Bran raised his cup and called for silence around the fire ring. “Here’s a health to King Raven and his mighty Grellon, who this night have plucked a tail feather from that stuffed goose de Braose!”
“To King Raven and the Grellon,” we all cried, lofting our cups, “mighty all!”
When we had drunk and recharged our cups, Bran called again, “Here’s a health to the men whose valour and hardihood has the sheriff and his men gnashing their teeth in rage tonight!”
We hailed that and drank accordingly, swallowing down a hearty draught at the happy thought of the sheriff and count smarting from the wallop we’d given them.
“Hear now!” Bran called when we had finished. “This health is for our good Will Scarlet who, heedless of the danger to himself, snatched a poor man from the sheriff ’s grasp. Thanks to Will, that man’s family will eat tonight and him with them.” Raising his cup, he cried, “To Will, a man after King Raven’s heart!”
The shout went up, “To Will!” And everyone raised their jars to me. Ah, it was a grand thing to be hailed like that. And just to make the moment that much more memorable to me, as the king and all his folk drank my health, I felt Nóin slip her hand into mine and give it a squeeze—only lightly, mind, but I felt the tingle down to my toes.
CHAPTER 13
Eiwas
The journey to Wales seemed endless somehow. Although only a few days from his castle in England’s settled heart, Bernard Neufmarché, Baron of Hereford and Gloucester, always felt as if he had travelled half a world away by the time he reached the lands of his vassal, Lord Cadwgan, in the Welsh cantref of Eiwas. The country was darker and strangely uninviting, with shadowy wooded keeps, secret pools, and lonely rivers. The baron thought the close-set hills and hidden valleys of Wales mysterious and more than a little forbidding—all the more so in winter.
It wasn’t only the landscape he found threatening. Since his defeat of Rhys ap Tewdwr, a well-loved king and the able leader of the southern Welsh resistance, the land beyond the March had grown decidedly unfriendly to him. Former friends were now hostile, and former enemies implacable. So be it. If that was the price of progress, Neufmarché was willing to pay. Now, however, the baron made his circuits more rarely and, where once he might have enjoyed an untroubled ride to visit his vassal lords, these days he never put foot to stirrup in the region unless accompanied by a bodyguard of knights and men-at-arms.
Thus, he was surrounded by a strong, well-armed force. Not that he expected trouble from Cadwgan—despite their differences, the two had always got along well enough—but reports of wandering rebels stirring up trouble meant that even old friends must be treated with caution.
“Evereux!” called the baron as they came in sight of Caer Rhodl perched on the summit of a low rock crag. “Halt the men just there.” He pointed to a stony outcrop beside the trail, a short distance from the wooden palisade of Cadwgan’s fortress. “You and I will ride on together.”
The marshal relayed the baron’s command to the troops and, upon reaching the place, the soldiers paused and dismounted. The baron continued to the fortress gate—where, as expected, he was admitted with prompt, if cold, courtesy.
“My lord will be informed of your arrival,” said the steward. “Please wait in the hall.”
“But of course,” replied the baron. “My greetings to your lord.”
The Welsh king’s house was not large, and Neufmarché had been there many times; he proceeded to the hall, where he and his marshal were kept waiting longer than the baron deemed hospitable. “This is an insult,” observed Evereux. “Do you want me to go find the old fool and drag him here by the nose?”
“We came unannounced,” the baron replied calmly, although he was also feeling the slight. “We will wait.”
They remained in the hall, alone, frustration mounting by the moment, until eventually there came a shuffle in the doorway. It took a moment for the baron to realise that Lord Cadwgan had indeed appeared. Gaunt and hollow-cheeked, a ghastly shadow fell across his face; his clothes hung on his once-robust form as upon a rack of sticks. His skin had an unhealthy pallor that told the baron his vassal lord had not ventured outdoors for weeks, or maybe even months.
“My lord baron,” said Cadwgan in the soft, listless voice of the sickroom. “Good of