“Surrender!” scoffed Gysburne. “Your surrender, I expect.”
“No, my lord,” replied Alan a’Dale. “The surrender of Abbot Hugo and yourself, and those of your men still alive. You will bring the abbot now so that we can begin.”
A knight moved to take his place beside the marshal. “You must be insane,” he charged, “coming here like this.” He flung an accusing finger at the outlaw band. “Come down off your horses, you filthy dogs. We will settle this here and now!”
Bran leaned near his interpreter and spoke a few words, which Alan passed on, speaking to Gysburne. “Who is this man? My lord wishes to know.”
“I am Captain Aloin, by the blood! Come down here and—”
“Hear me, Marshal Gysburne,” interrupted Alan, “you will tell your man to hold his tongue. We have nothing to say to him.”
“You arrogant dog!” sneered Guy. He spat on the ground in a show of contempt. “There will be no talk of surrender.”
Alan paused to confer with Bran, then nodded and continued, “Rhi Bran urges you to take a good, long look around you, Marshal,” he said. “Unless you wish to join your men here in the square—or out in the ground behind the abbey—you will do well to reconsider.”
Gysburne and Aloin exchanged a word, and the marshal replied, “We hold this realm by order of King William—”
“You have gone against my lord’s longbows twice today and have been beaten both times. Do you truly wish to try again? If so, be assured that you and the sheriff will be the first to die—and then what is left of your men will join you.” Alan paused to allow this to sink in among all those listening. Then, in a plaintive tone, he added, “Think, man. There has been enough killing today. Bring the abbot and let him surrender and put an end to the bloodshed.”
Bran lifted the sword in his hand and, from their saddles, the archers on either flank bent the bellies of their longbows.
Guy hesitated a moment more, then called out, “Sergeant Jeremias, do as he says. Fetch the abbot.”
“Prudence is a virtue,” Tuck muttered under his breath as he watched the sergeant dart up the stone steps of the tower, “and wisdom is gained through trials of many kinds.”
“Most always too late,” added Scarlet.
There followed a tense and uneasy interval in which both sides glared across the square at one another. Captain Aloin, seeing that there were but six Cymry archers, one ragged monk, and an unarmed translator, was for rushing them on the chance that his few healthy knights might overwhelm them. “We can take them,” Aloin whispered. “At most they’ll only get an arrow or two off before we cut them down.”
“Yes, and it’s the first arrow that kills you,” replied Marshal Guy. “Have you already forgotten what happened at the farm?”
“It is madness to deal with them.”
“That is as may be,” granted Gysburne. “But do you really want to add another slaughter to your tally today? It is the abbot they want. So, we let him decide.”
At last the abbot appeared, and owing to the look of stunned horror on his face he hardly seemed the same man. Clearly, the last thing he expected of this day was to find his enemy standing in the town square delivering demands of capitulation. But that was how things stood.
“Bouchers!” he snarled as he came striding up, trying to rouse his innate defiance. “Les meurtres!”
“Pax l’abbé!” shouted Bran across the yard. “Your life and those of your men is in our hands. Be quiet and listen if you want that life to continue another breath longer.”
Alan relayed these words to the abbot, who subsided. “Ask him what he wants—my head on a silver platter, I suppose?”
Bran smiled when he heard this, and replied, “No, Abbot. Your head is worth less than the trouble it would take to carve it from your scabby shoulders. But here is what I want: you are to lay down your arms and leave Elfael—you and all your men, and any of the townsfolk who choose to go with you.”
Alan translated Bran’s demand, and the abbot’s face darkened.
“See here!” he protested. “You have no ri—”
“You sent soldiers against me today, and the issue has been decided. I claim the victor’s right to the spoils. If you would keep your life, you must leave this place and never return.”
“Allow me a moment to confer with my commander,” said the abbot when Alan had finished. Without waiting for a reply, he turned to Marshal Gysburne. “Idiot, do something—you just stand there. Attack! Kill them.”
“The first man to advance against them is dead where he stands, my lord abbot,” replied Guy. “So, please, by all means lead the way.”
“But they cannot get away with this—just like that.”
“Just like that? They’ve killed nearly forty of our men today already, priest!” Gysburne’s voice was an ugly growl. “Are you blind as well as stupid? Look around you. The soldiers you see on their feet are all we have left. How many more must die to satisfy your insane ambitions?”
The abbot gazed around at his sorely beaten troops, as if seeing them for the first time. “This is all we have left?”
“Every last one,” replied Gysburne.
“Where are the rest?”
“Either dead or dying—and I’m not joining them. Not like this. Not today.”
“The marshal is right, Abbot,” conceded Captain Aloin at last. “Make the best bargain you can, and we’ll go back to the king and raise a force large enough to vanquish these bandits for once and all. We were beaten today, but the war is not over. We live to fight again.”
Bran, having permitted them to speak freely, signalled Alan to bring the discussion to an end. “Enough!” he called. “What is it to be? Lord Bran says you must give your answer now.”
Abbot Hugo drew himself up to full height. He lifted his head, some of the old defiance returning. “I agree to nothing,” he announced, “until you accept our conditions.”
“What conditions?” Bran asked, when Alan informed him of the abbot’s reply. “Perhaps you will accept the same conditions you offered those farm families this morning?”
The abbot’s lip curled into a silent snarl.
“I thought not,” continued Bran, speaking through Alan. “Here are the conditions I offer: you are to depart now, taking nothing with you but the clothes on your back.”
This reply occasioned a long and impassioned plea from the abbot.
“What did he say?” Bran asked.
“The coward is afraid you mean to slaughter them all the moment their backs are turned. He wants safe conduct to the border of Elfael.”
“Tell him he can have that, and gladly,” agreed Bran. “Also, tell him that as long as he abides by the terms of surrender, no one will be killed.”
When this was relayed to the abbot, the cleric made another impassioned speech.
“Now what does he want?” said Bran, losing his patience.
“He says he needs time to gather his things—his papers and such,” said Alan.
“I wouldn’t trust him further than I could spit,” muttered Tuck. “Look at him—the old devil. He probably means to empty the treasury before he goes.”
“I know I would,” added Scarlet.
“Do not let them out of your sight,” said Iwan. “There’s no telling what he might get up to.”
“They have to leave now,” insisted Siarles. “With nothing but the clothes on their backs.”
Bran lifted the reins and urged his mount a few steps closer. “Hear me, Abbot. That you live to draw breath when so many who served you are dead this day is insult to heaven above and God’s creatures below. You will go now, taking only what you have hidden in your robes. Your men are to lay down their arms now. When that is done, you will all be escorted from Elfael—never to return on pain of death.”
“What about the wounded?” said Gysburne. “They cannot travel.”
Bran held a quick consultation with Tuck and Iwan, and Alan relayed the decision. “They will conti
nue to be cared for by the monks of the abbey until they are well enough to leave.” He pointed to the sheriff, who sat slumped in the saddle with his head down, miserable in defeat. “When the last is fit to travel, all will be sent along with the monks in the care of the sheriff. To ensure that this agreement is upheld, de Glanville will remain a hostage until that time. His life is forfeit if you fail to honour your part.”
“You mean to kill them all anyway as soon as we’re gone,” said Gysburne.
As Alan relayed the marshal’s words, Bran gazed at his adversary with an expression so hard it might have been carved of stone. “Tell him,” he replied, “that if I meant to kill them, they would be dead already.”
“How do we know you’ll keep your word?” demanded Aloin when the translator finished.
“You will all die here and now if the surrender is not agreed,” said Alan. “My lord Bran says that if his word is not acceptable, then you are free to take your wounded with you now.”
The abbot did not like this last proviso, and made to dispute it, but Bran would not relent. In the end, Gysburne sealed the bargain by turning the sword in his hand and throwing it down in the dirt halfway between himself and Bran.
“God in heaven be praised!” said Tuck. “I do believe they’re going to surrender. You’ve done it, Bran. You beautiful man, you’ve done it!”
“Steady on, Friar,” replied Bran. “This is not finished yet by a long throw. We are dancing on a knife edge here; pray we don’t yet slip.” He cast his gaze around the square. “I greatly fear a fall now would prove fatal.”
“All of you,” said Iwan, pointing to the sword on the ground.
One by one, the soldiers added their weapons to the marshal’s; Captain Aloin was the last to disarm.
“What now?” said Siarles.
“Gather round, everyone,” said Bran, and explained how they were to shepherd the Ffreinc through the forest. “We’ll see them to the Vale of Wye and release them at the border of the March. Then, they are on their own.”
“It will be dark soon,” Tuck pointed out.
“Then we had best get started,” Bran replied. “All saints and angels bear witness, on my life they will not spend another night in my realm.”
CHAPTER 30
Castle Neufmarché
Four long days on the road brought the weary abbot and his footsore company—six soldiers, three monks, and two dejected commanders—to the busy market town of Hereford, the principal seat of Baron Neufmarché. Very possibly, the baron may have been the closest thing to an ally that Abbot Hugo possessed just then. Exhausted, begrimed from his journey, and aching from sleeping in rude beds appropriated from settlements alongside the road, Hugo lifted his sweaty face to the solid stone walls of the castle on the hill above the town and felt what it must be like for weary pilgrims to behold the promised land.
Here, at last, he would be given a welcome worthy of his rank. Moreover, if he sharpened his appeal with hints of clerical patronage—offers of perpetual prayer and special indulgences excusing the baron from certain past sins—Hugo imagined he might enlist the baron’s aid to help him recover his abbey and reclaim Elfael from the hands of that blasted King Raven and his troop of outlaws. “Captain Aloin,” he called, climbing down from a swaybacked horse—the only one they had been able to commandeer from the first Norman town they had come to after leaving the March. “You and your men will rest and wait for us in the town. Go to the monastery and get some food and drink—my monks will take you there.”
“Where are you going, Abbot?”
“Marshal Guy and I will go to the baron and see if he is of a mood to receive us. If all goes well, I will send for you as soon as suitable arrangements can be made.”
The captain, who had risked life and limb in the abbot’s service, and whose troops bore the brunt of the failure to roust King Raven from his roost, was not best pleased to be shut out of the proceedings now. But Aloin was too tired to argue, so agreed—if only that he might find a cool place to sit down that much sooner. He waved the marshal and abbot away, ordered his men to go with the monks and fetch food and drink from the abbey and bring some back for him; and then, sitting himself down in the shade of the stone archway leading into the town square, he pulled off his boots and closed his eyes. Before he drifted off to sleep, it occurred to him that this was likely the last he would see of the abbot. This caused him fleeting concern. Yet, close on this first thought was another: if he never saw that grasping, arrogant, conniving churchman again . . . well, all things considered, that was fine too.
Meanwhile, Bernard Neufmarché, Lord of Hereford and Gloucester, was sitting in his private courtyard gazing up at the sky for no other reason than that he thought a shadow had passed over him and he felt a sudden chill. He glanced up to see if an errant cloud had obscured the sun for a moment, but there were no clouds, and the sun shone as brightly as ever. The baron was not a man for omens or portents, but it did seem to him that lately—at least, ever since his lady wife had become smitten with all things Welsh—he often had odd feelings and sudden urges to do things he had never done before, such as sit quietly alone with his thoughts in his pleasant courtyard. Moreover, he often entertained the notion that strange forces were swirling around him, moving him towards destinations and destinies unknown.
He smiled at his own superstitious nature—something else he never did.
When Remey, his red-capped seneschal, appeared in the doorway to tell him that he had visitors, he felt the intrusion like a clammy dampness in the small of his back. Odd, that. “Who is it?” he asked, and before Remey could reply, he added, “Send them away. I do not wish to see anyone today.”
“Of course, my lord baron,” replied the seneschal smoothly, “but you may wish to reconsider when I tell you that Abbot Hugo de Rainault and Marshal Guy de Gysburne have arrived on foot, alone, and wish to speak to you most urgently.”
“Indeed?” wondered the baron, intrigued now. “Very well.” He sighed, rising from his warm bench. “Give them something to drink, and I will join them in the hall. I want to speak to Father Gervais first.”
“Very wise, my lord.” Remey withdrew to find the steward and order some refreshments for the baron’s unexpected guests.
When his servant had gone, the baron walked slowly across the courtyard to an opposite doorway which led onto the porch of the little chapel, where he found the family’s elderly priest sitting in a pool of light from the courtyard and nodding over a small parchment chapbook in his lap. The baron picked up the book; it was the Gospel of Saint Matthew in Latin. He was able to pick out a few words here and there, and the thought came to him that perhaps it was time he learned to read properly—not like a barnyard chicken pecking seeds willy-nilly.
The old priest awoke with a start. “Oh! Bless me, I must have dozed off. Good day to you, my son, and God’s rich blessing.”
“Very well, Father,” replied the baron, and thanked the priest. “I would not disturb your meditations, but we have visitors—Abbot Hugo de Rainault and his marshal, Guy of some such. I believe you know the abbot?”
“I had dealings with him now and then,” replied the priest, “but that was a long time ago. I would not say I knew him.”
The baron considered this and turned another page of the book in his hand. “There must be trouble in Elfael,” mused the baron idly. “I can think of no other reason de Rainault would turn up at my door.”
The priest considered this. “Yes,” he agreed slowly, “no doubt you are right about that. Then again, it has been very quiet of late. We would have heard about any trouble, I think.”
“Perhaps not,” countered the baron. “The outlaws own the King’s Road through the forest. Nothing moves in or out of Wales that they do not allow—which is why I expect this visit means trouble.”
“You know best, Bernard.”
“Well, in any event we’ll soon find out,” said the baron with a sigh. “I’m going to see them now, but I wanted to ask
if you would come with me to greet them. I’d like to have you there, Father.”
“Certainly, my son. I’d be delighted.”
The baron held out his hand to the elder man and helped him to his feet.
“These old bones get slower every day,” said the priest, rising heavily.
“Nonsense, Father,” replied Baron Neufmarché. “The years touch you but lightly.”
“Bah! Now who is speaking nonsense?”
They strolled amiably to the baron’s great hall, where, at a table near the wide double door leading to the castle’s main yard, a very dusty Gysburne and travel-soiled abbot were finishing their wine and cheese. “My lord baron!” declared Gysburne, standing quickly and brushing crumbs from his tunic. “God be good to you, Sire. My thanks for your inestimable hospitality.”
“God with you, Marshal,” replied the baron, “and with you, Abbot de Rainault. Greetings and welcome. I hope you are well?”
Abbot Hugo extended his hand to be reverenced. “God with you, Baron. I fear you find me not at all well.”
“Oh? I am sorry to hear it.” The baron turned to his companion, and they exchanged a knowing glance. “May I present my dear friend, Father Gervais. I think you may know one another.”
The abbot glanced at the elderly cleric. “No, I don’t think so. I would remember. God with you, Father.” He gave the old man a nod and dismissed him with a slighting smile. “It will save us all some bother if I come to the point, my lord.”
“I am all for it,” replied the baron. “Please, continue.”
“There has been a wicked uprising in Elfael. Soldiers under the command of Marshal Guy, here, were slaughtered in an unprovoked attack and the fortress taken. In short, we have been driven from our lands by an uprising of Welsh rebels. I say rebels, and so they style themselves. In truth, they are little more than thieves and outlaws, every last one.”
“I see.” Baron Bernard frowned thoughtfully. “That is not good news.”
“What is more, they have killed a regiment of king’s men under the command of one Captain Aloin. The few survivors have been driven into exile with me.”