and loyal companions these past days. You have done yourselves and your families proud. No one could have served me better. But here is where it ends.”
The two young warriors exchanged an unhappy glance. “What about Earl Hugh’s hounds?” asked Brocmael. “Shall I fetch them for you?”
“No, I want you and Ifor to have them,” answered Bran. “Consider them a small gesture of thanks for your help.”
“We cannot, my lord,” protested Ifor. “They are worth a very fortune.”
“It is too much,” agreed Brocmael. “They are far too valuable.”
“No more valuable than the help you gave me when asked,” Bran replied. “They are yours, my friends. Make your fortune with them.”
Tuck, Alan, and Bran left Aberffraw as soon as the horses were ready. Bran did not speak the rest of the day, but fumed and fretted, working himself into such a dark and threatening gloom that Tuck began to fear for the havoc unleashed when the gathering storm finally broke. He had seen Bran like this before—once in Londein when they had gone to redeem the lands from the crown at the enormous price of six hundred marks, only to have Cardinal Flambard cheat him by raising the price to two thousand. Tuck and Iwan had pulled him off the scoundrel churchman or in all likelihood none of them would have lived out the day. Angharad knew best how to ease Rhi Bran’s murderous moods, but she was in faraway Elfael.
“Alan,” Tuck had said, “if you know any songs that would put our Bran in a better mood, I pray you sing one now.”
“As it happens,” replied Alan a’Dale, “I have been thinking of a song he might enjoy. It isn’t finished yet—I need a rhyme for Count Rexindo, d’ye ken?”
“Sing it anyway,” Tuck told him.
So Alan sang them on their way.
Four days later, he was still singing, as from time to time Bran’s dark and dangerous mood threatened to swallow them all. Alan, it seemed, was full of unexpected talents, and ever ready to cheer his lord along with a quip or a joke or a song. Of the latter, most of his ditties were English drinking songs and ballads more appreciated by Friar Tuck than by Bran, who from time to time slipped back into his moody darkness. The French and Welsh songs had lilting melodies—some glad, some mournful to suit their solemn humour—but the best songs were those Alan had made up himself: including the new one that extolled the exploits of Count Rexindo and his merry band, who deceived the wicked earl and won the freedom of the captive king of Gwynedd. Tuck found this highly amusing, but Bran was not so sure he wanted his doings voiced about the countryside like so much scattered seed.
Still, the singing and stories told under the clear, open sky worked their wonders, and by the time the travellers came within sight of the towering green wall of the great forest of Coed Cadw, Bran’s temper had cooled to the point where Tuck thought he might risk venturing a thought or two of his own regarding their predicament as it now stood. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “it might be well to heed Mérian’s advice and go see her father.”
Bran considered this only as long as it took to purse his lips and shake his head. “God knows that man is no friend of mine. Even if Cadwgan did not hate me when this began, I will not have risen any higher in his esteem by holding his daughter captive.”
“At the first, maybe,” granted Tuck. “But she stayed on of her own free will. When given the choice, she stayed.”
“Even if he was inclined to help,” countered Bran, “he is a vassal of Baron Neufmarché. As it runs against his interests, the baron would never allow it. No,” said Bran, shaking his head again, this time with resignation, “we will get no help from Lord Cadwgan.”
They skirted Saint Martin’s, the abbot’s town, and entered the sheltering forest just as the sky of lowering clouds sent rain streaming down the wind. It would be a wet night in the greenwood, but the rain did little to dampen the welcome the travellers received at their homecoming. The Grellon gathered to greet them, and Bran roused himself from his grim melancholy to say that he was glad to be home once more. But as he scanned the faces gathered around, the one looked-for face did not appear.