When Jago broke off once more to collect himself, Iwan said, “What is the old rascal talking about?”
“Shh!” hissed Tuck. “Let him read on and we will see.”
Jago resumed his reading. “. . . Be it known to all sons of our Holy Church present and future that we have heard the Spirit’s admonition to seize the day of Peace, and have ordained this concord to be made between William and Guibert, formerly Archbishop of Ravenna . . .”
Mérian and Cinnia, given dry robes by the monks, entered just then. “You started without us!” Mérian said, her voice sharp with disapproval.
“Shh!” said Bran. “You have missed little enough.” He gestured to Jago. “Go on.”
“. . . attendant with very Sacred vows to uphold His Holiness, the Pope, and bind our Powers to the Throne of Saint Peter and the One Church Universal, recognizing him as Pontiff and Holy Father, forsaking all other Powers, henceforth holding only to the Authority invested in His Holiness, the Patriarch of Rome. May the Divinity preserve you for many years, most Holy and Blessed Father.
“Given at Rouen on the third day of September, before these witnesses: Roger, Bishop of Rheims; Reginald des Roches, Bishop of Cotillon; Robert, Duke of Normandy; Henry Beauclerc; Joscelin, Bishop of Véxin; Hubert de Burgh, Justiciar of King Philip; Gilbert de Clare, Count of Burgundy and Argenton; Ralph fitzNicholas, our seneschal; Henry de Capella, Baron of Aquitaine; and others in most Solemn and August Assembly.”
Jago glanced up quickly and, seeing all eyes on him, concluded. “Written by the hand of his servant Girandeau, scribe to Teobaldo, Archbishop of Milan.”
Well, I won’t say I gleaned the full meaning of that letter just then. Then again, no one did. Indeed, we all sat looking a little perplexed at what we’d heard. Iwan spoke for us all, I think, when he said, “That was worth a man’s life on Christmas day?”
“There is something in it we cannot yet see,” replied Bran.
“If we only knew where to look,” sighed Tuck. “For all its folderol, it is only a simple offer of support for the pope. I confess, I make nothing of it.”
Jago straightened and turned a thoughtful gaze to Bran. “Pray, how did you come by this, my lord?” he asked, his voice quiet in the silence.
“It was with some other items taken in a raid,” Bran said simply.
Jago nodded, accepting this without comment. “These other items—may I see them?”
Bran considered for a moment, then turned to Tuck. “Show him.”
Tuck rose and turned his back to one and all and, from a hidden pocket in his robe, produced a roll of cloth tied with a horsehair string. He untied the string and unrolled the cloth on the table to reveal the ruby-studded ring and the finely embroidered gloves.
Jago took one look at the ring and picked it up; he held it between thumb and forefinger, turning it this way and that so that the light glinted on the gold and ring of tiny rubies. “Do you know whose crest this is?”
“That of a Ffreinc nobleman,” replied Iwan.
“Beyond that?” said Bran. “We know nothing.”
Jago nodded again. Replacing the ring, he picked up the gloves, lifting them to his nose to take in the scent of the fine leather. Almost reverently, he traced the heavy gold thread of the cross and the looped whorl of the Chi Rho with a respectful fingertip. “I have seen gloves like this only once in my life—but once seen, it is never forgotten.” He smiled, as if recalling the memory even then. “They were on the hands of Pope Gregory. I saw him as a boy when he passed through the village where I was born.
“But,” he said, replacing the gloves, “I fear this does little to help you. I am sorry I could not be of better service.” He placed the palm of his hand on the parchment. “I agree with the friar. There is something in the letter that the baron does not wish known to a wider world.”
Well, you could have knocked us down with a wren feather. We all looked at each other, the mystery deeper now than when we had begun.
Lady Mérian found her voice first. “Nevertheless, it goes back. Whether we discover what it means or not,” she declared, “it must be returned—all of it—as we agreed.”
CHAPTER 27
What do you want me to do?” asked the abbot, when, after Jago had been dismissed, he returned to see if we would like to join the monks for vespers.
Bran pressed the folded parchment into Daffyd’s hands. “Make a copy of this,” he commanded. “Letter for letter, word for word. Make it exactly the same as this one.”
“I cannot!” gasped the abbot, aghast at the very suggestion.
“You can,” Bran assured him. “You will.”
“Leave it to me,” said Tuck, stepping boldly forward. “This is an abbey, is it not?” He took the abbot by the elbow, turned him, and led him to the door. “Then let us go to your scriptorium and see what can be done.”
Odo is frowning again. He does not approve of our King Bran’s high-handed ways. My scribe has put down his quill and folded his hands across his round chest. “Copying a stolen letter—you had no right.”
This makes me laugh out loud. “Hell’s bells, Odo! That is the least of the things we have done since this whole sorry affair began, and it en’t over yet.”
“You should not have done that,” he mutters. “It is a sin against the church.”
“Well, I suppose you could hold to that if you like,” I tell him, “but your friend Abbot Hugo was willing to burn defenceless folk in their beds to get that letter. He sent men to their deaths to reclaim it, and was only too willing to send more. Seems to me that if we start totting up sins, his would still outweigh the lot.”
In his indignation, my podgy scribe has forgotten this. He makes his sour face and pokes out his lower lip. “Copying a stolen letter,” he says at last. “It’s still a sin.”
“Perhaps.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Very well,” I concede. “I suppose you have never stood on a battleground naked and alone while the enemy swarms around you like killing wasps with poison in their stings.”
“No!” he snorts. “And neither have you.”
I grant him that. “Maybe not. But we are sorely outmanned in this fight. The enemy has all the knights and weapons, and he has already seized the high ground. Whatever small advantage comes our way, we take it and thank God for it, too.”
“You stole the letter!” he complains.
Oh, Odo, my misguided friend, takes what refuge can be found in dull insistence. Well, it is better than facing the truth, I suppose. But that truth is out now, and it is working away in him. I leave it there, and we roll on . . .
There were but four days remaining before Twelfth Night, when the hangings would commence. At Bran’s insistence, and with Tuck’s patient cajoling, the monks of Saint Dyfrig’s abbey prepared a parchment the same size and shape as that of the baron’s letter; they then proceeded to copy the letter out exact, matching pen stroke to pen stroke. If they had been archers, I’d have said they hit the mark nine times for ten and the tenth a near miss—which is right fair, considering they didn’t know what they were scribing. True, they were not able to use the same colour brown ink as the original; the ink they made for their use at the abbey had a more ruddy appearance when it dried. Still, we reasoned that since none of the Ffreinc in Elfael had ever seen the original, they would not know the difference.
While the monks toiled away, Bran and Iwan undertook to carve a seal of sorts out of a bit of ox bone. Working with various tools gathered from around the abbey—everything from knife points to needles—they endeavoured to copy the stamp that made the seal that was affixed to the letter. And, while they laboured at this, Mérian and Cinnia made a binding cord, weaving strands of white satin which they then dyed using some of the ruddy ink and other stuff supplied by the abbey.
It took two days to finish our forgery, and a fine and handsome thing it was, too. When it was done, we placed the letters side by side and looked at them. It was that difficult to te
ll them apart, and I knew which was which. No one who had not seen the genuine letter would be able to tell the difference, I reckoned, and anyone who did not know, would never guess.
Abbot Daffyd held a special Mass of absolution for the monks who had worked on the parchment and for the monastery itself for its complicity in this misdeed; he sought the forgiveness of the High Judge of the world for the low crimes of his followers. I held no such qualms about any of this myself, considering it a right fair exchange for the lives of those who awaited death in the count’s hostage pit.
When the service was finished, Bran ordered everyone to make ready to ride to Castle Truan to return the stolen goods to the count. “And just how do you intend to do that?” asked Daffyd; if his voice had been a bodkin, it could not have been more pointed. I suppose he imagined he had caught Bran in a mistake that would sink the plan like a millstone in a rowboat. “If you are caught with any of this, the sheriff will hang you instead.”
“Good abbot,” replied Bran, “your concern touches me deeply. I do believe you are right. Yet, since we have no interest in providing fresh meat for the hangman, we must make other arrangements.”
Warned by the devious smile on Bran’s face, Daffyd said, “Yes? And those would be?”
“You shall return the treasures to the count.”
“Me!” cried the abbot, his face going crimson in the instant. “But see here! I will do no such thing.”
“Yes,” Bran assured him, “I think you will. You must.”
Well, the abbot was the only real choice. When all was said and done, he was the only one who could come and go among the Ffreinc as neatly as he pleased without rousing undue suspicion.
“This will not do at all,” the abbot fumed.
“It will,” countered Bran. “If you listen well and do exactly as I say, they will hail you as a champion and drink your health.” Bran then explained how the stolen goods would be returned. “Tomorrow you will awaken and go to the chapel for your morning prayers. And there, on the altar, you will find a bag containing a box. When you open the box you will find the letter and the ring and the gloves. You will recognize them as the very items Count de Braose is missing, and you will take them to him, telling him precisely how you found them.”
“It hardly serves the purpose if they hang me instead,” Daffyd pointed out.
“If you can contrive to have the sheriff and abbot present when you hand over the goods,” continued Bran, “that would be better still. De Glanville was there. He knows you could not have been involved in the theft; therefore you will remain above suspicion. And since you did not see who left the bundle on the altar, they cannot use you to get at us.”
The abbot nodded. “It would all be true,” he mused.
“You would not have to lie to them.”
“But it would pare the truth very narrowly, my lord,” humphed Abbot Daffyd.
“Narrow is the gate,” chuckled Tuck, “and strait is the way. Do as Rhi Bran says, and they will sing your praises.”
“And I will give you silver enough to feed the hungry in your yard.”
The abbot twisted and turned like a worm on a griddle, but even he had to admit that it was the only way. He agreed to do it.
“Stay long enough to see the prisoners released,” added Bran. “Once the abbot and count have received the goods, they should set the captives free as promised.”
“I am not an imbecile,” sniffed the abbot. “I fully appreciate why we’re going to all this trouble.”
“As you say,” replied Bran. “Please do not take offence, Abbot; I just wanted to make sure we were all working to the same end. It is the lives of those men and boys we are saving. Lest anyone forget.”
While the others worked on preparing the forged letter, I had not been idle. I had been gathering bits of this and that from the abbey’s stores and supplies. Tuck, Mérian, and the others had helped, too, when they could, and on the Eve of Twelfth Night all was nearly ready.
We slept little that night, and dawn was a mere rumour in the east when we departed the abbey. There was no one about in the yard, and I do not think we were observed. But if any of the poor asleep in their miserable hovels had looked out, they would have observed a far different group of travellers leaving than that which arrived.
CHAPTER 28
Saint Martin’s
Richard de Glanville sat at table with a knife in one hand and a falcon on the other. With the knife he hacked off chunks of meat from the carcase before him, which he fed to the fledgling gyrfalcon—one of two birds the sheriff kept. He had heard from Abbot Hugo that falconry was much admired in the French court now that King Philip owned birds. De Glanville had decided, in the interest of his own advancement, to involve himself in this sport as well. It suited him. There was much in his nature like a preying bird; he imagined he understood the hawks, and they understood him.
The day, newly begun, held great promise. The miserable wet weather of the week gone had blown away at last, leaving the sky clean scoured and fresh. A most impressive gallows had been erected in the town square in front of the stable, and since there had been no communication on the part of the thieves who had stolen the abbot’s goods, all things considered it was a fine day for a hanging.
He flipped a piece of mutton to the young bird and thought, not for the first time in the last few days, how to direct the executions for best effect. He had made up his mind that he would begin with three. Since it was a holy day there was a symbolic symmetry in the number three and, anyway, more than that would certainly draw the disapproval of the church. Count Falkes De Braose insisted on waiting until sundown rather than sunrise, as the sheriff would have preferred, but that was a mere trifle. The count clung doggedly to the belief that the threat of the hangings would yet bring results; he wanted to give the thieves as much time as possible to return the stolen treasure. In this, the sheriff and count differed. The sheriff held no such delusions that the thieves would give up the goods. Even so, just on the wild chance that the rogues were foolish enough to appear with the treasure, he had arranged a special reception for them. If they came—and somewhere in the sheriff ’s dark heart he half hoped they would ride into Saint Martin’s with the treasure—none of them would leave the square alive.
When he finished feeding the hawk, he replaced it on its perch and, drawing on his riding boots, threw a cloak over his shoulder and went out to visit his prisoners. Though the stink of the pit had long since become nauseating, he still performed this little daily ritual. To be sure, he wanted the wretches in the pit to know well who it was that held their lives in his hands. But the visits had another, more practical purpose. If, as the death day lurched ever nearer, any of the prisoners suddenly remembered the whereabouts of the outlaw known as King Raven, Sheriff de Glanville wanted to be there to hear it.
He hurried across the near-empty square. It was early yet, and few people were about to greet the blustery dawn. He let himself into the guardhouse and paused at the entrance to the underground gaol where, after waking the drowsy keeper, he poured a little water on the hem of his cloak. Holding that to his nose, he descended the few steps and proceeded along the single narrow corridor to the end, pausing only to see if anyone had died in either of the two smaller cells he passed along the way. The largest cell of the three lay at the end of the low corridor, and though it had been constructed to hold as many as a dozen men, it now held more than thirty. There was not enough room to lie down to sleep, so the prisoners took turns through the day and night; some, it was said, had learned to sleep on their feet, like horses.
At first sight of the sheriff, one of the Welsh prisoners let out a shout and instantly raised a great commotion, as every man and boy began crying for release. The sheriff stood in the dank corridor, the edge of his cloak pressed to his face, and patiently waited until they had exhausted their outcry. When the hubbub had died down once more—it took less time each day—the sheriff addressed them, using the few words of Welsh that
he knew. “Rhi Bran y Hud,” he said, speaking slowly so that they would understand. “Who knows him? Tell me and walk free.”
It was the same small speech he made every day, and each time produced the same result: a tense and resentful silence. When the sheriff finally tired of waiting, he turned and walked away to a renewed chorus of shouting and wailing the moment his back was turned.
They were a stubborn crowd, but de Glanville thought he could detect a slight wearing down of their resolve. Soon, he believed, one of his captives would break ranks with the others and would tell him what he wanted to know. After a few of them had hanged, the rest would find it increasingly difficult to hold their tongues.
It was, he considered, only a matter of time.
The sheriff did not care a whit about retrieving Abbot Hugo’s stolen goods, despite what Hugo told him about the importance of the letter. It was the capture of King Raven he desired, and nothing short of King Raven would satisfy.
After his morning visit to the gaol, the sheriff returned to the upper rooms of the guardhouse to visit the soldiers and speak with the marshal to make certain that all was in order for the executions. It was Twelfth Night and a festal day, and the town would be lively with trade and celebration. Sheriff de Glanville had not risen to his position by leaving details to chance.
He found Guy de Gysburne drinking wine with his sergeant. “De Glanville!” called Guy as the sheriff strolled into the guardhouse. A fire burned low in the grate, and several soldiers lolled half-asleep on the benches where they had spent the night. Empty cups lined the table and lay on the floor. “Une santé vous, Shérif!” Gysburne cried, raising his cup. “Join us!”