Yet as I settled in amongst my new friends, I soon learned that the location was well chosen to confound discovery; to find it would take a canny and determined forester well trained to the March, which the baron did not possess. Beyond that, the folk worked hard to keep their home secret. They contrived everything from confusing the trails to sowing rumours specially concocted for Norman ears and sending spies among the folk of Elfael and Castle Truan. They kept perpetual watch on the King’s Road and the forest approaches ’round about, marking the movements of all who came and went through the March.
Also call me tetched if you will—I came to believe there was something supernatural in it, too. Like in the old legends where the weary traveller comes upon a village hidden among the rocks on the seacoast. He sups there with the local folk and lays him down to sleep in a fine feather bed only to wake raw the next morn with sand in his eyes and seaweed in his hair, and the village vanished never to be found again . . . until it pleases its protectors to show itself to the next footsore wanderer.
I arrived at this odd belief after several curious encounters with Banfáith Angharad. They called her hudolion . . .
It means enchantress, Odo, thank you for interrupting.”
“Ah, it is the same as hud, no?” he says, the glint of understanding briefly lighting up his dull eyes. “Enchant.”
“Yes, from the same word,” I tell him. “And it is pronounced hood, so see you set it down aright.”
My leg is on fire again today. It pains me ferocious, and I am in no mind to suffer Odo’s irritating ways. I watch as he bends his nose to the scrap of parchment and scratches away for a moment. “So now,” I say, “while we’re about it, his name is not Robin, as you would have it. His name is Rhi Bran—that is, King Bran, to you.”
“Rhi is the word for king, yes, you told me already,” he intones wearily. “And Bran—it is the same as Raven, no?”
“Yes, the word is the same. Rhi Bran—King Raven, see? It is the same. I will have you speaking like a Welshman yet, Odo, my lad.” I give him a pain-sharp smile. “Just like a true-born son of the Black Country.”
Odo frowns and dips his pen. “You were telling me about Angharad,” he says, and we resume our meandering march . . .
Indeed. Angharad was wise in ways beyond measure. Accomplished in many arts—some now all but lost—she could read signs and portents, and, as easily as a child tastes rain on the wind, she could foretell the shape of things to come long before they arrived. Old? She was ancient. Wreathed in wrinkles and bent low beneath the weight of years, she appeared to the unsuspecting eye merely one more old soul awaiting Elijah’s chariot.
But the eyes in her head were bright as baubles. Her mind was quick and keen, restless as a wave on the strand and deep as that selfsame sea. If she sometimes shuffled in her shapeless dress, her mind leapt light-footed and deerlike. Yet she never rushed, never strove, was never seen to be straining after anything. Whatever she needed seemed to come to her of its own accord. And if, betimes, their elders grew uncomfortable in her presence, the children always found peace and comfort in those stout arms.
She was, as I say, adept in all manner of curious arts. And it is through one of these or another that I suspect she purposed to keep Cél Craidd concealed from all intruders. How she did it, I have never yet discovered. But I know the old ones put great store in what they called the caim—a saining charm, you might say, useful for protection against many dangers, threats, and ills. Something like this must protect King Raven’s roost. Then again, it may be I that am that big a fool and there is no such thing.
I soon came to regard our banfáith not as a doddering, spindle-shanked hag, but as the very life and spirit of Cél Craidd. Her soul was deep and gentle and blessed, her wisdom true as the arrow from Bran’s unerring bow, her will resilient as heartwood and stronger than iron. From the flutter of the first dove of morning to the hushed feather-sweep of the midnight owl, nothing eluded her notice. The reach of her restless,