anything. He might fume and fret for a few days, but he would succumb to her wishes in the end.
“Very well,” decided the baron abruptly, “you shall go. Ormand will accompany you—and your maidservants, of course—but you will bear the letter yourself and read it to the duke when you judge him in a favourable mood to grant our request.”
Lady Agnes smiled and inclined her head in acquiescence to his desires. “As always, my husband, your counsel is impeccable.”
CHAPTER 4
Bran stirred his mount to speed. “Iwan!” he cried. At the sound of his name, the king’s champion raised himself in the saddle, and Bran saw blood oozing down the warrior’s padded leather tunic.
“Bran!” the warrior gasped. “Bran, thank God. Listen—”
“Iwan, what has happened? Where are the others?”
“We were attacked at Wye ford,” he said. “Ffreinc—three hundred or more . . . sixty, maybe seventy knights, the rest footmen.”
Lurching sideways, he seized the young prince by the arm. “Bran, you must ride . . . ,” he began, but his eyes rolled up into his head; he slumped and toppled from the saddle.
Bran, holding tight to his arm, tried to lower his longtime friend more gently to the ground. Iwan landed hard nonetheless and sprawled between the horses. Bran slid off the mare and eased the wounded man onto his back. “Iwan! Iwan!” he said, trying to rouse him. “My father, the warband—where are the others?”
“Dead,” moaned Iwan. “All . . . all of them dead.”
Bran quickly retrieved a waterskin from its place behind his saddle. “Here,” he said, holding the skin to the warrior’s mouth, “drink a little. It will restore you.”
The battlechief sucked down a long, thirsty draught and then shoved the skin away. “You must raise the alarm,” he said, some vigour returning to his voice. He clutched at Bran and held him fast. “You must ride and warn the people.Warn everyone. The king is dead, and the Ffreinc are coming.”
“How much time do we have?” asked Bran.
“Enough, pray God,” said the battlechief. “Less if you stay. Go now.”
Bran hesitated, unable to decide what should be done.
“Now!” Iwan said, pushing the prince away. “There is but time to hide the women and children.”
“We will go together. I will help you.”
“Go!” snarled Iwan. “Leave me!”
“Not like this.”
Ignoring the wounded man’s curses, Bran helped him to his feet and back into the saddle. Then, taking up the reins of Iwan’s horse, he led them both back the way he had come. Owing to the battlechief ’s wound, they travelled more slowly than Bran would have wished, eventually reaching the western edge of the forest, where he paused to allow the horses and wounded man to rest. “Is there much pain?” he asked.
“Not so much,” Iwan said, pressing a hand to his chest. “Ah, a little . . .”
“We’ll wait here awhile.” Bran dismounted, walked a few paces ahead, and crouched beside the road, scanning the valley for any sign of the enemy invaders.
The broad, undulating lowlands of Elfael spread before him, shimmering gently in the blue haze of an early autumn day. Secluded, green, fertile, a region of gentle, wooded hills seamed through with clear-running streams and brooks, it lay pleasantly between the high, bare stone crags of mountains to the north and east and the high moorland wastes to the south. Not the largest cantref beyond the Marches, in Bran’s estimation it tendered in charm what it lacked in size.
In the near distance, the king’s fortress on its high mound, whitewashed walls gleaming in the sunlight, stood sentinel at the gateway to Elfael, which seemed to drowse in the heavy, honeyed light. So quiet, so peaceful—the likelihood of anything disturbing such a deep and luxurious serenity seemed impossibly remote, a mere cloud shadow passing over a sun-bright meadow, a little dimming of the light before the sun blazed forth again. Caer Cadarn had been his family’s home for eight generations, and he had never imagined anything could ever change that.
Bran satisfied himself that all was calm—at least for the moment—then returned to his mount and swung into the saddle once more.
“See anything?” asked Iwan. Hollow-eyed, his face was pale and dripping with sweat.
“No Ffreinc,” Bran replied, “yet.”
They started down into the valley at a trot. Bran did not stop at the hill fort but rode straight to Llanelli, the tiny monastery that occupied the heel of the valley and stood halfway between the fortress and Glascwm, the chief town of the neighbouring cantref—and the only settlement of any size