Scarlet

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  CHAPTER 11

  I waited for a time, listening, but heard only the whispering hush of falling snow. I did not know what would happen next, and wondered if the attack was over and I should now begin making my way back to Cél Craidd. The wood was growing dark, and if I did not leave soon it would be a lonely slog on a frozen night for old Will.

  Nothing moved in the forest or on the ground, save the lone wounded man who had taken the arrow in his back. He lay with the dead, moaning and trying now and then to rise, but lacking the strength. I felt that sorry for the fella, I thought that if someone did not come back for him soon, I might risk putting him out of his misery. But my orders were to watch and wait, so that is what I would do until told otherwise. I kept my eyes sharp and bided my time.

  Winter twilight deepened the shadows, and the snow had been steadily melting into my cloak; the icy damp was spreading across my shoulders. As night came on, I knew I would have to leave my post soon or freeze there with the corpses on the trail.

  As I was pondering this, I heard someone approaching on the road from the dingle where the wagons had disappeared in the direction of Elfael. In a moment, a man on horseback emerged from the gathering gloom. Not a tall man, he sat his saddle straight as a rod, his head high. Across his legs was folded a deerskin robe; his hat had a thin, folded brim which was pointed in front like the sharp prow of a seagoing ship. Heavily swaddled against the winter storm, he wore a monk’s cloak of brown coarse-woven cloth secured at the throat with a thick brooch of heavy silver. Even from a distance in the failing light, I could tell he was more devil than monk: something about that narrow hatchet-shaped nose and jutting chin, the cruel slant of those close-set eyes, gave me to know that Richard de Glanville was happier with a noose in his hand than a rosary.

  He reined up at the carcase of the first dead horse, regarded it, and then slowly swept his eyes across to one of the dead knights. He observed the arrows jutting rudely from the corpses and, after due contemplation, let out a shrill whistle. I’ve heard the same when falconers call their hawks to roost and, quick enough, four riders emerged from the gloaming to join him on the road . . .

  Yes, Odo, this was the first time I laid eyes on the sheriff,” I tell him. My monkish friend knows well of whom I speak. Our sheriff is a right sharp thorn of a man and that nasty—a man who thinks frailty a fatal contagion, and considers mercy the way most folk view the Black Death.

  “If it was the first time,” says my scribe, “how did you know it was the sheriff ?”

  “Well,” says I with a scratch of my head, “the authority of the man could not be mistaken.”

  “Even in a snowstorm?” asks Brother Odo with the smarmy smile he uses when he thinks he has caught me decorating the truth a little too extravagantly for his taste.

  “Even in a snowstorm, monk,” I tell him. “Anyway, it was the same with Abbot Hugo and Marshal Guy—if I did not know their names right off the first I saw them, I knew them well enough before the day was over. More’s the pity, Odo, my friend. More’s the pity.”

  Odo grunts in begrudging agreement, and we stumble on . . .

  The sheriff ’s men quickly dismounted and began searching among the dead men and horses for survivors. De Glanville remained in the saddle; he did not deign to get his fine boots wet, I reckon.

  Well, they found the bundled-up wagon drivers, untied them, and brought them to stand before the sheriff. The drivers were still quaking from fright and gawking around as if they expected to be swooped upon by the phantom bird again. Under the sheriff ’s stern questioning, however, they soon lost their fear of the great preying bird. The sheriff had them now, and he was flesh-and-blood fiercer than any phantom or host of unseen archers.

  I could tell from the way the ox handlers were gesturing and squawking that they were filling the sheriff ’s ears with their weird and wonderful tale. Oh, yes! And I could tell by the way the sheriff ’s scowl deepened by the moment that he was having none of it. He listened to them prate a while, and then cut off their mewling with a shout that travelled through the silent wood like a clap. Wheeling his mount, he cantered down the King’s Road in the direction the abbot and soldiers had gone, passing so close to my perch I could have reached down and plucked that absurd hat from his pointy head.

  He rode on, leaving his men and the ox drivers behind. Meanwhile, I studied hard to see what they might find, but was relieved to see that the snow had mostly filled in the tracks of men and beasts and wagon wheels; the only disturbance now to be seen was that left by the sheriff and his men themselves.

  Soon enough, de Glanville returned. Close on his heels came Abbot Hugo and the marshal and the surviving soldiers. The fighting men were that weary and out of breath, they could hardly hold their weapons upright. King Raven had led them a wild chase right enough. Their snow-caked feet dragged, and their hair was stringy wet beneath their steel caps; they looked as cold and damp and limp as their own soggy cloaks.

  They assembled in the road, gawking at the dead horses and knights, casting many a sideways glance into the wood lest the phantom catch them unawares. After a brief word with the sheriff, Marshal Guy sent his knights and the remaining soldiers and wagon drivers down the road. It would be a long, frozen walk to Count de Braose’s castle, and I did not envy them the welcome they would likely receive. The wounded soldier, clinging to life, was taken up behind one of the sheriff ’s men, and they all clattered off with a rattle of tack and weapons.

  Thoughts of home fires and welcomes put me in mind of a nice steaming bowl of something hot, and I was that close to quitting my post and finding my way back home . . . but glanced back to see that the sheriff had not yet departed. He simply sat there on his horse, alone, in the middle of the road, waiting. I could in no wise leave before he did, so I stayed put.

  Good thing, too.

  For as winter twilight settled over the forest, out from the undergrowth stumbled a man with two fat hares slung on a snare line over his neck, and another in his hand. I did not recognise the fella and supposed he was from Elfael—a farmer, out to get a little meat for his table.

  “You there!” shouted the sheriff, his voice loud in the quiet glade. Startling as it was, it took a moment before I realised old rat face was speaking English. “Stand where you are!”

  The poor man was so surprised he dropped the hare in hand and turned to run. The sheriff was that quick; he spurred his mount forward to catch the poacher. The fleeing man lunged for the brush at the side of the road, but was caught and hauled back by the hood of his cloak.

  The fella gave out a yelp and tried to struggle free of the cloak. The sheriff, well used to catching folk this way, pulled him off his feet. He hung there at the side of the sheriff ’s saddle, feet dangling off the ground, swinging his fists, and yelling to be released. When the sheriff drew his knife and put it to his squirming captive’s neck, I reckoned the affair had gone far enough. Easing myself from my place, I tucked three arrows in my belt, put another on the string, and moved down onto the road as quickly and quietly as stiff muscles would allow.

  Creeping like a shadow, I came up behind the sheriff ’s horse and, with an arrow already on the string, drew and took aim. “Let him go,” I said, in my best English. “Or wear this arrow to your wake.”

  The sheriff ’s head spun around so fast I thought his neck would snap. He gaped at me and at the bow in my hand, opened his mouth, then thought better and closed it.

  “You might be thinking your little knife will save you,” I said, “but I think it won’t. If you want to find out, just you hold on to that Welshman.”

  De Glanville recovered himself then, and said, “I am sheriff of the March. This thief is caught poaching in the king’s forest, and unless you want a share of what is coming to him, turn aside and go your way.”

  “Bold words, Sheriff,” I replied. “But it is myself who holds the bow, and my fingers on this string are getting tired.”

  I gave my arm a jiggle to sharpen my point
, as it were, whereupon the sheriff dropped our man. “Pick up the hare,” I told the farmer, “and light out.” He scrambled to his feet, snatched up his prize, and dived into the wood.

  “You cannot hope to gain anything by this,” the sheriff informed me. “I have marked you for a felon. You will not escape the king’s justice.”

  “The king’s justice!” I hooted. “Sir, the king’s justice is rough, to be sure, but it is fickle and inconstant as a flirty milkmaid. I will gladly take my chances.”

  “Fool!” cried the sheriff, suddenly angry. Heedless of the arrow, he spurred his horse at me so as to run me down. I stepped lightly aside, and he made a wild, looping slash at me with his small blade as he passed.

  He wheeled the horse at once. A beast well trained to war, it turned so fast the sheriff ’s long cloak flung out behind him. I saw it flying like a dull flag against the dark bulwark of an oak bole as he made to drive me down, and loosed the shaft.

  The arrow whined through the air, catching the heavy cloak and pinning it to the oak as he passed. The cloak snapped taut, the horse charged on, and de Glanville was jerked clean from the saddle.

  The sound of ripping fabric cut sharp in the little glade, but the cloth and arrow held fast. Sheriff de Glanville was strung up like a ham in a chimney to dangle with his feet a few inches from the snowy ground. Oh, he squirmed and wriggled and cursed me up one side and down t’other. But I was not ready to let him go so easy, so I sent two more arrows into the trunk to better nail my captive to the tree.

  Red-faced and foamin’ with rage, if that fella coulda spit poison, he would have. No mistake. Instead, he swung there, ripening the air with his rage. I calmly trained an arrow at the centre of his chest.

  I was this close to loosing the shaft when I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Put up,” said a familiar voice in my ear. “The sheriff ’s men are returning. It is time to fly.”

  “I have him,” I insisted. “I can take him and save the world a load of trouble.”

  “It may bring more trouble than it saves. Another day. We have what we came for—and now we must fly.”

  With that, Bran pulled me into the brushwood at the side of the road and we were away.

  No sooner in the wood and on the path than we heard the sheriff shouting behind us, “After them! Through there! Ten marks to the man who brings them back!”

  Immediately, we heard the crack and snap of branches as the soldiers searched for our trail. In less time than it takes to tell, they found it and were onto us.

  So now, here was a bother: fleeing through the woods over snow-covered pathways and no way to cover our tracks. Those fellas would have no difficulty at all seeing where we went. The first clearing we came to, I stopped to make a stand. “We can take them here, my lord,” I said. “I’ll drop the first one, you take the second.”

  “I don’t have a bow,Will,” said Bran. “So, tonight, we let them live.”

  “They will not pay us the same coin if they catch us,” I replied. “That is a fair certainty.”

  “True enough,” Bran allowed. Gone was the feathered cloak and the long-beaked headpiece; dressed in his customary black tunic and trousers, he shivered slightly with the cold. “Consider it just one of the many things that makes us better men than they are.”

  Our pursuers could be heard thrashing through the wood, coming closer with every heartbeat.

  Bran smiled and winked his eye, his face a disembodied shape floating in the gloom. “But that does not mean we cannot have a little fun at their expense.” Turning lightly on his heel, he said, “Come, Will, let’s give them something to talk about when they join their comrades at Castle de Braose.”

  With that, he flitted away. I glanced over my shoulder, then followed him into the forest. I caught up with him a few dozen paces down the path, where he had stopped beside an ancient oak and was tugging on a bit of ivy vine. “This is where we start,” he said, as the end of a rope snaked down from a branch above. “Stand where you are and make no more tracks,” he instructed.

  I did as I was told. Bran wound the end of the rope around one wrist and gave it a tug. The rope snapped taut. He tugged again and the end of a rope ladder dropped from the limb overhead.

  “Up you go, Will,” he said, passing the ladder to me. “I will hold it for you, but be quick.”

  Slinging my bow, I grasped the highest rung I could reach and swung myself up, climbing the ladder with no little difficulty as it twisted and turned like an angry serpent under my weight. I gritted my teeth and hung on. After some tricksy rope climbing, I gained the limb of the oak at last. “Pull up the ladder!” hissed Bran in an urgent whisper. The sheriff ’s men were that close he could not speak more loudly or risk being overheard.

  “There is time,” I whispered back. “Take hold and I’ll pull you up.”

  But he was already gone.

  CHAPTER 12

  I hauled up the ladder as fast as I could and crouched in the crux of the largest bough to wait. Within five heartbeats the sheriff ’s men burst into the clearing we had just left. A few more steps along our trail carried them to the base of the oak, where our tracks became slightly confused. Although I could no longer see the path below, and was not fool enough to risk looking down, I could well imagine what they were seeing: the well-formed footprints of two fleeing men set in deep, undisturbed snow, and then . . . one set of footprints vanishing.

  Only a solitary track continued along the path, and they were not slow to mark this.

  They paused to catch a breath beneath my hiding place. I could hear them puffing hard as they stood below, searching, trying to find where the second pair of tracks had gone. One of them muttered something in French—something about the futility of catching anything in this accursed forest. And then another voice called from the trail, and they moved on. From my perch, I caught a fleeting glimpse of three soldiers in dark cloaks barely visible in the winter twilight.

  No doubt they were loath to return to the sheriff empty-handed, and seeing only a single set of footprints leading away, they had no choice but to follow them. So, panting and cursing, off they went to continue the pursuit. When they had gone, I settled myself more securely on the branch to wait for whatever would happen next. The night was not getting any warmer, nor my cloak any drier; folding my arms across my chest to keep warm, I prayed to Saint Christopher that they would not be pulling my frozen corpse from the oak come Christmas.

  Twilight deepened to night and the wind sharpened, kicking up gusts to drive the snow. I wrapped myself tight in my cloak and had just closed my eyes beneath my hood when I heard the creak and clatter of tree limbs nearby as if something big was moving among the branches. My first thought was that all the fuss and fury had awakened a bear or wildcat asleep in its treetop bower. Peering around, Lord bless me, but I saw a great dark shape walking toward me along the very bough I had chosen.

  The thing came closer. “Get back!” I hissed, fumbling beneath my damp cloak for my knife.

  “Hush!” came the whisper. “You’ll bring them back.”

  “Bran?”

  “Who else?” He laughed lightly. “Heavens, Will, you look like you were ready to take wing.”

  “I thought you were a bear,” I told him.

  “Follow me,” he said, already turning away. “They will be coming back this way soon, and it is best we are not here.”

  Teetering on the bough, I edged after him, sliding one cautious, slippery foot at a time while clinging to a branch overhead. The bough narrowed as it went out from the trunk but, at the place where it would have begun to bend under our weight, I discovered another stout limb had been lashed into place to make a bridge, of sorts, on which to cross the gap between trees. This makeshift bridge spanned the trail below, linking two big oaks together.

  And this was not all! No fewer than four trees were likewise linked in a mad squirrel-run through the treetops. We worked our way along this odd walkway until we came to another rope ladder, and so at la
st climbed down to a completely different forest track.

  “You knew we would be chased,” I said the moment I set foot on solid ground once more.

  “Aye,” he replied, “King Raven can see the shapes of all things present and yet to come,” he told me.

  “Peter and Paul on a donkey, Bran!” I gasped. “Then you must have seen the sheriff and—”

  “Peace, Will,” he said, chuckling at his jest. “Angharad might be blessed with such a gift on occasion, but I am not.”

  “No?” I said, none too certain.

  “Listen to you,” he said. “It does not take the Second Sight to know that any time you take arms against a company of Norman knights you might soon be running for your life.”

  “True,” I allowed, feeling stupid for being taken in so easily. “That’s a fact, right enough. Still and all, it was a canny piece of luck they chased you the way you wanted to go.”

  “Not at all,” he said, moving lightly away. “I led them. This way or another it makes no difference. We have worked all summer to prepare such deceptions. There are ladders and treewalks scattered all over the forest, and especially along the King’s Road.”

  “Treewalk,” I said, enjoying the word. I hurried after him.

  “Ladders and limbs and such,” he said. “It makes for easier escape if you can move from tree to tree.”

  “I agree. But do the Normans never see them?”

  “The Ffreinc only ever view the world from the back of a horse,” Bran declared. “They rarely dismount, even in dense forest, and almost never look up.” He shook his head again. “I should have told you about all that, but I confess I did so want to see your face the first time we used it.”

  This revelation stopped me in my tracks. “I hope it gave you enjoyment, my lord,” I said, the complaint sharp in my voice. “I live to provide amusement for my betters.”

  “Oh, do not take on, Will. No harm done.”