Scarlet

CHAPTER 25

Coed Cadw

Richard de Glanville watched the forest rising before him like the rampart of a vast green fortress, the colours muted and misty in the pale winter light. Just ahead lay the stream that ran along the valley floor at the foot of the rise leading to the forest. He raised his hand and summoned the man riding behind him to his side. "We will stop to water the horses, Bailiff," he said. "Tell the men to remain alert."

"Of course," replied the bailiff in a voice that suggested he had heard the command a thousand times and it did not bear repeating.

The man's tone of dry irritation piqued his superior's attention. "Tell me, Antoin," said the sheriff, "do you think we will catch the phantom today?"

"No, Sheriff," replied the bailiff. "I do not think it likely."

"Then why did you come on this sortie?"

"I came because I was ordered thus, my lord."

"But of course," allowed Sheriff de Glanville. "Even so, you think it a fool's errand. Is that so?"

"I did not say that," replied the soldier. He was used to the sheriff 's dark and unpredictable moods, and rightly cautious of them. "I say merely that the Forest of the March is a very big place. I expect the phantom has moved on."

The sheriff considered this suggestion. "There is no phantom, Bailiff. There are only a devil's clutch of Welsh rebels."

"However that may be," replied Antoin blandly, "I have no doubt your persistence and vigilance has driven them away."

De Glanville regarded his bailiff with benign disdain. "As always, Antoin, your insights are invaluable."

"King Raven will be caught one day, God willing."

"But not today-is that what you think?"

"No, Sheriff, not today," confessed the soldier. "Still, it is a good day for a ride in the greenwood."

"To be sure," agreed the sheriff, reining up as they reached the fording place. The water was low, and ice coated the stones and banks of the slow-moving stream. Sir Richard did not dismount, but remained in the saddle, swathed in his riding cloak and leather gauntlets, his eyes on the natural wall of bare timber rising on the slope of the ridge before him. Coed Cadw, the locals called it; the name meant "Guardian Wood," or "Sheltering Forest," or some such thing he had never really discovered for certain. Whatever it was called, the forest was a stronghold, a bastion as mighty and impenetrable as any made of stone. Perhaps Antoin was right. Perhaps King Raven had flown to better pickings elsewhere.

When the horses had finished drinking and his soldiers had taken their saddles once more, the sheriff lifted the reins and urged his mount across the ford and up the long slope. In a little while, he and the four knights with him passed beneath the bare, snow-covered boughs of elm trees on either side of the road and entered the greenwood as through an arched doorway.

The quiet hush of the snowbound forest fell upon him, and the winter light dimmed. As he proceeded along the deep-shadowed track into the wood, the sheriff 's senses pricked, wary to a presence unseen; his sight became keen, his hearing more acute. He could smell the faint whiff of sour earth that told him a red deer stag had passed a short while earlier, or was lying in a hidden den somewhere nearby.

After a fair distance, they came to a place where a narrow animal trail crossed their own. Here the sheriff paused. He sat for a moment, looking both ways along the ground. The tracks of pigs and deer lay intertwined in the snow and, here and there, the spoor of wolves-and all were old. Just as he was about to move along, his eye caught the sign that had no doubt caused him to stop in the first place: the slender double hoofprint of a deer and, behind and a little to one side, a slight half-moon depression. Without a word, he climbed down from the saddle and knelt for a better look. The half-moon print was followed by another a short stride length away.

"You have found something, Sire?" asked Bailiff Antoin after a moment.

"It seems our ride is to be rewarded today," replied de Glanville.

"Deer?"

"Poacher."

Antoin raised his eyes and peered down the tunnel formed by the overhanging branches. "Better still," he replied.

The sheriff resumed his saddle and, with a gesture to silence the chattering soldiers, turned onto the narrow trail and began following his quarry. The trail led up a low rise and then down into a dell with a little rock-bound rill trickling along the bottom. There in the soft mud were a half dozen depressions-including the mark of a knee where a man had knelt to drink.

De Glanville raised a gauntlet to halt those coming from behind. He caught the sheen of a damp glimmer where water had splashed onto a rock. "He was here not long ago," observed the sheriff. Turning in the saddle, he singled out two of his men. "Stay here and be ready should he double back before we catch him."

He lifted the reins and urged his mount across the brook, up the opposite bank, and into a thicket of elder that formed a rough hedge along the streambed. Once beyond the hedge, the trail opened slightly, allowing the sun to penetrate the dense tangle overhead. Shafts of weak winter light slanted down through the naked branches above. A few hundred paces further along, the sheriff could see that the track entered a snow-covered glade. He reined up and, pointing to the clearing ahead, motioned Antoin and the remaining knights to dismount and circle around on foot. When they had gone from sight, Sir Richard proceeded on alone, pausing again as he entered the clearing. There, across the snowy space, kneeling beside the sleek, ruddy stag he had just brought down, was a swarthy Welshman. Knife in hand, he stooped to begin butchering his kill. In a glance the sheriff saw the hunter, the knife, and the longbow leaning against the trunk of a fallen birch a few paces from the crouching man.

Drawing his sword silently from its sheath with his left hand, de Glanville unslung his shield with his right. Tightening his grip on the pommel of his sword, he drew a deep breath and called across the glade, "In the name of the king!"

The shout rang clear in the chilly air, shattering the quiet of the glade.

The startled Welshman lurched and spun. "Throw down your weapons!" shouted de Glanville. The hunter dived for his bow. In the time it took the sheriff to swing his shield into place, the hunter had an arrow on the string. "Halt!" cried the sheriff as the poacher drew and loosed.

The arrow struck home with a jolt that rocked the sheriff in his high-cantled saddle. The arrow point pierced the solid ashwood planking that formed the body of the shield, the iron point protruding a finger's width below the sheriff 's eye.

The man's quickness was impressive, but ultimately futile. Before he could nock another arrow, two knights rushed into the clearing from either side. The hunter whirled and loosed at the nearest of the two, but the arrow merely grazed the top of the soldier's shield and careered away. Desperate, the Welshman swung the bow at the second knight and turned to flee. The two soldiers captured him in a bound, subduing him with a few skull-crushing blows before dragging him to where Sheriff de Glanville sat watching from his horse.

"Poaching deer in the king's forest," the sheriff said, his voice loud in the sanctuary of the glade, "is an offence punishable by death. Do you have anything to say before you are hanged?"

The hunter, who clearly did not understand the language of the Ffreinc, nevertheless knew the fate he faced just then. He gave out a cry and, with a mighty heave, tried to shake off the two soldiers clinging to him. They hung on, however, and showered blows upon his head until he subsided once more.

"Bailiff Antoin," said the sheriff, "you profess some proficiency in the tongue of these brutes. Ask him if he has anything to say."

The bailiff, clinging to the man's right arm, informed him of the charge against him. The Welshman struggled and shouted, pleading and cursing as he flailed helplessly in the grasp of his captors until he was silenced with blows to the head and stomach. "It appears he has no defence," Bailiff Antoin declared.

"No, I wouldn't think so," remarked the sheriff. The three remaining knights burst into the glade just then. "The rope, Bailiff," de Glanville ordered, and Antoin reached into the bag behind the sheriff 's saddle and drew out a coiled length of braided leather.

The Welshman saw the rope and began shouting and struggling again. The sheriff ordered his knights to haul the man to the nearest tree. The rope was lofted over a stout bough and the quickly fashioned noose pulled tight around the wretch's neck.

"By order of His Majesty, King William of England, in whose authority I am sworn, I sentence you to death for the crime of poaching the king's deer," said the sheriff, his voice low and languid, as if pronouncing such judgement was a dreary commonplace of his occupation. He directed Bailiff Antoin to repeat his words in Welsh. The bailiff struggled, lapsing now and again into French, and finished with a shrug of indifference.

The sheriff, satisfied that all had been done in proper order, said, "Carry out the sentence."

The knight holding the end of the rope was joined by two others and the three began pulling. The leather stretched and creaked as the victim's weight was lifted from the ground. The poor Welshman scrabbled with his hands as the noose tightened around his neck and his dancing feet swung free, toes kicking up clods of snow.

Then, as the suffocated choking began, the sheriff seemed to reconsider. "Hold!" he said. "Let him down."

Instantly the rope slackened, and the man's feet touched ground once more. The wretch collapsed onto his knees, and his hands tore at the constricting leather band around his neck, his breath coming in great, grunting gasps.

When the colour had returned to the Welshman's face, the sheriff said, "Inform the prisoner that I will give him one more chance to live."

Antoin, standing over the gasping man, relayed the sheriff 's words. The unfortunate looked up, eyes full of hope, and grasped the bailiff 's leg as might a beggar beseeching a would-be benefactor.

"Tell him," continued de Glanville, "that I will let him go if he will but tell me where King Raven can be found."

The bailiff duly repeated the offer, whereupon the Welshman rose to his feet. Speaking slowly and with care, aware of the dire consequence of his reply, the hunter folded his hands in supplication to the sheriff and delivered himself of an impassioned speech.

"What did he say?" asked the sheriff when the hunter finished.

"I cannot be certain," began the bailiff, "but it seems that he is a poor man with hungry children-five in number. His wife is dead-no, ill, she is ill. He says his cattle were killed by soldiers of the marshal. They have nothing."

"That is no excuse," replied de Glanville. "Does he know that? Ask him."

The bailiff repeated the sheriff 's observation, and the Welshman retorted with an impassioned plea.

"He says," offered Antoin, "that they are starving. The loss of his cattle has driven him to take the deer. This, he grieves, ah, no, regrets-but always when hunger drove him to the wood, he could take a deer with his lord's blessing."

The sheriff considered this, and then said, "The law is the law. What about King Raven? Make him understand that he can walk free, and take the deer with him, if he tells me where to find that rebel and thief."

This was told to the prisoner, who replied in the same impassioned voice. The bailiff listened, then answered, "The poacher says, if it is a crime to be hungry, then a guilty man stands before you. But if there be a thing such as mercy under heaven, then he pleads to you before God to let him go for the sake of mercy. He calls upon Christ to be his witness, for he knows nothing of King Raven or where he might be found."

The sheriff listened to this, impressed as he occasionally was with the Welsh facility with expression. If talking could save them, they had nothing to fear. Alas, words were but empty things, devoid of power and all too easily broken, discarded, and forgotten. "I will ask one last time," said the sheriff. "Tell me what I want to know."

When the sheriff 's words had been translated, the captive Briton drew himself up full height and gave his answer, saying, "Release me, for the sake of Christ before whom we all must stand one day. But know this, if it lay in my power to know the wiles and ways of the creature you call King Raven, I would not spare so much as a breath to tell you."

"Then save your breath for dying," replied the sheriff when the captive's reply had been relayed. "Hang him!"

The three knights began hauling on the end of the rope. The Welshman's feet were soon kicking and his hands clawing at the noose once more. His strangled cries were swiftly choked off, and his face, now purple and swollen, glared his dying hatred for the sheriff and all Ffreinc invaders.

In a few moments, the victim's struggles ceased and his hands fell limp to his sides, first one and then the other. The sheriff leaned on the pommel of his saddle, watching the poacher's body as it swung, twisting gently from side to side. After a time, the bailiff said, "He is dead, Sire. What do you want us to do with the body?"

"Let it swing," said the sheriff. "It will be a warning to others of his kind."

With that, he turned his mount and started from the clearing, mildly satisfied with the day's work. True, he was no closer to finding King Raven, but hanging a poacher was always a good way to demonstrate his authority and power over the local serfs. A small thing, perhaps, as some would reckon, but it was, after all, in the exercise of vigilance and attention to such small details that power was maintained and multiplied.

Richard de Glanville, Sheriff of the March, knew very well the ways and uses of power. He would find the rebel known as King Raven one day, and on that day all Elfael would see how traitors to the crown were punished. Justice might be delayed, but it could not be escaped. King Raven would be caught, and his death would make that of the hanged poacher seem like a child's game. He would not merely punish the rebel, he would destroy him and snuff out his name forever. That, he considered, would be a delight to savour.