Tuck felt no less wounded than the next man, but when he considered how Bran and the others had risked their lives to bring Red William word of the conspiracy against him, it fair made his priestly blood boil. The king had promised justice. The Grellon had every right to expect that Elfael’s lawful king would be restored. Instead, William had merely banished Baron de Braose and his milksop nephew Count Falkes, sending them back to France to live in luxury on the baron’s extensive estates. Elfael, that small bone of contention, had instead become property of the crown and placed under the protection of Abbot Hugo and Sheriff de Glanville. Well, that was putting wolves in charge of the fold, was it not?
Where was the justice? A throne for a throne, Bran had declared that day in Rouen. William’s had been saved—at considerable cost and risk to the Cymry—but where was Bran’s throne?
S’truth, thought Tuck, wait upon a Norman to do the right thing and you’ll be waiting until your hair grows white and your teeth fall out.
“How long, O Lord? How long must your servants suffer?” he muttered. “And, Lord, does it have to be so blasted hot?”
He paused to wipe the sweat from his face. Running a hand over his round Saxon head, he felt the sun’s fiery heat on the bare spot of his tonsure; sweat ran in rivulets down the sides of his neck and dripped from his jowls. Drawing a deep breath, he tightened his belt, hitched up the skirts of his robe, and started off again with quickened steps. Soon his shoes were slapping up the dust around his ankles, and he began to overtake the rearmost members of the group: thirty souls in all, women and children included, for Bran had determined that his entire forest clan—save for those left behind to guard the settlement and a few others for whom the long journey on foot would have been far too arduous—should be seen by the king to share in the glad day.
The friar picked up his pace and soon drew even with Siarles: slim as a willow wand, but hard and knotty as an old hickory root. The forester walked with his eyes downcast, chin outthrust, his mouth a tight, grim line. Every line of him bristled with fury like a riled porcupine. Tuck knew to leave well enough alone and hurried on without speaking.
Next, he passed Will Scatlocke—or Scarlet, as he preferred. The craggy forester limped along slightly as he carried his newly acquired daughter, Nia. Against every expectation, Will had endured a spear wound, the abbot’s prison, and the threat of the sheriff ’s rope . . . and survived. His pretty dark-eyed wife, Noín, walked resolutely beside him. The pair had made a good match, and it tore at his heart that the newly married couple should have to endure a dark hovel in the forest when the entire realm begged for just such a family to settle and sink solid roots deep into the land—another small outrage to be added to the ever-growing mountain of injustices weighing on Elfael.
A few more steps brought him up even with Odo, the Norman monk who had befriended Will Scarlet in prison. At Scarlet’s bidding, the young scribe had abandoned Abbot Hugo to join them. Odo walked with his head down, his whole body drooping—whether with heat or the awful realization of what he had done, Tuck could not tell.
A few steps more and he came up even with Iwan—the great, hulking warrior would crawl on hands and knees through fire for his lord. It was from Iwan that the friar had received his current christening when the effort of wrapping his untrained tongue around the simple Saxon name Aethelfrith proved beyond him. “Fat little bag of vittles that he is, I will call him Tuck,” the champion had said. “Friar Tuck to you, boyo,” the priest had responded, and the name had stuck. God bless you, Little John, thought Tuck, and keep your arm strong, and your heart stronger.
Next to Iwan strode Mérian, just as fierce in her devotion to Bran as the champion beside her. Oh, but shrewd with it; she was smarter than the others and more cunning—which always came as something of a shock to anyone who did not know better, because one rarely expected it from a lady so fair of face and form. But the impression of innocence beguiled. In the time Tuck had come to know her, she had shown herself to be every inch as canny and capable as any monarch who ever claimed an English crown.
Mérian held lightly to the bridle strap of the horse that carried their wise hudolion, who was, so far as Tuck could tell, surely the last Banfáith of Britain: Angharad, ancient and ageless. There was no telling how old she was, yet despite her age, whatever it might be, she sat her saddle smartly and with the ease of a practiced rider. Her quick dark eyes were trained on the road ahead, but Tuck could tell that her sight was turned inward, her mind wrapped in a veil of deepest thought. Her wrinkled face might have been carved of dark Welsh slate for all it revealed of her contemplations.
Mérian glanced around as the priest passed, and called out, but the friar had Bran in his eye, and he hurried on until he was within hailing distance. “My lord, wait!” he shouted. “I must speak to you!”
Bran gave no sign that he had heard. He strode on, eyes fixed on the road and distance ahead.
“For the love of Jesu, Bran. Wait for me!”
Bran took two more steps and then halted abruptly. He straightened and turned, his face a smouldering scowl, dark eyes darker still under lowered brows. His shock of black hair seemed to rise in feathered spikes.
“Thank the Good Lord,” gasped the friar, scrambling up the dry, rutted track. “I thought I’d never catch you. We . . . there is something . . .” He gulped down air, wiped his face, and shook the sweat from his hand into the dust of the road.
“Well?” demanded Bran impatiently.
“I think we must get off this road,” Tuck said, dabbing at his face with the sleeve of his robe. “Truly, as I think on it now, I like not the look that Abbot Hugo gave me when we left the king’s yard. I fear he may try something nasty.”
Bran lifted his chin. The jagged scar on his cheek, livid now, twisted his lip into a sneer. “Within sight of the king’s house?” he scoffed, his voice tight. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“Would he not?”
“Dare what?” said Iwan, striding up. Siarles came toiling along in the big man’s wake.
“Our friar here,” replied Bran, “thinks we should abandon the road. He thinks Abbot Hugo is bent on making trouble.”
Iwan glanced back the way they had come. “Oh, aye,” agreed Iwan, “that would be his way.” To Tuck, he said, “Have you seen anything?”
“What’s this then?” inquired Siarles as he joined the group. “Why have you stopped?”
“Tuck thinks the abbot is on our tail,” Iwan explained.
“I maybe saw something back there, and not for the first time,” Tuck explained. “I don’t say it for a certainty, but I think someone is following us.”
“It makes sense.” Siarles looked to the frowning Bran. “What do you reckon?”
“I reckon I am surrounded by a covey of quail frightened of their own shadows,” Bran replied. “We move on.”
He turned to go, but Iwan spoke up. “My lord, look around you. There is little enough cover hereabouts. If we were to be taken by surprise, the slaughter would be over before we could put shaft to string.”
Mérian joined them then, having heard a little of what had passed. “The little ones are growing weary,” she pointed out. “They cannot continue on this way much longer without rest and water. We will have to stop soon in any event. Why not do as Tuck suggests and leave the road now—just to be safe?”
“So be it,” Bran said, relenting at last. He glanced around and then pointed to a grove of oak and beech rising atop the next hill up the road. “We will make for that wood. Iwan—you and Siarles pass the word along, then take up the rear guard.” He turned to Tuck and said, “You and Mérian stay here and keep everyone moving. Tell them they can rest as soon as they reach the grove, but not before.”
He turned on his heel and started off again. Iwan stood looking after his lord and friend. “It’s the vile king’s treachery,” he observed. “That’s put the black dog on his back, no mistake.”
Siarles, as always, took a different tone. “That
’s as may be, but there’s no need to bite off our heads. We en’t the ones who cheated him out of his throne.” He paused and spat. “Stupid bloody king.”
“And stupid bloody cardinal, all high and mighty,” continued Iwan. “Priest of the church, my arse. Give me a good sharp blade and I’d soon have him saying prayers he never said before.” He cast a hasty glance at Tuck. “Sorry, Friar.”
“I’d do the same,” Tuck said. “Now, off you go. If I am right, we must get these people to safety, and that fast.”
The two ran back down the line, urging everyone to make haste for the wood on the next hill. “Follow Bran!” they shouted. “Pick up your feet. We are in danger here. Hurry!”
“There is safety in the wood,” Mérian assured them as they passed, and Tuck did likewise. “Follow Bran. He’ll lead you to shelter.”
It took a little time for the urgency of their cries to sink in, but soon the forest-dwellers were moving at a quicker pace up to the wood at the top of the next rise. The first to arrive found Bran waiting at the edge of the grove beneath a large oak tree, his strung bow across his shoulder.
“Keep moving,” he told them. “You’ll find a hollow just beyond that fallen tree.” He pointed through the wood. “Hide yourselves and wait for the others there.”
The first travellers had reached the shelter of the trees, and Tuck was urging another group to speed and showing them where to go when he heard someone shouting up from the valley. He could not make out the words, but as he gazed around the sound came again and he saw Iwan furiously gesturing towards the far hilltop. He looked where the big man was pointing and saw two mounted knights poised on the crest of the hill.
The soldiers were watching the fleeing procession and, for the moment, seemed content to observe. Then one of the knights wheeled his mount and disappeared back down the far side of the hill.
Bran had seen it too, and began shouting. “Run!” he cried, racing down the road. “To the grove!” he told Mérian and Tuck. “The Ffreinc are going to attack!”
He flew to meet Iwan and Siarles at the bottom of the hill.
“I’d best go see if I can help,” Tuck said, and leaving Mérian to hurry the people along, he fell into step behind Bran.
“Just the two of them?” Bran asked as he came running to meet Siarles and Iwan.
“So far,” replied the champion. “No doubt the one’s gone to alert the rest. Siarles and I will take a stand here,” he said, bending the long ashwood bow to string it. “That will give you and Tuck time to get the rest of the folk safely hidden in the woods.”
Bran shook his head. “It may come to that one day, but not today.” His tone allowed no dissent. “We have a little time yet. Get everyone into the wood—carry them if you have to. We’ll dig ourselves into the grove and make Gysburne and his hounds come in after us.”
“I make it six bows against thirty knights,” Siarles pointed out. “Good odds, that.”
Bran gave a quick jerk of his chin. “Good as any,” he agreed. “Fetch along the stragglers and follow me.”
Iwan and Siarles darted away and were soon rushing the last of the lagging Grellon up the hill to the grove. “What do you want me to do?” Tuck shouted.
“Pray,” answered Bran, pulling an arrow from the sheaf at his belt and fitting it to the string. “Pray God our aim is true and each arrow finds its mark.”
Bran moved off, calling for the straggling Grellon to find shelter in the wood. Tuck watched him go. Pray? he thought. Aye, to be sure—the Good Lord will hear from me. But I will do more, will I not? Then he scuttled up the hill and into the wood in search of a good stout stick to break some heads.
CHAPTER 2
Swift and furtive as wild things, the women and children disappeared into the deep-shadowed grove. Bran called all the men together at the edge of the wood. “We have six bows,” he said. “Iwan, Siarles, Tomas, Rhoddi . . .” He paused, eyeing the men gathered around him, assessing their abilities. His gaze lit on one of the eager young men who had joined the Grellon following the loss of his family’s home to the Ffreinc. “You, Owain, will join me. I want a guard with each bowman to watch his back and retrieve any arrows that fall within easy reach. So now, archers and guards come with me. The rest of you go with Tuck and help protect the others.”
“If any of the Ffreinc get in behind us,” Bran told him, “you’ll have your hands full right enough. Tuck will tell you what to do.”
As Bran turned to lead his small group of archers to their places at the edge of the grove, a hand reached out and halted him. “Lend me a bow. I can draw.”
“We want to fight too,” said one of the men, speaking up.
Bran turned and shook his head. “I know, Will—when you’re healed and practiced.”
“Even crippled as I am I’d wager I can still draw better than anyone here—saving only yourself, my lord.”
“No doubt,” Bran allowed, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. “But let be today, Will.” Bran’s eyes slid past Will to Noín and Nia, and the young, round-shouldered, whey-faced Ffreinc monk hovering a few steps away. “Look after your family and your friend here—and take care of Angharad. See that none of them come to harm. That will be help enough.”
Bran hurried away to join the archers, and Will turned to the worried young monk behind him. “Come along, Odo,” he said. “Follow Noín and help her see to the old woman and her horse, and look sharp, unless you want Abbot Hugo to get his hands on you again.”
They hurried to join the others in the hollow, and Tuck gathered the rest. “This way!” he called, and led his crew of seven unarmed warriors to a small glade midway between the archers and the hollow where the rest of the Grellon had found their hiding places. “We will stand here,” he told them. Then, raising his stubby oak branch lengthwise, he held it high, saying, “Get one of these to hand quick as you can, and hurry back. We’ll make ourselves scarce behind the trees there, and there”—he pointed out the nearby boles of massive oaks—“and over there. If any Ffreinc get past Bran and the others we’ll do for ’em.”
The last words were still hanging in the air when there came a cry from the edge of the wood where Bran and the bowmen were waiting. As the shout echoed through the grove, they heard the fizzing whir of an arrow as it sped from the string. Almost instantly, there followed a short, sharp scream and a crash. A heartbeat later, a rider-less horse careered into the wood.
“Bless me,” remarked Tuck. Turning to his company, he said, “Get some wood in your hands, lads, and make a good account of yourselves. Go!”
As the forest-dwellers scattered, two knights burst into the grove in full gallop. One of them had an arrow sticking out of his shield, and the other had a shaft buried deep in his thigh. Both turned their horses and prepared to attack the archers from behind. But even as the great steeds slowed and came around, the soldiers seemed to crumple upon themselves; their weapons fell from slack hands, and both plunged from the saddle with arrows jutting from their backs like feathered quills.
Tuck heard a call from beyond the grove, and suddenly the attack was finished. They waited a few moments, and when no other riders appeared, the Grellon darted out to retrieve the arrows, pulling them from the dead knights.
“Here,” said Tuck, gathering the shafts, “I’ll take those. The rest of you get back out of sight.”
The friar quickly made his way to the edge of the grove, where the archers were hidden amongst the trees. He hurried to the first one he saw.
“Siarles,” he called softly. “What’s happened? Have we turned them away?”
“No, Brother,” replied the forester. “They’re down the valley.” He pointed down the slope, where a body of knights was milling about on horseback. “They’re just regrouping. They’ll charge again when they get their courage banked up.” He cast a glance behind him into the grove. “The two that broke through—what of them?”
“Dead, I think. Or as good as.” He handed over the retrieved arrows.
“That makes three, then,” said Siarles, sticking the shafts in the soft earth at his feet.
“God with you,” Tuck said, “and with your bow.” He made a hasty sign of the cross and hurried back to his place behind the tree to await the next attack. In a little while he heard the hard drumming of horses’ hooves. The sound grew, and when it seemed the riders must be on top of them, he heard the thin, singing whine of arrows streaking to their marks—followed by the awful clatter of horses and heavily armoured men crashing to earth.
The second attack faltered and broke off as quickly as the first, and for a moment all was quiet in the grove again, save for the agonized whinny of a dying horse. Again, Tuck waited a little space, and when nothing else seemed about to happen, out he crept and ran to speak to Siarles.
“Is that the last of them?”
“Maybe.” Siarles gestured with his bow toward the valley. “They’ve gone away again, but I can’t see what they’re up to this time.”
“Pray they’ve had enough and decided to go home and lick their wounds.” Tuck peered around the trunk of the tree to the near hillside, taking in the corpses of four more horses and men lying in the grass. But for the arrows sticking out of their bodies, they might have been napping in the sun. The guards of the archers were already at work pulling arrows from the bodies. “Looks like they’ve gone,” the friar concluded.
“Just to be sure, you and yours best stay hid until Bran says it’s safe to come out.”
The friar returned to his crew of defenders to find that they had stripped the weapons from the fallen knights. One of the Grellon offered him a sword. “Thanks, but no,” he replied. “You keep it. I’m at my best with a staff in my hand. I wouldn’t know what to do with an awkward long blade like that. Now get back to your places and stay alert.”
The third attack was long in coming, but when it came the Ffreinc struck as before, charging straight for the grove—and as before, the arrows sang and horses screamed. But this time three knights succeeded in getting past the archers. Arrows sprouting from shield and hauberk, they pounded into the grove swivelling this way and that, looking for something to slash with their swords.