Scarlet

  We started out across the square and, as we passed in front of the church, the door opened and out came a gaggle of monks carrying torches. Prayers finished, I suppose they were returning to the abbey and were brought up short by the sight of two men makin’ off with a third.

  “Tell them he’s drunk and we’re taking him home,” Bran said. “Quick, Will, tell them!”

  I did as he commanded, and that might have succeeded—as indeed we thought for a fleeting moment that it had—but for the knights that appeared out of the night. We heard the sound of hooves and turned to see the three missing soldiers pounding into the square.

  There we were, Bran and Will Scarlet with Sheriff de Glanville slung between us like a bag of wet corn—thieves caught with the plunder in hand.

  “Arrêt! Vous, arrêtez là-bas! ” shouted the foremost knight.

  “He says we are to halt,” I told Bran.

  “I got that. Keep going,” urged Bran. “We’ll lose them when we get to the horses.”

  “Ils ont tué le shérif!” shouted another.

  I might have misunderstood, but that brought me up short. “They’ve recognised the sheriff,” I gasped. “They think we’ve killed him.”

  “Tell them they’re wrong,” said Bran. “Tell them he’s a friend of ours fallen drunk. But for God’s sake, keep moving!”

  I shouted back as Bran commanded, but the knights came on regardless. As they drew nearer, I saw that one of them carried a bulky bundle across the back of his horse. As the knight passed into the torchlight, I saw a dark head of hair and small arms hanging limply down and knew at once what they had captured.

  “Bran!” I hissed, dropping the sheriff ’s heels. “They’ve got Gwion Bach!”

  CHAPTER 32

  The knights rode on, drawing their weapons as they came. One of them shouted for us to halt. “Arrêt! Arrêt!” Bran released the sheriff ’s shoulders. De Glanville landed heavily on the frozen ground, which seemed to revive the fella somewhat. He grunted and rolled over.

  We streaked down the side of the church, shouting to Iwan and Siarles that we were attacked. We rounded the corner to discover that those two had not yet returned from the stables. But Tomas was there, waiting with longbows strung and swords unsheathed. We each grabbed a bow and a handful of arrows and spread out, keeping the wall of the church behind us.

  The soldiers did not stop to help the sheriff—no doubt they thought him dead already—but came pounding around the corner of the church and into a sharp hail of arrows. We loosed at will. One rider was struck high in the chest and thrown over the rump of his mount.

  The two remaining knights tried to swerve out of the way, but horses are far from the nimblest creatures afoot. As they slowed to turn, we drew and loosed again. A second knight went down, and the third—the one with Gwion bound to his saddle—threw his hands high in surrender.

  “Get the horses!” shouted Bran. Tomas and I ran to catch the two riderless mounts, and Bran took care of the third. He gestured with a strung arrow for the knight to dismount and lay down flat on the ground, then ever so gently lifted the head of the boy. “Gwion? Gwion, wake up.”

  The lad opened his eyes, saw Bran, and began to cry. Bran untied him double quick, lifted him down from the horse, and began rubbing the warmth back into the little ’un’s hands and feet. “Will!” he shouted as I came running back. “Go see what has happened to Iwan and Siarles.”

  I skittered down the side of the church towards the square. The sheriff still lay where we had dropped him, sound asleep again in his drunken stupor. The square was empty; the monks had disappeared—either back into the church or, more likely, they’d scurried off to the abbey. I ran to the stables and quietly pulled open the door. First to meet my eye were three Ffreinc grooms lying on the floor of the stable, dead or unconscious, I could not tell. Iwan and Siarles were cinching the saddle straps of the last two mounts.

  “Hsst!” I said, putting my head through the gap in the door. “What is taking so long?”

  Iwan glanced around as he pulled the strap tight. “We had to put some fellas to sleep,” he said. “We’re ready now.”

  “Then hurry!” I said. “We’ve been attacked.”

  “How many?” asked Siarles, gathering the reins of two fresh horses.

  “Three knights,” I said. “Two are down and the other surrendered. Hurry!”

  I pulled open the stable doors, allowing Iwan and Siarles to lead the saddled horses out; they headed down the short ramp and into the quiet square. All was silent and dark.

  Just as we started across to the church, however, the door to the guardhouse opened and out swarmed six knights or more. “Bloody blazes!” I said. “The monks must have told them. Fly!”

  The Ffreinc saw us with the horses and cried for us to stop. Iwan leapt into the saddle of his mount and lit out for the church across the square, with Siarles right behind. I paused to loose an arrow at the soldiers, thinking to take at least one down. I missed the mark, but the arrow buried itself in the door frame. One fella, who was still inside, slammed the door hard, which briefly prevented any more Ffreinc from spilling out.

  That was the last of my arrows, so I turned and hightailed it after the others. I ran but a half dozen strides and my leg buckled under me and I fell. In the same instant, a pain like no other ripped through the meaty part of my thigh. Reaching down, I felt the shaft of a lance. The spear had hit the ground and caught me as it bounced up. Even as I lay clutching the wound, with blood streaming through my fingers, I thought, That was lucky. I could have been killed. Hard on the heels of this thought came the next: Will, you bloody fool! Get up or they’ll be carving your dull head from your shoulders.

  I got to my feet and staggered forward; my injured leg felt like a lump of wood on fire, but I limped on. Bran and Iwan, mounted now, came charging from around the back of the church, bows in hand. Both loosed arrows at my pursuers, and two soldiers fell, screaming and rolling on the hard winter ground. Siarles, cradling Gwion in the saddle before him and holding the reins of one of the big Ffreinc horses, rode out to meet me. “Time to go,” he said, tossing the reins to me.

  I caught the traces and tried to haul my foot to the stirrup, but could not lift my leg. I tried once and missed. The Ffreinc were almost upon us. “Go on! Ride!” I said. “I’m right behind you.”

  Siarles wheeled his mount and galloped away without a backward glance as I tried once more to get my clumsy foot into the stirrup. I did catch the bar with my toe, but the horse, frightened by the noise and confusion, jigged sideways. My hands, slippery with blood, could not hold, and the reins slipped from my grasp. Unbalanced on one leg, I fell on my back, squirming on the frozen ground. I was still trying to get my feet under me when the Ffreinc rushed up and laid hold of me.

  I glimpsed a swift motion above me, and the butt of a spear crashed down on my poor head . . .

  So that, Odo, is how they caught me,” I tell him. He lifts his ink-stained hand from the page and looks at me with his soft, sad eyes. I shrug. “All the rest you know.”

  “The others got away,” he says, and the resignation in his voice is that thick you could stuff it in your shoe.

  “They did. Got clean away,” I reply. “Fortunate for me that the sheriff was sleeping like the drunken lump he was, or I would have been strung high long since. By the time he woke up, Abbot Hugo already had me bound hand and foot and was determined to have his wicked way with me.”

  Odo scratches the side of his nose with the feathered end of his quill. He is trying to think of something, or has thought of something and is trying to think how to say it. I can see him straining at the thought. But as I have all the time God sends me, I do not begrudge him the time it takes to spit it out.

  “About that night,” he says at last. “Did Siarles leave you behind on purpose?”

  “Well, I’ve asked myself the same thing once and again. Truth is, I don’t know. Could he have helped me get away? He did bring the horse, mind. C
ould he have helped me more than he did? Yes. But remember, he had Gwion Bach with him, and any help he could have offered me would have risked all three of us. Could he have told Iwan or Bran to come back for me? Yes, he could have done that. For all I know, maybe he did. But then again, the Ffreinc were on me that quick, I don’t think anyone could save me getting captured.” I spread my hands and give him a shrug. “He did, more or less, what I would have done, I suppose.”

  “You would have made sure he got away, Will,” Odo asserts.

  “Why, Odo, what a thing to say,” I reply. “A fella’d think you cared what happened to ol’ Will here.”

  He makes a worm face and looks down at his scrap of parchment.

  “You have to remember that it was dark and cold, and everything was happening very fast,” I say. “I doubt anyone could have done more than they did. It was bad luck, is all. Bad luck from the beginning if you ask me.” I pause to reflect on that night. “No,” I conclude, “the only regret I have is that we didn’t kill the sheriff when we had the chance.”

  “Why didn’t you kill him?”

  “We had some idea of holding him to justice,” I say, and shake my head. “I suspect Bran wanted to make him answer before the king. God knows how we would have brought that about. Bran had a way, I guess. He has a way for most things.”

  Odo nods. He is thinking. I can see the tiny wheels turning in his head. “What about the ring and the letter?” he wants to know.

  “What about them?”

  “Well,” says he, “who were they for?”

  “Now, I’ve thought about that, too. The letter was addressed to the pope, so I suppose they were for him.”

  “Which pope?”

  I stare at him. “The pope—head of the Mother Church.”

  “Will, there are two popes.”

  Dunce that he is, some of the most fuddling things come out of his mouth. “There are not two popes,” I tell him.

  “There are.”

  He seems quite certain of this.

  I hold up two fingers—my bowstring fingers—and repeat, “Two popes? I’ll wager a whole ham on the hoof that you didn’t mean that just now. It cannot happen.”

  “It can,” he assures me. “It happens all the time.”

  “See now, Odo, have you been staring at the sun again?” I shake my head slowly. “Two popes! Whoever heard of such a thing? Next you’ll be tellin’ me the moon is a bowl of curds and whey.”

  Odo favours me with one of his smug and superior smirks. “I do not know about the moon, but it happens from time to time that the church must choose between two popes. So it is now. I do not wonder that, living in the forest as you do, you might not have heard about this.”

  “How in the name of Holy Peter, James, and John has it come about?”

  I have him now. A wrinkle appears on Odo’s smooth brow. “I do not know precisely what has happened.”

  “Aha! You see! You think to play me for a fool, monk, but I won’t be played.”

  “No, no,” he insists, “there are two popes right enough.” It is, he contends, merely that the facts of such an event taking place so far away are difficult to obtain, and more difficult still to credit. All that can be said for certain is that there has been some kind of disagreement among the powers governing the Holy Church. “Papal succession came under question,” he tells me. “How it fell out this time, I cannot say. But kings and emperors always try to influence the decision.”

  “Now that I can believe, at least.” Indeed, this last did not surprise me overmuch. It is all the same with kings of every stripe; nothing they get up to amazes me anymore. But as Odo spoke, I began to discern the glimmering of suspicion that this strange event and the appearance of the ring and letter in Elfael might in some way share a common origin, or a common end. Find the truth of one, and I might well discover the truth of the other.

  “No doubt this is what has caused the rift this time.”

  “Go on,” I tell him. “I’m listening.”

  “However it came about, the disagreement has resulted in a dispute in which the two opposing camps have each chosen their own successor who claims to be the rightful pontiff.”

  “Two popes,” I mutter. “Will wonders never cease?”

  Odo has been toying with the scrap of parchment before him. “This is what made me think of it,” he says, and holds up the ragged little shred. There, in one corner of the scrap, someone has drawn a coat of arms. I glance at it and make to hand it back. My hand stops midway, and I jerk back the parchment. “Wait!”

  I study the drawing more closely. “I’ve seen this before,” I tell him. “It is on the ring. Odo, do you know whose arms these are?”

  “The arms of Pope Clement,” he says. “At least, that is what the abbot has said.”

  “Abbot Hugo told you that?”

  Odo nods.

  I regard him with an excitement I have not felt for months. Odo has never lied to me. That is, perhaps, his singular virtue. I think about what he has said before speaking again. “But see here,” I say slowly, “it is not Clement we recognise as head of the church. It is Urban.”

  “This is the difficulty,” he replies. “Some hold with Urban, others with Clement.”

  “Yes, as you say. Now, Odo, my faithful scribe, tell me the truth.”

  “Always, Will.”

  “Which Pope does Baron de Braose support?”

  He answers without hesitation, his tone flat, almost mocking. “Clement, of course.”

  I hear that in his tone which strikes a tiny spark of hope in my empty heart. “The way you say it, a fella’d think you didn’t entirely approve.”

  “It is not for me to approve or disapprove,” he counters.

  “Perhaps not,” I allow slowly, desperate to keep alive that wee spark. “Perhaps not, as you say. Probably it is better to let the kings and nobles fight it out amongst themselves. No doubt they know best.”

  Odo yawns and stretches. He gathers his inkhorn and his penknife, stands, and shuffles to the door of my cell, where he hesitates. “God with you, Will,” he says, almost embarrassed, it seems.

  “God with you, Odo,” I reply. When he has gone I lie awake listening to the dogs bark, and thinking that there is something very important in all this two popes business . . . if this dull head of mine could only get a grip on what it might be.

  CHAPTER 33

  Coed Cadw

  The damage was done. In a single ill-advised, ignorant stroke, Bran had dashed Angharad’s carefully considered design for defeating the Ffreinc invaders and driving them from Elfael. In a mad, impulsive rush he had destroyed months of subtle labour and, she could well imagine, stirred the ire of the enemy to white-hot vengeance. For this and much else, the hudolion blamed Bran—but, more, she blamed herself. Angharad had allowed herself to believe that she had weaned Bran away from that unreasoning rage that he had possessed when she first met him, that she had at long last extinguished the all-consuming fire of an anger that, like the awen of the legendary champions of old, caused the lord of Elfael to forget himself, plunging him into the bloodred flames of battle madness—a worthy attribute for a warrior, perhaps, but unhelpful in a king. No mistake, it was a king she wanted for Elfael, not merely another warrior.

  Alas, there was nothing for it now but to pick up the pieces and see if anything could be salvaged from the wreckage of that disastrous attempt to capture the sheriff.

  What she had seen in the cave while testing the onrushing stream of time and events had caused her to return to Cél Craidd with as much haste as she could command. Her old bones could not move with anything near their former speed, and she had arrived too late to prevent Bran from acting on his ludicrous scheme. The small warband had already departed for Saint Martin’s, and the die was cast.

  The wise hudolion was waiting when the raiders returned. Dressed in her Bird Spirit cloak, she stood beneath the Council Oak and greeted them when they returned. “All hail, Great King,” she crowed, ?
??the people of Elfael can enjoy their peace this night because you have gained for them a mighty victory over the Ffreinc.” As the rest of the forest tribe gathered, she said, “I see a riderless horse. Where is Will Scarlet?”

  “Captured,” Bran muttered. There was a stifled cry from the crowd, and Nóin rushed away from the gathering.

  “Captured, is he?” the hudolion cooed. “Oh, that is a fine thing indeed. Was that in your plan, Wise King?”

  Heartsick over his failure, he knew full well that he had made a grave and terrible mistake and was not of a mood to endure her mockery—deserved as it might be. “Silence, woman! I will not hear it. We will speak of this tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” she croaked, “the rising sun will make all things new, and the deeds done in darkness will vanish like the shadows.”

  “You go too far!” Bran growled. Weary, and grieving the loss of Will, he wanted nothing more than to slink away to his hut and, like the beaten hound he was, lick his wounds. “See here,” he said, pointing to Gwion Bach as Siarles eased the lad down from his mount. “We rescued the boy from the Ffreinc. They would have killed him.”

  “Oh? Indeed?” she queried, her eyes alight with anger. “Has it not yet occurred to you that the boy was caught only because he was following you?”

  Bran drew breath to reply but, realizing she was right, closed his mouth again and turned away from her scorn.

  When Bran did not answer, the old woman said, “Too late you show wisdom, O King. Too late for Will Scarlet. Go now to your rest, and before you sleep, pray for the man whose trust you have betrayed this night. Pray God to keep him and uphold him in the midst of his enemies.”

  That is exactly what Bran did. Miserable in his failure, he prayed the comfort of Christ for Will Scarlet, that the All-sustaining Spirit would keep his friend safe until he could be rescued or redeemed.

  The next morning, Lord Bran gathered the Grellon and formally confessed his failure: they had not succeeded in taking the sheriff, and Will Scarlet had been captured instead. Nóin, who already knew the worst, did not join the others, but remained in her hut taking consolation with Mérian. Bran went to her to beg forgiveness and offer reassurance. “We will not rest until we have secured Will’s release,” he promised.