day, returning at dusk. Upon arrival, they went directly to our lord’s hut. Tired from the day’s work, I settled by the common fire where a stew pot was bubbling, to warm myself and wait for the food to be served. “You were busy all day,” observed a woman nearby.
“I was that.” I turned to see Mérian, bundled in her cloak, taking her place on the log beside me. “My lady, I give you good greeting.”
“You didn’t go with the others,” she observed.
“No, there was enough to be done here. They only went to see where the wagons might pass.”
“To see where the wagons might be attacked,” she corrected. “That is what you mean.”
“Yes, I suppose that is my meaning.” She made a small tut of disapproval. “You do not agree with the king in this?”
“Whether I agree or not makes no difference,” she replied crisply. “The point is that Bran will never achieve peace with the baron if he insists on raiding and thieving. It only angers the baron and provokes him and the count to ever more cruel reprisals.”
“You are right, of course,” I agreed. “But from where I stand, I don’t see Rhi Bran making peace with the baron or the count, either one. He wants to punish them.”
“He wants the return of his throne,” she corrected crisply, “and he will not achieve it by plundering a few supply wagons.”
“No, perhaps not.”
“There!” she said, as if she had won a victory herself. “You agree. You see what must be done.”
“My lady?”
“You must talk to Bran and persuade him to change his mind about the raid.”
“Me?” I said. “I cannot. I dare not.”
“Why?” she said, turning her large dark eyes on me.
“It is not my place.”
“I would have thought it the place of any right-thinking man to help his lord whenever he can. Certainly, if you saw him sticking his hand in a nest of vipers you would warn him.”
I regarded her closely before answering. “My lady, please,” I said. “I cannot do as you ask. Iwan might, and I daresay Siarles would risk it. But Will here cannot. I do beg your pardon.”
She lifted one slender shoulder and sighed. “Oh, very well. It was worth a try. Do not think poorly of me, Will Scarlet. It is just that . . .” She paused to find the right word. “I get so vexed with him sometimes. He will not listen to me, and I don’t know what else to do.”
I accepted this in silence, stretching my hands towards the flames.
“I know he will get himself killed one day,” she continued after a time. “If the sheriff catches him, or one of the baron’s men, Bran is as good as dead before the sun sets.”
“You worry about him.”
“Truly, I do so worry,” she confided. “I do not think I could bear losing him again.”
“Again?”
She nodded, growing pensive. “It was just after the Ffreinc came to Elfael. The king—Bran’s father, Lord Brychan—had been killed and all the warband with him. Only Iwan survived.” She went on to describe how Bran had been seized and taken hostage by Count Falkes, and how he had fled the cantref. “He might have made good his escape, but he stopped to help a farmer and his wife who were being attacked by the count’s rogues. He fought them off, but others came and gave chase. They caught him, and he was wounded and left for dead.” She paused, adding in a softer voice, “Word went out that he had been killed . . . and so I thought. Everyone thought he had been killed. I only learned the truth very much later.”
She drew breath as if there was more she would say, but thought better of it just then, for she fell silent instead.
“How did Bran survive?” I asked after a moment.
“Angharad found him,” she explained, “and brought him back to life. He has lived in the forest ever since.”
I considered this. It explained the curious bond I sensed between the old woman and the young man, and the way in which he honoured her. I thought on this for a time, content in the silence and the warmth of the flames.
“He won’t always live in the forest,” I said, more to have something to say and so prolong our time together.
“No?” she replied, glancing sideways at me. She was kneading her fingers before the fire, and the flames made her eyes shine bright.