Tuck

firelight and shadows flicker over Bran's sharp features. 'Perhaps even now he is searching for a way to avoid a fight.'

'Perhaps,' Bran allowed. 'What are you suggesting?'

'We might send an emissary to the king with an offer of peace.'

Bran regarded the little priest thoughtfully.

'Peace, that is,' Tuck clarified, 'in exchange for fealty.'

'If William recognizes my throne, I agree to swear fealty-and the war is over.'

'Over before it has begun.'

Bran looked to Angharad sitting quietly beside the fire on her three-legged stool. 'What do you see?' he asked.

'The friar is right to suggest an offer of peace,' observed Angharad. 'It is close to God's heart always.' She rose stiffly and pulled the edges of her Bird Spirit cloak closed. 'But unless God moves in the Red King's heart, peace we will not have.'

The old woman made a little stirring motion with her hands in the smoke from the fire, then lifted her palms upward as if raising the fragrance towards the night-dark sky above. Tilting her face heavenward, her small, dark eyes lost in the creases of her wrinkled face, she stood very still for a long moment.

Bran and Tuck found themselves holding their breath in anticipation.

At last, she sighed.

'What do you see, Mother?' asked Bran gently, his voice barely audible above the crackle of the flames.

'I see…' she began, drawing a deep breath and letting it out slowly as she searched the tangled pathways of the future. '… I see a trail of blood that leads from this place and spreads throughout the land. Where it ends, God knows.' She opened her eyes, and her face crinkled in a sad smile. 'What we sow here will be reaped not by our children, but by our children's children-or those who after them come. But sow we must; another course we have not.'

'Yet, there is hope?' asked the friar.

'There is always hope, Aethelfrith,' replied the old woman. 'In hope we do abide. As children of the Swift Sure Hand, hope is our true home. You, a priest, must understand this.'

Tuck smiled at the gentle rebuke. 'I bow to your teaching, Banfaith. And you are right, of course. I used to know a bishop who said much the same thing. Hope is the treasure of our souls, he would say.'

'It is an end worth fighting for,' mused Bran. 'It may be for others to complete what we've begun, but there must be a beginning. And we will carry this fight as far as we can before passing it on to those who come after.'

The three of them sat in silence, watching the flames and listening to the crack and hiss of the wood as it burned. From somewhere in the forest an owl called to its mate. It was a sound Tuck had heard countless times since throwing in his lot with the forest folk, but tonight it filled him with an almost unbearable sadness. He rose from his place and bade the other two a good night. 'God rest you right well, friends, and grant you His peace.'

'Tuck,' said Bran as the friar stepped from the hearth, 'the Ffreinc are grasping, devious devils-false-hearted as the sea is wide. Even so, I am willing to swear fealty to Red William if it means we can draw a living breath without their foot on our neck. If you can find a way to speak peace to William, I stand ready to do my part. I want you to know that.'

That night the friar did not sleep. Though cool and damp, the sky was clear and ablaze with stars; he found a place among the roots of one of the giant oaks and settled down in the dry bracken to pray for Elfael and its people, and all those who would not be able to avoid the war that was coming. He was praying still when the watchers rose, silently saddled their horses, and departed Cel Craidd to take up their posts on the King's Road.

CHAPTER 33

Hereford

Spare me the excuses, Marshal,' said King William, cutting off the lengthy beggings of pardon as read out by Guy of Gysburne. Following his eviction from Elfael, his fortunes had risen beyond anything he might have dared to hope. Owing to his intimate knowledge of the Cymry and the lands beyond the March, the young marshal had become an aide-de-camp to William Rufus for the purpose of what the king now referred to as the Harrowing of Wales. 'Tell it to me plain-who has come?'

Gysburne allowed his gaze to drop down the parchment roll prepared for him by the court scribes in attendance. 'Besides Huntingdon, Buckingham, and Surrey, who marched out with you, there is Belleme of Shrewsbury and de Reviers of Devon. Salisbury arrived a short while ago,' he read on. 'FitzRobert of Cornwall has sent word ahead and should arrive before nightfall. Earl Hugh of Chester-accompanied by Rhuddlan-will join us tomorrow or the day after. Le Noir of Richmond is on the road; he begs pardon, but the distance is too great and the time too short…'

'Yes, yes,' interrupted the king irritably. 'Go on.'

'There is de Mowbray of Northumberland, who also sends regrets and apologies, albeit he is en route and will join you as soon as travel permits.' Guy looked up from the roll. 'As for the rest, we must presume they are either on their way, or sending petitions of pardon.'

The king nodded. 'There is one notable absence.'

'Sire?'

'Neufmarche, of course. This is his castle, by the bloody rood! He should be here to receive us. Where is he?'

'I have spoken to his seneschal, Sire, who will say only that the baron is away visiting his lands in Wales. The summons was sent on, but it is not at all certain that it reached him, since the messenger has not yet returned.'

'I swear upon my father's grave, if Neufmarche does not appear in two days' time, it would be better for him not to appear at all.'

'Sire?'

'The baron is a devious, two-faced schemer, Marshal. I snubbed him once to put him in his place-summoned him to attend me and then kept him wearing out the waiting bench for three days… and this is how he repays the insult. He should have learned humility.'

'So one would think, Majesty.'

William began pacing, his short, bowed legs making quick steps from one side of the chamber to the other. 'On the martyrs' blood, I will not have it. Mark me, Gysburne, the king will not have it! I will make an example of this vexsome baron for once and all. God help me, I will. If Neufmarche does not appear with his men by the time we leave this place, he is banished and his estates in England fall forfeit to the crown. I vow it.'

Gysburne nodded. Clearly, there was some deeper grievance between the two that had caused this rift between the baron and his sovereign lord. Whatever it was, Neufmarche was now in very grave danger of losing everything.

'How far away is Mowbray?' asked William, returning to the business at hand.

Guy glanced once more to the parchment roll in his hand. 'The messenger indicated that unless he encounters some difficulty Mowbray will reach the March in three days' time. It will be the same with Richmond, I would expect-three or four days.'

'The incursion will be over by then,' fumed the king. He spun on his heel and started pacing again. 'From what you have said, the Welsh have few horses, no knights, and only a handful of archers.'

Gysburne nodded.

'Well then. Two days,' decided William. 'One day of fighting, and one to sluice down the abattoir floor, as it were. Two days at most.'

'That is greatly to be hoped, Sire,' answered Gysburne, all the while thinking that it was manifestly imprudent to underestimate the amount of havoc that could be wreaked by a single Welsh bowman. No one knew that better