Tuck

CHAPTER 25

King Raven visited the abbey stores again the next night, despite the watch the sheriff and abbot had placed on the gate and storehouse. This time, however, instead of carrying off the supplies, the black-hooded creature destroyed them. Iwan and Tuck rode with him to the edge of the forest and, as they had done the previous night, waited for night to deepen the darkness. The moon would rise late, but it would be only a pale sliver in the sky. In any event, Bran planned to be back in the forest before his trail could be followed.

When he judged the time was right, he donned his feathered cloak and the high-crested beak mask, and climbed into the saddle. "I could go with you," Iwan said.

"There's no need," Bran demurred. "And it will be easier to elude them on my own."

"We'll wait for you here, then," replied the champion. He handed Bran his bow and six black arrows, three of which had been specially prepared.

"Go with God," Tuck said, and passed Bran the chain from which was suspended a small iron canister-a covered dish of coals. "Oh, it's a sorry waste," he sighed as Bran rode away. His dark form was swiftly swallowed by the darkness.

"Aye," agreed Iwan, "but needful. Taking food from the mouth of an enemy is almost as good as eating it yourself."

Tuck considered this for a moment. "No," he decided, "it is not."

The two settled back to watch and wait. They listened to the night sounds of the forest and the easy rustling of the leaves in the upper boughs of the trees as the breeze came up. Tuck was nodding off to sleep when Iwan said, "There he is."

Tuck came awake with a start at the sound. He looked around, but saw nothing. "Where?"

"Just there," said Iwan, stretching out his hand towards the darkness, "low to the ground and a little to your left."

Tuck looked where Iwan indicated and saw a tiny yellow glow moving along the ground. Then, even as he watched, the glow floated up into the air, where it hung for a moment.

"He's on the wall," said Iwan.

The glowing spark seemed to brighten and burst into flame. In the same instant the flame flared and disappeared and all was darkness again.

They waited.

In a moment, the glow fluttered to life once more in midair. It flared to life and disappeared just as quickly.

"That's two," said Iwan. "One more."

They waited.

This time the glow did not reappear at once. When it did, it was some distance farther along the wall. As before, the faint firefly glow brightened, then flared to brilliant life and disappeared in a smear of sparks and fire. Darkness reclaimed the night, and they waited. A long moment passed, then another, and they heard the hoofbeats of a swiftly approaching horse, and at almost the same time a line of light appeared low in the sky. The light grew in intensity until they could see the form of a dark rider galloping toward them. All at once, the light bloomed in the sky, erupting in a shower of orange and red flames.

"To your horses," shouted Bran as he came pounding up. "They'll be wanting our heads for this. I fired the storehouse and granary both."

"Did anyone see you?" wondered Iwan as he swung up into the saddle.

"It's possible," Bran said. "But they'll have their hands full for a little while, at least."

"Tsk," clucked Tuck with mild disapproval. "Such a sad waste."

"But necessary," offered Iwan. "Anything that weakens them, helps us."

"And anything that helps us, helps Elfael and its people," concluded Bran. "It was necessary."

"A holy waste, then," replied Tuck. He raised himself to a fallen limb and squirmed into the saddle. By the time he had the reins in his fist, his companions were already riding along the edge of the field up the long rising slope towards Coed Cadw, a dark mass rising like a wall against a sky alive with stars.

As the news about what had happened spread throughout the Vale of Elfael, everyone who heard about the theft and fire of the previous nights knew what it meant: King Raven's war with the Ffreinc had entered a new, more desperate stage. Burning the abbey's storehouse and granary would provoke Abbot Hugo and the sheriff to a swift and terrible reaction. If an army cannot eat, it cannot fight, and the abbot's army had just lost its supper.

"Sheriff de Glanville won't be dainty about taking what he needs from the poor Cymry round about," Scarlet pointed out after hearing an account of the previous night's raid. "He'll make a right fuss, no mistake."

"I expect he will," Bran agreed. "I'd be disappointed otherwise."

"Will's got a fair point," Siarles affirmed. "De Glanville will steal from the farm folk. It's always them he turns to."

"Yes, and when he does, he'll find King Raven waiting for him," said Bran.

Bran's reply stunned his listeners-not what he said-the words themselves were reasonable enough. It was the way he said them; there was a coldness in his tone that chilled all who heard it. There wasn't a man among them who did not recognize that something had changed in their king since his return from the north. If he had been determined before, he was that much more determined now. But it was more than simple purpose-there was a dark, implacable hardness to it, as if somehow his customary resolve had been chastened and hardened in a forge. There was an edge to it, keen and lethal as stropped steel. Scarlet put it best when he said, "God bless me, Brother Tuck, but talking to Rhi Bran now is like talking to the blade of a spear." He turned wondering eyes on the little priest. "Just what did you two get up to in the north that's made him so?"

"It's never the north that's made him this way," replied the friar, "although that maybe tipped the load into the muck. But it's coming back home and seeing how things are here-all this time passing, and the abbot is ruling the roost and the sheriff cutting up rough and all. The Ffreinc are still here and nothing's changed-nothing for the better, at least."

Scarlet nodded in commiseration. "It may be as you say, Friar, but I say that little jaunt up north changed him," he insisted. "I'll bet my back teeth on't."

"Perhaps," allowed Tuck. "Oh, you should have seen him, Scarlet. The way he peeled that hard-boiled earl-it was a gladsome sight." The friar went on to describe the elaborate deception he'd witnessed and in which he'd taken part-the clothes, the hunting, Alan's tireless translating, the young Welshmen and their willing and industrious participation, the breathless escape, and all the rest. "We were Count Rexindo and his merry band, as Alan says-albeit, his song makes it sound like a frolic of larks, but it was grim dire, I can tell you. We were tiptoeing in the wolf 's den with fresh meat in our hands, but Bran never put a foot wrong. Why, it would have made you proud, it truly would."

"And yet it all came to nothing in the end."

"Saints bear witness, Scarlet, that's the naked bleeding heart of it, is it not? We dared much and risked more to save King Gruffydd's worthless neck," Tuck said, his voice rising with the force of his indignation. "And we succeeded! Beyond all hope of success, we succeeded. But that selfish sot refused to help. After we saved his life, by Peter's beard, that rascal of a king would not lend so much as a single sausage to our aid." He shook his head in weary commiseration. "Poor Bran… that his own kinsman would use him so ill-it's a wicked betrayal, that's what it is."

"Raw as a wound from a rusty blade." He considered this for a moment. "So that's the grit in his gizzard-our Bran knows we're on our own now," concluded Scarlet gloomily. "Aye, we're alone in this, and that's shame and pity enough to make man, woman, horse, or dog weep."

"Never say it," Tuck rebuked gently. "We are not alone-for the Lord of Hosts is on our side and stretches out His mighty arm against our enemies." The little friar smiled, his round face beaming simple good pleasure at the thought. "If the Almighty stands with us, who can stand against us, aye?" Tuck prodded Scarlet in the chest with a stubby finger. "Just you answer me that, boyo. Who can stand against us?"

The friar had a point, Scarlet confessed, that no one could stand against God-then added, "But there does seem no end o' folk that'll try."

The Grellon resumed the task of accumulating what provisions they could-meat from the hunt, grain and beans from the raid, tending the turnips in the field, making cheese from the milk of their two cows-preserving all they could and storing it up against the days of want that were surely coming.

Bran turned his attention to the other matter weighing on his mind. With everyone else already occupied, he called Scarlet and Tuck to him and announced, "Put on your riding boots. We're going to find Merian-and while we're at it, we'll see if we can convince King Cadwgan to lend some of his men to aid us."

"This is what Merian has been arguing all this while," Tuck pointed out.

"Aye, it is," Bran conceded. "I was against it at first, I confess, but our feet are in the flame now and we have no other choice. Maybe Merian is right-maybe her family will help where mine would not. Lord Cadwgan holds no kindly feelings towards me, God knows, but she's had a few days with him; I have to know whether she's been able to soften her father's opinion and persuade him. Pray she has, friends-it's our last hope." He spun on his heel and started away at once. "Ready the horses," he called over his shoulder. "We have only this day."

"It seems his disappointment has passed," said Scarlet. "And we're for a ride through lands filled with vengeful Ffreinc."

"Lord have mercy." Tuck sighed. "The last thing I need is to spend more time jouncing around on horseback. Still, if we can convince Cadwgan to help us, it will be worth another saddle sore."

"So now, if the Ffreinc catch us rambling abroad in plain daylight," warned Scarlet, "saddle sores will be least of all your earthly worries, friend friar."