'You'll be king one day,' she chided, 'and is this how you will fare? Snatching meals from the hearth and running off who-knows-where all day?'
'I'm going to Lundein, Mairead. It is a far journey. Would you have your future king starve on the way, or go a-begging like a leper?'
'Lord have mercy!' clucked the cook, setting aside her chore. 'Never let it be said anyone went hungry from my hearth.'
She ladled some fresh milk into a bowl, into which she broke chunks of hard brown bread, then sat him down on a stool. While he ate, she cut a few slices of new summer sausage and gave him two green apples, which he stuffed into the pouch at his belt. Bran spooned down the milk and bread and then, throwing the elderly servant a kiss, bounded from the kitchen and back across the yard to the stable, where Cefn was just tightening the saddle cinch on his horse.
'A world of thanks to you, Cefn. You have saved my life.'
'Olwen is the best broodmare we have-see you don't push her too hard,' called the groom as the prince clattered out into the yard. Bran gave him a breezy wave, and the groom added under his breath, 'And may our Lord Brychan have mercy on you.'
Out on the trail once more, Bran felt certain he could win his way back into his father's good graces. It might take a day or two, but once the king saw how dutifully the prince was prepared to conduct himself in Lundein, Brychan would not fail to restore his son to favour. First, however, Bran set himself to think up a plausible tale to help excuse his apparent absence.
Thus, he put his mind to spinning a story which, if not entirely believable, would at least be entertaining enough to lighten the king's foul mood. This task occupied him as he rode easily along the path through the forest. He had just started up the long, meandering track leading to the high and thickly forested ridge that formed the western boundary of the broad Wye Vale and was thinking that with any luck at all, he might still catch his father and the warband before dusk. This thought dissolved instantly upon seeing a lone rider lurching toward him on a hobbling horse.
He was still some distance away, but Bran could see that the man was hunched forward in the saddle as if to urge his labouring mount to greater speed. Probably drunk, rotten sot, thought Bran, and doesn't realise his horse is dead on its feet. Well, he would stop the empty-headed lout and see if he could find out how far ahead his father might be.
Closer, something about the man seemed familiar.
As the rider drew nearer, Bran grew increasingly certain he knew the man, and he was not wrong.
It was Iwan.
CHAPTER
3
Bernard de Neufmarche stormed down the narrow corridor leading from the main hall to his private chambers deep in the protecting stone wall of the fortress. His red velvet cloak was grey with the dust of travel, his back throbbed with the dull, persistent ache of fatigue, and his mind was a spinning maelstrom of dark thoughts as black as his mood. Seven years lost! he fumed. Ruined, wasted, and lost!
He had been patient, prudent, biding his time, watching and waiting for precisely the right moment to strike. And now, in one precipitous act, unprovoked and unforeseen, the red-haired brigand of a king, William, had allied himself with that milksop Baron de Braose and his mewling nephew, Count Falkes. That was bad enough. To make a disastrous business worse, the irresponsible king had also reversed the long-held royal policy of his father and allowed de Braose to launch an invasion into the interior of Wales.
Royal let to plunder Wales was the very development Neufmarche had been waiting for, but now it had been ruined by the greedy, grasping de Braose mob. Their ill-conceived thrashing around the countryside would put the wily Britons on their guard, and any advancement on Bernard's part would now be met with stiff-necked resistance and accomplished only at considerable expense of troops and blood.
So be it!
Waiting had brought him nothing, and he would wait no longer.
At the door to his rooms, he shouted for his chamberlain. 'Remey!' he cried. 'My writing instruments! At once!'
Flinging open the door, he strode to the hearth, snatched up a reed from the bundle, and thrust it into the small, sputtering fire. He then carried the burning rush to the candletree atop the square oak table that occupied the centre of the room and began lighting the candles. As the shadows shrank beneath the lambent light, the baron dashed wine from a jar into his silver cup, raised it to his lips, and drank a deep, thirsty draught. He then shouted for his chamberlain again and collapsed into his chair.
'Seven years, by the Virgin!' he muttered. He drank again and cried, 'Remey!' This time his summons was answered by the quick slap of soft boots on the flagstone threshold.
'Sire,' said the servant, bustling into the room with his arms full of writing utensils-rolls of parchment, an inkhorn, a bundle of quills, sealing wax, and a knife. 'I did not expect you to return so soon. I trust everything went well?'
'No,' growled the baron irritably, 'it did not go well. It went very badly. While I was paying court to the king, de Braose and his snivelling nephew were sending an army through my lands to snatch Elfael and who knows what all else from under my nose,'
Remey sighed in commiseration. An aging lackey with the face of a ferret and a long, narrow head perpetually covered by a shapeless cap of thick grey felt, he had been in the service of the Neufmarche clan since he was a boy at Le Neuf-March-en-Lions in Beauvais. He knew well his master's moods and appetites and was usually able to anticipate them with ease. But today he had been caught napping, and this annoyed him almost as much as the king had annoyed the baron.
'The de Braose are unscrupulous, as we all know,' Remey observed, arranging the items he had brought on the table before the baron.
'Cut me a pen,' the baron ordered. Taking up a roll of parchment, he sliced off a suitable square with his dagger and smoothed the prepared skin on the table before him.
Remey, meanwhile, selected a fine long goose quill and expertly pared the tip on an angle and split it with the pen knife. 'See if this will suffice,' he said, offering the prepared writing instrument to his master.
Bernard pulled the stopper from the inkhorn and dipped the pen. He made a few preliminary swirls on the parchment and said, 'It will do. Now bring me my dinner. None of that broth, mind. I've ridden all day, and I'm hungry. I want meat and bread-some of that pie, too. And more wine.'
'At once, my lord,' replied the servant, leaving his master to his work.
By the time Remey returned, accompanied this time by two kitchen servants bearing trays of food and drink, Neufmarche was leaning back in his chair studying the document he had just composed. 'Listen to this,' said the baron, and holding the parchment before his eyes, he began to read what he had written.
Remey held his head to one side as his master read. It was a letter to the baron's father in Beauvais requesting a transfer of men and equipment to aid in the conquest of new territories in Britain.
'… the resulting acquisitions will enlarge our holdings at least threefold,' Bernard read, 'with good land, much of which is valley lowlands possessing tillable soil suitable for a variety of crops, while the rest is mature forest which, besides timber, will provide excellent hunting…' Here the baron broke off. 'What do you think, Remey? Is it enough?'
'I should think so. Lord Geoffrey was out here two years ago and is well aware of the desirability of the Welsh lands. I have no doubt he will send the required aid.'
'I concur,' decided Bernard. Bending once more to the parchment, he finished the letter and signed his name. Then, rolling the parchment quickly, he tied the bundle and sealed it, pressing his heavy gold ring into the soft puddle of brown wax dripped from the stick in Remey's hands. 'There,' he said, setting the bundle aside, 'now bring me that tray and fill my cup. When you've done that, go find Ormand.'
