She moved her hand over his chest, her fingertips softly brushing the injured flesh. “Closed for thee thy wound, and stanched thy blood. As Christ bled upon the cross, so closeth he thy wound for thee,” she intoned, her voice a caress.
A part of this hurt on the high mountains,
A part of this hurt on the grass-deep meadow,
A part of this hurt on the heathered moors,
A part of this hurt on the great surging sea that has best means to bear it.
This hurt on the great surging sea, she herself has the best means to bear it for thee . . . away . . . away . . . away.
Under Angharad’s warm touch, the pain subsided. His lungs eased their laboured pumping, and his breathing calmed. Bran lay back, his chin and chest glistening with gore, and mouthed the words, Thank you.
Taking a bit of rag, she soaked it in the basin and began washing him clean, working patiently and slowly. She hummed as she worked, and Bran felt himself relaxing under her gentle ministrations. “Now wilt thou sleep,” the old woman told him when she finished.
Eyelids heavy, he closed his eyes and sank into the soft, dark, timeless place where his dreams kindled and flared with strange visions of impossible feats, of people he knew but had never met, of things past—or perhaps yet to come—when the king and queen gave life and love to the people, when bards lauded the deeds of heroes, when the land bestowed its gifts in abundance, when God looked with favour upon his children and hearts were glad. Over all he dreamed that night, there loomed the shape of a strange bird with a long beak and a face as smooth and hard and black as charred bone.
CHAPTER 19
Spring could not come soon enough for Falkes de Braose. The count ached for an end to the roof-rattling, teeth-chattering cold of the most inhospitable winter he had ever known—and it had only just begun! As he shivered in his chair, wrapped in cloaks and robes—a very hillock of dun-coloured wool—he consoled himself with the thought that when winter came next year, he would be firmly ensconced in his own private chamber in a newly built stone keep. In blissful dreams he conjured snug, wood-panelled rooms hung with heavy tapestries to keep out the searching fingers of the frigid wind, and a down-filled bed set before a blazing hearth all his own. He would never again suffer the dank drear of the great hall, with its drafts and smoke and freezing damp.
He would not abide another winter swaddled like a grotesquely oversized worm waiting for spring so it could shrug off its cocoon. Next winter, a ready supply of fuel would be laid in; he would determine how much was required and then treble the amount. This daily struggle to squeeze inadequate warmth from wet timber was slow insanity, and the count vowed never to endure it again. This time next year, he would laugh at the rain and cheerfully thumb his nose at each snowflake as it floated to the ground.
Meanwhile, he waited in perpetual dudgeon for the spring thaw, studying the plans drawn by the master architect for the baron’s new borderland castles: one facing the yet-to-be-conquered northwestern territories, one to anchor the centre and the lands to the south, and one to defend the backs of the other two from any attacks arising from the east. The castles were, with only slight variations, all the same, but Falkes studied each sheaf of drawings with painstaking care, trying to think of improvements to the designs that he could suggest and that might win his uncle’s approval. So far, he had come up with only one: increasing the size of the cistern that captured rainwater for use in times of emergency. As this detail was not likely to impress his uncle, he kept at his scrutiny and dreamed of warmer climes.
Five days after the feast of Saint Benedict, a messenger arrived with a letter from the baron. “Good news, I hope,” said Falkes to the courier, taking receipt of the wrapped parchment. “Will you stay?”
“My lord baron requires an answer without delay,” replied the man, shaking rainwater from his cloak and boots.
“Does he indeed?” Falkes, his interest sufficiently piqued, waved the courier away to the cookhouse. Alone again, he broke the seal, unrolled the small scrap of parchment, and settled back in his chair, holding the crabbed script