Hood

CHAPTER
II

where is everyone?" shouted Bran, dashing through the gate and into the tidy spare yard of the Llanelli monastery. He had expected the yard to be full to overflowing with familiar faces of cowering, frightened Cymry seeking refuge from the invaders.

"Lord Bran! Thank God you are safe," replied Brother Eilbeg, the porter, hurrying after him.

Bran turned on him. "What happened to those I sent here?" he demanded.

"They've been taken to Saint Dyfrig's. Bishop Asaph thought they would be better cared for at the abbey until it is safe to return."

"Where is the bishop?"

"At prayer, sire," replied the monk. He looked through the door behind Bran, as if hoping to see someone else, then asked, "Where is Brother Ffreol?"

Bran made no answer but sped to the chapel, where he found Bishop Asaph on his knees before the altar, hands outstretched. "My lord," said Bran abruptly, "I have news."

The bishop concluded his prayer and turned to see who it was that interrupted his communion. One quick glance at Bran's bruised face told him there had been more trouble. "How bad is it?" asked the bishop, grasping the edge of the altar to pull himself to his feet.

"As bad as can be," Bran replied. "Brother Ffreol is dead. Iwan escaped, but they are searching for him to kill him."

The bishop's shoulders dropped, and he sagged against the near wall. He put a hand out to steady himself and paused a long moment, eyes closed, his lips moving in a silent prayer. Bran waited, and when the bishop had composed himself, he quickly explained how they had been caught on the road by marchogi who had killed the good brother without provocation.

"And you?" asked Asaph. "You fought free?"

Bran shook his head. "They took me captive and brought me to the caer. I was released to raise ransom for myself."

The bishop shook his head sadly. He gazed at Bran as if trying to fathom the depths of such outrageous events. "Cut down in the road, you say? For no reason?"

"No reason at all," confirmed Bran. "They are murderous Ffreinc bastards-that is all the reason they need."

"Did he suffer at all?"

"No," replied Bran with a quick shake of his head. "His death was quick. There was little pain."

Asaph gazed back at him with damp, doleful eyes and fingered the knotted ends of his cincture. "And yet they let you simply walk away?"

"The count thinks I am a nobleman,"

Asaph's wizened face creased in a frown of incomprehension. "But you are a nobleman,"

"I told him otherwise-although he refused to believe me."

"What will you do now?"

"I agreed to give him twenty marks in exchange for my freedom. I am honour-bound to bring him the money; otherwise he would never have let me go."

"We must go to Ffreol," murmured the bishop, starting for the chapel door. "We must go find his body and-"

"Did you hear me?" demanded Bran. Gripping the bishop's shoulder tightly, he spun the old man around. "I said I need the money."

"The ransom, yes-how much do you need?"

"Twenty marks in silver," repeated Bran quickly. "The strongbox-my father's treasure box-where is it? There should be more than enough to pay-" The sudden expression of anxiety on the bishop's face stopped him. The bishop looked away.

"The strongbox, Asaph," Bran said, his voice low and tense. "Where is it?"

"Count de Braose has taken it," the bishop replied.

"What!" cried Bran. "You were supposed to hide it from them!"

"They came here, the count and some of his men-they asked if we had any treasure," replied the churchman. "They wanted it. I had to give it to them."

"Fool!" shouted Bran. "In the name of all that is holy, why?"

"Bran, I could not lie," answered Asaph, growing indignant. "Lying is a venal sin. Love in the heart, truth on the lips-that is our rule."

"You just gave it to them?" Bran glared at the sanctimonious cleric, anger flicking like a whip from his gaze. "You've just killed me; do you know that?"

"I hardly think-"

"Listen to me, you old goat," spat Bran. "I must pay de Braose the ransom by sunset today, or I will be hunted down and executed. Where am I going to find that money now?"

The bishop, unrepentant, raised a finger heavenward. "God will provide."

"He already did!" snarled Bran. "The money was here, and you let them take it!" He growled with frustration and stalked to the open doorway of the chapel, then turned back suddenly. "I need a horse."

"That will be difficult."

"I do not care how difficult it is. Unless you want to see me dead this time tomorrow, you will find a horse at once. Do you understand me?"

"Where will you go?"

"North," answered Bran decisively. "Ffreol would still be alive and I would be safe there now if we had not listened to you."

The bishop bent his head, accepting the reproach.

Bran said, "My mother's kinsmen are in Gwynedd. When I tell them what has happened here, they will take me in. But I need a horse and supplies to travel."

"Saint Ernin's abbey serves the northern cantrefs," observed the bishop. "If you need help, you can call on them."

"Just get me that horse," commanded Bran, taking the cleric roughly by the arm and steering him toward the door.

"I will see what I can find." The bishop left, shaking his head and murmuring, "Poor Ffreol. We must go and claim his body so that he can be buried here amongst his brothers."

Bran walked alongside him, urging the elderly churchman to a quicker pace. "Yes, yes," he agreed. "You must claim the body, by all means. But first the horse-otherwise you will be digging two graves this time tomorrow."

The bishop nodded and hurried away. Bran watched him for a moment and then walked to the small guest lodge beside the gate; he looked around the near-empty cell. In one corner was a bed made of rushes overspread with a sheepskin. He crossed to the bed, lay down, and, overcome by the accumulated exertions of the last days, closed his eyes and sank into a blessedly dreamless sleep.

It was late when he woke again; the sun was well down, and the shadows stretched long across the empty yard. The bishop, he soon learned, had sent three monks in search of a horse; none of the three had yet returned. The bishop himself had taken a party with an oxcart to retrieve the body of Brother Ffreol. There was nothing to do, so he returned to the guest lodge to stew over the stupidity of churchmen and rue his rotten luck. He sprawled on the bench outside the chapter house, listening to the intermittent bell as it tolled the offices. Little by little, the once-bright day faded to a dull yellow haze.

He dozed and awoke to yet another bell. Presently the monks began appearing; in twos and threes they entered the yard, hurrying from their various chores. "That bell what was it?" Bran asked one of the brothers as he passed.

"It is only vespers, sire," replied the priest respectfully.

Bran's heart sank at the word: vespers. Eventide prayer-the day gone, and he was still within shouting distance of the caer. He slumped back against the mud-daubed wall and stuck his feet out in front of him. Asaph was worse than useless, and he felt a ripe fool for trusting him. If he had known the silly old man had given his father's treasure to de Braose-simply handed it over, by job's bones-he could have lit out for the northern border the moment the count set him free.

He was on the point of fleeing Llanelli when an errant breeze brought a savoury aroma from the cookhouse, and he suddenly remembered how hungry he was. An instant later he was on his feet and moving toward the refectory. He would eat and then go.

Nothing was easier than cadging a meal from Brother Bedo, the kitchener. A cheerful, red-faced lump with watery eyes and a permanent stoop from bending over his pots and steaming cauldrons, no creature that begged a crust was ever turned away from his door.

"Lord Bran, bless me, it's you," he said, pulling Bran into the room and sitting him down on a three-legged stool at the table. "I heard what happened to you on the road-a sorry business, a full sorry business indeed, God's truth. Brother Ffreol was one of our best, you know. He would have been bishop one day, he would-if not abbot also."

"He was my confessor," volunteered Bran. "He was a friend and a good man."

"I don't suppose it could have been helped?" asked the kitchener, placing a wooden trencher of roast meat and bread on the table before Bran.

"There was nothing to be done," Bran said. "Even if he'd had a hundred warriors at his back, it would not have made the slightest difference."

"Ah, so, well…" Bedo poured out a jar of thin ale into a small leather cup. "Bless him-and bless you, too, that you were there to comfort him at his dying breath."

Bran accepted the monk's words without comment. There had been precious little comforting in Ffreol's last moments. The chaos of that terrible night rose before him once more, and Bran's eyesight dimmed with tears. He finished his meal without further talk, then thanked the brother and went out, already planning the route he would take through the valley, away from the caer and Count de Braose's ransom demand.

The moon had risen above the far hills when Bran slipped through the gate. He had walked only a few dozen paces when he heard someone calling after him. "Lord Bran! Wait!" He looked around to see three dusty, footsore monks leading a swaybacked plough horse.

"What is that?" asked Bran, regarding the animal doubtfully.

"My lord," the monk said, "it is the best we could find. Anyone with a seemly mount has sent it away, and the Ffreinc have already taken the rest." The monk regarded the horse wearily. "It may not be much, but trust me, it is this or nothing."

"Worse than nothing," Bran grumbled. Snatching the halter rope from the monk's hands, he clambered up onto the beast's bony back. "Tell the bishop I have gone. I will send word from Gwynedd." With that, he departed on his pathetic mount.

)Bran had never ridden a beast as slow and stumble-footed as the one he now sat atop. The creature plodded along in the dying moonlight, head down, nose almost touching the ground. Despite Bran's most ardent insistence, piteous begging, and harrowing threats, the animal refused to assume a pace swifter than a hoof-dragging amble.

Thus, night was all but spent by the time Bran came in sight of Caer Rhodl, the fortress of Merians father, King Cadwgan, rising up out of the mists of the morning that would be. Tethering the plough horse to a rowan bush in a gully beside the track, Bran ran the rest of the way on foot. He scaled the low wall at his customary place and dropped into the empty yard. The caer was silent. The watchmen, as usual, were asleep.

Quick and silent as a shadow, Bran darted across the dark expanse of yard to the far corner of the house. Merian's room was at the back, its single small window opening onto the kitchen herb garden. He crept along the side of the house until he came to her window and then, pressing his ear to the rough wooden shutter, paused to listen. Hearing nothing, he pulled on the shutter; it swung open easily, and he paused again. When nothing stirred inside, he whispered, "Merian…," and waited, then whispered again, slightly louder. "Merian! Be quick!"

This time his call was answered by the sound of a hushed footfall and the rustle of clothing. In a moment, Merian's face appeared in the window, pale in the dim light. "You should not have come," she said. "I won't let you in-not tonight."

"There was a battle," he told her. "My father has been killed-the entire warband with him. The Ffreinc have taken Elfael."

"Oh, Bran!" she gasped. "How did it happen?"

"They have a grant from King William. They are taking everything."

"But this is terrible," she said. "Are you hurt?"

"I was not in the battle," he said. "But they are searching for me."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm leaving for Gwynedd-now, at once. I have kinsmen there. But I need a horse."

"You want me to give you a horse?" Merian shook her head. "I cannot. I dare not. My father would scream the roof down."

"I will pay him," said Bran. "Or find a way to return it. Please, Merian."

"Is there not some other way?"

He raised a hand and squeezed her arm, "Please, Merian, you're the only one who can help me now." He gazed at her in the glowing light of a rising sun and, in spite of himself, felt his desire quicken. On a sudden inspiration, he said, "I love you, Merian. Come with me. We will go together, you and I-far away from all of this."

"Bran, think what you're saying!" She pulled free. "I cannot just run away, nor can you." Leaning forward as far as the small window would allow, she clutched at him. "Listen to me, Bran. You must go back. It is the people of Elfael who will need you now and in the days to come. You will be king. You must think of your people."

"The Ffreinc will kill me!" protested Bran.

"Shh!" she said, placing her fingertips to his lips. "Someone will hear you."

"I failed to pay the ransom," Bran explained, speaking more softly. "If I go back to Elfael empty-handed, they'll kill me-they mean to kill me anyway, I think. The only reason I'm still alive is because they want the money first."

"Come," she said, making up her mind. "We must go to my father. You must tell him what you have told me. He will know what to do."

"Your father hates me." Bran rejected the idea outright. "No. I am not going back. Elfael is lost. I have to get away now while I still have a chance." He raised a hand to stroke her cheek. "Come with me, Merian. We can be together."

"Bran, listen. Be reasonable. Let my father help you."

"Will he give twenty marks to free me?" Merian bit her lip doubtfully. "No?" sneered Bran. "I thought not. He'd sooner see my head on a pike."

"He will go with you and talk to them. He stands in good stead with Baron Neufmarche. The Ffreinc will listen to him. He will help you."

"I'm leaving, Merian." Bran backed away from the window. "It was a mistake to come here..

"Just wait there," she said and disappeared suddenly. She was back an instant later. "Here, take this," she said. Reaching out, she dropped a small leather bag into his hand. It chinked as he caught it. "It is not much," she said, "but it is all I have."

"I need a weapon," he said, tucking the bag away. "Can you get me a sword? Or a spear? Both would be best."

"Let me see." She darted away again and was gone longer this time. Bran waited. The sky brightened. The rising sun bathed his back with its warming rays. It would be daylight before he could start out, and that would mean finding a way north that avoided as much of Elfael as possible. He was pondering this when Merian returned to the window.

"I couldn't get a sword," she said, "but I found this. It belongs to my brother." She pushed the polished ash-wood shaft of a longbow out to him, followed by a sheaf of arrows.

Bran took the weapons, thanked her coolly, and stepped away from the window. "Farewell, Merian," he said, raising a hand in parting.

"Please don't go." Reaching out, she strained after him, brushing his fingertips with her own. "Think of your people, Bran," she said, her voice pleading. "They need you. How can you help them in Gwynedd?"

"I love you, Merian," he said, still backing away. "Remember me."

"Bran, no!" she called. "Wait!"

But he was already running for his life.