Hood (44 page)
As the morning sun rose to dispel the mist along the Wye, so it brought a partial solution to Tuck’s problem. Rising in his undershirt, he went out to the well to wash. Drawing his arms through the sleeves, he pushed the shirt down around his waist and splashed water over himself. The cold stung his senses and made him splutter. He dried himself on a scrap of linen cloth and stood for a moment, savouring the sweet air and calm of the little glade surrounding his cell. He watched the mist curling along the river, and it came to him that whatever else they did, the wagons would have to use the bridge at Hereford. It only remained to find out when. He could simply wait until the wagons passed his oratory on their way to Elfael; then he could saddle the horse and race to Bran with the warning and hope it gave him time enough. Bran had said they would need three days at least. “Four would be better,” Bran had told him. “Give us but four days, Tuck, and we have a fighting chance.”
He hurried back inside to pull on his robe and lace up his shoes. Taking his staff, he walked down to the bridge and into town. It was market day in Hereford, but there seemed to be fewer people around than usual—especially for a clear, fine day in summer. He wondered about this as he watched the farmers and merchants setting out their goods and opening their stalls.
As he loitered amongst the vendors, idly wandering here and there, he heard a cloth merchant complaining to another about the lack of custom. “Poor dealings today, Michael, m’lad,” he was saying. “Might have stayed home and saved shoe leather.”
“’Twill be no better next market week,” replied the merchant named Michael, a dealer in knives, pruning hooks, and other bladed utensils.
“Aye,” agreed the other with a sigh, “too right you are.
Too right.”
“Won’t get better till the baron returns.”
“Good fellows,” said Aethelfrith, speaking up, “forgive me—I heard you speaking just now and would ask a question.”
“Brother Aethelfrith! Mornin’ to you,” said the one named Michael. “God be good to you.”
“And to you, my son,” replied the friar. “Can you tell me why there are so few people at market today? Where has everyone gone?”
“Well,” replied the cloth dealer, “sure as Sunday, it’s the council, ent it?”
“The council?” wondered Aethelfrith. “I have been away on a little business and only just returned. The king has called a Great Council?”
“Nay, brother,” replied the clothier, “not a king’s council— only a local one. Neufmarché has convoked an assembly of all his nobles—”
“
And
their families,” said Michael the cutler. “Off beyond the Marches somewhere. We’d ha’ done better to follow the lot of them there.”
“Indeed?” mused the priest. “I have heard nothing about this.”
The two merchants, with no customers and time on their hands, were only too glad to oblige Aethelfrith of the news he had missed: the fierce battle and resounding defeat of the Welsh King Rhys ap Tewdwr, and the swift conquest of Deheubarth by the baron’s troops. The cutler finished, saying, “Neufmarché called council to square things away, y’see?”
The squat friar nodded, thanked them, and asked, “When did they leave? Do you know? When did the council begin?”
The clothier shrugged. “I couldn’t say, brother.”
“Why, if I be not mistaken,” said Michael, “it ent rightly begun as yet.”
“No?”
“Don’t see how it could.” Michael picked up a small kitchen knife and tried its blade with his thumb. “The baron and his people rode out but yesterday—morning, it was, very early. I reckon ’twill take them two days at least to reach the moot—them and the other lords. The council would seem to begin a day or two after that. So make that three days—four, to be safe. Five, maybe six, at most.”
“Too right,” agreed the clothier. “And all that means we lose custom next week—and maybe the week after as well.”
“Blessings upon you, friends!” called Aethelfrith, already darting away. He fled back across the bridge, his soft shoes slapping the worn timbers, and steamed up the hill to his oratory. He wasted not a moment, but threw a few provisions into a bag, saddled the horse, and rode out again.
He knew exactly when Baron de Braose’s money train would roll.
A
s Baron Bernard de Neufmarché gazed out upon the upturned faces of his subject lords gathered at Talgarth in the south of Wales, the treasure train of his rival Baron de Braose was approaching the bridge below his castle back in Hereford: three wagons with an escort of seven knights and fifteen men-at-arms under the command of a marshal and a sergeant. All the soldiers were mounted, and their weapons gleamed hard in the bright summer sun.
Hidden beneath food supplies and furnishings for Abbot Hugo’s new church were three sealed strongboxes, iron-banded and bolted to the wagon beds. With ranks of soldiers leading the way and more riders guarding the rear, the train passed unhindered through Hereford. If any of Neufmarché’s soldiers saw the train passing beneath the castle walls, they made no move to prevent it.
Thus, in accordance with Baron de Braose’s plan, the wagon train rumbled across the bridge, through the town, and out into the bright, sunlit meadows of the wide Wye valley. It would take the slow ox train four days to pass through Neufmarché lands and the great forest of the March. But once past Hereford, there would be no stopping the wagons, and the knights could breathe a little easier knowing that nothing stood between them and the completion of their duty.
The leader of this party was a marshal named Guy, one of Baron de Braose’s youngest commanders, a man whose father stood on the battlefield with the Conqueror and had been rewarded with the lands of a deposed earl in the North Ridings: a sizeable estate that included the old Saxon market town of Ghigesburgh—or Gysburne, as the Normans preferred it.
Young Guy had grown up in the bleak moorlands of the north, and there he might have stayed, but thinking that life held more for him than overseeing the collection of rents on his father’s estate, he had come south to take service in the court of an ambitious baron who could provide him with the opportunities a young knight needed to secure wealth and fame. Inflamed with dreams of grandeur, he yearned for glory far beyond any that might be acquired grappling with dour English farmwives over rents paid in geese and sheep.
Guy’s energy and skill at arms had won him a place amongst the teeming swarm of knights employed by William de Braose; his solid, dependable, levelheaded northern practicality raised him above the ranks of the brash and impulsive fortune seekers who thronged the southern courts. Two years in the baron’s service, Guy had waited for a chance to prove himself, and it had finally come. Certainly, marshalling the guard for some money chests was not the same as leading a flying wing of cavalry into pitched battle, but it was a start.
This was the first significant task the baron had entrusted to him, and though it fell far short of taxing his considerable skills as a warrior, he was determined to acquit himself well.
Mounted on a fine grey destrier, he remained vigilant and pursued a steady, unhurried pace. To better safeguard the silver, no advance warning had been given; not even Count de Braose knew when the money would arrive.
Day’s end found them camped beside the road on a bend in the river. High wooded bluffs sheltered them to the east, and the bow of the river formed an effective perimeter barrier on the other three sides. Any would-be thieves thinking to liberate the treasure would have to come at them on the road, and Guy positioned sentries in each direction, changed through the night, to prevent intruders from disturbing their peace.
They passed an uneventful night and the next morning moved on. Around midday they stopped to eat and to feed and rest the animals before beginning the long, winding ascent up out of the Vale of Wye. The first wagon gained the heights a little before sunset, and Guy ordered camp to be made in a grove of beech trees near an English farming settlement. Other than a herdsman leading a few muddy brown cows home to be milked, no one else was seen on the road, and the second night passed beneath a fair, star-seeded sky with serenity undisturbed.
The third day passed much the same as the previous day. Before climbing into their saddles on the fourth day, Guy assembled the men and addressed them, saying, “Today we enter the forest of the March. We will be wary. If thieves try to attack us, they will do so here,
compris
? Everyone is to remain alert for any sign of an ambush.” He gazed at the ring of faces gathered around him: as solemn, earnest, and determined as he was himself. “If there are no questions, then—”
“What of the phantom?”
“Ah,” replied Guy, “yes.” He had anticipated such a question and was ready with an answer. “Many of you will have heard some gossip of this phantom,
non
?” He paused, trying to appear severe and dauntless for his men. “It is but a tale to frighten infants, nothing more. We are men, not children, so we will give this rumour the contempt it deserves.” He offered a grimace of ridicule to show his scorn, adding, “It would take a whole forest full of phantoms to daunt Baron de Braose’s soldiers,
n’est-ce pas
?”
He commanded the treasure train to move out. The soldiers took their mounts and fell into line: a rank of knights, three abreast to lead the train, followed by men-at-arms alongside and between each of the wagons, with four knights serving as outriders patrolling the road ahead and behind on each side. At the head of this impressive procession rode Guy himself on his fine grey stallion; directly behind him rode his sergeant to relay any commands to those behind.
By morning’s end the money train had reached the forest edge. The road was wide, though rutted, and the wagon drivers were forced to slow their pace to keep from jolting the wheels to pieces. The soldiers clopped along, passing through patches of sunlight and shadow, alert to the smallest movement around them. It was cool in the shade of the trees, and the air was thick with birdsong and the sounds of insects. All remained peaceful and serene, and they met no one else on the road.
A little past midday, however, they came to a place where the road dipped low into a dell, at the bottom of which trickled a sluggish rill. Despite the fine dry weather, the shallow fording place was a churned mass of mud and muck.
Apparently, herders using the road had allowed their animals to use it for a watering hole, and the beasts had transformed the road into a wallow.
Stuck in the middle of the ford was a wagon full of manure sunk up to its axles. A ragged farmer was snapping the reins of his two-ox team, and the creatures were bawling as they strained against the yoke, but to no avail. The farmer’s wife stood off to one side, hands on hips, shouting at the man, who appeared to be taking no heed of her. Both the man and his wife were filthy to their knees.
The road narrowed at the ford, and the surrounding ground was so soft and chewed up that Guy could see there would be no going around. Wary, senses prickling to danger, Guy halted the train. He rode ahead alone to see what had happened. “Pax vobiscum,” he said, reining up behind the wagon. “What goes here?”
The farmer ceased swatting his team and turned to address the knight. “Good day, sire,” the man said in rough Latin, removing his shapeless straw hat. “You see how it is.”
He gestured vaguely at the wagon. “I am stuck.”
“I told him to put down planks,” the farmwife called in shrill defiance. “But he wouldn’t listen.”
“Shut up, woman!” shouted the farmer to his wife.
Turning back to the knight, he said, “We’ll soon have it out, never fear.” Eyeing the waiting train behind them, he said, “Maybe if some of your fellows could help—”
“No,” Guy told him. “Just you get on with it.”
“At once, m’lord.” He turned back to the task of coaxing, threatening, and bullying the struggling team once more.
Guy rode back to the waiting train. “We will rest here and move on when they have cleared the ford. Water the horses.”
The horses were watered and rested and the sun was beginning its long, slow descent when the farmer finally ceased shouting and slapping his team. Guy, thinking the wagon was finally free, hurried back down into the dell only to find the farmer lying on the grassy slope above the ford, his wagon as firmly stuck as ever.
“You! What in God’s name are you doing?” demanded Guy.
“Sire?” replied the farmer, sitting up quickly.
“The wagon remains stuck.”
“Aye, sire, it is that,” agreed the farmer ruefully. “I have tried everything, but it won’t budge for gold nor goose fat.”
Glancing around quickly, the knight said, “Where’s the woman?”
“I sent her ahead to see if there might be anyone coming the other way that could maybe lend a hand, sire,” replied the farmer. “Seeing as how you and your men are busylike . . .”
He left the rest of the thought unspoken.
“Get up!” shouted Guy. “Get back to your team. You have delayed us long enough.”
“As you say, sire,” replied the farmer. He rose and shambled back to the wagon.
Guy returned to the waiting train and ordered five men-at-arms to dismount and help pull the wagon free. These first five were soon as muddy as the farmer, and with just as little to show for it. So, with increasing impatience, Guy ordered five more men-at-arms and three knights on horseback to help, too. Soon, the muddy wallow was heaving with men and horses. The knights attached ropes to the wagon, and with three or four men at each wheel and horses pulling, they succeeded in hauling the overloaded vehicle up out of the hole into which it had sunk.
With a creak and a groan, the cart started up the greasy bank. The soldiers cheered. And then just as the wheels came free, there came a loud crack as the rear axle snapped. The hind wheels buckled and the cart subsided once more; men and horses, still attached to the ropes, were dragged down with it. The oxen could not keep their feet and fell, sprawling over each other. Caught in their yoke, they thrashed in the mud, kicking and bellowing.
Guy saw his hopes of a swift resolution to his problem sinking into the mire and loosed a spate of Ffreinc abuse on the head of the luckless farmer. “Loose those animals!” he ordered his men. “Then drag that cart out of the way.”