. The carcass was still too heavy for him, so he began to drag his prize through the forest, using the bow.

  It was slow going, even on the well-worn path, with frequent stops to rub the sweat from his eyes and catch his breath. All the while, the day dwindled around him.

  No matter. He would not give up. Clutching the bow stave in his hands, he struggled on, step by step, tugging the young boar along the trail, reaching the edge of the forest as the last gleam of twilight faded across the valley to the west.

  “Bran!”

  The shout made him jump. It was not a raven this time, but a voice he knew. He turned and looked down the slope toward the valley to see Iwan coming toward him, long legs paring the distance with swift strides.

  “Here!” Bran called, waving his aching arms overhead.

  “Here I am!”

  “In the name of all the saints and angels,” the young man said when he came near enough to speak, “what do you think you are doing out here?”

  “Hunting,” replied Bran. Indicating his kill with a hunter’s pride, he said, “It strayed in front of my arrow, see?”

  “I see,” replied Iwan. Giving the pig a cursory glance, he turned and started away again. “We have to go. It’s late, and everyone is looking for you.”

  Bran made no move to follow.

  Looking back, Iwan said, “Leave it, Bran! They are searching for you. We must hurry.”

  “No,” Bran said. “Not without the boar.” He stooped once more to the carcass, seized the bow stave, and started tugging again.

  Iwan returned, took him roughly by the arm, and pulled him away. “Leave the stupid thing!”

  “It is for my mother!” the boy shouted, the tears starting hot and quick. As the tears began to fall, he bent his head and repeated more softly, “Please, it is for my mother.”

  “Weeping Judas!” Iwan relented with an exasperated sigh. “Come then. We will carry it together.”

  Iwan took one end of the bow stave, Bran took the other, and between them they lifted the carcass off the ground. The wood bent but did not break, and they started away again— Bran stumbling ever and again in a forlorn effort to keep pace with his long-legged friend.

  Night was upon them, the caer but a brooding black eminence on its mound in the centre of the valley, when a party of mounted searchers appeared. “He was hunting,” Iwan informed them. “A hunter does not leave his prize.”

  The riders accepted this, and the young boar was quickly secured behind the saddle of one of the horses; Bran and Iwan were taken up behind other riders, and the party rode for the caer. The moment they arrived, Bran slid from the horse and ran to his mother’s chamber behind the hall. “Hurry,” he called. “Bring the boar!”

  Queen Rhian’s chamber was lit with candles, and two women stood over her bed when Bran burst in. He ran to her bedside and knelt down. “Mam! See what I brought you!”

  She opened her eyes, and recognition came to her. “There you are, my dearling. They said they could not find you.”

  “I went hunting,” he announced. “For you.”

  “For me,” she whispered. “A fine thing, that. What did you find?”

  “Look!” he said proudly as Iwan strode into the room with the pig slung over his shoulders.

  “Oh, Bran,” she said, the ghost of a smile touching her dry lips. “Kiss me, my brave hunter.”

  He bent his face to hers and felt the heat of her dry lips on his. “Go now. I will sleep a little,” she told him, “and I will dream of your triumph.”

  She closed her eyes then, and Bran was led from the room.

  But she had smiled, and that was worth all the world to him.

  Queen Rhian did not waken in the morning. By the next evening she was dead, and Bran never saw his mother smile again. And although he continued to hone his skill with the bow, he lost all interest in the hunt.

  PART ONE

  DAY OF

  THE WOLF

  CHAPTER 1

  Bran!” The shout rattled through the stone-flagged yard. “Bran! Get your sorry tail out here! We’re leaving!”

  Red-faced with exasperation, King Brychan ap Tewdwr climbed stiffly into the saddle, narrowed eyes scanning the ranks of mounted men awaiting his command. His feckless son was not amongst them. Turning to the warrior on the horse beside him, he demanded, “Iwan, where is that boy?”

  “I have not seen him, lord,” replied the king’s champion. “Neither this morning nor at the table last night.”

  “Curse his impudence!” growled the king, snatching the reins from the hand of his groom. “The one time I need him beside me and he flits off to bed that slut of his. I will not suffer this insolence, and I will not wait.”

  “If it please you, lord, I will send one of the men to fetch him.”

  “No! It does not bloody please me!” roared Brychan. “He can stay behind, and the devil take him!”

  Turning in the saddle, he called for the gate to be opened. The heavy timber doors of the fortress groaned and swung wide. Raising his hand, he gave the signal.

  “Ride out!” Iwan cried, his voice loud in the early morning calm.

  King Brychan, Lord of Elfael, departed with the thirty-five Cymry of his mounted warband at his back. The warriors, riding in twos and threes, descended the rounded slope of the hill and fanned out across the shallow, cup-shaped valley, fording the stream that cut across the meadow and following the cattle trail as it rose to meet the dark, bristling rampart of the forest known to the folk of the valley as Coed Cadw, the Guarding Wood.

  At the edge of the forest, Brychan and his escort joined the road. Ancient, deep-rutted, overgrown, and sunken low between its high earthen ban
ks, the bare dirt track bent its way south and east over the rough hills and through the broad expanse of dense primeval forest until descending into the broad Wye Vale, where it ran along the wide, green waters of the easy-flowing river. Farther on, the road passed through the two principal towns of the region: Hereford, an English market town, and Caer Gloiu, the ancient Roman settlement in the wide, marshy lowland estuary of Mor Hafren. In four days, this same road would bring them to Lundein, where the Lord of Elfael would face the most difficult trial of his long and arduous reign.

  “There was a time,” Brychan observed bitterly, “when the last warrior to reach the meeting place was put to death by his comrades as punishment for his lack of zeal. It was deemed the first fatality of the battle.”

  “Allow me to fetch the prince for you,” Iwan offered. “He could catch up before the day is out.”

  “I will not hear it.” Brychan dismissed the suggestion with a sharp chop of his hand. “We’ve wasted too much breath on that worthless whelp. I will deal with him when we return,” he said, adding under his breath, “and he will wish to heaven he had never been born.”

  With an effort, the aging king pushed all thoughts of his profligate son aside and settled into a sullen silence that lasted well into the day. Upon reaching the Vale of Wye, the travellers descended the broad slope into the valley and proceeded along the river. The road was good here, and the water wide, slow flowing, and shallow. Around midday, they stopped on the moss-grown banks to water the horses and take some food for themselves before moving on.

  Iwan had given the signal to remount, and they were just pulling the heads of the horses away from the water when a jingling clop was heard on the road. A moment later four riders appeared, coming into view around the base of a high-sided bluff.

  One look at the long, pallid faces beneath their burnished warcaps, and the king’s stomach tightened. “Ffreinc!” grumbled Brychan, putting his hand to his sword. They were Norman marchogi, and the British king and his subjects despised them utterly.

  “To arms, men,” called Iwan. “Be on your guard.”

  Upon seeing the British warband, the Norman riders halted in the road. They wore conical helmets and, despite the heat of the day, heavy mail shirts over padded leather jerkins that reached down below their knees. Their shins were covered with polished steel greaves, and leather gauntlets protected their hands, wrists, and forearms. Each carried a sword on his hip and a short spear tucked into a saddle pouch. A narrow shield shaped like an elongated raindrop, painted blue, was slung upon each of their backs.