I let her go . . .” Her voice faltered. Scarlet, grim with grief, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
Bran offered her a cup of water. After she had swallowed a little, she continued. “We started back. Cia and I were talking . . . Then we heard shouts and voices . . . scared . . . We met some of the Grellon on the path, running away. Cél Craidd had been discovered, they said; the Ffreinc had found us. Everyone had scattered, and everyone had got away. ‘What about Nia? Did anyone see my little girl?’” Noín shook her head, her lips trembling. “No one had seen her. I started running toward the settlement. But it was all over.” She shook her head in bewilderment. “The Ffreinc were gone. There was no one around. I began calling for Nia, but there was no answer. I started looking for her, calling her . . . I thought, I hoped—maybe one of the others picked her up in the confusion, someone had taken her to safety. I searched one path and then another until . . .” She let out a wrenching sob and lowered her face into her hands. “I found her on the path—just before you came. I think she got trampled by a horse . . . one of the hooves struck her head . . .” She turned eyes full of tears to the others. “How could anyone do that to a little child? How could they?”
Bran and Tuck left Noín and Scarlet to their grief then and went to see what could be done for Tomas. The wounded warrior had been laid out on a bed of rushes covered with a cloak.
“He is sleeping,” Rhoddi told them. “I did as you said, Friar—I put a clean cloth and some dry moss on the cut. It seems to have stopped bleeding.”
“That’s a good sign, I think,” said Tuck.
Bran nodded. He raised his eyes; the tops of the tallest trees were fading into the twilight. “We must bury Nia and Angharad soon. I will dig the graves.”
“Allow me, my lord,” said Rhoddi.
Bran nodded. “We’ll do it together.”
“I want to help,” said Tuck.
“Is it wise to leave him alone?” said Rhoddi, with a nod towards Tomas.
Tuck glanced at the sleeping warrior beside him. “We’ll hear him if he wakes,” he said. So the three went off to begin the bleak task of digging the graves: one pitifully small for Nia, and another for Angharad. Iwan and Scarlet came to help, too, and all took their turn with the shovel. While they were at their work, some of the Grellon who had fled the settlement began coming back—one by one, and then in knots of two or three—and they gave their own account of what had happened.
The settlement had been discovered by a body of Ffreinc knights on horseback—eight or ten, maybe more—who then attacked. The forest-dwellers fled, with the knights in pursuit. They would have been caught, all of them, but Angharad turned and blocked the trail. They had last seen her facing the enemy with her staff raised high, a cry of challenge on her lips; and though it cost her life, the enemy did not follow them into the forest. The returning Grellon were shocked to find their good bard had been killed, and dear little Nia as well. The tears and weeping began all over again.
The women attended Noín, helping her wash and dress little Nia in her best clothes. They combed her hair and plaited flowers in the braids, and laid her on a bed of fresh green rushes. They washed the blood from Angharad’s body and dressed her in a clean gown and brought her staff to lay beside her. Bran made a cross for the graves using arrows which he bound together with bowstring. Meanwhile, Tuck moved here and there, comforting his forest flock, giving them such solace as he possessed. He tried to instil some hope in the hearts of the grieving, and show a way to a better day ahead. But his own heart was not in it, and his words sounded hollow even to himself.
When the graves were ready, Scarlet came and, taking Noín by the hand, said, “It is time, my heart.” Noín nodded silently. He knelt and gathered up his daughter and carried her to the new-dug grave; Noín walked beside him, her eyes on the bundle in her husband’s arms.