Hood kr-1

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  When the sun rose upon the forest the next day, there was little to mark the odd, one-sided battle that had been fought in that placesaving only some singed tree limbs that could not be reached, broken earth, and a few damp, dark patches where the blood of an ox or a horse stained the road.

  Loss of all goods and chattels under your care, loss of horses and livestock, loss of church property and sacred relics-not to mention loss of the treasure you were sworn to protect," Abbot Hugo de Rainault intoned solemnly as he stared out the window of the former chapter house he had commandeered for his own use. "Your failure is as ignominious as it is complete."

  "I lost no men," Marshal Gysburne pointed out.

  "Mon Dieu!" growled Hugo. "Do you think Baron de Braose will care about that?" He levelled a virulent stare at the knight. "Do you think at all?"

  Guy de Gysburne held his tongue and waited for the storm to pass. Of the two men before him, the abbot was the more outraged and possessed far greater ability to make his anger felt. Next to the fiery Hugo's scathing excoriations, the irate Count Falkes seemed placid and reasonable, if perturbed.

  "At the very least, Gysburne, you will be imprisoned," said Count Falkes, breaking in.

  "At worst, you face execution for malfeasance and gross neglect of duty," said the abbot, concluding the thought in his own way.

  "We were ambushed. I did my duty."

  "Did you? Did you?" demanded Hugo. "No doubt that will be of great comfort when your head is on the block."

  "Execute a knight in service?" scoffed Guy; the bravado was thin and unconvincing.

  "Do not imagine such a fate unlikely. The baron may think it worthwhile to make an example of you."

  Guy, standing at attention with his hands clasped behind him as he bore the brunt of their anger, now turned in appeal to the count. "Lord Falkes," he said, "you saw the place of ambush; you saw how-"

  "I saw very little indeed," Falkes replied with cool disdain. "A few bloodstains and some withered foliage. What is that?"

  "It is my point exactly," insisted Guy, his voice rising with frustration. "Someone removed the wagons and oxen-removed everything!"

  "Yes, yes, no doubt it was this creature-this phantom."

  "I did not say that," muttered Guy.

  "Phantom?" asked Abbot Hugo, raising one eyebrow with interest.

  Falkes gave the priest a superior smile and explained about the birdlike creature haunting the forest of the March. "The folk of Elfael call it the Hud," he said. Waving his hand dismissively, he added, "I am sick of hearing about it."

  "Hood?" questioned the abbot. "Is that what you said?"

  "Hud," corrected Falkes. "It means sorcerer, enchanter, or some such. It is a tale to frighten children,"

  "Something attacked us in the forest," the marshal said. "It commanded wild pigs, killed oxen, and burned our wagons."

  "Yes, yes," replied Falkes impatiently, "and then carried everything away, leaving nothing behind."

  "What do you want of me?" demanded Guy, tiring of the interrogation.

  "I want the baron's money back!" roared Falkes. Guy lowered his head, and Falkes let out a sigh of exasperation. "Mon Dieu! This is hopeless." Looking to the abbot, he said, "Do what you will with him. I am finished here." With a last condemning glance at the miserable Guy de Gysburne, he paid the abbot a chilly farewell and strode from the room.

  In a moment, they heard the clump of hooves in the yard as the count rode away. "A man in your precarious position, Gysburne," said the abbot quietly, "might rather ask what I can do for you." Clasping his hands before him, he regarded the dishevelled knight with a pitying expression. "I do not know what happened out there," Hugo continued in a more sympathetic tone, "but I see that it has shaken you and your men."

  Gysburne clenched his jaw and looked away.

  "There will be hell to pay, of course," resumed the abbot. "Yet I can ensure that the brunt of this catastrophe does not fall solely on your shoulders."

  "Why should you help me?" asked the knight without looking up.

  "Is not clemency an attribute of the Holy Church?" Abbot Hugo smiled. Guy's gaze remained firmly fixed on the floor at his feet. "If further explanation is needed, let us just say that I have particular reasons of my own."

  The abbot crossed to the table on which cups and a jar were waiting. He placed his hands flat on the table. "You will, of course, return to face the wrath of Baron de Braose," he said. "However, I propose to send you with a letter informing the baron of certain mitigating facts which should be taken into consideration, facts which will ultimately exculpate you. Furthermore, I am prepared to argue, not for imprisonment or dismissal, but for your reassignment. In short, I might be persuaded to ask the baron to assign you to me here. I would then be willing to take full responsibility for you and your actions."

  At this, the knight raised his eyes.

  The abbot, pacing slowly around the small room of the former chapter house, continued, "After the debacle in the forest last night, de Braose will not refuse me. Far from it. He will think it a most salubrious suggestion-all the more when I offer to make up the pay for the workers out of my own treasury."

  "You would do this?" wondered Guy.

  "This and more," the cleric assured him. "I will request troops to be placed under my command. You, my friend, shall lead them."

  Abbot Hugo paused again to regard the unlucky knight. He might have chosen someone older and more experienced for what he had in mind, but Gysburne had dropped into his lap, so to speak, and another opportunity might be a long time coming. All things considered, Sir Guy was not such a bad choice. "I trust this meets with your approval?"

  "What about the count?"

  "Count Falkes will have nothing to say about it one way or the other," the abbot assured him. "Well?"

  "Your Grace, I hardly know what to say."

  "Swear fealty to me as God's agent by authority of the Holy Church, and it is done."

  "I swear it! On my life, I do so swear."

  "Splendid." Hugo returned to the table and poured a cup of wine for his guest. "Please," he said, offering the goblet to the knight. Guy accepted the cup, almost expecting it to burn his hand. Even if it had been offered by the devil himself, he would still be bound to receive it. The calamity in the forest had left him with no better choice.

  The abbot smiled again. Distressing as the loss of his property was, the strange turn of events had nevertheless provided him a welcome means of increasing his authority. With his own private army, he would be the most powerful prelate in all Wallia. "As you will appreciate, I lost a very great deal last night. The church lost treasure of significant value. That cannot be allowed to happen again." He poured wine into the second cup. "That will not happen again."

  "No, Your Grace," agreed Guy. He raised his cup and wet his lips. Although greatly relieved not to have to return to Baron de Braose empty-handed, the knight had yet to obtain the measure of the abbot: less a saint, he thought, than a merchant prince in priestly robes. Job's bones, he had met more holy-minded pickpockets!

  Guy took another sip of wine, and his thoughts returned to the events of that morning.

  As soon as he had regrouped his men-who were still exhausted and shaken by the unnatural events in the haunted wood-he had started out by dawn's first light to bring the count and abbot the bad news. "It was most uncanny beginning to end," he had reported. "On my life, it seems the very stuff of nightmares." He then went on to explain, to an increasingly outraged and disbelieving audience, all that had transpired in the forest.

  "Fool!" the abbot had roared when he finished. "Am I to believe that you think there is more to this affair than the rapacious larceny of the reprobate and faithless rabble that inhabit this godforsaken country?"

  At those words, the unearthly spell surrounding the entire incident had relinquished some of its power over him. Guy de Gysburne stood blinking in the sunlight of the abbot's reception room. It was the first time he had stopped to consider
that the attack had been perpetrated by mere mortals only cunning mortals, perhaps, but fleshand-blood humans nonetheless. "No, my lord," he had answered, feeling instantly very embarrassed and overwhelmingly absurd.

  Obviously, it had all been an elaborate trap-from the dead creatures strung up along the roadside, to the flames and falling trees that had cut off any chance of escape…

  But no.

  Now that he thought about it, the ambush had begun well before that-probably with the broken wagon axle earlier in the day: the hapless farmer and his shrewish wife, loud and overbearing, impossible to ignore as they stood arguing over the spilled load, standing in mud where no mud should have been…

  Yes, he was certain of it. The deception had begun far in advance of the actual attack. Moreover, the individual elements of the weird assault had taken a considerable amount of time to prepare-perhaps many days-which meant that someone had known when the treasure train would pass through the forest of the March. Someone had known. Was there a spy in the baron's ranks? Was it one of the soldiers or someone else who had passed along the information?

  As Guy sat clutching his cup, his heart burned for revenge. The offer of a new position with the abbot notwithstanding, he vowed to find whoever had ruined his position with the baron and make them pay dearly.

  "Mark me, lord marshal, these pagan filth will learn respect for the holy offices. They will learn reverence for the mother church. Their heinous and high-handed deeds will not go unpunished." Though the abbot spoke softly, there was no mistaking the steel-hard edge to his words. "You, Marshal Gysburne, will be the instrument of God's judgement. You will be the weapon in my hand."

  Sir Guy could not agree more.

  The abbot poured another cup and lifted it in salute. "Let us drink to the prompt recovery of the stolen treasure and to your own swift advancement."

  The marshal raised his cup to the abbot's, and both men drank. They then put their heads together to compose the letter to be delivered to the baron. Before the wax was dry on the parchment, Guy was already scheming how to find the stolen treasure, expose the traitor in their midst, and exact revenge on those who had disgraced him and robbed the abbot.

  CHAPTER

  43

  Qnder the keen watch of sentries hidden in the brush along the road, the Grellon walked hidden pathways. Moving with the stealth of forest creatures, men, women, and children ferried the plunder back to their greenwood glen on litters made of woven leather straps stretched between pine poles. It took most of the day to retrieve the spoils of their wild night's work and store it safely away. Thus, the sun was low in the sky when Bran, Iwan, Tuck, Siarles, and Angharad finally gathered to open the iron-banded caskets.

  Iwan and Siarles set to work, hacking at the charred wood and metal bands of the first two strongboxes. The others looked on, speculating on what they would find. Under the onslaught of an axe and pick, Iwan's box gave way first; three quick blows splintered the sides, and three more released a gleaming cascade of silver onto the hearthside floor. Tuck scooped up the coins with a bowl and poured them into his robe, as Siarles, meanwhile, chopped at the top of the chest before him and presently succeeded in breaking open the ruined lock.

  He threw open the lid. The interior was filled with cloth bags each one tied by a cord that was sealed in wax with the baron's crest. At a nod from Bran, he lifted one out and untied the string, breaking the seal, and poured the contents into Brother Tuck's bowl: forty-eight English pennies, newly minted, bright as tiny moons.

  "There must be over two hundred pounds here," Siarles estimated. "More, even."

  Iwan turned his attention to the third box. Smaller than the other two, it had suffered less damage and proved more difficult to break open. With battering blows, Iwan smashed at the lock and wooden sides of the chest. The iron-banded box resisted his efforts until Siarles fetched a hammer and chisel and began working at the rivets, loosening a few of the bands to allow Iwan's pick to gain purchase. Eventually, the two succeeded in worrying the lid from its hinges; tossing it aside, they upended the box, and out rolled plump leather bags-smaller than the baron's black bags, but heavier. When hefted, they gave a dull chink.

  "Open them," Bran commanded. He sat on his haunches, watching the proceedings with dazzled amazement.

  Plucking a bag from the chest, Iwan untied the string and shook the contents into Bran's open hand. The gleam of gold flashed in the firelight as a score of thick coins plopped into his palm.

  "Upon my vow," gasped Aethelfrith in awe, "they're filled with flaming byzants!"

  Raising one of the coins, Bran turned it between his fingers, watching the lustrous shimmer dance in the light. He felt the exquisite weight and warmth of the fine metal. He had never seen genuine Byzantine gold solidi before. "What are they worth?"

  "Well now," the priest answered, snatching up a coin from the floor. "Let me see. There are twelve pennies in a shilling, and twenty shillings in a pound-so a pound is worth two hundred and forty pennies." Tapping his finger on his palm as if counting invisible coins, the mendicant priest continued, amazing his onlookers with his thorough understanding of worldly wealth. "Now then, a mark, as we all know, is worth thirteen shillings and four pence, or one hundred sixty pennies-which means that there are one and a half marks in one pound sterling."

  "So how much for a byzant?" asked Siarles.

  "Give me time," said Tuck. "I'm getting to that."

  "This will take all night," complained Siarles.

  "It will if you keep interrupting, boyo," replied the priest testily. "These are delicate calculations." He gave Siarles a sour look and resumed, "Where was I? Right-so that's…" He paused to reckon the total. "That's over five pounds." He frowned. "No, make that six-more.

  "A bag?" asked Bran.

  "Each," replied the priest, handing the byzant back to him.

  "You mean to say this," said Bran, holding the gold coin to the light, "is worth ten marks?"

  "They are as valuable as they are scarce: '

  "Sire," said Iwan, dazzled by the extent of their haul, "this is far better than we hoped." Reaching into another of the leather bags, he drew out more of the fat gold coins. "This is a… a miracle,"

  "The Good Lord helps them who help themselves," Friar Tuck said, pouring coins from the fold of his gathered robe into the bowl on the floor before him. "Blessed be the name of the Lord!"

  "How much is there altogether?" wondered Bran, gazing at the treasure hoard.

  "Several hundred marks at least," suggested Siarles.

  "It is more than enough to pay the workers," observed Angharad from her stool. "Much more." She rose and gathered a deerskin from her sleeping place. Spreading it on the floor beside the kneeling priest, she instructed, "Count it onto this."

  "And count it out loud so we can all hear," added Siarles.

  "Help me," said the priest. "Put them into piles of twelve."

  The two fell to arranging the silver coins into little heaps to represent a shilling, and then Brother Tuck began telling out the number, shilling by shilling. Siarles, using a bit of charred wood, kept a running tally on a hearthstone, announcing the reckoning every fourth or fifth stack, and calling out the total at each mark: one hundred… one hundred seventy-five… two hundred…

  The women of Cel Craidd brought food-a haunch of roast meat from one of the slaughtered oxen and some fresh barley cakes made from the supplies intended for Abbot Hugo. Bran and the others ate while the counting continued.

  After a while, they heard voices outside the hut. "Your flock grows curious," Angharad said. "They have been patient long enough. You should speak to them, Bran."

  Rising, Bran stepped to the door and pushed aside the ox-hide covering. Stepping out into the soft night air, he saw the entire population of the settlement-forty-three souls in all ranged on the ground around the door of the hut. Wrapped in their cloaks, they were talking quietly amongst themselves. A fire had been lit and some of the children were running barefoot aroun
d it.

  "We are still counting the money," he told them simply. "I will bring word when we have finished."

  "It is taking a fair sweet time," suggested one of the men.

  "There is a lot to count."

  "God be praised," said another. "How much?"

  "More than we hoped," replied Bran. "Your patience will be rewarded, never fear."

  He returned to Angharad's hearth and the counting. "Three hundred fifty..," droned Siarles, making another mark on the stone, "… four hundred…"

  "Four hundred marks!" gasped Iwan. "Why were they carrying so much money?"

  "Something is happening that we have neither heard nor foreseen," Angharad replied, "and this is the proof."

  Tuck, still counting, gave a cough to silence them. And the total continued to grow.

  When the last silver penny had been accounted, the total stood at four hundred and fifty marks. Then, turning his attention to the leather bags in the last casket, the friar began to count out the gold coins to the value of ten marks each. The others looked on breathlessly as the friar arranged the golden byzants in neat little towers of ten.

  When he finished, Tuck raised his head and, in a voice filled with quiet wonder, announced, "Seven hundred and fifty marks. That makes five hundred pounds sterling."

  "Do I believe what I am hearing?" breathed Iwan, overwhelmed by the enormity of the plunder. "Five hundred pounds… " He turned his eyes to Bran and then to Angharad. "What have we done?"

  "We have ransomed Elfael from the stinking Ffreinc," declared Bran. "Using their own money, too. Rough justice, that."

  Turning on his heel, he moved to the door and stepped out to deliver the news to those waiting outside. Angharad went with him and, raising her hands, said, "Silence. Rhi Bran would speak."

  When the murmuring died down, Bran said, "Through our efforts we have won five hundred pounds-more than enough to pay the redemption price Red William has set. We have redeemed our land!"