one of the dead knights. He observed the arrows jutting rudely from the corpses and, after due contemplation, let out a shrill whistle. I’ve heard the same when falconers call their hawks to roost and, quick enough, four riders emerged from the gloaming to join him on the road . . .
Yes, Odo, this was the first time I laid eyes on the sheriff,” I tell him. My monkish friend knows well of whom I speak. Our sheriff is a right sharp thorn of a man and that nasty—a man who thinks frailty a fatal contagion, and considers mercy the way most folk view the Black Death.
“If it was the first time,” says my scribe, “how did you know it was the sheriff ?”
“Well,” says I with a scratch of my head, “the authority of the man could not be mistaken.”
“Even in a snowstorm?” asks Brother Odo with the smarmy smile he uses when he thinks he has caught me decorating the truth a little too extravagantly for his taste.
“Even in a snowstorm, monk,” I tell him. “Anyway, it was the same with Abbot Hugo and Marshal Guy—if I did not know their names right off the first I saw them, I knew them well enough before the day was over. More’s the pity, Odo, my friend. More’s the pity.”
Odo grunts in begrudging agreement, and we stumble on . . .
The sheriff ’s men quickly dismounted and began searching among the dead men and horses for survivors. De Glanville remained in the saddle; he did not deign to get his fine boots wet, I reckon.
Well, they found the bundled-up wagon drivers, untied them, and brought them to stand before the sheriff. The drivers were still quaking from fright and gawking around as if they expected to be swooped upon by the phantom bird again. Under the sheriff ’s stern questioning, however, they soon lost their fear of the great preying bird. The sheriff had them now, and he was flesh-and-blood fiercer than any phantom or host of unseen archers.
I could tell from the way the ox handlers were gesturing and squawking that they were filling the sheriff ’s ears with their weird and wonderful tale. Oh, yes! And I could tell by the way the sheriff ’s scowl deepened by the moment that he was having none of it. He listened to them prate a while, and then cut off their mewling with a shout that travelled through the silent wood like a clap. Wheeling his mount, he cantered down the King’s Road in the direction the abbot and soldiers had gone, passing so close to my perch I could have reached down and plucked that absurd hat from his pointy head.
He rode on, leaving his men and the ox drivers behind. Meanwhile, I studied hard to see what they might find, but was relieved to see that the snow had mostly filled in the tracks of men and beasts and wagon wheels; the only disturbance now to be seen was that left by the sheriff and his men themselves.
Soon enough, de Glanville returned. Close on his heels came Abbot Hugo and the marshal and the surviving soldiers. The fighting men were that weary and out of breath, they could hardly hold their weapons upright. King Raven had led them a wild chase right enough. Their snow-caked feet dragged, and their hair was stringy wet beneath their steel caps; they looked as cold and damp and limp as their own soggy cloaks.
They assembled in the road, gawking at the dead horses and knights, casting many a sideways glance into the wood lest the phantom catch them unawares. After a brief word with the sheriff, Marshal Guy sent his knights and the remaining soldiers and wagon drivers down the road. It would be a long, frozen walk to Count de Braose’s castle, and I did not envy them the welcome they would likely receive. The wounded soldier, clinging to life, was taken up behind one of the sheriff ’s men, and they all clattered off with a rattle of tack and weapons.
Thoughts of home fires and welcomes put me in mind of a nice steaming bowl of something hot, and I was that close to quitting my post and finding my way back home . . . but glanced back to see that the sheriff had not yet departed. He simply sat there on his horse, alone, in the middle of the road, waiting. I could in no wise leave before