Scarlet

CHAPTER 18

In the bleak heart of midwinter, with the snow deep and white, the air cold and still, it seemed as if the greenwood awaited the coming of the new year with breath abated. We of the Raven Flock held our breath, too, waiting and watching through the night and all the next day. Bran doubled the number of watchers on the road, and set others in a surrounding ring around Coed Cadw. But the sheriff and his men did not return.

The evening of the day after the attack, Lord Bran summoned his advisors to his hut. Wary and uncertain still, we gathered. Iwan, Siarles, Merian, Tuck, and myself took our places around the small hearth in the centre of his hut. "We have rattled the hornets in their nest," Iwan pointed out as we settled to discuss what had happened the night before and what it might mean.

"That much is plain as your big feet," replied Siarles.

"Where is Angharad?" wondered Merian. "She should be with us."

"So she should," agreed Bran. "But she has begged leave to absent herself."

"Not like her," observed Iwan. "Not like her at all."

"Is she well?" asked Tuck. "I could go see her."

"She is well," replied Bran, adding, "but the raid last night has disturbed her mightily. She did not foresee it."

"Nor did any of us," pointed out Tuck.

"No, but our hudolion feels she should have sensed it. She is going to her cave to learn the reason and"-he lifted the ring on its string around his neck-"to learn more of this lovely trinket." The gold shone with a fine lustre, and the jewels gleamed even in the dim light of the hut.

Tuck took one look at the heavy gold bauble and cried, "Lord have mercy! Where did you get that?"

Bran explained about the raid on the supply train. Tuck sucked his teeth, shaking his head all the while. "I do not wonder Angharad is distressed. You have called down the wrath of Baron de Braose upon your silly heads, my friends." Tapping the ring with a finger to watch it swing, he added, "He wants it back, and now you have made it worth his while to find you."

"This wasn't all," said Iwan. "Show him the rest."

Merian fetched a small box, which she opened, drawing out the richly embroidered gloves and passing them to the friar.

"Well, well, lookee here," chirped the priest, "what a fine pair of mittens." Seizing them, he pulled them tightly over his chubby hands and held them up for all to see. "Goatskin, if I'm not mistaken," he said, "and made in France, I shouldn't wonder." He withdrew his hands and stroked the leather flat again. "Someone will be missing these sorely."

"Aye, but who?" asked Bran. "Abbot Hugo?"

"For him?" wondered Tuck. "Possibly. It would not surprise me that he holds himself so highly. But see here-" he indicated the cross on the right hand and, on the left glove, a curious symbol shaped something like a cross, but with two extra arms and a closed loop at its head. "That is the Chi Rho," he told us, "and most often seen on the vestments of high priests of one kind or another." He passed the gloves back to Merian. "If you asked me, I'd say these were made for a prince among priests-an archbishop or cardinal, at least."

"Then what are they doing here?" asked Iwan.

"Perhaps our humble abbot has more exalted ambitions," replied Bran.

"Was there ever any doubt?" quipped Tuck. His smooth brow wrinkled with thought. "Ring and gauntlets," he mused. "It must mean something. But for the love of Peter, I cannot think what it might be."

"We were hoping you would have an idea," sighed Merian.

"Nay, lass," replied the friar. "You will have to find a better and wiser man than the one that sits before you to get an answer."

"There is one other thing," said Bran. Reaching into the box, he brought out the square of parchment and passed that to the priest.

In the hurly-burly of the feast and later attack, I had mostly forgotten all about that thick folded square of lambskin. I looked at it now-I think we all did-as the very thing needed to explain the mystery to us.

"Why didn't you say you had this?" said Tuck. He turned it over in his hands. "You haven't opened it."

"No," answered Bran. "You may have the honour."

We all edged close as the friar's stubby fingers fumbled with the blue cord. When he had untied it, he laid it in his lap and looked around at the circle of faces hovering above him. "If we break this," he said, fingering the wax seal, "there is no going back."

"Break it," commanded Bran. "It has already cost the lives of a score of men or more. We will see what it is that the abbot and sheriff value at such a high price."

Drawing a breath, Tuck cracked the heavy wax seal and carefully unfolded the parchment, spreading it before him on the rush-strewn floor of the hut.

"What is it?" asked Iwan.

"What does it say?" said Siarles.

"Shh!" hissed Merian. "Give the man a chance." To Tuck she said, "Take your time." Then, when he appeared to do just that, she added, "Well, what does it say?"

Lifting his face, he shook his head.

"Bad news?" wondered Bran.

"I don't know," replied the priest slowly.

Bran leaned close. "What then?"

"God knows," Tuck lifted the parchment to pass around. "It is written fair enough, but not in Latin. I cannot read the bloody thing."

"Are you certain?"

"I think so. I read little enough Latin, to be sure. But I cannot make out a word of that." He shook his round head. "I don't know what it is."

We passed the parchment hand to hand, and as it came to me, I saw the entire surface covered with a fine, flowing script in dark brown ink. As I had never acquired the knack of reading-not English, nor Latin either-I had nothing to say about it. But it seemed to me that the words were well formed, the letters long and graceful-it put me in mind of ivy and how it loops and curls around all it touches. The skin was fine-grained and well prepared; there were hardly any grease smudges or ink spatters at all.

"I think it is Ffreinc," Merian decided, holding it up to the light and bending her head close. "I can speak it well enough, but I have only seen it written once or twice, mind." She concluded, "It looks very like Ffreinc to me."

"Yes, well, that would make sense," mused Tuck, taking back the parchment. The two of them proceeded to examine it closely, tracing various letters with their fingers and muttering over it. "See, here that is a D," said Tuck, "and that an I followed by E and U." He paused to string together what he'd found. "Dee-a-oo," he said.

"God!" exclaimed Merian. "Dieu means God." She put her finger on a letter. "What is that?"

Tuck peered hard at the script. "I think it might be an S," he said. "With an A… F… ah, no that might be an L… U… T…" He continued picking out letters one by one and uttered the word as he did so. I followed some of this, but my small store of Ffreinc was of the more rough and ready sort spoken in the market, not the court or church, and it soon left me trailing far behind.

"Salutations!" said Merian before he finished. "'Greetings!'" She beamed happily. "Salutations dans Dieu," she said. "'Greetings in God'-that must be it."

Tuck agreed. "I think so."

"That would be expected," said Iwan. "What else?"

The two continued, trying to scry out the letters and make words of them that Merian knew. And though they succeeded in guessing several more, they fell far short of the mark and were forced to give up in the end, leaving us little the wiser for the effort. "We know it is Ffreinc, at least," said Bran. "That is something."

"Well, whatever is in that letter," said Tuck, tapping the sheepskin with his finger, "you can be sure the baron will be missing it. I think de Braose wants his treasures back."

"Oh, aye," affirmed Iwan, "and he's willing to risk good men to get them."

Tuck nodded thoughtfully. "Mark me, there is a dread mystery here. You would be wise to return these things as soon as possible," he concluded, "before any more blood is shed."

"That I will not do," declared Bran. "At least, not until I know what it is we have found. If de Braose considers it worth an army to recover"-he smiled suddenly-"perhaps it is worth more."

"A castle!" suggested Siarles.

"Perhaps," allowed Bran. "Maybe even a kingdom." And, no, Odo," I say with a sigh, "I cannot read. Not even my own name when it is writ. Then again, Thane Aelred couldn't read a whit, either, nor any of his vassals, saving the monks at the abbey, and he was a towering oak of a man, bless him."

"Oh," smirks he, "but there is nothing to it once you have the learning. I could teach you," he says, hopeful as a puppy.

"Well then, Odo, me lad," I tell him, "one day when I have the leisure of a cleric, as you most certainly do, I shall let you teach me to read. Now, where was I?"

"Bran considered the ring of great value," replies Odo. I lick my lips and rumble on… The next day, when Angharad learned what Tuck had revealed about the parchment, she thanked Bran for telling her, gave him a few words of advice, and took her leave. Pulling on her cloak, she bunged a few leftovers from our truncated feast into a leather bag slung on her back, took up her staff, and departed Cel Craidd then and there.

Some of us saw her leave. "Is she angry?" Tomas asked. "She seems fair put out with the world."

"I don't know," I replied. "Maybe."

"Where is she going?"

"She has a cave somewhere in the greenwood," said Huw, one of the elder Grellon. "She goes there of a time to think."

Well, the sheriff 's attack had cast a shadow of gloom over our none-too-happy home, I can tell you. As soon as Angharad left, Bran hived himself in his hut with Iwan and Tuck to decide what to do next.

"God with you, Will," said Merian, coming to stand beside me.

"And with you, my lady," I answered.

She rubbed her hands to warm them. "I wonder what they will decide."

"Difficult to say. Weighty decisions require patience and pondering aplenty."

"Do you think it dangerous, this ring?"

"I think it valuable, and that is usually danger enough." I nodded towards the hut. "I think Tuck is right when he says there is a dread mystery in the thing."

As we were talking, I caught sight of someone out of the corner of my eye. I looked across the clearing to see Noinina disappearing between two huts; she cast a last look over her shoulder as she moved from view. Something about her expression as she passed out of sight gave me to think she had been watching Merian and me and did not approve, not one tiny little scrap.

It was just the merest glimmer of a glance, to be sure. Still, it gave me a curious warmth that lasted throughout the day.

The king and his advisors emerged a short time later. "What was decided?" I asked Iwan as he came out to join us.

"We will take the treasure to Saint Tewdrig's for safekeeping as Angharad has advised," he told me. "We will also show the letter to Bishop Asaph. Perhaps he or one of his monks can read it and tell us something about how and why this ring has come to Elfael."

"That sounds a sensible plan," Merian remarked.

I nodded my agreement. "Good," I said.

"I'm glad you approve, Scarlet," he answered, turning on his heel and walking backwards a step or two. "Because it's you that's going."