us is long and prosperous. There is great need hereabouts for a strong hand at the church plough—if you know what I mean.”
“The former abbot incompetent, eh?” Raising his cup to his nose, he sniffed the wine, then sipped.
“Not altogether, no,” said Falkes. “Bishop Asaph is capable enough in his way—but Welsh. And you know how contrary they can be.”
“Little better than pagans,” offered Hugo with a sniff, “by all accounts.”
“Oh, it is true,” confirmed the count. “They are an ill-mannered race—coarse, unlettered, easily inflamed, and contentious as the day is long.”
“And are they really as backward as they appear?”
“Difficult to say,” answered Falkes. “Hardheaded and stiff-necked, yes. They resist all refinement and delight in ostentation of every kind.”
“Like children, then,” remarked the abbot. “I also have heard this.”
“You would not believe the fuss they make over a good tale, which they will stretch and twist until any truth is bent out of all recognition to the plain facts of the matter. For example,” said the count, pouring more wine, “the locals will have it that a phantom has arisen in the forest round about.”
“A phantom?”
“Truly,” insisted the count, leaning forward in his eagerness to have something of interest with which to regale his eminent guest. “Apparently, this unnatural thing takes the form of a great bird—a giant raven or eagle or some such— and they have it that this queer creature feeds on cattle and livestock, even human flesh come to that, and the tale is frightening the more timorous.”
“Do you believe this story?”
“I do not,” replied the count firmly. “But such is their insistence that it has begun disturbing my workmen.
Wagoners swear they lost oxen to it, and lately some pigs have gone missing.”
“Simple theft would account for it, surely,” observed the abbot. “Or carelessness.”
“I agree,” insisted the count, “and would agree more heartily if not for the fact that the swineherds contend that they actually saw the creature swoop down and snatch the hogs from under their noses.”
“They saw this?” marvelled the abbot.
“In full light of day,” confirmed the count. “Even so, I would not put much store by it save they are not the only ones to make such a claim. Some of my own knights have seen it— or seen something, at least—and these are sturdy, trustworthy men. Indeed, one of my men-at-arms was taken by the creature and narrowly escaped with his life.”
“Mon Dieu, non!”
“Oh yes, it is true,” affirmed the count, taking another sip from his cup. “The men I sent to track down the missing oxen found the animals—or the little left of them. The thing had eaten the wretched beasts, leaving nothing behind but a pile of entrails, some hooves, and a single skull.”
“What do you think it can be?” wondered the abbot, savouring the extraordinary peculiarity of the tale.
“These hills are known to be home to many odd happenings,” suggested Falkes. “Who is to say?”
“Who indeed?” echoed Abbot Hugo. He drank from his cup for a moment, then mused, “Pigs snatched away in midair, whole oxen gorged, men captured . . . It passes belief.”
“To be sure,” conceded the count. He drained his cup in a long swallow, then admitted, “Yet—and I do not say this lightly—the affair has reached such a state that I almost hazard to think something supernatural does indeed haunt the forest.”
CHAPTER 38
All through the night, Bran sat hunched beside the hearth, arms around his knees, staring into the shimmering flames. Iwan, Aethelfrith, and Siarles had long ago crawled off to sleep, but Angharad sat with him still. Every now and then she would pose a question to sharpen his thinking; otherwise, the hudolion’s hut remained steeped in a seething silence—the hush of intense and turbulent thought—as Bran forged the perfect weapon in the glowing fires of his mind.
He was not tired and could not have slept anyway, with his thoughts burning bright. As dawn began to invade the darkness in the east, the fires began to cool, and the shape of his cunning craftwork was revealed.
“That is everything, I think,” he said, raising his head to regard the old woman across the smouldering fire ring.
“Have I forgotten anything?”
He was rewarded with one of her wrinkled smiles. “You have done well, Master Bran.” Raising her hand, palm outward, above her head, she said, “This night you have become a shield to your people. But now, in the time-between-times, you are also a sword.”
Bran took that as high approval. He stood, easing out the kinks in his