finally answered. “Here! Here, now! What are you on about?” Looking around, he saw a man in a tattered green cloak, much faded and bedraggled with mud and muck; he was sitting on the ground with his back against the far side of the butcher hut and his cap in his hands as if he would beg a coin from those who passed by. At Tuck’s call, he jumped up and hurried towards the strangers. “Here! What for ye need a Frankish man?” Tuck regarded him with a dubious frown. The fellow’s hair was a mass of filthy tangles hanging down in his face, and his straggling beard looked as if mice had been at it. The eyes that peered out from under the ropy mass were watery and red from too much strong drink the night before, and he reeked of piss and vomit. Unshorn and unkempt he was, Tuck considered—not the sort of person they had in mind for this special chore. “We have business in this town,” Tuck explained brusquely, “and we do not speak French.”
“I does,” the beggar boasted. “Anglish and Frenchy, both alike. What’s yer sayin’ of a penny, then?”
“We have a penny for anyone who agrees to bear a message of introduction for us,” Tuck replied.
“I’m t’man fer ye,” the beggar chirped, holding out a filthy hand to receive his pay.
“All in good time, friend,” Tuck told him. “I’ve heard you speak English, but how do I know you can speak French?”
“Speaks it like t’were me ine mither tongue,” he replied, still holding out his hand. “Je parler le français et tout, ye ken?”
“Well?” said Bran, stepping up beside them. “What’s he say?”
Tuck hesitated. “This fellow says he’ll help us, but if his French is as poor as his English, then I expect we’re better off asking the butcher’s dog over there.”
Bran looked around. Seeing as no one else had come forward, and the day was getting on, he said, “Had we a better choice . . . but”—Bran shrugged—“he will have to serve. All the same, tell him we’ll give him an extra penny if he will wash and brush before we go.”
Tuck told the scruffy fellow what Bran had said, and he readily agreed. “Go then,” Tuck ordered. “And be quick about it. Don’t make us wait too long, or I’ll find someone else.”
The beggar dipped his head and scampered off to find a trough in which to bathe himself. Tuck watched him go, still nursing deep misgivings about their rough guide; but since they only needed someone to make introduction, he let the matter rest.
While they waited for the beggar to return, Bran rehearsed once again the next portion of his plan with the two young noblemen so they might keep in mind what to expect and how to comport themselves. “Ifor, you know some Ffreinc.”
“A little,” admitted Ifor. A slender young man with dark hair and wary eyes beneath a smooth, low brow, he was that much like Bran anyone could well see the family resemblance, however distant it might have been. Blood tells, thought Tuck, so it does. “Not as much as Brocmael, though.”
“We hear it at the market in Bangor sometimes,” Brocmael explained. Slightly older than Ifor, he had much about him of a good badger dog.
“You may find it difficult to pretend otherwise,” Bran told them, “but you must not let on. Keep it to yourselves. The Ffreinc will not be expecting you to understand them, and so you may well hear things to our advantage from time to time.” He smiled at their dour expressions. “Don’t worry. It’s easy—just keep remembering who you are.”
The two nodded solemnly. Neither one shared Bran’s easy confidence, and both were nearly overwhelmed by their arrival in a Norman town and the deception they meant to work—not to say frightened by the prospect of delivering themselves into their chief enemy’s hands. Truth be told, Tuck felt much the same way. The sun climbed a little higher, and the day grew warmer accordingly. Bran decided that they should get a bite to eat, and Tuck, never one to forego a meal if it could be helped, readily agreed. “Unless my nose mistakes me,” he said, “the baker is taking out fresh pies as we speak.”
“Just what I was thinking,” said Bran. Turning to his young attendants, he said, “Here is a good time to test your mettle. Remember who we are.” He pulled a leather bag from his belt and handed it