Tuck (17 page)

CHAPTER 21

W
hen a painstaking search of the hunting run and woodland surrounding the tree where the captive’s cast-off clothing had been found failed to turn up any trace of their human prey, the hunters moved down the run and deeper into the forest. Owing greatly to Count Rexindo’s many wrongheaded interventions, the company was subtly led farther and farther away from any path Gruffydd might have taken, thus spending the entire day without discovering their quarry or raising even so much as a whiff of his trail. As twilight began to glaze the trails with shadow, the frustrated company was forced to conclude that the captive king had miraculously eluded their pursuit. It appeared that Bran’s audacious plan had worked; all that remained was to suffer the wrath of a very angry earl and then they, too, would be free.

The Spanish visitors endured an extremely acrimonious ride back to the fortress, the earl fretting and fuming all the way, cursing everything that came to mind—most especially, Count Rexindo’s ineptitude and the incompetence of Spaniards in general, as well as his own misguided complicity in a fool-bait scheme which had not only cost him a very valuable prisoner, but also had returned a powerful enemy to the battlefield. “Courage, men,” counselled Bran as they paused before the doors of the hall. “It is soon over.” To Ifor and Brocmael, he said, “Are the horses ready?”

The young men nodded.

“Good. Whatever happens, be ready to depart on my signal. We may have to bolt.”

They entered a hall much subdued from the previous night; where before the walls had reverberated with song and laughter, this night’s supper was taken in sullen silence and bitter resentment. Count Rexindo and his retinue braved the blast of ill-will with stoic silence as they listened to Hugh d’Avranches alternately berating one and all for their gross failure and bemoaning the loss of his captive. As the drink took hold of him, the livid, simmering anger gave way to morose distemper, with the earl declaring loudly for all to hear that he wished he had never laid eyes on Count Rexindo and his miserable company. This, then, was the signal for the visitors to make their farewells and remove themselves from the castle.

The count, having been seen to bear the earl’s complaints and abuse with the good grace of one who could not grasp the more subtle nuances of insult in a foreign tongue, rose from his seat and with the aid of his able interpreter, said, “No one is more sorry than I that we have failed today. Still, it is in the nature of things that the hunter is sometimes outwitted by his prey and must return to his hearth empty-handed.” He gave a slight shrug. “I, myself, blame no one. It happens. We live to hunt another day. But a man would be a fool to remain where his friendship is no longer welcome or valued. Therefore, I thank you for your hospitality, my lord, and bid you farewell.”

Oh, well done,
thought Tuck, rising at Bran’s gesture. As bishop, he gave the earl a small, benedictory flourish and, turning, followed the count from the hall.

“What about the hounds?” cried Hugh after the departing count. Too late he remembered the money he hoped to make on the sale of his expensive animals.

Alan, taking the count’s elbow, restrained him and whispered into his ear. Rexindo shook his head, gave a final gesture of farewell, and stepped through the door. “I am sorry, my lord,” Alan said, standing with his hand on the latch, “but the count says that he could not possibly consider buying such ill-trained and ungovernable beasts as the one he witnessed today. He has withdrawn his offer. You may keep your dogs.”

With that, Alan disappeared, following Bishop Balthus, Lord Galindo, and Lord Ramiero across the threshold and into the corridor beyond. As soon as the heavy door shut behind them, they fairly flew to the stable and relieved the grooms of the care of their horses. Rexindo, true to his noble Spanish character, paid the grooms a few silver pennies each—as much to buy their aid as for their unwitting diligence—and with kind words and praise, bade them farewell. The chief groomsman, pleased and charmed by the count’s noble treatment, led the company from the yard and opened the gate for them himself.

As they mounted their horses, Bran reached down a hand to Alan. “If you still want to come with me,” he said. Without hesitation, Alan a’Dale grabbed the offered hand, and Bran pulled him up to sit behind him.

At last, having successfully skinned the wolf in his den, the short ride to Caer Cestre became a jubilant race. In the fading evening light, the company came clattering into a nearly deserted town square, where they dismounted and quickly made their way to the docks to meet King Gruffydd. When a cursory search failed to find him, they split up and, each taking a separate street, began combing the town. This, too, failed. “Perhaps he is waiting at one of the inns,” suggested Alan.

Bran commended the idea and said, “You and Tuck go look there. Ifor, Brocmael, and I will wait for you at the wharf in case he should come there.”

The two hurried off and were soon approaching the first of the river town’s three inns—a place called the Crown and Keys. Despite the somewhat lofty ambitions of its name, it was a low place, smuggy with smoke from a faulty chimney and poorly lit. A cushion of damp reeds carpeted the uneven floor upon which rested one long table down the centre of the room with benches on either side. Four men sat at the table, and the brewmistress stood nearby to fetch the necessaries for her patrons. One glance into the room told them they must pursue their search elsewhere.

The next inn—The Star—was the place where they’d sat outside in the sun and enjoyed a jar on a day that now seemed years ago. Inside, the single large room was full of travellers and townsfolk; pipers had taken up residence beside the great hearth, and the skirl of pipes lent a festive atmosphere to the room. It took them longer here to look among the tables and investigate all the corners. Alan asked the alewife if anyone answering Gruffydd’s description had been seen in or about the place that day. “Nay—no one like that. It’s been a quiet day all told,” she said, shouting over the pipers. “Not being a market day, ye ken?”

They had another look around the room and then moved on to the last of the town’s inns—a mean place only a rung or two up from a cattle stall; with a few small tables and a few nooks with benches, it had little to recommend it but its ready supply of ale, which many of the boat trade seemed to prefer, judging from the number of seafarers in the place. Again, they quickly gleaned that not only was King Gruffydd not in the room, but no one answering his description had been seen that day or any other. Tuck thanked the owner, and he and Alan hurried back to rejoin Bran and the others at the dock.

“What now?” asked Ifor when Alan finished his report. “We’ve looked everywhere.”

“I told him where to go,” said Tuck. “I made certain he understood.”

“Maybe he’s hiding in a barn or byre somewhere,” suggested Alan.

“When you took him out to the hunting run,” said Bran, “what did you tell him?”

“To come to the dock in town and wait for us there,” said Ifor.“He said he would.”

“Then, I think we must assume he is not in the town at all,” suggested Bran. “Otherwise he’d be here.”

Tuck considered this. “He never made it, you mean?”

“Either that,” confirmed Bran, “or he took matters into his own hands and fled elsewhere.”

“You think he didn’t trust us to get him away safely?” said Brocmael.

Ifor countered this, saying, “He knew we were kinsmen, and he was keen as the blade in my belt to be leaving Caer Cestre at last. He said he’d reward us right well for helping him.”

“Did he say anything else?” asked Tuck.

“He kept asking about Lord Bran—about why he would risk so much to free him.”

“What did you tell him?” Bran asked.

“We told him he would have to speak to you, my lord. Your reasons were your own.”

“It does not seem as if he feared to trust us,” remarked Tuck. “Something ill must have befallen him.”

“What now?” asked Alan again.

“It’s back to foul Hugh’s hunting run,” Bran decided. “We must try to raise Gruffydd’s trail and track him down—this time in earnest. We’ll get what rest we can tonight and ride as soon as it is light enough to see the trail beneath our feet.” He hesitated, then added, “In any event, finding Gruffydd might be the least of our worries . . .”

“Why?” said Tuck. “What else?”

“The ship is gone.”

Only then did it occur to Tuck to look among the vessels at anchor along the dock and in the central stream of the river. It was true; the Iberian boat that had brought them was no longer to be seen. “I thought he said he’d wait for us.”

“He said his business would take him no more than a week,” Bran corrected. “Maybe he finished sooner than he expected.”

“Or, it’s taken longer,” Alan pointed out.

The two young noblemen shared a worried glance, and Tuck sighed, “Bless me, when it rains, it pours.”

“Never mind,” said Bran. “So long as we stay out of sight of the earl, we’ll make good our escape. The Welsh border is only a day and a half away. We can always ride if need be.”

They found a dry place on the dock among piles of casks and rope, and settled down for a restless night. It was warm enough, but as night drew on, clouds drifted in, bringing rain with the approach of dawn. Tuck awoke when his face grew wet and then could not get back to sleep, so contented himself with saying the Psalms until the others rose and they departed once more, leaving Alan a’Dale behind in case the Iberian ship should return.

Skirting the earl’s stronghold, they made for the hunting run. By the time they reached the place where Gruffydd had shed his prison rags for those supplied by his rescuers, the sky was light enough and they could begin making out marks on the trail. Ifor and Brocmael dismounted and, on hands and knees, began searching the soft earth in the undergrowth around the tree where the clothes had been hidden. Ifor found a mark which he thought could have been made by the butt of a spear being used as a staff, and before Bran and Tuck could see it for themselves, Brocmael, working a little farther on, called out that he had found a half-print of a shoe.

Bran and Tuck dismounted and hurried to where the dark-haired young nobleman was waiting. “It is a footprint, no doubt,” agreed Tuck when he saw it. “But is it our man? Or one of the Ffreinc handlers? That is the question, is it not?”

“Follow it,” instructed Bran. “See if you can find out where it leads.”

The trail was slight and difficult to follow, which made the going slow. Meanwhile, the sky flamed to sunrise in the east. By the time they had determined that the tracks they were finding did indeed belong to King Gruffydd, the sun was up and casting shadows across the many-stranded pathways of the wood.

“This is not good,” observed Bran, gazing upwards at the cloud-swept heavens.

“My lord?” said Tuck, following his glance. “What do you see?”

“He’s going the wrong way,” Bran pointed out. “We’re being led deeper into the wood and away from the town.”

So they were. But there was nothing for it. They had to follow the trail wherever it led, and eventually arrived at a sizeable clearing on the south-facing slope of a hill, in the centre of which was a small house made of mud and wattles; brush and beech saplings and small elm trees were growing up around the hovel, and the grass was long. Clearly, the steading had been abandoned some few years ago—no doubt when the earl became its nearest neighbour. The surrounding wood was actively reclaiming the clearing and had long since begun to encroach on what once had been fine, well-drained fields. The grass still bore the faint trace of a path: someone had walked through the place not long ago.

At the edge of the clearing, the searchers paused to observe the house. “Do you think he’s down there, my lord?” asked Ifor.

“He is,” affirmed Bran, “or was. Let’s find out.” He lifted the reins and proceeded into the old field. The house was decrepit—two of the four walls were in slow, dissolving collapse—but the upright posts still stood strong, and stout crossbeams supported what was left of the roof. “Go and see,” he told Ifor. “The rest of us will wait here so that we don’t make more of a trail than is here already.”

The young man hurried off, and the others watched his progress across the field until he disappeared around the far side of the house. They waited, and Ifor reappeared a moment later, signalling them to come on ahead. By the time the others reached the house, they found a very groggy King Gruffydd sitting on a stump outside the ruined doorway and Ifor sprawled on the ground clutching his head.

“I nearly did for your man, here,” said Gruffydd, looking up as Bran, swiftly dismounting, came to stand over him. “He woke me up and I thought he was a Ffreinc come to take me back.”

“You hit him?” said Tuck, kneeling beside the injured Ifor.

“Aye,” admitted the king, “I did, and for that I am heartily sorry.”

Tuck jostled the young man’s shoulder. “Are you well, Ifor?”

Ifor groaned. “Well enough,” he grunted between clenched teeth. “I think he broke my skull.”

“I said I was sorry, lad,” offered Gruffydd somewhat testily. “Have you brought anything to eat?”

“What are you doing here?” Bran asked. “We waited for you in the town. Why didn’t you come?”

The grizzled king frowned as he watched Tuck gently probing the young man’s head. “I got lost.”

Bran stared at the man, unable to think of anything to say.

“It’s eight years since I was beyond the walls of that vile place,” Gruffydd explained. “I must have got muddled and turned around. And the air made me tired.”

“The air,” repeated Bran dully.

“I expect that’s so,” offered Tuck. “Considering his lordship hasn’t been out of that cramped cell in a good long while, his endurance might have suffered in that time. It makes sense.”

“I apologize, my lord,” said Bran then. “It never occurred to me that your strength would be impaired.”

“I’m
not
impaired, curse your lying tongue,” growled the king. “I was just a little tired is all.” He made to stand and tottered as he came to his feet. He swayed so much Tuck put out a hand to steady him, then thought better of it and pulled it away again. “Have you brought me a horse?”