Tuck
Page 29
Tuck was roused from his prayers by the sound of a trumpet—small but bright as a needle point in the quiet forest. “Amen, so be it,” he whispered and, crossing himself, he picked up his staff and hauled himself back up the rocks to where Bran, Owain, and Rhoddi were waiting.
The trumpet sounded again: a single long, unwavering note.
“What is the meaning of that?” wondered Owain. “Vanity?”
“Maybe they think to frighten us,” suggested Tuck.
“Take more than a pip on the horn to send a shiver up my spine,” said Rhoddi. He nocked an arrow to the string, but Bran put a hand on his arm and pulled it down.
“They’re still trying to get us to show ourselves so they can mark our positions,” said Bran, “perhaps get some idea how large a force they will face. If they only knew how few . . .” He let the rest of the thought go.
The trumpet called once more, and this time the trumpeter himself rode into view. Behind him came two knights bearing banners: a blue square with three long tails of green and a cross of gold in the centre surrounded by small green crosslets. Behind them could be seen the first ranks of knights; some of these also carried banners of red and blue, some with yellow lions, some with crosses of white and red.
“Owain,” said Bran, “find yourself a good position somewhere just there”—he pointed a little farther along the rock wall—“and be ready to loose on my signal.” As the young warrior departed, Bran turned to the friar. “Tuck,” he said, placing a bundle of arrows upright at his feet, “I want you to see that we do not run out of arrows in this first skirmish. Keep us supplied and let us know how many we have left if supplies run low.”
“Good as done,” said Tuck. He scuttled back down the rocks and arranged the bundles in stacks of three which he then hauled up to a place just below the archers to keep them within easy reach. By the time he rejoined Rhoddi and Bran, the Ffreinc were much closer. Tuck could make out individual faces beneath the round helmets of the knights. They rode boldly on, scanning the rocks for the first sign of attack. Some were sweating beneath their heavy mail, the water glistening in the sunlight as it dripped down their necks and into their padded leather tunics.
Both Bran and Rhoddi had arrows nocked and ready. “We’ll wait until they come directly below us,” Bran was saying. “The first to fall will—”
Even as he was speaking there came the whining shriek of an arrow, followed by the hard slap of an iron head striking home. In the same instant, one of the knights was thrown so far back in the saddle he toppled over the rump of his horse.
“No!” muttered Bran between clenched teeth. “Not yet. Who did that?” he demanded, looking around furiously. “Rhoddi, Tuck—did you see? Who did that?”
“There!” said Tuck. “It came from up there.”
He pointed to a place where the road crested the ridge and there, four men could be seen kneeling in the middle of the road.
The Ffreinc knights saw them, too, and those in the fore rank lowered their spears, put spurs to their horses, and charged.
“Take them!” cried Bran, and before the words had left his mouth two arrows were streaking towards the attacking knights. The missiles struck sharp and fast, dropping the foemen as they passed beneath the rocky outcrop. Two more knights appeared and joined the first two in the dust of the King’s Road.
The archers on the road seemed unconcerned by the commotion their appearance had caused. They calmly loosed arrow after arrow into the body of knights now halted in the road still some distance away from the place Bran had set for the ambush.
“Tuck!” said Bran, furious that his plan had been spoiled—so needlessly and so early. “Get down there and stop them. Hurry!”
While Bran and Rhoddi worked to keep the knights pinned down, Tuck scrambled back into the forest and, tearing through the undergrowth and bracken, made for the top of the ridge where the unknown archers had placed themselves.
“Hold!” he shouted, tumbling into the road. “Put up!”
“Friar Tuck!”
Tuck recognized the voice. “Brocmael! God love you, man, get out of here!”
“We saw some Ffreinc down there and thought to put the fear of God into them, Friar.”
“There’s a battle on,” the friar told him. He glanced at the young man’s companions. “Follow me before the whole Ffreinc army falls on your foolish heads.”
“Greetings, Bishop Balthus,” said the man nearest him.
“Ifor! Bless your unthinking head, that’s King William the Red’s army you’ve attacked, and they’ll be on us like bees on honeycomb.”
By the time the newcomers reached the rocks, Bran and Rhoddi were slinging arrows down into the road as fast as they could draw. Shouts and screams of men and horses crashing and thrashing echoed along the rock walls of the defile. Already, the bodies were thick on the ground. Brocmael and his companions took one look at the chaos below and joined in.
“Cenau Brocmael,” said Bran as the young man came to stand beside him, “as good as it is to see you, I could have wished you’d held your water a little while longer.”
“Forgive me, my lord. I did not know you were lurking hereabouts. Have we spoiled the hunt for you?”
“A little,” Bran admitted, sending feathered death into the churning mass of soldiers below. “Would you have taken on the king’s army by yourself ?”
“I thought it was just a few knights out for a jaunt in the forest.” He paused to consider. “Is it really the king’s army, then?”
“The king and his many minions, yes,” put in Tuck, “along with a right handsome multitude of knights and men-at-arms so they won’t be lonely.”
“Another sheaf, Tuck!” called Bran, loosing the last arrow from his bag.
Tuck hurried to the pile and, taking a bundle under each arm, climbed up to the archers. He opened one bundle for Bran and placed one nearby for Rhoddi, then took two more to Owain. Across the road, the arrows streaked through the sun-bright air as Scarlet and Tomas and their two farm lads loosed and loosed again in deadly rhythm. Many of the knights had quit their saddles and were trying to scale the rocks. Weighed down by their heavy mail coats, they moved slowly and were not difficult to pick off, but more and more soldiers were streaming up the hill to the fight.
“How many are with you?” Bran asked the young lord, drawing and loosing in the same breath.
“Besides Ifor—only Geronwy and Idris,” answered Brocmael, “good bowmen both. I would like to have brought more, but we had to sneak away as it was.”
“I expect . . .” Bran began, drawing and loosing again. The arrow sang from his bow into the heaving chaos below. “. . . that your uncle will not be best pleased.”
“Then he must accustom himself to displeasure,” replied the young nobleman. “It is the right and honourable thing to do.”
“And now, gentlemen all,” said Rhoddi, picking up his bundle of arrows, “the right and honourable thing for us to do is to leg it into the greenwood.”
He started away, and Tuck risked a look down into the chasm. The dust-dry road, where it could be seen, was taking on a ruddy hue and was now made impassable by the corpses of men and horses piled upon one another. The knights and soldiers coming up from the rear were scaling the rocks in a courageous effort to get at the archers above. Even as he looked over the cliff, a spear glanced off a nearby rock, throwing sparks and chips of stone into the air before sliding back down into the road. Duly warned, Tuck scuttled back from the edge.
Bran gave out a loud, shrieking whistle and waved with his bow to Scarlet and the others on the high bank across the road in a signal to abandon the attack. And then they were running for their lives into the deep-shadowed safety of the greenwood.
CHAPTER 35
Amad scramble through the forest brought them to a tiny clearing where Bran and his men paused to regroup. “We had the devils trapped and trussed,” Brocmael said, breathing hard from his run. “We could have defeated them.”
“Like crossing a mud flat,” said Tuck, hands on knees, his lungs burning. “The longer you stand . . . the deeper you sink.” He shook his head. “Ah, bless me, I am too old and fat for this.”
“Will they come in after us, do you think?” wondered Geronwy, leaning on his longbow.
“Oh, aye,” answered Rhoddi. “Count on it.”
There was a clatter in the wood behind them just then, and Scarlet, followed by Llwyd and Beli, tumbled into the clearing. The two farm lads were looking hollow-eyed and a little green. Clearly, for all their skill with the bow, they had never killed before—at least, thought Tuck, not living men. While Bran and the others exchanged battle reports, Tuck undertook to gentle the skittish newcomers. Putting a hand on each of their shoulders, he said, “Defending your people against the cruel invader is a good and laudable thing, my friends. This is not a war of your making, God knows—does He not?”
The two glanced at one another, and one of them, Llwyd, found his voice. “We never killed before.”
“Not like that,” added Beli.
“If there is sin in it,” Tuck told them, “then there is also grace enough to cover it. You have done well this day. See you remember your countrymen whose lives depend on you and let your souls be at peace.”
Overhearing this, Bran turned to address the newest members of his tiny war band. “To me, everyone,” he said. “Believe me when I say that I wish no one had to learn this cruel craft within the borders of my realm. But the world is not of our choosing. We have many battles to fight before this war is through, and your lives may be required long since.” He spoke softly, but in grim earnest. “You are men now. Warriors. And part of my Grellon. So grasp your courage and bind it to your hearts with bands of steel.” His twisted smile flashed with sudden warmth. “And I will pray with every shaft I loose that all will yet be well and you will live to see Elfael at peace.”
“My lord,” said Llwyd, bending his head.
Beli went one better and bent the knee as well. “Your servant,” he said.
Then Bran addressed those who had come with Brocmael. “Greetings, friends, and if you’ve come to stay, then welcome. But if now that you’ve had a taste of this fight and find it bitter in your mouth, then I bid you farewell and God go with you.”
“We came to help you fight the Ffreinc, my lord,” said Brocmael. “As you know me, know my cousins. This is Geronwy.” He put out a hand to a slender, sandy-haired youth holding a fine bow of polished red rowan.
“My lord Rhi Bran,” said Geronwy, “we have heard how you bested Earl Hugh and would pledge our aid to such a king as could humble that mangy old badger in his den.”
The other, not waiting to be presented, spoke up, saying, “I am Idris, and I am glad to lend my bow to your cause, my lord. It seems to me that either we fight the Ffreinc with you here and now—or we will fight them by ourselves later.” A stocky lad with a thick, tight-knit frame, he seemed rough-carved of the same yew as the sturdy bow in his hand.
Scarlet, listening to the sounds echoing up from the road and forest behind them, called, “We must fly if we are to stay ahead of the chase. This way!”
“Our horses are back there.” Brocmael jerked a thumb in the direction of the road.
“Leave them,” Bran said, hurrying after Scarlet. “Horses are a hindrance in the forest. Anyway, it isn’t far.”
The archers started away again, disappearing into the close-grown trees and bramble and hawthorn undergrowth. It soon became clear that Bran was leading them along a stony trail up the long slope of the ridge where, in no more than a few hundred paces, the path suddenly erupted in outsized stones and boulders big as houses, all tumbled together to form a sizeable cairn—a natural fortress of stone. In the gaps and crevices between the rocks grew holly and briar, into which had been driven stakes of ash whose ends were sharpened to narrow spear points.
“Find a place to hide and wait for my signal,” called Bran, disappearing into a holly hedge at the base of the cairn.
“Up we go, lads,” called Scarlet. “Get snugged in good. There are arrow sheaves in the hidey-holes. Keep ’em close to hand.”
Brocmael glanced at his cousins, gave a shrug, and followed the others up into the storied heap of rocks. They picked their way carefully among the thorns and stakes to find that, in amongst the spaces between rocks, small wooden platforms had been prepared where the archers could stand. The warriors found bundles of arrows tied to the timber supports and stuffed into crevices within easy reach. “I told you Rhi Bran was cunning clever,” Brocmael declared to his kinsmen. “And here is the proof.”
“Did we ever doubt you?” said Idris.
“Shh!” hissed Scarlet, taking his place on a nearby stand. “Sharp and quiet, lads. They’ll likely try to come by stealth, so be ready for the signal.”
“What is the signal?” wondered Brocmael aloud.
“You’ll know it when you hear it,” answered Scarlet, “for you’ve never heard the like in your whole sweet life entire.”
“And when you hear it,” said Tuck, squirming up onto one of the lower platforms, “be sure you take no fright, for it is only our Bran distracting our foemen from the task at hand.”
“If they’re about thinking they can run us to ground,” added Rhoddi, “they’ll soon be thinking twice about chasing blind through the phantom’s wood.”
“The phantom,” said Geronwy. “Rhi Bran y Hud—is that who you mean?”
“One and the same,” replied Scarlet. “You’ve heard of him?”
“Everyone has heard of him,” answered the young warrior. “Are you saying he is real?”
“Brace yourself, boyo,” said Tuck, “you’re about to see for yourself.”
Fitting arrows to strings, the Cymry settled down to wait. The sounds of the chase grew louder as the Ffreinc drew nearer until, with a thrashing of branches and bushes, the first wave of armour-clad foot soldiers reached the base of the rock wall. There they paused to determine which way to go and in that briefest of hesitations were doomed. For as they stood looking at the boulders in their path, there arose a thin, bloodless cry—like that of the wind when it moans in the high tree branches, but no kindly breeze lifted the leaves.
The soldiers glanced around furiously, trying to discover the source of the sound. The cry became a shriek, gathering strength, filling the surrounding woodland with a call at once unnatural and unnerving, full of all the mystery of the greenwood—as if the forest itself had taken voice to shout its outrage at the presence of the Ffreinc.
They were still looking for the source of this fearsome cry when there appeared, near the top of the wall of stones, a strange, dark shape that in the green half-light of the forest seemed far more shadow than substance: a great, bird-shaped creature with the body of a man and the wings of a raven, with a naked, round, skull-like head and a long, wickedly sharp beak. This phantom moved with uncanny grace among the rocks, pausing now and again to utter its scream as a challenge to the wary, half-frightened soldiers on the ground.
One of the knights took up the challenge and, rearing back, loosed his spear, lofting it with a mighty heave up at the strange creature sliding among the rocks. The bravely launched spear struck the smooth face of a boulder, and the iron tip sparked. At the same moment, a black arrow sang out from the dark recess of the stones, struck the knight, and with a sound like the crack of a whip, threw him onto his back, dead before his body came to rest in the bracken.
It took a moment for the rest of the knights to realize what had happened, and by then it was too late. Three more arrows sped to their marks with lethal accuracy, dropping the enemy in their tracks.
The phantom of the greenwood gave out a last, triumphant scream and disappeared once more as the arrows began to fly thick and fast, filling the air with their hateful hiss. The Ffreinc fell back and ba
ck again, stumbling over one another, over themselves, over the corpses of the dead to escape the feathered death assailing them from the rocks. Those still coming up from behind choked off the escape, holding their unlucky comrades in place, thus sealing their fate.
And then it was over. The last soldier, an arrow in his thigh, pulled himself into the undergrowth, and all that could be heard was the clatter of the Ffreinc knights in full-tilt retreat . . . and then only the distant croak of gathering crows and the soft, whimpering moans of the dying.
CHAPTER 36
Coed Cadw
The war between Bran ap Brychan and King William for the throne of Elfael continued as it began—with short, sharp skirmishes in which the Grellon unleashed a whirlwind of stinging death before disappearing into the deep-shadowed wood. These small battles were fought down in the leafy trenches of greenwood trails, down amongst roots and boles of close-grown trees and the thick-tangled undergrowth where Ffreinc warhorses could not go and swords were difficult to swing. The Welsh rebels struck fast and silently; sometimes it seemed to the beleaguered knights that the Cymry materialized out of the redolent forest air. The first warning they had was the fizzing whine of an arrow and the crack of the shaft striking leather and breaking bone.