“For the love of God!” cried Tuck. “Hurry!”
“All in good time, brother,” said Iwan, passing a handful of arrows to Siarles. “It does not do to hurry an archer. It makes him miss.”
With quick downward jabs, the two stuck the arrows point first in the turf and, plucking one each, nocked it to the string.
“Left!” said Iwan.
“Right!” answered Siarles, and with almost languid motion, the two pressed the longbows forward as if trying to step through them. There was a single dull thrum and fizzing hiss as the arrows flew. The knight on the left, standing in his stirrups, his arm raised high, ready to begin the fatal downward slash with his blade, was struck in the centre of the chest. Already unbalanced, the impact slammed him backward over the rump of his horse, dead when he hit the ground. The rider on the right had time but to glance once at the suddenly empty saddle of his companion before Siarles’s arrow buried itself in his chest. The sword spun from his hand, and he clutched the arrow, fighting to turn his galloping mount—a fight he lost when Siarles’s second arrow struck just below the first and knocked him from the saddle.
Bran galloped on. The two remaining knights appeared on the rim of the dell and started down. “Left!” said Iwan again and loosed. The arrow, a blurred streak in the air, seemed to lift the soldier up ever so slightly as the horse ran out from under him.
The sole remaining knight must have seen the two rider-less horses breaking off to the side, for he tried to halt his headlong pursuit. With a cry of dismay, he jerked the reins back hard. The horse’s churning hooves slipped in the long grass, and the animal slid. The knight, occupied with his stumbling mount, did not see the arrow that flung him from the saddle. He landed heavily on his side, rolled over, and did not move again.
“Get their horses!” shouted Bran to Siarles as he reined his lathered mount to a halt. “Tuck! Iwan! Break camp. It will not be long before Neufmarché realises his knights are not coming back—and then he will come in force.” The two hurried off to gather the water and provisions and saddle the horses.
“Let me go!” shouted Mérian, scratching at Bran’s hands.
He released his hold and let her fall. She landed in an awkward sprawl, her mantle sliding up over bare legs. Her shoes had come loose and been lost in the mad dash from the baron’s camp. “You did that on purpose!” she raged, pulling down her mantle and scrambling to her feet. Bran slid down from the saddle. Livid with rage, dark eyes ablaze, Mérian flew at him with her fists. “How dare you! I am not a sack of grain to be picked up and thrown over your shoulder. I demand—”
“Enough!” Bran snapped, grabbing both of her wrists in one strong hand.
“Take me back at once.”
“So your friend the baron can carve my head from my shoulders?” he said. “No, I think I would rather live a little longer.”
“My father will do the same unless you let me go. Whatever trouble you’re in will not be helped by taking me. I am certain that it can be cleared up if we all just—”
“Mérian!” Bran’s hand flicked out and connected with her cheek in a resounding slap. “Do you understand what just happened here?” He pointed to the dead knights on the hillside. “Look out there, Mérian. This is no misunderstanding. The baron means to kill me, and I do not intend to give him another chance.”
“You hit me!” she said darkly. “Never do that again.”
“Then do not give me cause.”
Siarles returned, leading three horses. “One got away,” he said.
“Go help Iwan and Tuck,” Bran told him, taking the reins. “Three is enough.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Mérian, her voice shaking with anger.
“Get as far away from here as possible,” he replied, examining the horses. There was blood on one of the saddles, and the horse that had stumbled had a ragged gash in a foreleg. Bran released the animal and, selecting one for Mérian, pulled her around to the side and held out the stirrup for her. “Mount up.”
“No.”
“You are acting like a child.”
“And you are acting like a brigand,” she said. Raising both hands, she pushed him over backward, turned, and started running—gaining only a few paces before she felt his arms around her waist, lifting her from her feet.
“I am a brigand,” he said. Lugging her back to the horse, he heaved her clumsily into the saddle and proceeded to tie her feet to the stirrups with the straps used to secure a lance. “Do not try me again, Mérian, or I might forget I ever loved you.”
“You flatter yourself,” she snarled. “But you were ever a flatterer and a liar.”
Iwan, Tuck, and Siarles emerged from the beech grove just then, leading two horses. “Ready!” called Iwan.
“Ride out,” Bran said. Holding tight to the reins of Mérian’s mount, he swung up into the saddle. “Come, my lady,” he said, his voice cold and cutting. “Let us hope that, along with your loyalty and good sense, you have not also forgotten how to ride.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“To Cél Craidd,” he replied. “Our fortress may not be as fine and rich as Castle Neufmarché, but it is blessedly free of Ffreinc, and you will receive a better welcome there than I received at the baron’s hands.”
“They will find me, you know,” she said, trying to sound brave and unconcerned. “And you will pay dearly for what you’ve done.”
“They will find you when I choose to let them find you, and they are the ones who will count the cost.”
Turning his eyes to the line of advancing twilight away to the east, Bran gazed at the gathering darkness and embraced it like a friend. He lifted his head, squared his shoulders, and drew the evening air deep into his lungs. When he glanced again to Mérian, his eyes were veiled with the night, and she realised Bran was no longer the boy she had once known. “But now,” he said, his words falling like a shadow between them, “it is time for this raven to fly.”
EPILOGUE
Nine days after the searchers returned to Castle Neufmarché in Hereford with the sorry news that they had failed to turn up any sign of the Welsh outlaws’ trail, a solitary rider appeared at the door of the Abbey of Saint Dyfrig—the principal monastery of Elfael in the north of the cantref near Glascwm. “I am looking for a certain priest,” the rider announced to the brother who met him at the gate. Wearing a dark green hooded cloak and a wide-brimmed leather hat pulled low over his face, he spoke the Cymry of a trueborn Briton. “I was told I might find him here.”
“Who is it you seek?” asked the monk. “I will help you if I can.”
“One called Asaph, a bishop of the church.”
“Then God has rewarded your journey, friend,” the monk told him. “He is here.”
“Fetch him, please. My time is short.”
“This way, sir, if you please.”
The brother led the visitor to the guest lodge, where he was given a cup of wine, a bowl of soup, and some bread to refresh himself while he waited. Lifting the bowl to his lips, he drank down the broth and used the bread to sop up the last drops. He then turned his attention to the wine. Sipping from his cup, he leaned on the doorpost and gazed out into the yard at the monks hurrying to and fro on their business. Presently, the doorkeeper appeared, leading a white-robed priest across the yard.
“Bishop Asaph,” said the monk, delivering his charge, “this man has come asking for you.”
The priest smiled, his pale eyes crinkling at the corners. “I am Asaph,” he said. “How may I serve you?”
“I have a message for you,” said the stranger. Reaching into a pouch at his belt, he brought out a piece of folded parchment, which he passed to the bishop.
“How very formal,” remarked the bishop. He received the parcel, untied the leather binding, and unfolded it. “Excuse me; my eyes are not what they were,” he said, stepping back into the light of the yard so that he could see what was written there.
He scanned the letter quickly a
nd then looked up sharply. “Do you know what this letter contains?” The rider nodded his assent, and the bishop read the message again, saying, “. . . and a sum of money to be used for the building of a new monastery on lands which have been purchased for this purpose the better to serve the people of Elfael should you accept this condition.” Raising his face to the stranger, he asked, “Do you have the money with you?”
“I do,” replied the rider.
“And the condition—what is it?”
“It is this,” the messenger informed him. “That you are to preside over a daily Mass and pray for the souls of the people of Elfael in their struggle and for their rightful king and his court, each day without fail, and twice on high holy days.”
The rider regarded the bishop impassively. “Do you accept the condition?”
“Gladly and with all my heart,” answered the bishop. “God knows, nothing would please me more than to undertake this mission.”
“So be it.” Reaching into his pouch, the messenger brought out a leather bag and passed it to the senior churchman. “This is for you.”
With trembling hands the bishop opened the curiously heavy bag and peered in. The yellow gleam of gold byzants met his wondering gaze.
“Two hundred marks,” the rider informed him.
“Two hundred, did you say?” gasped the bishop, stunned by the amount.
“Begin with that. There is more if you need it.”
“But how?” asked Asaph, shaking his head in amazement.
“Who has sent this?”
“It has not been given for me to say,” answered the rider.
He stepped to the bench and retrieved his hat. “It may please my lord to reveal himself to you in due time.” He moved past the bishop into the yard. “For now, it is his pleasure that you use the money in the service of God’s kingdom for the relief of the folk of Elfael.”
The bishop, holding the bag of money in one hand and the sealed parchment in the other, watched the mysterious messenger depart. “What is your name?” asked Asaph as the rider took up the reins and climbed into the saddle.
“Call me Silidons, for such I am,” replied the rider. “I give you good day, bishop.”
“God with you, my son!” he called after him. “And God with your master, whoever he may be!”
Later, as the monks of Saint Dyfrig’s gathered at vespers for evening prayers, Bishop Asaph recalled the condition the messenger had made: that he perform a Mass each day for the people of Elfael and the king. Lord Brychan of Elfael was dead, sadly enough. If any soul ever needed prayer, his surely did—but who amongst the living cared enough to build an entire monastery where prayers could be offered for the relief of that suffering soul?
But no . . . no, the messenger did not name Brychan. He had said, “The people in their struggle and for their rightful king and his court . . .” Sadly, the king and heir were dead—so who was the rightful ruler of Elfael?
Bishop Asaph could not say.
Later that night, the faithful priest led the remnant of Elfael’s monks, the handful of loyal brothers who had entered exile with him, in the first of many prayers for the cantref, its people, and his mysterious benefactor. “And if it please you, heavenly Father,” he whispered privately as the prayers of the monks swirled around him on clouds of incense, “may I live to see the day a true king takes the throne in Elfael once more.”
ROBIN HOOD IN WALES?
It will seem strange to many readers, and perhaps even perverse, to take Robin Hood out of Sherwood Forest and relocate him in Wales; worse still to remove all trace of Englishness, set his story in the eleventh century, and recast the honourable outlaw as an early British freedom fighter. My contention is that although in Nottingham, the Robin Hood legends found good soil in which to grow, they must surely have originated elsewhere.
The first written references to the character we now know as Robin Hood can be traced as far back as the early 1260s. By 1350, the Robin Hood legends were well-known, if somewhat various, consisting of a loose aggregation of poems and songs plied by the troubadours and minstrels of the day. These poems and songs bore little relation to one another and carried titles such as “Robin Hood and the Potter,” “Robin Hood’s Chase,” “Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford,” “The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield,” “The Noble Fisherman,” “Robin Whood Turned Hermit,” “Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires,” and “Little John a’Begging.”
As the minstrels wandered around Britain with their lutes and lyres, crooning to high and low alike, they spread the fame of the beloved rogue far and wide, often supplying local place-names to foster a closer identification with their subject and give their stories more immediacy. Thus, the songs do not agree on a single setting, nor do they agree on the protagonist’s name. Some will have it Robert Hood, or Whoode, and others Robin Hod, Robyn Hode, Robinet, or even Roger. Other contenders include Robynhod, Rabunhod, Robehod, and, interestingly, Hobbehod. And although these popular tales were committed to paper, or parchment, by about 1400, still no attempt was made to stitch the stories together to form a whole cloth.
In the earliest stories, Robin was no honourable Errol Flynn-esque hero. He was a coarse and vulgar oaf much given to crudeness and violence. He was a thief from the beginning, to be sure, but the now-famous creed of “robbing from the rich to give to the poor” was a few hundred years removed from his rough highwayman origins. The early Robin robbed from the rich, to be sure—and kept every silver English penny for himself.
As time went on, the threadbare tales acquired new and better clothes—until they possessed a whole wardrobe full of rich, colourful, sumptuous medieval regalia in the form of characters, places, incidents, and adventures. Characters such as Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, and Sir Guy of Gisbourne joined the ranks one by one in various times and places as different composers and writers spun out the old tales and made up new ones. The Sheriff of Nottingham was an early addition and, contrary to popular opinion, was not always the villain of the piece. The beautiful, plucky Maid Marian was actually one of the last characters to arrive on the scene, making her debut sometime around the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Others are notable by their absence. In the early tales there is no evil King John and no good King Richard—no king at all. And the only monarch who receives so much as a mention is “Edward, our comely king,” though which of the many Edwards this might be is never made clear.
So we have an amorphous body of popular songs and poems about a lovable rascal whose name was uncertain and who lived someplace on the island of Britain at some unknown time in the past. Of all the possibilities to choose from in locating the legend in place and time, why choose Wales?
Several small but telling clues serve to locate the original source of the legend in the area of Britain now called Wales in the generation following the Norman invasion and conquest of 1066. First and foremost is the general character of the people themselves, the Welsh (from the Saxon wealas, or “foreigners”), or as they would have thought of themselves, the Britons.
In AD 1100, Gerald of Wales, a highborn nobleman whose mother was a Welsh princess, wrote of his people: “The Welsh are extreme in all they do, so that if you never meet anyone worse than a bad Welshman, you will never meet anyone better than a good one.” He went on to describe them as extremely hardy, extremely generous, and extremely witty. They were also, he cautioned, extremely treacherous, extremely vengeful, and extremely greedy for land. “Above all,” he writes, “they are passionately devoted to liberty, and almost excessively warlike.”
Gerald painted a picture of the Cymry as a whole nation of warriors in arms. Unlike the Normans, who were sharply divided between the military aristocracy and a mass of peasants, every single Welshman was ready for battle at a moment’s notice; women, too, bore arms and knew how to use them.
Within two months of the Battle of Hastings (1066), William the Conqueror and his barons, the new Norman overlords, had subdued 80 percen
t of England. Within two years, they had it all under their rule. However—and I think this is significant—it took them over two hundred years of almost continual conflict to make any lasting impression on Wales, and by that late date it becomes a question of whether Wales was really ever conquered at all.
In fact,William the Conqueror, recognising an implacable foe and unwilling to spend the rest of his life bogged down in a war he could never win, wisely left the Welsh alone. He established a baronial buffer zone between England and the warlike Britons. This was the territory known as the March. Later, this sensible no-go area and its policy of tolerance would be violated by the Conqueror’s brutish son,William II, who sought to fill his tax coffers to pay for his spendthrift ways and expensive wars in France. Wales and its great swathes of undeveloped territory seemed a plum ripe for the plucking, and it is in this historical context (in the year AD 1093) that I have chosen to set Hood.
A Welsh location is also suggested by the nature and landscape of the region. Wales of the March borderland was primeval forest. While the forests of England had long since become well-managed business property where each woodland was a veritable factory, Wales still had enormous stretches of virgin wood, untouched except for hunting and hiding. The forest of the March was a fearsome wilderness when the woods of England resembled well-kept garden preserves. It would have been exceedingly difficult for Robin and his outlaw band to actually hide in England’s ever-dwindling Sherwood, but he could have lived for years in the forests of the March and never been seen or heard.
This entry from the Welsh chronicle of the times known as Brenhinedd Y Saesson, or The Kings of the Saxons, makes the situation very clear:
Anno Domini MLXXXXV (1095). In that year King William Rufus mustered a host past number against the Cymry. But the Cymry trusted in God with their prayers and fastings and alms and penances and placed their hope in God. And they harassed their foes so that the Ffreinc dared not go into the woods or the wild places, but they traversed the open lands sorely fatigued, and thence returned home empty-handed. And thus the Cymry boldly defended their land with joy. (emphasis mine)