Scarlet

CHAPTER 4

Brother Odo is dozing over his quill again. Much as I like to see him jump, I won't wake him just yet. It gives me time. The longer I stretch this tale, the more time I have before the tale stretches me, so to speak. Besides, I need a little space to think.

What I think on now is the day I first set eyes on King Raven. A pleasant day it was, too, in all its parts. Crisp, bright autumn was descending over the March. I had been months a-wandering, poking here and there as fancy took me, moving ever and always in the direction of the setting sun. I had no plan other than to learn more of this King Raven, and find him if I could. A fellow of the forest, such as myself, might make himself useful to a man like that. If I did, I reckoned, he might be persuaded to take me under his wing.

I kept my ears sharp for any word of King Raven, and asked after him whenever I happened on a settlement or holding. I worked for food and a bed of straw in barn or byre, and talked to those who were bold enough to speak about the abuses of the crown and events in the land. Many of those I spoke to had heard the name-as well they might, for Baron de Braose, Lord of Bramber, had set aside a right handsome reward for his capture. Some of the folk had a tale or two of how this Raven fella had outwitted the baron or abbot, or some such; but none knew more than I did of this elusive blackbird or his whereabouts.

The further west I wended, however, the pickings got better in one respect, but worse in another. More had heard of King Raven, to be sure, and some were happy enough to talk. But those who knew of him held that this Raven was not a real man at all. Rather, they had it that he was a phantom sent up from the lowest infernal realm to bedevil the Normans. They said the creature took the form of a giant, high-crested bird, with wings to span a ten-foot pike, and a wicked long beak. Deadly as plague to the Normans, they said, and black as Satan's pit whence he sprung, he was a creature bred and born of deviltry-although one alewife told me that he had given some kinfolk of hers aid in food and good money when they were that desperate for it, so he couldn't be all that bad.

As green spring gave way to summer, I settled for a spell with a swineherd and his gap-toothed wife on their small farm hard by Hereford, where Baron Neufmarche keeps his great stone heap of a castle. Although Wales is only a few days' saunter up the road, I was in no hurry just then. I wanted to learn more, if more was to be learned, and so I lay low, biding my time and listening to the locals when they had cause to speak of matters that interested me.

When the day's work was finished, I'd hie up to town to spend a fair summer evening at the Cross Keys, an inn of questionable repute. The innkeeper was a rascal, no mistake-it's him they should be hanging, not Will-but he served a worthy jar and thick chops so tender and juicy your teeth could have a rest. I came to know many of the local folk who called at the Keys, and they came to trust me with their more private thoughts.

Always, I tried to steer the talk towards happenings in the March, hoping for a word or two of King Raven. Thus, it fell out one night that I met a freeman farmer who traded at Hereford on market days. He had come up to sell a bit of bacon and summer sausage and, seeing me cooling my heels, came to sit down beside me on the low wall that fronted the inn. "Well," said I, raising my jar, "here's hail to the king."

"Hail to the king, devil take him when he will."

"Oh? Red William gone out of favour with you?" I ask.

"Aye," says the farmer, "and I don't care who knows it." All the same, he glanced around guiltily to see who might be overhearing. No one was paying any mind to a couple of tongue-wags like ourselves, so he took a deep draught of his ale and reclined on his elbow against the wall. "I pray for his downfall every day."

"What has the king done to you to earn such ire?"

"What hasn't he done? Before Rufus I had a wife and a strapping big son to help me with the chores."

"And now?"

"Wife got croup and died, and son was caught in the greenwood setting rabbit snares. Lost his good right hand to the sheriff 's blade. Now he can't do more'n herd the stock."

"You blame the king for that?"

"I do. If I had my way King Raven would pluck out his eyes and eat his right royal liver."

"That would be a sight," I told him. "If that feathered fella was more than a story to tell on a summer night."

"Oh! He is," the farmer insisted. "He is, right enough."

My vengeful friend went on then to relate how the dread bird had swooped down on a passel of Norman knights as they passed through the March on the King's Road one fine night.

"King Raven fell out of the sky like a venging angel and slew a whole army o' the baron's rogues before they could turn and run," the farmer said. "He left only one terrified sot alive to warn the baron to leave off killin' Brits."

"This creature-how did he kill the knights?" I wondered.

The farmer looked me in the eye and said, "With fire and arrows."

"Fair enough," says I. "But if it was with fire and arrows, how do they know it was the phantom bird who did it, and not just some peevish Welshman? You know how contrary they can be when riled."

"Oh, aye," agreed the farmer. "I know that right enough. But it was the King Raven, no mistake." He shook his head with unwavering assurance. "That I know."

"Because?" I prodded lightly.

"Because," says he with a slow smile, "the arrows was black. Stone tip to feather, they was black as Beelzebub's tongue."

This bit of news thrilled me more than anything I'd heard yet. Black arrows, mind! Just the kind of thing ol'Will Scarlet might think up if he was about such business as spreading fear and havoc among the rascal brigade. In this tetchy farmer's tale, I saw the shape of a man, and not a phantom. A man that much like myself it gave me the first solid hope to be getting on with.

I lingered on the holding through harvesttime to help out, and then, as the leaves began to fall and the wind freshened from the north, I took my leave and, one bright day, took to the road once more. I walked from settlement to settlement, pausing wherever I could to seek word of King Raven.

Autumn had come to the land, as I say, and I eventually arrived at the edge of the March and entered the forest. Easy in my own company, I remained alert to all around me. I travelled slow and with purpose, camping by the road each night. On those clean, clear mornings I rose early and made for a high place, the better to watch and listen and learn what I could of the woodland 'round about.

See now, the Forest of the March is an ancient wood, old when Adam was a lad. A wild place not like any forest I'd known in England. Denser, darker, more tangled and woolly, it clutched tight to its secrets and held them close. Mind you, I am a man used to forest ways and byways, and as the bright days chased one another off toward winter, I began to get the measure of it.

One morning, just as the weather turned, I woke to a chill mist and the sound of voices on the King's Road. I had seen wolf scat on the trail before sunset and decided a prudent man might do well to sleep out of reach of those rangy, long-toothed hunters. So, having spent the night in the rough crook of a stout oak within sight of the King's Road-a stiff cradling, to be sure-I stirred as the daylight broke soft on a grey and gusty day, and heard the sound of men talking on the trail below. Their voices were quiet and low, the easy rhythmic tones familiar, even as the words were strange. It took me a moment to shake the sleep out of my ears and realise they were speaking Welsh. My mother's tongue it was, and I had enough of it from my barefoot days to make myself understood.

I heard the words Rhi Bran y Hud and knew I was close to finding what I was looking for, so… Yes, Odo, what is it?" My scribe rouses himself from his snooze and rubs his dream-dulled eyes.

"These words Riban Hood," he asks, yawning wide. "What do they mean?"

"If you would let a fella get on wi' the tellin', God knows you'd find out soon enough," I say. "But, see here now, it en't Riban Hood, as you will have it. It is Rhi Bran-that part means "King Raven." And Hud means… well, it means "Enchanter." It is what the British folk call the phantom lord of the Marchlands."

"Ree Bran a Hood," he says, dutifully writing it down. "A good name."

"Aye, a good name, that," I agree, and we rumble on. Well, I shinnied down to join those fellas on the road and see what they could tell me of this mysterious bird.

"Here now," I called, dropping lightly from the last branch onto the bank above the road. "Can you fellas spare a traveller a word or two?"

You would have thought I'd dropped down from the moon to see the look on those two faces. Two men, one big as a house and the other slighter, but muscled and tough as a hickory root. They were dressed in odd hooded cloaks with greenery and rags sewn on, and both carried sturdy longbows with a quiver of arrows at their belts. "What!" cried the big one, spinning around quicker than you'd have thought possible for so large a lump of humanity.

This one has spent a fair bit of time in the greenwood, thinks I, his knife is in his hand that quick. "I mean no harm, friend," I said. "And full sorry I am if I startled you. I heard you talkin' and was hopin' for a little chin music, is all."

"You lurking devil," growled the slight one, thrusting forward, "we'll not be singing for you." He looked to the big one, who nodded slowly. "Not until we know more about you."

"Well, I've got time now if you do," said I. "Where would you like me to begin?"

"A name if you have one," said he. "That will do for a beginning."

"My name's William Scatlocke," I told them. "Think what you like, but there's some as tug a forelock when they hear that name." I give him a smile and a wink. "But a doff o' the hat will do nicely just now."

"I am Iwan," replied the big one, warming up a little. "This here is Siarles."

"Scatlocke's a Saxon name," observed the slight one with a frown. "But William, now that's Ffreinc." He seemed ready to spit to show me what he thought of Normans.

"Saxon and Ffreinc, aye," I agreed politely. "My mother, bless her dear, sweet, well-meaning soul, thought a Frankish William would make my life that little mite easier seeing as our land was overrun by the vermin. With a William to go before me, they might mistake me for one of their own, see, and give me an easier ride."

"Do they?" he asked, suspicion making his voice a threat.

"Not as I've noticed," I said. "Then again, it en't as if I'd been named Siarles. Now, there's a name just begging for trouble, if ever I heard one."

The slight one bristled and bunched up his face, but the big one chuckled aloud, his voice like thunder over green hills. "You are a bold one, give you that," said he. "But you're in the March now, friend. What causes you to be dropping from our good Welsh trees, Bold William?"

"Friendly folk call me Will Scarlet," I answered. "Forester by trade, I am-just like my father before me. I see you two know your way around leafland yourselves."

"That we do, Will," Iwan said. "Are you running from someone, then?"

"Running to, more like."

Well, they wanted to hear more, so I went on to explain about Thane Aelred getting banished and his lands taken in Forest Law and all that ruck. I told about taking to the greenwood, and all my travels since then. They listened, and I could feel them relaxing their distrust as I described hiding from the sheriff and his men on land that used to belong to my good thane, and poaching the king's precious deer to survive. Pretty soon, they began nodding and agreeing, siding with me in my plight. "Thing is, since then I've been on the move all summer looking for this fella they call King Raven. Naturally, when I heard you mention Rhi Bran, my ears pricked right up."

"You speak Cymru?" asked Siarles then.

"Learned it on my dear mum's knee," I told him. "Same mum, in fact, that named me William. I also bothered myself to learn a little Frank so I'd know what those buggers were up to."

"Why do you want to see King Raven?" asked Iwan. "If you don't mind my asking."

"To offer my services," I replied, "and I'd be much obliged for any help you could give me in that direction."

"Might we know the nature of these services?" asked Siarles, looking me up and down. He was softening a bit, but still a little brittle for my taste.

"Seems to me that if he is even half the man I think he is, he'll be needing a strong and fearless hand like Will Scarlet here."

"What do you know of him?"

"I know he en't a phantom, as some would have it. I know Baron de Braose is offering fifty pounds of pure English silver for his fine feathered head on a pike."

"Truly?" Siarles asked, much impressed.

"Aye," I assured him, "did you not know that?"

"We maybe heard something about it," he muttered. Then a new thought occurred to him. "And just how do we know you don't want to claim all that money for yourself?"

"Good question," I allowed. "And it deserves a good answer."

"Well?" he said, suspicion leaping up lively as ever. Siarles, bless him; his grey eyes are quick and they are keen, but he distrusts most of what he sees. Half of it is living in the wildwood, I reckon, where your eyes and wits are your best and truest friends; but the other half is just his own leery nature.

"As soon as I think up an answer good enough, I'll tell you," I said. This brought a growl from young Siarles, who wanted to run me off then and there.

Iwan only laughed. He had already made up his mind about me. "Peace, Siarles," he said. "He doesn't want the money."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Any man after the reward money would have thought of a better answer than that. Why, he'd have a whole story worked out and like as not say too much and get himself all tangled in the telling. Will, here, didn't do that."

"Maybe he's just that stupid."

"Nay, he isn't stupid," replied Iwan. I liked him better and better by the moment. "I'll wager my good word against anything in your purse that claiming the reward money never crossed his mind."

"You would win that bet, friend," I replied. "In truth, it never did." Seeing as how Iwan had made such a fine argument for me, I asked, "Am I to be thinking that you know this Rhi Bran?"

Siarles, still suspicious, frowned as Iwan said, "Know him, aye, we do."

"Would you kindly tell me where he can be found?" I asked, nice as please and thank you.

"Better than that," said Iwan, "we'll take you to meet him."

"Iwan!" snapped Siarles. He was tenacious as a rat dog, give him that. "What are you saying? We don't know this Saxon, or anything about him. We can't be taking him to Bran. Why, he might be anybody-maybe even a spy for the abbot!"

"If he's Hugo's spy we can't be leaving him here," countered Iwan. "I say we take him with us and leave it to Bran to decide who and what he is-aye, and what is to be done with him." Turning to me, he said, "If we take you with us, do you swear on your life's blood to abide by our lord's decision whatsoever it may be?"

Ordinarily, I do not like swearing my life away on the whims of persons unknown, but seeing as he was only granting me the chance I'd been seeking all summer, I readily agreed. "On my life's blood, I swear to abide by your lord's decision."

"Good enough for me," said Iwan. "Follow us."

"And see you keep quiet," added Siarles for good measure.

"I'll be as quiet as you were when you woke me from my treetop perch just now," I told him.

Iwan gave out a laugh and, in two quick strides, disappeared up over the bank and into the brushwood beside the road. "After you," said Siarles, prodding me with the tip of his bow. "I'll come last, and don't you put a foot wrong, 'cause I'll be watching you."

"There's relief, to be sure," I replied. Stepping into the forest, I was led a merry chase to meet the man I'd crossed half the country to see. God save me, but I never imagined him the way he first appeared.