the easy rhythmic tones familiar, even as the words were strange. It took me a moment to shake the sleep out of my ears and realise they were speaking Welsh. My mother’s tongue it was, and I had enough of it from my barefoot days to make myself understood.
I heard the words Rhi Bran y Hud and knew I was close to finding what I was looking for, so . . .
Yes, Odo, what is it?” My scribe rouses himself from his snooze and rubs his dream-dulled eyes.
“These words Riban Hood,” he asks, yawning wide. “What do they mean?”
“If you would let a fella get on wi’ the tellin’, God knows you’d find out soon enough,” I say. “But, see here now, it en’t Riban Hood, as you will have it. It is Rhi Bran—that part means “King Raven.” And Hud means . . . well, it means “Enchanter.” It is what the British folk call the phantom lord of the Marchlands.”
“Ree Bran a Hood,” he says, dutifully writing it down. “A good name.”
“Aye, a good name, that,” I agree, and we rumble on.
Well, I shinnied down to join those fellas on the road and see what they could tell me of this mysterious bird.
“Here now,” I called, dropping lightly from the last branch onto the bank above the road. “Can you fellas spare a traveller a word or two?”
You would have thought I’d dropped down from the moon to see the look on those two faces. Two men, one big as a house and the other slighter, but muscled and tough as a hickory root. They were dressed in odd hooded cloaks with greenery and rags sewn on, and both carried sturdy longbows with a quiver of arrows at their belts. “What!” cried the big one, spinning around quicker than you’d have thought possible for so large a lump of humanity.
This one has spent a fair bit of time in the greenwood, thinks I, his knife is in his hand that quick. “I mean no harm, friend,” I said. “And full sorry I am if I startled you. I heard you talkin’ and was hopin’ for a little chin music, is all.”
“You lurking devil,” growled the slight one, thrusting forward, “we’ll not be singing for you.” He looked to the big one, who nodded slowly. “Not until we know more about you.”
“Well, I’ve got time now if you do,” said I. “Where would you like me to begin?”
“A name if you have one,” said he. “That will do for a beginning.”
“My name’s William Scatlocke,” I told them. “Think what you like, but there’s some as tug a forelock when they hear that name.” I give him a smile and a wink. “But a doff o’ the hat will do nicely just now.”
“I am Iwan,” replied the big one, warming up a little. “This here is Siarles.”
“Scatlocke’s a Saxon name,” observed the slight one with a frown. “But William, now that’s Ffreinc.” He seemed ready to spit to show me what he thought of Normans.
“Saxon and Ffreinc, aye,” I agreed politely. “My mother, bless her dear, sweet, well-meaning soul, thought a Frankish William would make my life that little mite easier seeing as our land was overrun by the vermin. With a William to go before me, they might mistake me for one of their own, see, and give me an easier ride.”
“Do they?” he asked, suspicion making his voice a threat.
“Not as I’ve noticed,” I said. “Then again, it en’t as if I’d been named Siarles. Now, there’s a name just begging for trouble, if ever I heard one.”
The slight one bristled and bunched up his face, but the big one chuckled aloud, his voice like thunder over green hills. “You are a bold one, give you that,” said he. “But you’re in the March now, friend. What causes you to be dropping from our good Welsh trees, Bold William?”
“Friendly folk call me Will Scarlet,” I answered. “Forester by trade, I am—just like my father before me. I see you two know your way around leafland yourselves.”
“That we do, Will,” Iwan said. “Are you running from someone, then?”
“Running to, more like.”
Well, they wanted to hear more, so I went on to explain about Thane Aelred getting banished and his lands taken in Forest Law and all that ruck. I told about taking to the greenwood, and all my travels since then. They listened, and I could feel them relaxing their distrust as I described hiding from the sheriff and