'We don't know how many will come, so we must be ready for anything,' grumbled Marshal Gysburne irritably. 'For the love of Peter, there is no need to hammer us over the head with it.'
The abbot arched an eyebrow. 'If I desire to lay stress upon the readiness-or lack of it-of your men,' he replied tartly, 'be assured that I think it necessary.'
'The point is taken, Abbot,' offered the sheriff, entering the fray, 'and after what happened in the grove at Winchester I think a little prudence cannot go amiss.'
Marshal Guy flinched at the insinuation. 'You weren't there, Sheriff. Were you? Were you there?'
'You know very well that I was not.'
'Then I will thank you to shut your stinking mouth. You don't know a thing about what happened that day.'
'Au contraire, mon ami,' answered de Glanville with a cold, superior smile. 'I know that you left eight good knights in that grove, and four more along the way. Twelve men died as a result, and we are no closer to ridding ourselves of these outlaws than we ever were.'
The marshal regarded the sheriff from beneath lowered brows. 'You smug swine,' he muttered. 'You dare sit in judgement of me?'
'Judge you?' inquired de Glanville innocently. 'I merely state a fact. If that stings, then perhaps-'
'Enough!' said Abbot Hugo, slapping the arm of his chair with his palm. 'Save your spite for the enemy.'
Sheriff de Glanville gave the abbot a curt nod and said, 'Forgive me, Abbot. As I was about to say, we will never have a better chance to take the enemy unawares. If the outlaws escape into the forest, it will be just like the massacre in the grove. We cannot allow that to happen. This is, I fear, our last best chance to take them. We must succeed this time, or all is lost.'
'I agree, of course,' replied the abbot. 'That goes without saying.'
'I beg your pardon, Abbot,' remarked the sheriff, 'but in matters of war, nothing ever goes without saying.'
'Well then,' sniffed Gysburne, 'we have no worries there. You've seen to that-most abundantly.'
'Get out of here-both of you,' said the abbot. Rising abruptly, he flapped his hands at them as if driving away bothersome birds. 'Go on. Just remember, I want you to have your men ready to attack the moment I draw the rogues out of hiding. And strike swiftly. I will not be made to stand waiting out there alone.'
'You will not be alone, Abbot. Far from it,' said de Glanville. 'Gysburne and I will be hidden in the forest, and some of my men will be among your monks. We have thought of everything, I assure you.'
'Just you match deed to word, Sheriff, and I will consider myself assured.'
The two commanders left the abbey, each to look after his own preparations. Sometime later, when the moon was low and near to setting, but dawn was still a long way off, a company of soldiers departed Saint Martin's. Moving like slow shadows across the valley, ten mounted knights in two columns-their armour and horses' tack muffled with rags to prevent the slightest sound, their weapons dulled with sooted grease so that no glint or shine could betray them-rode in silence to the edge of the forest. Upon reaching the dark canopy of the trees, they dismounted and walked a short distance into the wood, hid their horses and themselves in the thick underbrush, then settled back to wait.
CHAPTER 7
Coed Cadw
With the approach of dawn, the forest awakened around the hidden soldiers-first with birdsong, and then with the furtive twitching and scratching of squirrels and mice and other small creatures. A light mist rose in the low places of the valley, pale and silvery in the early-morning light; it vanished as the sun warmed the ground, leaving a spray of glistening dew on the deep green grass. A family of wild pigs-a sow and six yearling piglets under the watchful eye of a hulking great boar-appeared at the margin of the trees to snuffle along the streambed and dig among the roots. The world began another day while the hidden soldiers dozed with their weapons in their hands. Slowly, the sun climbed higher in a cloud-ruffled sky.
And they waited.
Some little while before midday, there came a sound of movement further back in the forest-the rustling of leaves where there was no breeze, the slight creak of low branches, a sudden flight of sitting birds-and the soldiers who were awake clutched their weapons and nudged those still sleeping beside them. The ghosts of the greenwood were coming. King Raven would soon appear.
But the sounds died away. Nothing happened.
The sun continued its climb until it soared directly overhead. The soldiers, awake now and ready, strained their ears in the drowsy quiet of the wood as, above the whir and buzz of insects, the first faint chimes of a church bell sounded across the valley-far off, but distinct: three peals.
Then silence.
They listened, and they heard the signal repeated. After another lengthy pause, the sequence of three peals sounded for the third and last time.
After the second sequence had sounded, Marshal Gysburne, pressing himself to the ground, craned his neck from his hiding place behind an ash tree and looked down the long slope and into the bowl of the valley, where he saw a faint glimmering: Abbot Hugo and his white-robed monks making their way toward the forest. They came on, slow as snails it seemed to an increasingly impatient Gysburne, who like the other knights was sweating and stiff inside his armour. He inched back behind the tree and listened to the greenwood, hoping to catch any telltale sign of the outlaws' presence.
When at last the abbot's party came within arrow-flight of the edge of the wood, a call like that of a raven sounded from the upper branches of a massive elm tree. The party of white-robed monks surrounding the abbot heard it, too, and as if acting upon a previously agreed signal, stopped at once.
The raucous croak sounded twice more-not quite a bird's cry, Gysburne thought, but certainly not human, either. He scanned the upper branches for the source of the sound, and when he looked back, there, poised at the edge of the tree line, stood the slender young man known as Bran ap Brychan.
'Ah!' gasped Gysburne in surprise.
'Where the devil did he come from?' muttered Sergeant Jeremias from his place on the other side of the ash tree.
Dressed all in black, his dark hair lifting in the breeze, for an instant it seemed to the soldiers that he might indeed have been a raven dropped out of the sky to assume the form of a man. He stood motionless, clutching a longbow in his left hand; at his belt hung a bag of dark arrows.
'Had I one of those bows,' Jeremias whispered, 'I'd take him now, and save us all a load of bother.'
'Shh!' hissed Gysburne in a tense whisper. 'He'll hear you.'
When the outlaw made no move to approach the group of monks, the abbot called out, 'M'entendre! Nous avons fait comme vous avez ordonne. Quel est pour arriver maintenant?'
Marshal Gysburne heard this with a sinking heart. You old fool! he thought, the outlaws don't speak French. He'll have no idea what you're saying.
But to the marshal's surprise, the young man answered, 'Attente!Un moment!'
He turned and gestured toward the wood behind him, and there was a rustling of leaves in the brush like a bear waking up; and out from the greenwood stepped the slump-shouldered Norman scribe-the one called Odo.
The two advanced a few more paces into the open, and then halted. At a nod from Bran, the scribe called out, 'Have you come to swear peace?'
'I have come as requested,' replied Abbot Hugo, 'to hear what this man has proposed.' Regarding the young scribe, he said, 'Greetings, Odo. I suppose I should not be surprised to see you here-traitors and thieves flock together, eh?'
Odo cringed at his former master's abuse, but turned and explained to Bran what the abbot had said, received his lord's answer, and replied, 'The proposal is simple. Lord Bran says that you will agree to the terms put to you, or he will pursue the war he has begun.'
