Scarlet

  In the silence of the moment, Bran said, “By the power just bespoken, we seek justice for our people and freedom from the usurper and all who would oppress. We ask the Almighty Lord, who is ever swift to aid his children, to guide us in the task before us and grant us assurance of victory.”

  We all added our amens to that. And then Bran smiled.

  Oh, he could change quick as water! That smile was dark as the fearsome gleam in his eye. He was steeped in mischief as any imp, and itching to begin spreading discord and disorder among our enemies. He was that keen, I felt my own blood warm to the chase just the same as if we’d been out tramping the forest runs and spotted a fine, big stag to bring home.

  “There is much we do not know about this,” he said, pulling up the loop on which the ring hung around his neck, “but I am persuaded that we will not learn more by keeping it here in the forest. It has already caused death and destruction; I will not stand by and let it harm the people of Elfael more than it has already.”

  “Hear him! Hear him!” boomed Iwan heartily. No doubt, it had chafed him to remain behind while Siarles and I were away, and disappointed as we were that our journey had been for naught. Now that there was a prospect of something to be done, he was for it, every British scrap of him.

  “Well and good,” affirmed Tuck. “And what do you propose to do?”

  “We will give back the treasures taken in the raid.”

  “Give ’em back!” cried Siarles. “My lord, think what you are saying!”

  Bran silenced him with a glance. “I propose to return them before the sheriff hangs anyone.” Siarles huffed and rolled his eyes, but Bran’s smile deepened. “See here, we still have five days until Twelfth Night—five days before we give up the treasure,” he said. “Five days to learn why the Ffreinc place such high value on it.”

  “Good,” said Mérian. “That is the most sensible thing I have heard since Christmas. But if anyone thinks the sheriff will just let you walk into the castle and hand it over, you best think again.” She regarded us with a high and haughty glance. “Well, does anyone have any idea how to give back what was stolen without getting hung for a thief ? Does anyone have a plan?”

  Bran heard the iron in her tone and said, “You are right to remind us of the danger, my lady. And have you conceived such a plan?”

  “As it happens,” she answered, her satisfaction manifest, “I have.”

  “And will you yet tell us this plan?”

  “Gladly,” she answered, lowering her shapely head a little in deference to him. Turning again to those of us gathered around the king’s hearth, she added, “However, I am certain that once you have heard what I have to say, you will contrive an even better banquet on the bare boards I lay before you . . .”

  What did she say?” asks Odo. He raises his head and rubs the side of his nose in anticipation.

  “That,” I say with a great, gaping yawn, “must wait until tomorrow.”

  “Oh!” he whines. “You did that deliberately to spite me.”

  “We have talked long, brother monk, and I am tired,” I reply, drawing a hand down my face. “Leave me to my rest.”

  “You are a mean and spiteful man, Will Scarlet,” grumps Odo as he gathers up his inkpot and parchment.

  I roll onto my side and face the damp stone wall. “Close the door behind you,” I tell him as if already half asleep. “It does get cold down here of a night.”

  He hesitates at the door and says, “God with you this night, Will.” He shuffles off and I listen until his slow footfall has died away. Then I am alone in the dark with my thoughts once more.

  CHAPTER 24

  What did she say?” demands Brother Odo as he bustles breathless into my cell. He is that much like an overgrown puppy—all feet and foolish fervour—it makes me smile.

  It seems to me that my dull but amiable scribe is as much a prisoner of Abbot Hugo’s devices as Will Scarlet ever was. Here he sits most days, scribbling away in this dim, dank pit with its mud and mildew, the reek of piss and stagnant water in his nostrils, dutifully fulfilling his office, never complaining. What an odd friendship has grown between us. I wonder what it can hold, yes, and how much it can bear.

  “God with you this morning, Odo,” I reply.

  He settles himself in his place, the short plank balanced on his knees, and begins paring a new quill. “What did she say?”

  “Who?”

  “Mérian!” he shrieks, impatience making his soft voice shrill as an old fishwife’s. “You remember—do not pretend otherwise. We were talking about King Raven’s council.”

  “Soup and sausages,” I sigh, shaking my head in weary dismay. “Are you certain that’s what we were talking about? I must have slept the memory right out of my head. I have no recollection of it at all.”

  “I remember!” he cries. “Lord Bran called a council, and Mérian volunteered a plan she had devised.”

  “Yes? Go on,” I urge him. “What next?”

  “But that’s all I know,” he cries. He is that close to throwing his inkhorn at me. “That is where you stopped. You must remember what happened next.”

  “Peace, Odo,” I say, trying to placate him. “All is not lost. Remind me of what you have written, and we’ll see soon enough if that stirs the pot.”

  Odo busies himself with unrolling his scrap of parchment and unstopping his inkhorn.

  “Read it out,” I say, as he smoothes the sheepskin beneath his podgy palms. “Perhaps that will help me remember.”

  He begins, and I hear once again how he nips and crimps my words, giving them all a monkish cast. He bleeds them dry, and makes them all grey and damp like the greenwood in the grip of November. Still and all, he gets the gist of it, and renders my ramblings rather more agreeable than many would find them.

  What his high-nosed infernal majesty Abbot Hugo makes of all this, I cannot say.

  “. . . the captive Lady Mérian begged leave to reveal a plan she had made. The rebels fell silent to hear what she would say . . .” He stops here and looks up expectantly. “That is where we ended for the night.”

  “If you say,” I tell him, shaking my head slowly. It is all I can do to keep from laughing. “But my head is a cup scoured clean this morning.”

  Odo makes a face and grinds his teeth in frustration. “Well, then, what do you remember?”

  “I remember something . . .” I pause and reflect a little. Ah, yes, how well I remember. “See now, monk, when the council finished I returned to Nóin’s hut,” I tell him, and we go on . . .

  Nóin was not in her hut when I returned, nor was Nia. The council had taken the whole of the morning, and they had gone out to do some chores; so I went along to find them and lend a hand. The snow still lay deep over our ragtag little settlement, and the day, though bright, was cold. Many of King Raven’s rag-feathered flock were at work chopping and splitting wood for the many hearth fires needed to keep warm. I could hear their voices sharp in the crisp air, chirping like birds as they toiled to fill their baskets and drag bundles of cut wood back to their huts. I saw this now, as I had seen such work countless times since coming to Cél Craidd, but this time something had changed.

  Maybe it was only ol’ Will Scarlet himself, but I did see the place in a different way, and did not much like what I saw. It put me in an edgy, uneasy mood, and I did not know why. Perhaps it was only to do with the bad news I had just now to deliver.

  Oh, it was that, to be sure, but perhaps there was something else as well.

  Even so, thinking to make the bitter draught a little easier to swallow, I put a big smile on my face and tried to take cheer in the sight of my beloved. But my heart was weighty and cold as a stone in a mountain stream. I saw Nóin bending low to pick up a split branch, and thought how I would love nothing more than to carry her away this instant to leave this place and its demands and duties, to flee far away from the bastard Normans and their overbearing ways. Alas, there was no longer such a place in all Britain. It made
me sad and angry and disappointed and frustrated all at the same time, because I did not know what to do about it and feared nothing could be done.

  I gathered my thoughts and, swallowing my disappointment, strode to where Nóin was working. “Here, my love,” I said, “let me carry that basket for you. Heap it high now, so you won’t have to fetch any more today.”

  She stood and turned with a smile. “Ah, Will,” she began, then saw something in my face I was not able to hide. “What is it, love?”

  She looked at me with such tender concern, how could I tell her?

  “The council has decided . . . ,” I said, hearing my voice as from the bottom of a well. “We have come to a decision.”

  Nóin’s smile faded; she grew sombre. “Well, what is it,Will? Speak it out.”

  I bent my head. “I have to leave again.”

  “Is that all?” She fairly shouted with relief. “Mother Mary, I was afraid it was serious.”

  “I thought you would be unhappy.”

  “Oh, I am right enough,” she replied, balling her fist on her hip. “But I would be more unhappy if I thought you had changed your mind about marrying.”

  “But I do want to marry you, Nóin. I do.”

  “Then all is well between us.” She turned as if to go back to her work, but paused. “When do you go?”

  “As soon as all can be made ready,” I said.

  “Go, then and help them see it through. We will fare as best we can while you are away,” she said, lifting a hand to my face, “and count the days until your return.”

  “I will bring our friar back with me if I have to carry him on my back, and we will be wed the day I return.” This I told her, kissing the palm of her hand. We talked about our wedding day and the plans I had to build her a new house on my return—with a big bed, a table, and two chairs.

  So it was, the five of us were set to leave the next morning: Friar Tuck and myself; Bran, of course; Iwan, because we could use another pair of hands and eyes on the road; Mérian because the plan was her idea entire, and she would in no wise stay behind in any event.

  However, this notion was not without difficulties of its own and, though I was loath to do it, the chore fell to me to point this out. “Forgive me, my lord, if I speak above myself,” I began, “but is it wise for a hostage—begging your pardon, my lady—to . . . well, to be allowed to enter into affairs of such delicacy?”

  “You doubt my loyalty?” challenged Mérian, dark eyes all akindle with quick anger. “I thought I knew you better, William Scatlocke.”

  “I do heartily beg your pardon, Lady,” I said, raising my hands as if to fend off blows of her fists. “I only meant—”

  “Here’s the pot calling the kettle black!” she fumed. “That is rich indeed, my friend!”

  Siarles smiled to see me handed my head so skilfully. But Bran waded into the clash. “Mérian, peace. Will is right.”

  “Right!” she snapped. “He is a fool, and so are you if you believe for even one heartbeat that I would ever do anything to endanger—”

  “Peace, woman!” Bran said, shouting down her objection. “If you would listen for a moment, you would consider that Will has raised a fair point.”

  “It is not,” she sniffed. “It is silly and insulting—I don’t know which the more.”

  “No, it is neither.” Bran shook his head. “It goes to the heart of things between us. The time has come for you to decide, Mérian Fair.”

  “Decide what?” she asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  “Are you a hostage, or are you one of us?”

  She frowned. “You tell me, Bran ap Brychan. What am I to you?”

  “You know that right well. I would call you queen if you would but hear it.”

  Her frown deepened, and a crease appeared between her brows. She was caught on the thorns this time, no mistake—and she knew it. “See here!” she snapped. “Do not think to make this about that.”

  “Say what you will, my lady. It comes ’round to the same place in the end—either you stand with us, join us in heart and spirit or . . .”

  “Or?” she replied, haughty in her indignation. “Or what will you do?”

  “Or you must stay here like a good little hostage,” Bran replied, “while we enact your plan.”

  “That I will not do,” she snipped.

  “Then?”

  Those of us who stood ’round about found other places to look just then, so as not to be drawn into what had become the latest clash in a royal battle of tempers and wills.

  Mérian glared at Bran. She did not like having her loyalty questioned, but even she could see the problem now.

  “What will you do?” Bran pressed. “We are waiting.”

  “Oh, very well!” she fumed, giving in. “I will forswear my captivity and pledge fealty to you, Bran ap Brychan—but I’ll not marry you.” She smiled with sour sweetness at the rest of us. “There! Are we all happy now?”

  “I accept your pledge,” replied Bran, “and release you from your captivity.”

  “Then I can go with you?” inquired Mérian, just to make sure.

  “My lady, you are a free woman,” granted Bran gently, and I could see how much the words cost him. “You can go with us, or you can simply go. Should you choose to stay, you will be in danger—as you already know.”

  “I am not afraid,” she declared. “It is my plan, remember, and I will not have any clod-footed men mucking it up.”

  She was not finished yet, for as we gathered to depart, Mérian spied a woman named Cinnia, a slender, dark-eyed young widow a few years older than herself, Mérian’s favourite amongst the forest dwellers—another of the Norman-widowed brides of which there were so many. My lady asked Cinnia to join us. She would serve as a companion for Mérian, who explained, “A woman of rank would never travel alone in the company of men. The Ffreinc understand this. Cinnia will be my handmaid.”

  We loaded our supplies and weapons—longbows and sheaves of arrows rolled in deer hides—onto two packhorses. When we were at last ready to depart, Tuck said a prayer for the success of our journey, although he could have no idea what he was praying. Thus blessed, we took our leave. Angharad was still gone, so Tomas and Rhoddi were charged with keeping watch over Cél Craidd and Elfael while Lord Bran was away, and to reach us with a warning if the sheriff got up to anything nasty.

  Thus, on a splendid winter’s day, we rode out to beard the sleeping lion in his den.

  What is that, Odo? I have not told what we planned to do?” My weak-eyed scribe thinks I have skipped too lightly over this important detail. “All in good time,” I tell him. “Patience is also a virtue, impetuous monk. You should try it.”

  He moans and sighs, rolls his eyes and dips his pen, and we go on . . .

  CHAPTER 25

  Coed Cadw

  Richard de Glanville watched the forest rising before him like the rampart of a vast green fortress, the colours muted and misty in the pale winter light. Just ahead lay the stream that ran along the valley floor at the foot of the rise leading to the forest. He raised his hand and summoned the man riding behind him to his side. “We will stop to water the horses, Bailiff,” he said. “Tell the men to remain alert.”

  “Of course,” replied the bailiff in a voice that suggested he had heard the command a thousand times and it did not bear repeating.

  The man’s tone of dry irritation piqued his superior’s attention. “Tell me, Antoin,” said the sheriff, “do you think we will catch the phantom today?”

  “No, Sheriff,” replied the bailiff. “I do not think it likely.”

  “Then why did you come on this sortie?”

  “I came because I was ordered thus, my lord.”

  “But of course,” allowed Sheriff de Glanville. “Even so, you think it a fool’s errand. Is that so?”

  “I did not say that,” replied the soldier. He was used to the sheriff ’s dark and unpredictable moods, and rightly cautious of them. “I say mere
ly that the Forest of the March is a very big place. I expect the phantom has moved on.”

  The sheriff considered this suggestion. “There is no phantom, Bailiff. There are only a devil’s clutch of Welsh rebels.”

  “However that may be,” replied Antoin blandly, “I have no doubt your persistence and vigilance has driven them away.”

  De Glanville regarded his bailiff with benign disdain. “As always, Antoin, your insights are invaluable.”

  “King Raven will be caught one day, God willing.”

  “But not today—is that what you think?”

  “No, Sheriff, not today,” confessed the soldier. “Still, it is a good day for a ride in the greenwood.”

  “To be sure,” agreed the sheriff, reining up as they reached the fording place. The water was low, and ice coated the stones and banks of the slow-moving stream. Sir Richard did not dismount, but remained in the saddle, swathed in his riding cloak and leather gauntlets, his eyes on the natural wall of bare timber rising on the slope of the ridge before him. Coed Cadw, the locals called it; the name meant “Guardian Wood,” or “Sheltering Forest,” or some such thing he had never really discovered for certain. Whatever it was called, the forest was a stronghold, a bastion as mighty and impenetrable as any made of stone. Perhaps Antoin was right. Perhaps King Raven had flown to better pickings elsewhere.

  When the horses had finished drinking and his soldiers had taken their saddles once more, the sheriff lifted the reins and urged his mount across the ford and up the long slope. In a little while, he and the four knights with him passed beneath the bare, snow-covered boughs of elm trees on either side of the road and entered the greenwood as through an arched doorway.

  The quiet hush of the snowbound forest fell upon him, and the winter light dimmed. As he proceeded along the deep-shadowed track into the wood, the sheriff ’s senses pricked, wary to a presence unseen; his sight became keen, his hearing more acute. He could smell the faint whiff of sour earth that told him a red deer stag had passed a short while earlier, or was lying in a hidden den somewhere nearby.