The others, unable to gainsay this argument, reluctantly agreed.
Bran, brightening at last, said, “Lead the way, Tuck, and pray with every breath that we find the friend we seek.”
Baron Bernard de Neufmarché had dismissed the last of the day’s petitioners and returned to his tent, where, after summoning Remey to bring him refreshment, he removed his short cloak and eased himself into his chair. It had been a long day but, in balance, a good one and a fitting conclusion to a council that had, in the end, satisfied his every demand. Convening at Talgarth—the scene of vaunted Lord Rhys ap Tewdwr’s recent demise—had been the masterstroke, providing a strong and present reminder to all under his rule that he was not afraid to deal harshly with those who failed to serve him faithfully. The point had been made and accepted. Tomorrow the council would formally end, and he would send his vassals home—some to better fates than they had hoped, others to worse—and he would return to Hereford to oversee the harvest and begin readying the castle for the influx of fresh troops in the spring.
“Your wine, sire.” Remey placed a pewter goblet on the table beside the baron’s chair. “I have ordered sausages to be prepared, and there is fresh bread soon. Would you like anything else while you wait?”
“The wine will suffice for now,” the baron replied, easing off his boots and stretching his legs. “Bring the rest when it is ready—and some of those fraises, if there are any left.”
“Of course, sire,” replied the seneschal. “The sessions went well today, I assume?”
“They went very well indeed, Remey. I am content.” Baron Neufmarché raised his cup and allowed himself a long, satisfying sip, savouring the fine, tart edge of the wine. Councils always brought demands, and this one more than most—owing to the prolonged absence of the king. Royal dispatch fresh from Normandie indicated that the conflict between Red William and his brother, Duke Robert, had bogged down; with summer dwindling away, there would be no further advances at least until after harvest, if then. Meanwhile, the king would repair to Rouen to lick his wounds and restock his castles.
Thus, the king’s throne in England appeared likely to remain vacant into the foreseeable future. An absent king forced the lesser lords to look for other sources of protection and redress. This, Neufmarché reflected, created problems and opportunities for the greater lords like himself, whose influence and interests rivalled the king’s. A baron who remained wary and alert could make the most of the opportunities that came his way.
He was just congratulating himself on the several exceptional opportunities that he had already seized this day when one of the squires who served as sentry for the camp appeared outside the tent. Bernard saw him hovering at the door flap and called, “Yes? What is it?”
“Someone requests audience, sire.”
“Affairs are concluded for the day,” Neufmarché replied.
“Tell them they are too late.”
There was a short silence, and then a small cough at the door flap.
“What? Did you not hear what I said? The council is over.”
“I have told them, sire,” the squire replied. “But they insist.”
“Do they!” shouted the baron. Rising from his chair, he stumped to the doorway in his stocking feet and threw back the hanging flap. “I am at rest, idiot !”
The squire jumped back, almost colliding with the two strangers behind him—Welshmen from the look of them: a young one, dark and slender, with a puckered scar along his cheek, and an older one, broad and bandy-legged, who, despite his outgrown tonsure, appeared to be a priest of some kind.
Both men were dusty from the road and stank of the saddle.
“Well?” demanded the baron, glaring at the strangers who had disturbed his peace. “What is it? Be quick!”
“Pax vobiscum,” said the fat priest. “We have come on a matter we think will be of special interest to you.”
“The only thing that interests me right now,” snarled the baron, “is a cup of wine and the comfort of my chair— which I possessed until your unseemly interruption.”
“William de Braose,” said the young man quietly.
Neufmarché turned a withering gaze upon the lithe stranger.
“What about him?”
“His star ascends in the king’s court while yours declines.”
The young man smiled, the scar twisting his expression into a fierce grimace. “I would have thought the humiliation of that would be a constant embarrassment to a man like you. Am I wrong?”
“Impudent knave!” spat Neufmarché, thrusting forward.
“Who are you to speak to me like this?”
The stranger did not flinch but replied with quiet assurance. “I am the man who offers you a way to reverse your sorry fate.”
Baron Neufmarché succumbed to his own curiosity. “Come inside,” he decided. “I will listen to what you have to say.”
Holding the flap aside, he invited the strangers to enter and dismissed the squire. “I would ask you to sit,” the baron said, returning to his camp chair, “but I doubt you will be here that long. For I warn you, the moment I lose interest in your speech, I will have you thrashed and thrown out of this camp.”
“As you say,” replied the young man.
Taking up his cup once more, the baron said, “You have until this cup is drained.” He drank deeply and said, “Less now. I would speak quickly if I were you.”
“De Braose is a tyrant,” the young man said, “with little understanding of the land he has taken, and none at all of the people under his rule. Most of them have fled, and those that remain are made to perform slave labour at the cost of their own fields and holdings. If they were allowed to return to their homes, to work the land and tend their herds, Elfael would enjoy prosperity unequalled by any other cantref. All that is required is someone who can guide the will of the people— someone the Cymry will follow, who can deliver them to you.”
The baron sipped again, more slowly this time, and considered what he had heard. “You can do this?”
“I can.” There was no hint of hesitation or doubt in the young man.
“Your offer is tempting, to be sure,” allowed the baron cautiously. Putting the cup aside, he said, “But who are you to make such an offer?”
At this, the bowlegged friar spoke up. “Before you stands Bran ap Brychan, the rightful heir to Elfael. And I am Aethelfrith, at your service.”
Neufmarché gazed at the young man before him. It never ceased to amaze him how very often events beyond his reckoning conspired to bring his plans to bountiful fruition.
Here, he had not lifted a hand, and the prize plum had simply dropped into his lap. “The rightful heir is dead,” he said, feigning indifference. “At least, that is what I heard.”
“To my great relief,” replied Bran, “it remains a rumour only. Still, it serves a useful purpose.”
“When the time is right,” put Aethelfrith, “we will make his presence known, and his people will rally to him and overthrow the de Braose usurpers.”
“In exchange for your promise to restore me to the throne,”
Bran said, “I would pledge fealty to you. Elfael would then abide in peace.”
Now the baron smiled. “What you have said has roused my interest—and more than you know.” He rose and walked to the rear of the tent. “Will you take some wine?”
“It would be an honour,” replied Tuck. “There is much to discuss.”
“A moment, please,” said the baron. “I will order cups to be brought.”With that, he disappeared through the rear flap into the room used by his servants for preparing food for the baron and his guests. “Remey!” Neufmarché called aloud.
“Wine for my visitors.” The servant, just returning from the kitchen tent with a trencher of sausages, appeared at his summons. Stepping quickly to meet him, the baron raised a finger to his lips for silence, leaned close, and whispered, “Fetch me four knights—armed and ready to fight. Bring them here at once.”
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Remey’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Sire? Is something amiss?”
“No time to explain—but the two Welshmen are to be taken captive. Indeed, they will not leave this place alive. Understand?” The aging seneschal inclined his head in a compliant nod. “Go,” said Neufmarché, taking the trencher from his hands. “I will keep them occupied until you return.”
Remey turned on his heel and padded away. The baron returned to his audience room with the sausages, which he placed on the table, inviting his guests to help themselves. “Sit you down, please. Enjoy!” he said with expansive warmth. “The wine will come in a moment. In the meantime, I would hear more about how you plan to bring about de Braose’s defeat.”
CHAPTER 46
The last day of the baron’s council found Mérian in a pensive mood. Having resigned herself to the fact that she would leave the council and return, not to Caer Rhodl, but to Castle Neufmarché in Hereford, she was nevertheless apprehensive. A sojourn amongst the Ffreinc in the baron’s household? Secretly she was fascinated by the thought—even regarding the prospect of a winter spent in Normandie in a kindly light. Even so, she could not deny the feeling that she was behaving as something of a traitor. A traitor to what? Her family? Her country? Her own ideas about who and what the Ffreinc were?
She could not decide.
Her father had as much as commanded her to go. Her own mother had told her, “It is important that you do well in the baron’s court, Mérian. He likes you, and we need his friendship just now.” Although she did not say it outright, her mother had given her to know that by currying favour with the baron, she was helping her family survive. In short, she was little more than a hostage to the baron’s good pleasure.
She told herself that Cymru would be the same whether she was attached to the baron’s court or not. She told herself that in all likelihood, her poor opinion of the Ffreinc was based on hearsay and ignorance and that this was a chance to discover the truth. Of course, she still considered the Ffreinc enemies, but was not a Christian required to love her enemy?
From the time she was old enough to stand beside her mother in church, she had been instructed to love her enemies and do good to those who persecuted her. So if not the Ffreinc, then who? She told herself that any young woman in her position would welcome the chance to advance herself in this way, and that she should be grateful.
She told herself all these things and more. Yet the feeling of betrayal would not go away.
It was with these thoughts turning over in her mind that she made her way amongst the untidy sprawl of tents to the baroness’s pavilion in the centre of the camp. Mérian had been sent to find Sybil and inform her friend that she had said her good-byes to her parents and that her things were packed and awaiting collection by the baron’s servants. As she passed the baron’s tent, however, a shout brought her up short. She stopped.
It sounded like an argument had broken out. There was a crash, as if a table had been overturned, and suddenly, out of the tent burst four marchogi dragging two men between them.
At the sight of the young noblewoman standing directly in their path, the soldiers halted. The foremost prisoner raised his head. Even with the blood streaming from a cut above his eye, even though she never thought to see him again amongst the living, she knew him.
“Bran!” She blurted the name in startled amazement. “Is it you?”
“Mérian,” gasped Bran, no less astonished to see her.
“Step aside, lady,” said one of the knights, jerking Bran to his feet.
Without thinking, Mérian held up her hand. “Stop!” she said, and the soldiers paused. She stepped nearer. “I thought you died—everyone said so.”
“Wishful thinking.”
“You know this man?” The voice was Neufmarché’s. He stepped from the tent and came to stand beside Mérian.
“I did once,” Mérian replied, turning to the baron. “I— until this moment, I thought him dead! Why are you treating him so? What has he done?”
“He claims to be the heir of Elfael,” the baron replied. “Is this true?”
“It is,” Mérian granted.
“That is all I need to know.” The baron, sword in hand, waved the soldiers on. “Take them away.”
“I am sorry you had to see that, my dear—,” the baron began. He did not finish the thought, for as the knights, still distracted by Mérian, stepped past her, Bran twisted in their grasp and shook himself free. Snatching a dagger from the belt of his nearest captor, he spun on his heel, grabbed Mérian, and pulled her roughly to him. Neufmarché made a clumsy attempt to snatch her from Bran’s grasp, and almost lost his hand.
“Stay back!” Bran shouted, raising the naked blade to Mérian’s slender neck.
“Bran, no—,” Mérian gasped.
One of the knights made a sudden lunge toward him. Bran evaded the move, pressing the knife to Mérian’s throat and drawing a frightened scream from the young woman. “If you have any care for her at all,” he snarled, “you will stand aside.”
“Stand easy, men,” the baron told his soldiers. To Bran he said, “Do you imagine this will aid you in any way?”
“That we will soon discover,” he said. Turning to the soldiers holding Tuck, he commanded, “Release the priest.”
The knights looked to the baron. He saw the sharp blade pressed against the soft white flesh—flesh he coveted—and could not bear to see it harmed. Neufmarché surrendered with a nod. “Do it,” he said dully. “Let him go.”
“Tuck,” called Bran, “bring the horses!”
The English friar shook free of his captors, giving one a pointed kick, saying, “That is for laying unclean hands on one of God’s humble servants.” He hurried to where the horses had been left on the nearby picket line.
“Bran, let me go,” pleaded Mérian, her fear quickly melting into anger. “This is not meet.”
“I asked you to come with me once,” he said, his mouth close to her ear. “You refused. Now it seems you are to join me whether you will or no.”
Tuck hurried back, leading the horses. He passed one pair of reins to Bran and scrambled into the saddle. Bran, stepping gingerly backward to the horse, pulled Mérian with him.
“Climb up and be quick,” he told her, maintaining his grip on the knife. Gathering her skirts, she put her foot to the stirrup, and Bran, with a sudden movement, boosted her onto the horse and, quick as a cat, vaulted up behind her.
“Farewell, baron,” said Bran, shaking out the reins. “Had you been true, you would have enjoyed the spectacle of your rival’s downfall. Now you will have to content yourself with the knowledge that this day you sealed your own.”
“I will track you down like an animal,” said Neufmarché.
“When I find you, I will gut you and hang your carcass for the birds.”
“You must catch me first, Neufmarché,” said Bran. “And if we are followed from this place, Mérian’s lovely corpse will be all you find on the trail.”
“Don’t waste your breath on them,” said Tuck. “Let us hie from this vipers’ den.”
“Away, Tuck!” With that, Bran slapped the reins across the shoulders of his mount, and the horse leapt ahead. The fat priest followed, and the two riders disappeared with their hostage, passing between the close-set tents and out of sight. The soldiers watched in flat-footed amazement.
“After them!” shouted the baron. “Mérian is not to be harmed.”
“What about the other two?” asked one of the knights.
“Once the lady is safe—and only then,” the baron cautioned, “kill them. If anything happens to her, your lives are forfeit.”
The four knights ran for their horses and clattered off in pursuit of the fugitives. Baron Neufmarché watched until they were out of camp and then returned to his tent, his spirits soaring with jubilation. By the time his knights returned with Mérian, the last heir to the throne of Elfael really would be dead, his unwanted presence a fast-fading memory. The tr
oops promised by his father, the duke, would arrive with the first ships in the spring, and in the council just concluded, he had— through bargaining, wheedling, threatening, and cajoling over many days—finally obtained the support of his vassal lords for his threefold plan.
The unexpected appearance of Elfael’s prince might have swiftly undone all his hard work over the last many days, but fortunately, that problem would be swiftly resolved when the knights returned with his head in a sack. Thus, no sooner than it had arisen, the unforeseen impediment had been cleared. The conquest of Wales could begin.
Friar Tuck was first to reach the little dell where the four had made camp—not far from the fields where the council was meeting, but hidden in a fold between two hills. “Iwan! Siarles!” he shouted, thundering down the hillside to the stand of beech trees where they had camped. “To arms! The Ffreinc are coming!”
The two men appeared, drawing their swords as they ran. Iwan took in the situation at a glance, thrust his sword into the turf, and raced back for his longbow. Tuck reached the shelter of the trees and threw himself from the saddle as Iwan appeared, clutching two bow staves in one hand and a sheaf of arrows in the other. “There are four of them!” cried Tuck. “Bran has a woman with him and cannot outpace them much longer. We had but a few yards’ start on them.”
“Four only?” said Iwan, tossing a bow to Siarles. “The way you were shouting, I thought all the Normans in England were on your tail—and their hounds as well.”
“What woman?” wondered Siarles, bracing the bow against his leg to string it.
“Our escape required a hostage,” Tuck explained. “For God’s sake, hurry!”
A cry arose from the rim of the dell. They turned to see Bran pounding down the gentle slope, encumbered by a squirming, screaming female. His mount was tired and clearly labouring. Even as they watched, he was overtaken by the two Ffreinc knights sweeping up behind him with swords raised.