They waited at the ford, armed and ready for whatever might happen next, however uncanny, but nothing more sinister than clouds of flies gathering about their heads had befallen them by the time the first of the ox-drawn wagons reached them. The driver stopped to allow his team to rest before continuing the descent into the Vale of Elfael. While they waited, the knight questioned the lead wagoner closely, and then all the rest in turn as they drew up to water their animals, but none of the drivers had seen or heard anything strange or disturbing on the road.
When the oxen had rested, the wagon van of supplies resumed its journey to the monastery at Llanelli. While they were still some little way off, the wagons were seen by the guards at the count’s fortress. Hoping for a way to ingratiate himself with the baron—and to distance himself from any whiff of thievery or misuse of this second shipment—Count Falkes sent his own contingent of soldiers down to help convey the much-needed food supplies the short remaining distance to the monastery.
The baron’s guards grudgingly tolerated the count’s men-at-arms, and the party continued on to Llanelli to supervise the unloading of the wagons at what remained of the monastery.
While they watched the cargo being carried into the chapel, the soldiers began to talk and were soon relating the unchancy events that had just befallen them in the forest. Thus, word of the visiting soldiers’ strange experience quickly reached Count de Braose, who summoned the baron’s knight to his fortress.
“What do you mean the horses vanished?” inquired the count when he had heard what the knight had to say.
“Count de Braose,” conceded the knight reluctantly, “we also lost a man.”
“Men and horses do not simply dissolve into the air.”
“As you say, sire,” replied the knight, growing petulant.
“Even so, I know what I saw.”
“But you said you saw nothing,” insisted Count Falkes.
“And I stand by it,” the knight maintained stolidly. “I am no liar.”
“Nor do I so accuse you,” replied the count, his voice rising. “I am merely attempting to learn what it was that you saw—if anything.”
“I saw,” began the knight cautiously, “a shadow. As I knelt to drink, a shadow fell over me, and when I looked up, I saw . . .” He hesitated.
“Yes? Yes?” urged the count, impatience making him sharp.
Drawing a bracing breath, the knight replied, “I saw a great dark shape—very like that of a bird.”
“A dark shape, you say. Like a bird,” repeated Falkes.
“But larger—far larger than any bird ever seen before. Black as the devil himself, and a wingspread wide as your arms.”
“Are you suggesting to me that this bird carried off your man and all the horses?” scoffed the count. “By heaven, it must have been a very Colossus amongst birds!”
The knight shut his mouth and stared at the count, his face growing hot with humiliation.
“Well? Go on; I would hear the rest of this fantastic yarn.”
“We gave chase, sire,” the knight said in a low, disgruntled voice. “We pursued the thing into the brushwood and found a deer track which we followed, but we neither saw nor heard anything again. When we returned to the stream, our horses were gone.” He nodded for emphasis. “Vanished.”
“You looked for them, I presume?” inquired the count.
“We searched both ways along the stream, and that is when Laurent disappeared.”
“And again, I suppose no one saw or heard anything?”
“Nothing at all. The forest was uncannily quiet. If there had been so much as a mayfly to see or hear, that we would have.
One moment Laurent was there, and the next he was gone.”
Growing tired of the murky vagueness of the report, the count cut the interview short. “If there is nothing else, you may go. But do not for a single moment think to lay any of this at my feet. By the Holy Name, I swear I had nothing to do with it.”
“I accuse no one,” muttered the knight.
“Then you are dismissed. Take some refreshment for yourself and your men, and then you may return to the baron. God knows what he will make of the tale.” When the knight made no move to leave, Count Falkes added, “I said, your service is completed. The supplies have been delivered, I believe? You may go.”
“We have no horses, sire.”
“And what do you imagine I should do about that?”
“I am certain Baron Neufmarché would deem it a boon of honour if you