Hood

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  “What about Hathr?” inquired the groom.

  “Hathr threw a shoe and split a hoof. He’ll need looking after for a few days, and I must join my father on the road before the day is out.”

  “Lord Brychan said we were not to use—”

  “I need a horse, Cefn,” said Bran, cutting off his objection. “Saddle the black—and hurry. I must ride hard if I am to catch them.”

  While the groom set about preparing the mare, Bran hurried to the kitchen to find something to eat. The cook and her two young helpers were busy shelling peas and protested the intrusion. With smiles and winks and murmured endearments, however, Bran cajoled, and old Mairead succumbed to his charm as she always did. “You’ll be king one day,” she chided, “and is this how you will fare? Snatching meals from the hearth and running off who-knows-where all day?”

  “I’m going to Lundein, Mairead. It is a far journey.Would you have your future king starve on the way, or go a-begging like a leper?”

  “Lord have mercy!” clucked the cook, setting aside her chore. “Never let it be said anyone went hungry from my hearth.”

  She ladled some fresh milk into a bowl, into which she broke chunks of hard brown bread, then sat him down on a stool.While he ate, she cut a few slices of new summer sausage and gave him two green apples, which he stuffed into the pouch at his belt. Bran spooned down the milk and bread and then, throwing the elderly servant a kiss, bounded from the kitchen and back across the yard to the stable, where Cefn was just tightening the saddle cinch on his horse.

  “A world of thanks to you, Cefn. You have saved my life.”

  “Olwen is the best broodmare we have—see you don’t push her too hard,” called the groom as the prince clattered out into the yard. Bran gave him a breezy wave, and the groom added under his breath, “And may our Lord Brychan have mercy on you.”

  Out on the trail once more, Bran felt certain he could win his way back into his father’s good graces. It might take a day or two, but once the king saw how dutifully the prince was prepared to conduct himself in Lundein, Brychan would not fail to restore his son to favour. First, however, Bran set himself to think up a plausible tale to help excuse his apparent absence.

  Thus, he put his mind to spinning a story which, if not entirely believable, would at least be entertaining enough to lighten the king’s foul mood. This task occupied him as he rode easily along the path through the forest. He had just started up the long, meandering track leading to the high and thickly forested ridge that formed the western boundary of the broad Wye Vale and was thinking that with any luck at all, he might still catch his father and the warband before dusk. This thought dissolved instantly upon seeing a lone rider lurching toward him on a hobbling horse.

  He was still some distance away, but Bran could see that the man was hunched forward in the saddle as if to urge his labouring mount to greater speed. Probably drunk, rotten sot, thought Bran, and doesn’t realise his horse is dead on its feet. Well, he would stop the empty-headed lout and see if he could find out how far ahead his father might be.

  Closer, something about the man seemed familiar.

  As the rider drew nearer, Bran grew increasingly certain he knew the man, and he was not wrong.

  It was Iwan.

  CHAPTER 3

  Bernard de Neufmarché stormed down the narrow corridor leading from the main hall to his private chambers deep in the protecting stone wall of the fortress. His red velvet cloak was grey with the dust of travel, his back throbbed with the dull, persistent ache of fatigue, and his mind was a spinning maelstrom of dark thoughts as black as his mood. Seven years lost! he fumed. Ruined, wasted, and lost!

  He had been patient, prudent, biding his time, watching and waiting for precisely the right moment to strike. And now, in one precipitous act, unprovoked and unforeseen, the red-haired brigand of a king,William, had allied himself with that milksop Baron de Braose and his mewling nephew, Count Falkes. That was bad enough. To make a disastrous business worse, the irresponsible king had also reversed the long-held royal policy of his father and allowed de Braose to launch an invasion into the interior of Wales.

  Royal let to plunder Wales was the very development Neufmarché had been waiting for, but now it had been ruined by the greedy, grasping de Braose mob. Their ill-conceived thrashing around the countryside would put the wily Britons on their guard, and any advancement on Bernard’s part would now be met with stiff-necked resistance and accomplished only at considerable expense of troops and blood.

  So be it!

  Waiting had brought him nothing, and he would wait no longer.

  At the door to his rooms, he shouted for his chamberlain. “Remey!” he cried. “My writing instruments! At once!”

  Flinging open the door, he strode to the hearth, snatched up a reed from the bundle, and thrust it into the small, sputtering fire. He then carried the burning rush to the candletree atop the square oak table that occupied the centre of the room and began lighting the candles. As the shadows shrank beneath the lambent light, the baron dashed wine from a jar into his silver cup, raised it to his lips, and drank a deep, thirsty draught. He then shouted for his chamberlain again and collapsed into his chair.

  “Seven years, by the Virgin!” he muttered. He drank again and cried, “Remey!” This time his summons was answered by the quick slap of soft boots on the flagstone threshold.

  “Sire,” said the servant, bustling into the room with his arms full of writing utensils—rolls of parchment, an inkhorn, a bundle of quills, sealing wax, and a knife. “I did not expect you to return so soon. I trust everything went well?”

  “No,” growled the baron irritably, “it did not go well. It went very badly. While I was paying court to the king, de Braose and his snivelling nephew were sending an army through my lands to snatch Elfael and who knows what all else from under my nose.”

  Remey sighed in commiseration. An aging lackey with the face of a ferret and a long, narrow head perpetually covered by a shapeless cap of thick grey felt, he had been in the service of the Neufmarché clan since he was a boy at Le Neuf-March-en-Lions in Beauvais. He knew well his master’s moods and appetites and was usually able to anticipate them with ease. But today he had been caught napping, and this annoyed him almost as much as the king had annoyed the baron.

  “The de Braose are unscrupulous, as we all know,” Remey observed, arranging the items he had brought on the table before the baron.

  “Cut me a pen,” the baron ordered. Taking up a roll of parchment, he sliced off a suitable square with his dagger and smoothed the prepared skin on the table before him.

  Remey, meanwhile, selected a fine long goose quill and expertly pared the tip on an angle and split it with the pen knife. “See if this will suffice,” he said, offering the prepared writing instrument to his master.

  Bernard pulled the stopper from the inkhorn and dipped the pen. He made a few preliminary swirls on the parchment and said, “It will do. Now bring me my dinner. None of that broth, mind. I’ve ridden all day, and I’m hungry. I want meat and bread—some of that pie, too. And more wine.”

  “At once, my lord,” replied the servant, leaving his master to his work.

  By the time Remey returned, accompanied this time by two kitchen servants bearing trays of food and drink, Neufmarché was leaning back in his chair studying the document he had just composed. “Listen to this,” said the baron, and holding the parchment before his eyes, he began to read what he had written.

  Remey held his head to one side as his master read. It was a letter to the baron’s father in Beauvais requesting a transfer of men and equipment to aid in the conquest of new territories in Britain.

  “. . . the resulting acquisitions will enlarge our holdings at least threefold,” Bernard read, “with good land, much of which is valley lowlands possessing tillable soil suitable for a variety of crops, while the rest is mature forest which, besides timber, will provide excellent hunting . . .” Here the baron broke off. “Wha
t do you think, Remey? Is it enough?”

  “I should think so. Lord Geoffrey was out here two years ago and is well aware of the desirability of the Welsh lands.

  I have no doubt he will send the required aid.”

  “I concur,” decided Bernard. Bending once more to the parchment, he finished the letter and signed his name. Then, rolling the parchment quickly, he tied the bundle and sealed it, pressing his heavy gold ring into the soft puddle of brown wax dripped from the stick in Remey’s hands. “There,” he said, setting the bundle aside, “now bring me that tray and fill my cup. When you’ve done that, go find Ormand.”

  “Of course, sire,” replied the chamberlain, gesturing for the two kitchen servants to place the trays of food before the baron while he refilled the silver cup from a flagon. “I believe I saw young Ormand in the hall only a short while ago.”

  “Good,” said Bernard, spearing one of the hard-crusted pies from the tray with his knife. “Tell him to prepare to ride out at first light. This letter must reach Beauvais before the month is out.”

  The baron bit into the cold pie and chewed thoughtfully. He ate a little more and then took another long draught of wine, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “Now then, go find my wife and tell her I have returned.”

  “I have already spoken to my lady’s maidservant, sire,” replied Remey, starting for the door. “I will inform Ormand that you wish to see him.”

  Baron Neufmarché was left alone to eat his meal in peace. As the food and wine soothed his agitated soul, he began to look more favourably on the conquest to come. Perhaps, he thought, I have been overhasty. Perhaps, in the heat of temper, he had allowed his anger to cloud his perception. He might have lost Elfael, true enough, but Buellt was the real prize, and it would be his; and beyond Buellt lay the ripe, fertile heartland of Dyfed and Ceredigion. It was all good land— wild, for the most part, and undeveloped—just waiting for a man with the boldness of vision, determination, and ambition to make it prosper and produce. Bernard de Neufmarché, Baron of the Shires of Gloucester and Hereford, imagined himself just that man.

  Yes, the more he thought about it, the more he was certain he was right; despite the king’s outrageous behaviour, things were working out for the best after all. Under the proper circumstances, Elfael, that small and undistinguished commot in the centre of the Welsh hill country, could ensnare the rash invaders in difficulties for years to come. In fact, with the timely application of a few simple principles of subterfuge, the baron could ensure that little Elfael would become the grasping de Braose family’s downfall.

  The baron was basking in the warmth of this self-congratulatory humour when he heard the latch on his door rattle. The soft cough with which his visitor announced herself indicated that his wife had joined him. His momentary feeling of pleasure dimmed and faded.

  “You have returned earlier than expected, my lord,” she said, her voice falling soft and low in the quiet of the room.

  Bernard took his time answering. Setting aside his cup, he turned his head and looked at her. Pale and wan, she appeared even more wraithlike than when he had last seen her, only a few days ago. Her eyes were large, dark-rimmed circles in the ashen skin of her thin face, and her long lank hair hung straight, making her seem all the more frail and delicate.

  “You are looking well, my lady,” he lied, smiling. He rose stiffly and offered her his chair.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she replied. “But sit; you are at meat. I will not disturb you. I only wished to acknowledge your return.” She bowed slightly from the waist and turned to leave.

  “Agnes, stay,” he said and noticed the tremor that coursed through her body.

  “I have had my dinner and was just about to go to prayers,” she informed her husband. “But very well, I will sit with you awhile. If that is what you wish.”

  Bernard removed his chair and placed it at the side of the table. “Only if it is no trouble,” he said.

  “Far from it,” she insisted. “It is a very pleasure in itself.”

  He seated her and then pulled another chair to his place. “Wine?” he asked, lifting the flagon.

  “I think not, thank you.” Head erect, shoulders level, slender back straight as a lance shaft, she perched lightly on the edge of her chair—as if she feared it might suddenly take wing beneath her negligible weight.

  “If you change your mind . . .” The baron refilled his cup and resumed his seat. His wife was suffering, to be sure, and that was real enough. Even so, he could not help feeling that she brought it on herself with her perverse unwillingness to adapt in the slightest measure to the demands of her new home and its all-too-often inhospitable climate. She refused to dress more warmly or eat more heartily—as conditions warranted. Thus, she lurched from one vague illness to another, enduring febrile distempers, agues, fluxes, and other mysterious maladies, all with the resigned patience of an expiring saint.

  “Remey said you summoned Ormand.”

  “Yes, I am sending him to Beauvais with a letter for the duke,” he replied, swirling the wine in his cup. “The conquest of Wales has begun, and I will not be left out of it. I am requesting troopsmen-at-arms and as many knights as he can spare.”

  “A letter? For your father?” she asked, the light leaping up in her eyes for the first time since she had entered the room. “Do not bother Ormand with such a task—I will take the letter for you.”

  “No,” replied Bernard. “The journey is too arduous for you. It is out of the question.”

  “Nonsense,” she countered. “The journey would do me a world of good—the sea air and warmer weather would be just the elixir to restore me.”

  “I need you here,” said the baron. “There is going to be a campaign in the spring, and there is much to make ready.” He raised the silver cup to his lips, repeating, “It is out of the question. I am sorry.”

  Lady Agnes sat in silence for a moment, studying her hands in her lap. “This campaign is important to you, I suppose?” she wondered.

  “Important? What a question, woman! Of course, it is of the highest importance. A successful outcome will extend our holdings into the very heart of Wales,” the baron said, growing excited at the thought. “Our estates will increase threefold . . . fivefold—and our revenues likewise! I’d call that important, wouldn’t you?” he sneered.

  “Then,” Agnes suggested lightly, “I would think it equally important to ensure that success by securing the necessary troops.”

  “Of course,” answered Bernard irritably. “It goes without saying—which is why I wrote the letter.”

  His wife lifted her thin shoulders in a shrug of studied indifference. “As you say.”

  He let the matter rest there for a moment, but something in her tone suggested she knew more than she had said.

  “Why?” he asked, his suspicion getting the better of him at last.

  “Oh,” she said, turning her eyes to the fire once more, “no reason.”

  “Come now, my dear. Let us have it out. You have a thought in this matter, I can tell, and I will hear it.”

  “You flatter me, I’m sure, husband,” she replied. “I am content.”

  “But I am not!” he said, anger edging into his tone. “What is in your mind?”

  “Do not raise your voice to me, sire!” she snapped. “I assure you it is not seemly.”

  “Very well!” he said, his voice loud in the chamber. He glared at her for a moment and then tried again. “But see here, it is folly to quarrel. Consider that I am overtired from a long journey—it is that making me sharp, nothing more. Therefore, let us be done with this foolishness.” He coaxed her with a smile. “Now tell me, my dear, what is in your mind?”

  “Since you ask,” she said, “it occurs to me that if the campaign is as gravely important as you contend, then I would not entrust such an undertaking to a mere equerry.”

  “Why not? Ormand is entirely trustworthy.”

  “That is as may be,” she
allowed primly, “but if you really need the troops, then why place so much weight on a mere letter in the hand of an insignificant menial?”

  “And what would you do?”

  “I’d send a suitable emissary instead.”

  “An emissary.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “and what better emissary than the sole and beloved daughter-in-law of the duke himself ?” She paused, allowing her words to take effect. “Duke Geoffrey can easily refuse a letter in Ormand’s hand,” she concluded, “as you and I know only too well. But refuse me? Never.”

  Bernard considered this for a moment, tapping the silver base of his cup with a finger. What she suggested was not entirely without merit. He could already see certain advantages. If she went, she might obtain not only troops but money as well. And it was true that the old duke could never deny his daughter-in-law anything. He might fume and fret for a few days, but he would succumb to her wishes in the end.

  “Very well,” decided the baron abruptly, “you shall go. Ormand will accompany you—and your maidservants, of course—but you will bear the letter yourself and read it to the duke when you judge him in a favourable mood to grant our request.”

  Lady Agnes smiled and inclined her head in acquiescence to his desires. “As always, my husband, your counsel is impeccable.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Bran stirred his mount to speed. “Iwan!” he cried. At the sound of his name, the king’s champion raised himself in the saddle, and Bran saw blood oozing down the warrior’s padded leather tunic.

  “Bran!” the warrior gasped. “Bran, thank God. Listen—”

  “Iwan, what has happened? Where are the others?”

  “We were attacked at Wye ford,” he said. “Ffreinc—three hundred or more . . . sixty, maybe seventy knights, the rest footmen.”

  Lurching sideways, he seized the young prince by the arm. “Bran, you must ride . . . ,” he began, but his eyes rolled up into his head; he slumped and toppled from the saddle.

  Bran, holding tight to his arm, tried to lower his longtime friend more gently to the ground. Iwan landed hard nonetheless and sprawled between the horses. Bran slid off the mare and eased the wounded man onto his back. “Iwan! Iwan!” he said, trying to rouse him. “My father, the warband—where are the others?”