Authors: Stephen R. Lawhead
“We get by,” replied Bran amiably.
“Forgive my curiosity,” I said, plunging in, “but if her father is only over in the next cantref, why does he not send a host to take her back by force?” I lifted a hand to the patched-together little village we were entering just then. “I mean, it would not take much to overwhelm this stronghold, redoubtable as it is.”
“My father doesn’t know where I am,” Mérian informed me. “And anyway, it is all the baron’s fault. I wouldn’t be here if he had not tried to kill Bran.”
“Is that Baron de Braose?” I asked.
“No.” She shook her head, making her long curls bounce. “Baron Neufmarché—he is my father’s overlord. Bran took me captive when the baron turned traitor against him.”
“It is somewhat complicated,” offered Bran with a rueful smile.
“No,” contradicted Mérian, “it is simplicity itself. All you need do is send a message to my father and the silver is yours.”
“When the time is right, Mérian, I will. Be sure of it. I will.”
“That’s what you always say,” she snipped. To me she confided, “He always says that—it’s been a year and more, and he’s still saying it.”
The way they talked a fella’d thought they were a married couple airing a grudge nursed through long seasons of living together. There was little hostility in it, and instead I sensed a certain restraint and even a sort of backwards respect. They’d had this discussion so often, I suppose, that the heat had gone out of it long ago and they were left with the familiar warmth of genuine affection.
“Forgive my asking, but why was the baron trying to kill you, my lord?”
“Because he wants Elfael,” said Iwan, coming up behind me. “No Ffreinc usurper can ever sit secure on the throne while Bran is alive.”
“Elfael is a good place to stand if you’re trying to conquer all Cymru,” Bran explained. “Elfael may be small, but it is a prize both de Braose and Neufmarché want to possess for their own. De Braose has it now, but that could change.”
“Aye,” said Iwan firmly, “it will and one day soon.”
In this, I began to see the shape of the desperate necessity that had driven them into hiding. As in England, so in Wales. The Welsh now faced what Saxon England had suffered a generation ago. The difference was that now the Normans were far more numerous, far better supplied, and far more deeply entrenched in land and power than ever before. Restless, industrious, and determined as the day is long, the Norman overlords had stretched their long, greedy fingers into every nook and cranny of life in the Island of the Mighty. They are relentless, constantly searching out and seizing whatever they want and, often as not, destroying the rest. And now they had turned their attention to the hill-fast lands beyond the March.
I would not have given an empty egg for Wales’ chances of surviving the onslaught. England in its strength, with its massed war host and bold King Harry leading the best warriors the land ever saw, could not resist the terrible Norman war machine. What hope in hell did proud little Wales ever have?
So now. Fool that I am, I had joined my fate to theirs, exchanging the freedom of the road and the life of a wandering odd-jobber for certain death in a fight we could never win.
Well, that’s Will Scarlet for you—doomed beginning and end. Oh, but shed him no tears—he had himself a grand time between.
Castle Truan
A
little more than a year had passed since Baron William de Braose decreed that a market town would be built within the borders of his newly seized lands in Elfael. In that short time, the place had grown to respectable size. Already it was larger than Glascwm, the only other settlement worthy of a name in the region. True, the inhabitants had been moved in from the baron’s other estates—some from Bramber and lands beyond the March and some from the baron’s lands in France—for, unfortunately, the local Welsh shunned the place and refused to reside there. That, however, did not detract from the pride that Count Falkes felt in what he reckoned a considerable achievement by any measure: creating a town with a busy little market from a run-down, worthless monastery housing a few doughty old monks.
One day, thought Falkes as he surveyed the tidy market square, this town, his town, would rival Monmouth or perhaps even Hereford. One day, if he could just maintain order in the cantref and keep his uncle off his back. Baron de Braose might have many good qualities, but patience, like a lame hound, was lagging far to the rear of the pack.
Falkes was only too aware that his uncle chafed at what he considered his nephew’s slow progress. In the baron’s view, the conquest of Wales should have concluded long since. “It has been almost two years,” he had said last time Falkes had visited him at Bramber.
It was at the first of summer that the baron had invited him, along with his cousin and closest friend, the baron’s son, Philip, on a hunting foray in the south of England. The sunny, open countryside of his uncle’s estate made a welcome change from grey, damp Wales. Falkes was enjoying the ride and basking in the warmth of a splendid summer day, if not in his uncle’s good opinion.
“Two years!” said William de Braose as they paused beneath an elm tree to rest the horses. “Two years and what have we to show for it?”
“We have a town, Uncle,” Falkes had pointed out. “A very fine town. And, if I may be so bold to suggest, it has not been two years, but only a little more than one since work began.”
“A town.”William de Braose turned a cold eye on his nephew. “A single town.”
“And an abbey,” added Falkes helpfully, casting Philip a sideways glance. “The new church is almost finished. Indeed, Abbot Hugo is hoping you will attend the consecration ceremony.”
His uncle had allowed that while that was all well and good, he had far grander plans than this solitary town. Elfael was still the only cantref he had conquered in the new territories, and it was costing him more than he liked. “Taxes are low,” he observed. “The money collected hardly pays the supply of the abbey.”
“The British are poor, Sire.”
“They are lazy.”
“No, my lord, it may be true they work less than the English,” granted Falkes, who was beginning to suspect his uncle entertained a faulty understanding of the Britons, “but their needs are less. They are a simple folk, after all.”
“You should be more stern with them. Teach them to fear the steel in your hand.”
“It would not help,” replied Falkes calmly. “Killing them only makes them more stubborn.”
As Falkes had learned to his regret, the slaughter of the ruling Welsh king and his entire warband—while offering an immediate solution to the problem of conquering Elfael—had so thoroughly embittered the people against him that it made his position as ruler of the cantref exceedingly difficult and tenuous.
“Impose your will,” the baron insisted. “Make them bend to your bidding. If they refuse, then do what I do—knock some heads, seize lands and property.”
“They own little enough as it is,” Falkes pointed out. “Most of them hold land in common, and few of them recognise property rights of any kind. Money is little use to them; they barter for what they need. Whenever I tax a man, I am far more likely to be paid in eggs than silver.”
“Eggs!” sneered his uncle. “I speak of taxes and you talk eggs.”
“It happens more often than you know,” declared Falkes, beginning to exhaust his own small store of patience.
“What about this creature of yours—this phantom of the forest?
What do they call it?”
“Rhi Bran y Hud,”
replied Falkes. “It means King Raven the Enchanter.”
“The devil, you say! Have you caught the rascal yet?”
“Not yet,” confessed Falkes. “Sheriff de Glanville is hopeful. It is only a matter of time.”
“Time!” roared the baron. “It has been two years, man! How much more time do you need?”
“Father,” said Earl Philip, speaking up just then, “may I suggest a visit to the commot? See it for yourself. You will quickly get the measure of Elfael. And you will see what Falkes is making of the place.”
“A worthy suggestion, Philip,” the baron had replied, curling the leather reins around his gloved fist as around the neck of an enemy, “but you know that is impossible. I am away to Rouen within the month. If all goes well, I should return before Christmas.”
“I will speak to Abbot Hugo,” said Falkes, “and we will hold the consecration at Christmas.”
“Rouen is where Duke Robert is encamped,” mused Philip, concern wrinkling his smooth brow. “What takes you there, Father?”
Then, while the hounds and their handlers spread out across the field before them, Baron de Braose had confided his plans to meet in secret with a few like-minded noblemen who were anxious to do something about the incessant fighting between the king and his brothers. “Their silly squabble is costing us money that would be better spent on the expansion of our estates and the conquest of Wales,” the baron fumed, wiping sweat from his plump round face. “Whenever one of them thumbs his nose at the other, I have to raise an army and sail off to Normandie or Angevin to help the king slap down the knave. I’ve had a bellyful of their feuding and fighting. Something must be done.”
“Dangerous words, Father,” cautioned Philip. “I would be careful about repeating any of that anywhere. You never know who is listening.”
“Phaw!” scoffed the baron. “I would tell Rufus to his face if he were here. The king must know how his noblemen feel. No, the situation is intolerable, and something must be done. Something will be done, by heaven.”
Philip and Falkes exchanged a worried glance. Speech like this was dangerously close to treason. King William, who knew better than anyone else how little his nobles and subjects esteemed him, viewed even the slightest wavering of support as disloyalty; open disagreement was considered outright betrayal.
“If the king learns of this secret
société
, he will not be best pleased,” Philip pointed out. “You will all be condemned as traitors.”
“The king will not learn of it,” the baron boasted. He drew off a glove and swatted at a fly buzzing before his face, then dragged his blue linen sleeve across his forehead. “Special measures have been taken. We have appealed to the archbishop of Rouen, who has agreed to summon a council of noblemen concerning the papal succession.”
“The archbishop has recognised Urban as pope,” declared Philip, unimpressed with this revelation, “as everyone knows.”
“Yes,” granted his father, “but Urban’s position is faltering just now. He is increasingly out of favour, and Clement occupies Rome. It would not take much to swing the balance his way.”
“Is this what you propose to do? Throw the weight of the nobles behind Clement?”
“For certain concessions,” the baron replied. “A papal ban on this continual family warring would be a good beginning.”
“The king would ignore any declaration the pope might make—just as his father always did,” scoffed Philip.
“Comme le père, donc le fils.”
The baron frowned and looked to Falkes. “What say you, Count? Do you agree with my upstart son?”
“It is not my place to agree or disagree, Sire.”
“Hmph!” snorted the baron in derision. “What good is that?”
“But if I might offer a suggestion,” continued Falkes, choosing his words carefully, “it seems to me that while it is true the king is likely to ignore any censure by the church, were you to establish Clement firmly on the throne of Saint Peter, Clement would be in a position to offer William certain benefits in exchange for a signed treaty of peace between the king and his brothers.”
“Precisely,” agreed the baron. “Is this not what I was saying?”
“To make good Clement’s claim,” said Philip, “you must first depose Urban for good. Blood would flow.”
“It may not come to that,” replied the baron.
“If it did?”
“Qué será,”
answered his father. A drum began beating just then, and Baron de Braose gazed out across the field to a clump of beech trees where the handlers were waiting. “If all goes well, you will receive a sign before Christmas. I will send it with the winter supplies.” With that, he put spurs to his mount and galloped away.
Earl Philip watched his father’s broad back, his frown a scowl of displeasure. “A word beyond this field and we are dead men,” he muttered.
“Count Falkes!” The baron called back to him. “When you catch this phantom raven of yours, let me know. I think I’d like to see him hang.”
Well
, thought Falkes de Braose as he rode into the town square,
we
would all like to see King Raven hang.
And hang he would, there was no doubt about that. But there were other, more pressing matters on his mind than chasing down elusive thieves. And anyway, Elfael had been quiet lately—not an incident in many months. Most likely, the black bird and his band of thieves had been frightened away by the sheriff, and was now raiding elsewhere—someplace where the purses were fatter and the pickings easier.
Count Falkes paused outside Abbot Hugo’s stone-built church. It was a handsome building. The abbot had spared no expense, commanding the finest materials available and gathering the best masons, and it showed.
The count had no great love for his abbot, a haughty, high-handed cleric who connived and conspired to get his way in everything—from the cloth of gold for the altar to the lead roof gleaming dully in the sun. That very roof Falkes paused to admire just now. Ordinary thatch was not good enough for Hugo; it had to be lead, cast in heavy sheets in Paris and shipped at great expense across the channel. And then there was the stonework—only the most skilled stonecutters were allowed to work on the archway carvings, producing the finest decoration money could buy. At the church entrance, Falkes stopped to examine a few of the finished sculptures—some of the last to be finished: a dragon with wings, chasing its tail for eternity; a centaur brandishing a sword; a lion and horse intertwined in mortal combat; Aquarius, the water man, with his bucket and ladle; an angel driving Adam and Eve from the Garden; a winged ox; a mermaid rising from the waves clutching an anchor; and more, all of them contained in dozens of small stone plaques around the arch and on the pillars.
Falkes traced the shapely outline of the mermaid with his finger. He had to admit that the work was extraordinary, but then, so was the cost—and increasingly difficult to bear. It meant, among other things, that he required constant support; he was still far too dependent for his survival on regular supplies from his uncle. True, the largest part of the problem was the baron himself, and his unquenchable zeal for conquest. If Baron de Braose was prepared to build slowly, to develop the land and settle the people, Count Falkes had no doubt that Elfael and the territories west could eventually be made to yield untold wealth. But the baron was not willing to wait, and Falkes had to bear the brunt of his uncle’s impatience—just as he had to endure the umbrage of the abbot, whose spendthrift ways could well ruin them all.
Falkes entered the church. Cool and dim inside, it breathed an air of quiet serenity despite the steady chink of chisel on stone. He stood for a moment and watched the two masons on the wooden scaffold dressing the capitals of one of the pillars. One of them was carving what looked like a bear, and the other a bird.
“You there!” shouted Falkes, his voice loud in the quiet of the sanctuary. “What is your name?”
The masons stopped their work and turned to look down at the count, striding down the centre of the nave. “Me, Sire? I am Ethelric.”
“What is that you are carving, Ethelric?”
“A raven, Sire,” replied the sculptor, pointing to the leafy bough issuing from the face carved into the top of the pillar. “You can tell by the beak, Sire.”
“Remove it.”
“Sire?” asked the mason, bewilderment wrinkling his brow.
“Remove it at once. I do not wish to see any such images in this church.”
The second stone-carver on the scaffold spoke up. “Begging your pardon, Sire, but the abbot has approved of all the work we are doing here.”
“I do not care if the king himself has approved it. I am paying for it, and I do not want it. Remove the hideous thing at once.”
“There you are, Count Falkes!” exclaimed Abbot Hugo, moving up the nave to take his place beside the count. His white hair was neatly curled beneath a fine cloth cap, and his robe was glistening white satin. “I saw your horse outside and wondered where you had gone.” Glancing at the two stone-carvers on the scaffold, he nodded to them to get back to work and, taking the count by the arm, led Falkes down the aisle. “We’ll let these men get on with their work, shall we?”
“But see here,” protested the count.
“Come, there is something I wish to show you,” said the abbot, surging ahead. “The work is going well. We have years of construction still before us, of course, but the building will soon be serviceable. I’m contemplating a consecration ceremony on the eve of All Souls. What do you think of that?”
“I suppose,” agreed Falkes diffidently, “although Baron de Braose will not be likely to attend. But see here, that carving in there . . .”
The abbot opened the door and stepped out. “Why not?” he asked, turning back. He looped his arm through the count’s and walked him into the market square. “I would very much like the baron to attend. In fact, I insist. He must see what we have achieved here. It is his triumph as much as my own. He must attend.”