Hood (20 page)

The injured man and the old woman simply vanished in a blinding white haze, and most upsetting, Bran found himself waking in the dark and occupying the injured man’s place.

This distressing transformation did not upset him as much as it might have because of the overwhelming sympathy Bran felt for the unfortunate fellow. Not only did he feel sorry for the young man, but he felt as if they might have been friends in the past. At the same time, he resented the repulsive old woman’s intrusions. If not for her, Bran imagined he and the wounded man would have been free to leave that dark place and roam at will in the fields of light.

He knew about these far-off fields because he had seen them, caught fleeting glimpses of them in his other dreams. In these dreams he was often flying, soaring above an endless landscape of softly rounded hills over which the most wonderful, delicate, crystalline rays of sunlight played in ever-shifting colours—as if the soft summer breeze had become somehow visible as it drifted over the tall grass in richly variegated hues to delight the eye. Nor was this all, for accompanying the blithe colours was a soft flutelike music, buoyant as goose down on the breeze, far-off as the remembered echo of a whisper. Soft and sweet and low, it gradually modulated from one note to the next in fine harmony.

The first time he saw the fields of light, the sight made his heart ache with yearning; he wanted nothing more than to go there, to explore that wondrous place, but something prevented him. Once, in his dream, he had made a determined rush toward the glorious fields, and it appeared he would at last succeed in reaching them. But the old woman suddenly arose before him—it was Angharad; he knew her by the quick glance of her dark eye—except that she was no longer the hideous hag who dwelt in the darksome hole. Gone were her bent back and filthy tangles of stringy hair; gone her withered limbs, gone her coarse-woven, shapeless dress.

The woman before him was beauty made flesh. Her tresses were long and golden hued, her skin flawless, soft, and supple; her gown was woven of glistening white samite and trimmed in ermine; the slippers on her feet were scarlet silk, beaded with tiny pearls. She gazed upon him with large, dark eyes that held a look of mild disapproval. He moved to step past her, but she simply raised her hand.

“Where do you go,
mo croi
?” she asked, her voice falling like gentle laughter on his ear.

He opened his mouth to frame a reply but could make no sound.

“Come,” she said, smiling, “return with me now. It is not yet time for you to leave.”

Reaching out, she touched him lightly on the arm, turning him to lead him away. He resisted, still staring at the wonderful fields beyond.

“Dearest heart,” she said, pressing luscious lips to his ear, “yon meadow will remain, but you cannot. Come, return you must. We have work to do.”

So she led him back from the edge of the field, back to the warm darkness and the slow
plip
,
plip
,
plip
of the falling rain. Sometime later—he could not say how long—Bran heard singing. It was the voice from his dream, and this time he opened his eyes to dim shadows moving gently on the rock walls of his primitive chamber.

Slowly, he turned his head toward the sound, and there she was. Although it was dark as a dovecote inside the cave, he could see her lumpen, ungainly form as she stood silhouetted by the fitful, flickering flames. She was as hideous as the hag of his recent nightmares, but as he knew now, she was no dream. She, like the hole in the ground where he lay, was only too real.

“Who are you?” asked Bran. His head throbbed with the effort of forming the words, and his voice cracked, barely a whisper. The old woman did not turn or look around but continued stirring the foul-smelling brew.

It was some time before Bran could work up the strength to ask again, with slightly more breath, “Woman, who are you?”

At this, the crone dropped her stirring stick and turned her wrinkled face to peer at him over a hunched shoulder, regarding him with a sharp, black, birdlike eye. Her manner put Bran in mind of a crow examining a possible meal or a bright bauble to steal away to a treetop nest.

“Can you speak?” asked Bran. Each word sent a peal of agony crashing through his head, and he winced. The side of his face felt as stiff and unyielding as a plank of oak.

“Aye, speak and sing,” she replied, and her voice was far less unpleasant than her appearance suggested. “The question is, methinks, can thee?”

Bran opened his mouth, but a reply seemed too much effort. He simply shook his head—and instantly wished he had not moved at all, for even this slight motion sent towering waves of pain and nausea surging through his gut. He closed his eyes and waited for the unpleasantness to pass and the world to right itself once more.

“I thought not,” the old woman told him. “Thou best not speak until I bid thee.”

She turned from him then, and he watched her as she rose slowly and, bending from her wide hips, removed the pot from the flames and set it on a nearby rock to cool. She then came to his bed, where she sat for some time, gazing at him with that direct, unsettling glance. At length, she said, “Thou art hungry. Some broth have I made thee.”

Bran, unable to make a coherent reply, merely blinked his eyes in silent assent. She busied herself by the fire, returning a short time later with a wooden bowl. Taking up a spoon made from a stag’s horn, she dipped it into the bowl and brought it to Bran’s mouth, parting his lips with a gentle yet insistent pressure.

Barely able to open his mouth, he allowed some of the lukewarm liquid to slide over his teeth and down his throat.

It had a dusky, herb-rich flavour that reminded him of a greenwood glen in deep autumn.

She lifted the spoon once more, and he sucked down the broth. “There, and may it well become you,” she said soothingly. “Thou mayest yet make good your return to Tir na’ Nog.”

An inexplicable sense of pride and accomplishment flushed his cheeks, and he suddenly found himself eager to please her with this trifling display of infant skill. The broth, although thin and clear, was strangely filling, and Bran found that after only a few more sips from the spoon, he could hold no more.

The food settled his stomach, and exhausted with the small effort expended, he closed his eyes and slept.

When he woke again, it was brighter in the cave, and he was hungry again. As before, the old woman was there to serve him some of the herbal broth. He ate gratefully, but without trying to speak, and then slept after his meal.

Life proceeded like this for many days: he would wake to find his guardian beside him, ready to feed him his broth, whereupon, after only a few sips from the stag horn spoon, he would be overcome by the urge to sleep. Upon waking, he would find himself better refreshed than before, and what is more, Bran not only found that he was eating more each time, but also suspected that the intervals between sleeping and eating were shorter.

The comforting routine was interrupted one day when Bran awoke to find himself alone in the cave. He moved his head to look around, but the hag was nowhere to be seen. The
pit-pat
drip of water that had accompanied his waking moments for the last many days was gone. Alone and unobserved, he decided to stand up.

Slowly, cautiously, he levered himself onto the elbow of his good arm. His shoulders were stiff, and his chest ached; even the tiniest movement set off a crippling surge of agony that left him panting. At each attack he would pause, eyes squeezed shut, clutching his chest, until the waves of pain receded and he could see straight again.

On the ground near his bed was a shallow iron basin full of water; guarding against any sudden moves, he stretched out his hand and was able to hook two fingers over the rim and pull the heavy vessel closer.When the water stopped sloshing around the basin, he leaned over it and looked in. The face staring back at him was woefully misshapen; the right side was puffy and discoloured, and a jagged black line ran from the lower lip to the earlobe. The flesh along this lightning-strike line was pinched and puckered beneath a rough beard, which had been unevenly shaved to keep the hair away from the wound.

Angry at what he saw reflected in the water, he gave the basin a shove and instantly regretted it. The violent movement caused another upwelling of pain, greater than any before. He could not bear it and fell back, tears streaming down the sides of his face. He moaned, and that started him coughing, which opened the wound in his chest. The next thing he knew, he was coughing up blood.

The stuff came bubbling up his throat, thick and sweet, and spilled over his chin. He gagged and hacked, spitting blood in a fine red mist over himself. Each cough brought forth another, and he could not catch his breath. Just when he thought he would choke to death on his own blood, the old woman appeared beside him.

“What hast thou done?” she asked, kneeling beside him.

Unable to reply, he wheezed and spluttered, blood welling up over his teeth. With a quick motion, Angharad tore aside the sheepskin covering and placed a gentle hand on his chest.

“Peace!” she whispered, like a mother to a distraught and unquiet child.

Power of moon have I over thee,

Power of sun have I over thee,

Power of stars have I over thee,

Power of rain have I over thee,

Power of wind have I over thee,

Power of heaven have I over thee,

Power of heaven have I over thee in the power of God to heal thee.

She moved her hand over his chest, her fingertips softly brushing the injured flesh. “Closed for thee thy wound, and stanched thy blood. As Christ bled upon the cross, so closeth he thy wound for thee,” she intoned, her voice a caress.

A part of this hurt on the high mountains,

A part of this hurt on the grass-deep meadow,

A part of this hurt on the heathered moors,

A part of this hurt on the great surging sea that has best means to bear it.

This hurt on the great surging sea, she herself has the best means to bear it for thee . . . away . . . away . . . away.

Under Angharad’s warm touch, the pain subsided. His lungs eased their laboured pumping, and his breathing calmed. Bran lay back, his chin and chest glistening with gore, and mouthed the words,
Thank you
.

Taking a bit of rag, she soaked it in the basin and began washing him clean, working patiently and slowly. She hummed as she worked, and Bran felt himself relaxing under her gentle ministrations. “Now wilt thou sleep,” the old woman told him when she finished.

Eyelids heavy, he closed his eyes and sank into the soft, dark, timeless place where his dreams kindled and flared with strange visions of impossible feats, of people he knew but had never met, of things past—or perhaps yet to come—when the king and queen gave life and love to the people, when bards lauded the deeds of heroes, when the land bestowed its gifts in abundance, when God looked with favour upon his children and hearts were glad. Over all he dreamed that night, there loomed the shape of a strange bird with a long beak and a face as smooth and hard and black as charred bone.

CHAPTER 19

S
pring could not come soon enough for Falkes de Braose. The count ached for an end to the roof-rattling, teeth-chattering cold of the most inhospitable winter he had ever known—and it had only just begun! As he shivered in his chair, wrapped in cloaks and robes—a very hillock of dun-coloured wool—he consoled himself with the thought that when winter came next year, he would be firmly ensconced in his own private chamber in a newly built stone keep. In blissful dreams he conjured snug, wood-panelled rooms hung with heavy tapestries to keep out the searching fingers of the frigid wind, and a down-filled bed set before a blazing hearth all his own. He would never again suffer the dank drear of the great hall, with its drafts and smoke and freezing damp.

He would not abide another winter swaddled like a grotesquely oversized worm waiting for spring so it could shrug off its cocoon. Next winter, a ready supply of fuel would be laid in; he would determine how much was required and then treble the amount. This daily struggle to squeeze inadequate warmth from wet timber was slow insanity, and the count vowed never to endure it again. This time next year, he would laugh at the rain and cheerfully thumb his nose at each snowflake as it floated to the ground.

Meanwhile, he waited in perpetual dudgeon for the spring thaw, studying the plans drawn by the master architect for the baron’s new borderland castles: one facing the yet-to-be-conquered northwestern territories, one to anchor the centre and the lands to the south, and one to defend the backs of the other two from any attacks arising from the east. The castles were, with only slight variations, all the same, but Falkes studied each sheaf of drawings with painstaking care, trying to think of improvements to the designs that he could suggest and that might win his uncle’s approval. So far, he had come up with only one: increasing the size of the cistern that captured rainwater for use in times of emergency. As this detail was not likely to impress his uncle, he kept at his scrutiny and dreamed of warmer climes.

Five days after the feast of Saint Benedict, a messenger arrived with a letter from the baron. “Good news, I hope,” said Falkes to the courier, taking receipt of the wrapped parchment. “Will you stay?”

“My lord baron requires an answer without delay,” replied the man, shaking rainwater from his cloak and boots.

“Does he indeed?” Falkes, his interest sufficiently piqued, waved the courier away to the cookhouse. Alone again, he broke the seal, unrolled the small scrap of parchment, and settled back in his chair, holding the crabbed script before his eyes.

He read the letter through to the end and then scanned it again to make sure he had not missed anything.

The message was simple enough: his uncle, eager to strengthen his grasp on Elfael so that he could begin his long-anticipated invasion into fresh territories, desired the construction of his new castles to begin without further delay.

The baron was sending masons and skilled workers at once.