flesh swollen and sore, but the ragged half circle of raised, red puncture wounds did not seem to be festering. He bathed his arm in the brook and washed the dried blood from his chest and stomach. He tried to bathe the spear cut on his upper back but succeeded only in dribbling water over his shoulders and making himself cold. He drew on his clothes and contemplated the choices before him.
So far as he could see, he had but two courses: return to Elfael and try to find someone to take him in, or continue on to Gwynedd and hope to find help somewhere along the way before he reached the mountains.
The land to the north was rough and inhospitable to a man alone. Even if he had the great good fortune of making it through the forest unaided, the chances of finding help were remote. Elfael, on the other hand, was very nearly deserted; most of his countrymen had fled, and the Ffreinc were seeking his blood. It came to him that he could do no better than try to take his own advice and go to Saint Dyfrig’s to seek sanctuary with the monks.
The decision was easily made, and he gathered what strength he could muster and set out.With any luck, he allowed himself to think, day’s end would find him behind friendly walls, resting in the guest lodge.
Bran’s luck had so far proved as irksomely elusive as the trail. It served him no better now. The forest pathways crossed one another in bewildering profusion, each one leading on to others—over and under fallen trunks, down steep grades into rills and narrow defiles, up sharp-angled ridges and scrub-covered hillsides. Hunger had long since become a constant, gnawing pain in his stomach. He could drink from the streams and brooks he encountered, but nourishing food was scarce. There were mushrooms in extravagant overabundance, but most, he knew, were poisonous, and he did not trust himself to recognise the good ones. Finding nothing else, he chewed hazel twigs just to have something in his mouth.
Hungry, pain-riddled, he allowed his mind to wander.
He imagined himself received into the safety of the abbey and welcomed to a dinner of roast lamb, braised leeks, and oat bread and ale. This comforting dream awakened a ferocious appetite that refused to subside—even when he tried to appease it with sour blackberries gobbled by the purple handful from a bramble bush. In his haste, he bit the inside of his cheek, breaking open the wound afresh and driving him to his knees in agony. He lay for a long time on the ground, rocking back and forth in misery until he became aware that he was being watched.
“What?” asked a voice somewhere above him. “What?”
Raising his eyes, Bran saw a big black rook on a branch directly over his head. The bird regarded him with a shiny bead of an eye. “What?”
He dimly remembered a story about a starving prophet fed by crows. “Bring me bread.”
“What?” asked the bird, stretching its wings.
“Bread,” Bran said, his voice a breathless groan. “Bring me some bread.”
The rook cocked its head to one side. “What?”
“Stupid bird.” Angered by the rook’s refusal to aid in his revival, Bran dragged himself to his feet once more. The bird started at the movement; it flew off shrieking, its cry of “Die! Die!” echoing through the wood.
Bran looked around and realised with a sinking heart that he had dreamed most of the day away. He moved on then, dejected and afraid to trust his increasingly unreliable judgement. The wounds to his chest and back throbbed with every step and were hot to the touch. As daylight deteriorated around him, his steps slowed to an exhausted shuffle; hunger burned like a flame in his gut, and it hurt his chest to breathe. The long day ended, leaving him worse off than when it had begun, and night closed over him like a fist. He closed his eyes beneath the limbs of a sheltering elm and spent an uncomfortable night on the ground.
When he rose again the next morning, he was just as weary as when he lay down. Climbing to his feet on that second day, he felt fear circling him like a preying beast. He remembered thinking that if he did not find a trail out of the wood, this day might be his last. That was when he had decided to follow the next stream he found, thinking that it would eventually