each day Bran, having taken a great interest in the earl’s hounds, greeted the dogs with morsels of food he had saved from the previous night’s supper board—gobbets of meat he kept in a little bag. Tuck watched the process with fascination and admiring approval as Earl Hugh swallowed the bait in a manner not at all unlike his hounds: and all because Count Rexindo let it be known that he wanted to buy three or four of the animals to take back to Spain as a gift for his father, the duke. The ever-greedy earl welcomed the sale, of course, fixing the price at a princely thirty marks—a price that made Tuck’s eyes water. He could never have brought himself to buy three smelly hounds when he might have built an entire church—altar to steeple and everything in between—and had money left over.
Having favoured the hounds, they mounted their horses and all rode out to spend the day working the runs—to be followed by a night’s drinking and roister in the hall. By the fourth day, Earl Hugh’s nightly feasting began to tell on them all—everyone except Bran. Somehow Bran seemed to bear up under the strain of these all-night revels, awaking the next morning none the worse for his excesses. Indeed, Tuck began to think him blessed with the fortitude of Samson himself until he noticed the trick. Friar Tuck—himself an enthusiastic consumer of the earl’s good wine and fortifying meat—happened to discover Bran’s secret the second night. Bran quaffed as readily as the next man; however, the instant their host’s attention wandered elsewhere, quick as a blink Bran’s cup dipped below the board and the contents were dashed onto the soiled rushes under their feet. Thereafter, he drank from an empty vessel until it was filled again, and the process was repeated.
From then on, Tuck did the same himself even though it pained him to throw away good drink.
Wolf Hugh himself was ragged and mean of a morning, soreheaded, stinking of stale wine and urine, his eyes red and his nose running as he shuffled from his chambers bellowing for food and drink to drive the demons from head and belly. Still he seemed to possess unusual powers of recovery, and by the time the sun had breached the castle walls, the earl was ready to ride to his hounds once more, steady as a stone and keen for the chase. On the third day, Tuck freely complained that the nightly debauch was too much for him, and begged Bran to let him observe the hunt from the rails of his bed; but Bran insisted that they must go on as they had started. Ifor and Brocmael had youth on their side, and tolerated the revelry, but were increasingly reticent participants. Alan a’Dale fared less well and was laid low of a morning.
On the fourth day, the earl decided to rest the horses and hounds. He had business to attend to with some of his nobles, leaving his guests free to take their ease and amuse themselves as they would. Bran let it be known that he wanted to go into the town and attend the market, and so they did. A hundred paces beyond sight of the castle gate, he gathered his crew around him and said, “You are doing very well, lads. I beg but a little more patience and we are done. We will not abide here much longer.”
“How much longer?” asked Alan a’Dale.
“Next time we ride.”
“That might be tomorrow,” Brocmael pointed out.
Bran nodded. “Then we best make certain everything is ready today.”
The two young men glanced at one another. “Do you think the earl will tumble?” Ifor wondered.
“Why not?” replied Bran. “He suspects nothing. If all goes well, we should be far away from here before he learns what has happened . . .” Regarding the solemn expressions on the faces of his two young comrades, he gave them his slightly twisted smile. “. . . if he ever learns—and I strongly suspect he never will.”
Bran resumed his stroll into the town with Alan at his side, leaving Tuck and the two young lords to reckon what had just been said. “Don’t you worry, lads,” Tuck said, trying to bank their courage a little higher. “By tomorrow night we’ll be well on our way back to Wales with our prize, and beyond the claws and teeth of Wolf d’Avranches.”
A short while later they entered a fair-sized market in full cry; merchants shouting for