Scarlet

'Fair enough,' says I. 'But if it was with fire and arrows, how do they know it was the phantom bird who did it, and not just some peevish Welshman? You know how contrary they can be when riled.'

'Oh, aye,' agreed the farmer. 'I know that right enough. But it was the King Raven, no mistake.' He shook his head with unwavering assurance. 'That I know.'

'Because?' I prodded lightly.

'Because,' says he with a slow smile, 'the arrows was black. Stone tip to feather, they was black as Beelzebub's tongue.'

This bit of news thrilled me more than anything I'd heard yet. Black arrows, mind! Just the kind of thing ol'Will Scarlet might think up if he was about such business as spreading fear and havoc among the rascal brigade. In this tetchy farmer's tale, I saw the shape of a man, and not a phantom. A man that much like myself it gave me the first solid hope to be getting on with.

I lingered on the holding through harvesttime to help out, and then, as the leaves began to fall and the wind freshened from the north, I took my leave and, one bright day, took to the road once more. I walked from settlement to settlement, pausing wherever I could to seek word of King Raven.

Autumn had come to the land, as I say, and I eventually arrived at the edge of the March and entered the forest. Easy in my own company, I remained alert to all around me. I travelled slow and with purpose, camping by the road each night. On those clean, clear mornings I rose early and made for a high place, the better to watch and listen and learn what I could of the woodland 'round about.

See now, the Forest of the March is an ancient wood, old when Adam was a lad. A wild place not like any forest I'd known in England. Denser, darker, more tangled and woolly, it clutched tight to its secrets and held them close. Mind you, I am a man used to forest ways and byways, and as the bright days chased one another off toward winter, I began to get the measure of it.

One morning, just as the weather turned, I woke to a chill mist and the sound of voices on the King's Road. I had seen wolf scat on the trail before sunset and decided a prudent man might do well to sleep out of reach of those rangy, long-toothed hunters. So, having spent the night in the rough crook of a stout oak within sight of the King's Road-a stiff cradling, to be sure-I stirred as the daylight broke soft on a grey and gusty day, and heard the sound of men talking on the trail below. Their voices were quiet and low, the easy rhythmic tones familiar, even as the words were strange. It took me a moment to shake the sleep out of my ears and realise they were speaking Welsh. My mother's tongue it was, and I had enough of it from my barefoot days to make myself understood.

I heard the words Rhi Bran y Hud and knew I was close to finding what I was looking for, so… Yes, Odo, what is it?' My scribe rouses himself from his snooze and rubs his dream-dulled eyes.

'These words Riban Hood,' he asks, yawning wide. 'What do they mean?'

'If you would let a fella get on wi' the tellin', God knows you'd find out soon enough,' I say. 'But, see here now, it en't Riban Hood, as you will have it. It is Rhi Bran-that part means 'King Raven.' And Hud means… well, it means 'Enchanter.' It is what the British folk call the phantom lord of the Marchlands.'

'Ree Bran a Hood,' he says, dutifully writing it down. 'A good name.'

'Aye, a good name, that,' I agree, and we rumble on. Well, I shinnied down to join those fellas on the road and see what they could tell me of this mysterious bird.

'Here now,' I called, dropping lightly from the last branch onto the bank above the road. 'Can you fellas spare a traveller a word or two?'

You would have thought I'd dropped down from the moon to see the look on those two faces. Two men, one big as a house and the other slighter, but muscled and tough as a hickory root. They were dressed in odd hooded cloaks with greenery and rags sewn on, and both carried sturdy longbows with a quiver of arrows at their belts. 'What!' cried the big one, spinning around quicker than you'd have thought possible for so large a lump of humanity.

This one has spent a fair bit of time in the greenwood, thinks I, his knife is in his hand that quick. 'I mean no harm, friend,' I said. 'And full sorry I am if I startled you. I heard you talkin' and was hopin' for a little chin music, is all.'

'You lurking devil,' growled the slight one, thrusting forward, 'we'll not be singing for you.' He looked to the big one, who nodded slowly. 'Not until we know more about you.'

'Well, I've got time now if you do,' said I. 'Where would you like me to begin?'

'A name if you have one,' said he. 'That will do for a beginning.'

'My name's William Scatlocke,' I told them. 'Think what you like, but there's some as tug a forelock when they hear that name.' I give him a smile and a wink. 'But a doff o' the hat will do nicely just now.'

'I am Iwan,' replied the big one, warming up a little. 'This here is Siarles.'

'Scatlocke's a Saxon name,' observed the slight one with a frown. 'But William, now that's Ffreinc.' He seemed ready to spit to show me what he thought of Normans.

'Saxon and Ffreinc, aye,' I agreed politely. 'My mother, bless her dear, sweet, well-meaning soul, thought a Frankish William would make my life that little mite easier seeing as our land was overrun by the vermin. With a William to go before me, they might mistake me for one of their own, see, and give me an easier ride.'

'Do they?' he asked, suspicion making his voice a threat.

'Not as I've noticed,' I said. 'Then again, it en't as if I'd been named Siarles. Now, there's a name just begging for trouble, if ever I heard one.'

The slight one bristled and bunched up his face, but the big one chuckled aloud, his voice like thunder over green hills. 'You are a bold one, give you that,' said he. 'But you're in the March now, friend. What causes you to be dropping from our good Welsh trees, Bold William?'

'Friendly folk call me Will Scarlet,' I answered. 'Forester by trade, I am-just like my father before me. I see you two know your way around leafland yourselves.'

'That we do, Will,' Iwan said. 'Are you running from someone, then?'

'Running to, more like.'

Well, they wanted to hear more, so I went on to explain about Thane Aelred getting banished and his lands taken in Forest Law and all that ruck. I told about taking to the greenwood, and all my travels since then. They listened, and I could feel them relaxing their distrust as I described hiding from the sheriff and his men on land that used to belong to my good thane, and poaching the king's precious deer to survive. Pretty soon, they began nodding and agreeing, siding with me in my plight. 'Thing is, since then I've been on the move all summer looking for this fella they call King Raven. Naturally, when I heard you mention Rhi Bran, my ears pricked right up.'

'You speak Cymru?' asked Siarles then.

'Learned it on my dear mum's knee,' I told him. 'Same mum, in fact, that named me William. I also bothered myself to learn a little Frank so I'd know what those buggers were up to.'

'Why do you want to see King Raven?' asked Iwan. 'If you don't mind my asking.'

'To offer my services,' I replied, 'and I'd be much obliged for any help you could give me in that direction.'

'Might we know the nature of these services?' asked Siarles, looking me up and down. He was softening a bit, but still a little brittle for my taste.

'Seems to me that if he is even half the man I think he is, he'll be needing a strong and fearless hand like Will Scarlet here.'

'What do you know of him?'

'I know he en't a phantom, as some would have it. I know Baron de Braose is offering fifty pounds of pure English silver for his fine feathered head on a pike.'

'Truly?' Siarles asked, much impressed.

'Aye,' I assured him, 'did you not know that?'

'We maybe heard something about it,' he muttered. Then a new thought occurred to him. 'And just how do we know you don't want to claim all that money for yourself?'

'Good question,' I allowed. 'And it deserves a good answer.'

'Well?' he said, suspicion leaping up lively as ever. Siarles, bless him; his grey eyes are quick and they are keen, but he distrusts most of what he sees. Half of it is living in the wildwood, I reckon, where your eyes and wits are your best and truest friends; but the other half is just his own leery nature.

'As soon as I think up an answer good enough, I'll tell you,' I said. This brought a growl from young Siarles, who wanted to run me off then and there.