Hood (28 page)
Mérian, slightly older of the two, tall and willowy with long, dark hair, was wearing a simple gown of pale green linen; her cousin Essylt, fair with a pleasant, plump face and a delicate mouth, was dressed in a gown the colour of fresh butter.
Both possessed an air of demure yet guileless confidence.
Mérian regarded him with frank appraisal as she extended a small wooden trencher with pieces of bread torn from a loaf.
“Be welcome here, Baron Neufmarché,” she said in a voice so soft and low that it sent a pang of longing through the baron’s tough heart.
“May you want for nothing while you are here,” said Essylt, stepping forward with a small dish of salt in her cupped hands.
“I am charmed, my ladies,” professed the baron, speaking the complete truth for the first time that day. Taking a piece of bread from the offered board, he dipped it in the salt and ate it. “Peace to this house tonight,” he said, offering his hand.
“Your servant, Baron Neufmarché,” replied the king’s daughter. She accepted the baron’s hand, performed a graceful curtsy, and bowed her head; her long, dark curls parted, slightly exposing the nape of a slender neck and the curve of a shapely shoulder.
“As I am yours,” said the baron, delighted by the splendid young woman. Although he also accepted the courtesy of the young woman called Essylt, his eyes never left the dark-haired beauty before him.
“Father tells me you approve of the fieldwork,” said Mérian, not waiting to be addressed.
“Indeed,” replied the baron. “It is good work and well done.”
“And the herds—they were also to your liking?”
“I have rarely seen better,” answered the baron politely.
“Your people know their cattle—as I have always said. I am pleased.”
“Well then, I expect we shall see an increase in our taxes again this year,” she said with a crisp smile.
“Here now!” objected her father quickly; he gave the forthright young woman a glance of fierce disapproval. To the baron, he said, “Please forgive my daughter. She is of a contrary mind and sometimes forgets her place.”
“That is true,” acknowledged Mérian lightly. “I do humbly beg your pardon.” So saying, she offered another little bow, which, although performed with simple grace, was in no way deferential.
“Pardon granted,” replied the baron lightly. Despite the glancing sting of her remark—which would certainly have earned a less winsome subject stiff punishment—the baron found it easy to forgive her and was glad for the opportunity to do so. Her direct, uncomplicated manner was refreshing; it put him in mind of a spirited young horse that has yet to be trained to the halter. He would, he considered, give much to be the man to bring her to saddle.
The two young women were sent to fetch the jars the king had ordered. They returned with overflowing cups, which they offered the king and his noble guest. The two made to retreat then, but the baron said, “Please, stay. Join us.” To the king he said, “I find the company of ladies often a pleasant thing when taking my evening meal.”
Queer as the request might be, Cadwgan was not about to offend his guest—there were matters he wished to negotiate before the night was finished—so he lauded the idea. “Of course! Of course, I was just about to suggest the same thing myself. Mérian, Essylt, you will stay. Mérian, fetch your mother and tell her we will all dine together tonight.”
Mérian dipped her head in acquiescence to this odd suggestion, so neither her father nor his guest saw her large, dark eyes roll in derision.
The king then offered a health to the baron, “. . . and to King William, may God bless his soul!”
“Hear! Hear!” seconded the baron with far more zeal than he felt. In truth, he still nursed a grudge against the king for the humiliation suffered at Red William’s hands when the baron had last been summoned to court.
Still, he drank heartily and asked after his subject lord’s interest in hunting. The conversation grew warm and lively then. Queen Anora joined them after a while to say that dinner was ready and they all could be seated. The dining party moved to the board then, and Baron Bernard contrived to have Mérian sit beside him.
The party dined well, if not extravagantly, and the baron enjoyed himself far more than at any time in recent memory. The nearness of the enchanting creature next to him proved as stimulating as any cup of wine, and he availed himself of every opportunity to engage the young lady’s attention by passing along news of royal affairs in Lundein, which, he imagined, would be of interest to her, as they were to every young lady he had ever known.
The meal ended all too soon. The baron, unable to think how to prolong it, bade his host a good night and retired to his chamber, where he lay awake a long time thinking about King Cadwgan’s lovely dark-haired daughter.
B
ran and Angharad spent the next days collecting branches suitable for arrows. The best of these were bundled and carried back to the clearing outside the cave, where Bran set to work, trimming off leaves and twigs, stripping bark, arranging the raw lengths in the sun, and turning them as they dried. He worked alone, with calm, purposeful intent. Outwardly placid, his heart was nevertheless in turmoil— unquiet, gnawing inwardly on itself with ravenous discontent —as if, starving, he hungered for something he could not name.
Meanwhile, Angharad dug chunks of flint from a nearby riverbank to make points for Bran’s arrows. With a tidy heap of rocks before her, she settled herself cross-legged on the ground, a folded square of sheepskin on one knee. Then, taking up a piece of flint, she placed it on the pad of sheepskin and, using a small copper hammer, began tapping. From time to time, she would use an egg-shaped piece of sandstone to smooth the piece she was working on. Occasionally, she chose the front tooth of a cow to apply pressure along the worked edge to flake off a tiny bit of flint. With practised precision, Angharad shaped each small point.
Working in companionable silence, she and Bran bent to their respective tasks with only the sound of her slow, rhythmic
tap, tap, tap
between them. When Bran had fifteen shafts finished, and Angharad an equal number of flint tips, they began gathering feathers for the flights—goose and red kite and swan. The goose and swan they picked up at disused nests beside the river, which lay a half day’s walk to the northwest of the cave; the red kite feathers they got from another nest, this one in a stately elm at the edge of a forest meadow.
Together they cut the feathers, stripped one side, trimmed them to length, and then bound the prepared flight to the end of the shaft with narrow strips of leather. Bran carefully notched the other end and slotted in one of Angharad’s flint tips, which was securely bound with wet rawhide. The resulting arrow looked to Bran like something from an era beyond recall, but it was perfectly balanced and, he expected, would fly well enough.
With a few serviceable arrows to tuck into his belt, the next thing was to try the longbow. His first attempt to draw the bowstring sent crippling pain through his chest and shoulder. It was such a surprise that he let out a yelp and almost dropped the weapon. The arrow spun from the string and slid through the grass before striking the root of a tree.
He tried two more times before giving up, dejected and sore. “Why downcast, Master Bran?” Angharad chided when she found him slumped against the rock outside the cave a little later. “Did you expect to attain your former strength in one day?”
On his next attempt, he lengthened the string to make the bow easier to draw and tried again. This improved the outcome somewhat, but not by much—the arrow flew in an absurdly rounded arc to fall a few dozen paces away. A child might produce a similar effect, but it was progress. After a few more equally dismal attempts, his shoulder began to ache, so he put the bow away and went in search of more branches to make arrows.
This was to become his habit by day: working with the bow, slowly increasing his strength, struggling to reclaim his shattered skills until the ache in his shoulder or chest became too great to ignore, and then putting aside the bow to go off in search of arrow wood or dig in the cliff side for good flints. If he appeared to toil away happily enough by day, each evening he felt the change come over him with the drawing in of the night. Always, he sat at the fireside, staring at the flames: moody, peevish, petulant.
Angharad still sang to him, but Bran could no longer concentrate on the songs. Ever and again, he drifted in his mind to a dark and lonely place, invariably becoming lost in it and overwhelmed by sudden, palpable feelings of hopelessness and despair.
Finally, one night, as Angharad sang the tale of Rhonabwy’s Dream, he raised his head and shouted, “Do you have to play that stupid harp all the time? And the singing! Why can’t you just shut up for once?”
The old woman paused, the melody still ringing from the harp strings. She held her head to one side and regarded him intently, as if she had just heard the echo of a word long expected.
“And stop staring at me!” Bran snapped. “Just leave me to myself!”
“So,” she said quietly, laying aside the harp, “we come to it at last.”
Bran turned his face away. Her habit of simply accepting his outbursts was maddening.
Angharad gathered her ragged skirts and stood. She shuffled around the fire ring to stand before him. “The time has come, Master Bran. Follow me.”
“No,” he said stubbornly. “And stop calling me that!”
“I will call you by a better name when you have earned one.”
“You ugly old crone!” he growled savagely. “You are nothing. I cannot stand another moment of your insane mumbling.
I am leaving.” He glared at her, fists clenched on his knees.
“Tomorrow, I will go, and nothing you say can stop me.”
“If that is your choice, I will not prevent you,” she told him.
Moving to the mouth of the cave, she paused and beckoned him. “Tonight, however, you will come with me. I have something to show you.”
With that, she turned on her heel and went out into the night. She waited for a moment, and when he did not come, she called him again.
Reluctantly, and with much bitter complaining, Bran emerged from the cave. It was dark, and the pathways she walked could not be seen; yet somehow her feet unerringly found the way. Bran soon stopped grumbling and concentrated instead on keeping up with the old woman and avoiding the branches that reached out and slapped at him.
They walked for some time, and as Bran began to tire, much of the anger dissipated. “Where are we going?” he asked at last, sweating now, slightly winded. “Is it much farther? If it is, I need to rest.”
“No,” she told him, “just over the top of the next rise.”
Sighing heavily, he moved on—trudging along, head down, hands loose, feet dragging. They mounted the long, rising incline of a ridge, at the crest of which the trees thinned around them. Once over the ridgetop, the ground sloped away sharply, and Bran found himself standing at the edge of the forest, looking down into a shallow, bowl-shaped valley barely discernible in the light of a pale half-moon just clearing the treetops to the southeast.
“So this is what you dragged me out here to see?” he asked.
His eyes caught a gleam of light below, and then another.
As he looked down into the valley, he began seeing more lights—tiny flecks, glints and shards of light, moving slowly over the surface of the ground in a weird, slow dance.
“What—,” he began, stopped, and gaped again. “In the name of Saint Dafyd, what is that?”
“It is happening all over Elfael,” Angharad said, indicating the night-dark land with a wide sweep of her arm. “It is the May Dance.”
“The May Dance,” repeated Bran without understanding.
“Your people are ploughing their fields.”
“Ploughing! By night?” he said, turning toward her.
“Why? And why so late in the season?”
“They are made to labour for Count de Braose all day,” the old woman explained. “Night is the only time they have to put in the crops. So they toil by lantern light, planting the fields.”
“But it is too late,” Bran pointed out. “The crops will never mature to harvest before winter.”
“That is likely,” Angharad agreed, “but starvation is assured if they do nothing.” She turned once more to the slowly swinging lights glimmering across the valley. “They dance with death,” she said. “What else can they do?”
Bran stiffened at the words. He gazed at the moving lights and felt his anger rising.
“Why did you show me this?” he shouted suddenly.
“So that you will know.”
“And what am I supposed to do about it?” he said. “Tell me that. What am I supposed to do?”
“Help them,” Angharad said softly.
“No! Not me! I can do nothing!” he insisted. Turning away abruptly, he strode off, retreating back into the forest. “I am leaving tomorrow,” he shouted over his shoulder, “and nothing you say can stop me!”
Angharad watched him for a moment; then, turning her face to the sky, she murmured, “You see? You see how it is with him? Everything is a fight. A wild boar would be less headstrong—
and
more charming.” She paused, as if listening to an unheard voice, then sighed. “Your servant obeys.”
Retracing her steps, she made her way back to the cave.
Determined to make good his vow, Bran rose at dawn to bid Angharad farewell. A night’s sleep had softened his mood, if not his resolve. He regretted shouting at her and sought to make amends. He said kindly, “I will be forever grateful to you for saving my life. I will never forget you.”
“Nor I you, Master Bran.”
He smiled at her use of the disdained name. Unable to put words to the volatile mix of emotions churning in his heart, he stood silent for a moment lest he say something he would regret, then turned to collect his bow and arrows.
“Well, I will go now.”
“If that is your choice.”
Glancing around quickly, he said, “You know that I do not wish to leave this way.”
“Oh, I believe you do,” the old woman replied. “This
is
your way, and you are ever used to having your way in all things.Why should this leaving be different from any other?”