Hood

CHAPTER
27

)By the end of his second day in the forest, Bran was footsore, weary, and voraciously hungry. Twice he had sighted deer, twice loosed an arrow and missed; his shoulder still pained him, and it would take many more days of practise before he recovered his easy mastery of the weapon. He had retrieved one arrow, but the other had been lost-along with any hope of a meal. And though the berries on the brambles and raspberry canes were still green and bitter, he was proud enough to refuse the growing impulse to return to the cave and beg Angharad's help. The notion smelled of weakness and surrender, and he rejected it outright.

So as the twilight shadows deepened in the leaf-bound glades, he drank his fill from a clear-running stream and prepared to spend another night in the forest. He found the disused den of a roe deer in a hollow beneath the roots of an ancient oak and crawled in. He lay back in the dry leaves and observed a spider enshroud a trapped cricket in a cocoon of silk and leave it dangling, suspended by a single strand above his head.

As Bran watched, he listened to the sounds of the woodland transforming itself for night as the birds flocked to roost and night's children began to awaken: mice and voles, badgers, foxes, bats-all with their particular voices-and it seemed to him then, as never before, that a forest was more than a place to hunt and gather timber, or else better avoided. More than a stand of moss-heavy trees; more than a sweet-water spring bubbling up from the roots of a distant mountain; more than a smooth-pebbled pool, gleaming, radiant as a jewel in a green hidden dell, or a flower-strewn meadow surrounded by a slender host of white swaying birches, or a badger delving in the dark earth beneath a rough-barked elm, or a fox kit eluding a diving hawk; more than a proud stag standing watch over his clan… More than these, the forest was itself a living thing, its life made up of all the smaller lives contained within its borders.

This realization proved so strong that it startled him, and he marvelled at its potency. It was, perhaps, the first time a thought like this had ever taken hold in Bran, and after the initial jolt passed, he found himself enjoying the unique freshness of the raw idea-divining the spirit of the Greene Wood, he called it. He turned it over and over in his mind, exploring its dimensions, delighting in its imaginative potential. It occurred to him that Angharad was largely responsible for this new way of thinking: that with her songs and stories and her oldfashioned, earthy ways, she had awakened in him a new kind of sight or understanding. Surely, Angharad had bewitched him, charmed him with some strange arboreal enchantment that made the forest seem a realm over which he might gain some small dominion. Angharad the Hudolion, the Enchantress of the Wood, had worked her wiles on him, and he was in her thrall. Rather than fear or dread, the conviction produced a sudden exultation. He felt, inexplicably, that he had passed some trial, gained some mastery, achieved some virtue. And although he could not yet put a name to the thing he had accomplished, he gloried in it all the same.

He lay back in the hollow of the great oak's roots as if embraced by strong encircling arms. It seemed to him that he was no longer a stranger in the forest, an intruder in a foreign realm… He belonged here. He could be at home here. In this place, he could move as freely as a king in his caer, a lord of a leaf and branch and living things like the hero of the story: Rhi Bran.

He fell asleep with that thought still turning in his mind.

Deep in the night, he dreamed that he stood on the high crest of a craggy hill rising in the centre of the forest, the wind swirling around him. Suddenly, he felt the urge to fly, and stretching out his arms, he lifted them high. To his amazement, his arms sprouted long black feathers; the wind gusted, and he was lifted up and borne aloft, rising up and up into the clear blue Cymraic sky. Out over the forest he sailed; looking down, he saw the massed treetops far below-a thick, green, rough and rumpled skin, with the threads of streams seamed through it like veins. He saw the silvery glint of a lake and the bare domes of rock peaks. Away in the misty distance he saw the wide green sweep of the Vale of Elfael with its handful of farms and settlements scattered over a rolling, rumpled land that glowed like a gemstone beneath the light of an untroubled sun. Higher and still higher he soared, revelling in his flight, sailing over the vast extent of the greenwood.

From somewhere far below, there arose a cry-a wild, ragged wail, like that of a terrorised child who will not be comforted or consoled. The sound grew until it assaulted heaven with its insistence. Unable to ignore it, he sailed out over the valley to see what could cause such anguish. Scanning the ground far below, a movement on the margin of the forest caught his eye. He circled lower for a closer look: hunters. They had dogs with them and were armed with lances and swords. That they should violate the sanctity of his realm angered Bran, and he determined to drive them away. He swooped down, ready to defend his woodland kingdom, only to realise, too late, that it was himself they were hunting.

He plummeted instantly to earth, landing on the path some little way ahead of the invading men. The sharp-sighted dogs saw him and howled to be released. As Bran gathered himself to flee, the hunters loosed the hounds.

Bran ran into the forest, found a dark nook beneath a rock, and crawled in to hide. But the dogs had got his scent, and they came running, baying for his blood…

Bran awakened with the sound of barking still echoing through the trees. A soft mist curled amongst the roots of the trees, and dew glistened on the lower leaves and on the grassy path.

The long rising note came again and, close behind, the very beast itself: a lean, long-legged grey hunting hound with clipped ears and a shaggy pelt, bounding with great, galloping strides through the morning fog.

Seizing his bow, Bran nocked an arrow and drew back the string. He was on the point of loosing the missile when a small boy appeared, racing after the dog. Barefoot, dirty-faced, with long, tangled dark hair, the lad appeared to be no more than six or seven years old. He saw Bran the same instant Bran saw him; the boy glimpsed the weapon in Bran's hands and halted just as Bran's fingers released the string.

In the same instant a voice cried, "Pull up!"

Distracted by the shout, Bran's aim faltered, and the arrow went wide; the hound leapt, colliding with Bran and carrying him to the ground. Bran crossed his arms over his neck to protect his throat… as the dog licked his face. It took a moment for Bran to understand that he was not being attacked. Taking hold of the dog's iron-studded collar, he tried to free himself from the beast's eager attentions, but it stood on his chest, holding him to the ground. "Off!" cried Bran. "Get off!"

"Look at you now," said Angharad as she came to stand over him. "And is this not how I first found you?"

"I surrender," Bran told her. "Get him off."

The old woman gestured to the boy, who came running and pulled the dog away.

Bran rolled to his feet and brushed at the dog's muddy footprints. Angharad smiled and reached down to help him. "I thought you were away to the north country and the safety of a rich kinsman's hearth," she said, her smile brimming with merry mischief. "How is it that you are still forest bound?"

"You would know that better than I," replied Bran. Embarrassed to be so easily found, he nevertheless welcomed the sight of the old woman.

"Aye," she agreed, "I would. But we have had this discussion before, I think." She extended her hand, and Bran saw that she held a cloth bundle. "Your fast is over, Master Bran. Come, let us eat together one last time."

Bran, chastened by his luckless wandering through the forest, dutifully fell into step behind the old woman as she led her little party a short distance to a glade and there spread out a meal of cold meat, nuts, dried fruit, mushrooms, honey cakes, and eggs. The three of them ate quietly; Angharad divided the meat and shared it out between them. When the edge of his hunger had been blunted, Bran turned to the boy, who seemed curiously familiar to him, and asked, "What's your name?"

The boy raised big dark eyes to him but made no reply.

Thinking the boy had not understood him, Bran asked again, and this time the lad raised a dirty finger to his lips and shook his head.

"He is telling you he cannot speak," explained Angharad. "I call him Gwion Bach."

"He is a kinsman of yours?"

"Not mine," she replied lightly. "He belongs to the forest one of many who live here. When I told him I was going to find you, he insisted on coming, too. I think he knows you."

Bran examined the boy more closely… the attack in the farmyard-could it be the same boy? "One of many," he repeated after a moment. "And are there many?"

"More now that the Ffreinc have come," she answered, handing the boy a small boiled egg, which he peeled and popped into his mouth with a smack of his lips.

Bran considered this for a moment and then said, "You knew I would be here. You knew I would not be able to find my way out of the wood alone." He did not accuse her of laying a spell on him, but it was in his mind. "You knew, and still you let me go."

"It was your decision. I said I would not prevent you."

He smiled and shook his head. "I am a fool, Angharad, as we both know. But you could have told me the way out."

"Oh, aye," she agreed cheerfully, "but you did not ask." Growing suddenly serious, she regarded him with a look of unsettling directness. "What is your desire, Bran?" Their meal finished, it was time, once more, for them to part. "What will you do?"

Bran regarded the old woman before him; wrinkled and stooped she might be, but shrewd as a den of weasels. In her mouth the question was more than it seemed. He hesitated, feeling that much depended on the answer.

What answer could he give? Despite his newfound appreciation of the forest, he knew the Ffreinc would kill him on sight. Seeking refuge amongst his mother's kinsmen was still a good plan. In the months he had been living with Angharad, no better scheme had come to him, nor did anything more useful occur to him now. "I will go to my people," he replied, and the words thudded to the ground like an admission of defeat.

"If that is what you wish," the old woman allowed as graciously as Bran could have hoped, "then follow me, and I will lead you to the place where you can find them."

Gathering up the remains of the meal, Angharad set off with Bran following and little Gwion Bach and the dog running along behind. They walked at an unhurried pace along barely discernible trails that Angharad read with ease. After a time, Bran noticed that the trees grew taller, the spaces between them narrower and more shadowed; the sun became a mere glimmer of shattered gold in the dense leaf canopy overhead; the trail became soft underfoot, thick with moss and damp leaves; the very air grew heavier and more redolent of earth and water and softly decaying wood. Here and there, he heard the tiny rustlings of creatures that lived in shady nooks. Everywhere-around this rock, on the other side of that holly bush, beyond the purple beech wall he heard the sound of water: dripping off branches, trickling along unseen courses.

The morning passed, and they paused to rest and drink from a brook no wider than a man's foot. Angharad passed out handfuls of hazelnuts from the bag she carried. "A good day," observed Bran. He owed his life to the old woman who had saved him, and as much as he wanted to part on good terms, he also wanted her to understand why he had to leave. "A good day to begin a journey," he added.

"Aye," she replied, "it is that." Her answer, though agreeable, did not provide him the opening he sought, and he could think of no way to broach the subject. He fell silent, and they continued on a short while later, pressing ever deeper into the forest. The farther they went, the darker, wilder, and more ancient the woodland became. The smaller trees-beeches, birch, and hawthorn-gave way to the larger woodland lords: hornbeam, plane, and elm. The immense boles rose like pillars from the earth to uphold tremendous limbs, which formed a timber ceiling of intertwined branches. It would be possible, Bran imagined, to move through this part of the forest without ever setting foot on the ground.

Deeper they went, and deeper grew the shadows, and more silent the surrounding wood with a hush that was at once peaceful and slightly ominous-as if the woodland solitude was wary of trespass and imposed a guarded watch on strangers.

Bran's senses quickened. He imagined eyes on him, observing him, marking him as he passed. The impression grew with every step until he began darting glances right and left; the dense wood defied sight; the tangles of branch and vine were impenetrable.

Finally, the old woman stopped, and Bran caught the scent of smoke on the air. "Where are we?" he asked.

Extending a hand, she pointed to an enormous oak that had been struck by lightning during a storm long ago. Half-hollow now, the trunk had split and splayed outward to form a natural arch. The path on which they stood led through the centre of the blast-riven oak. "I am to go through there?"

A quick nod was the only answer he received.

Drawing himself up, he stepped to the fire-blackened arch, passing through the strange portal and into the unknown.