Stephen Lawhead - Tuck

Bran offered her a cup of water. After she had swallowed a little, she continued. "We started back. Cia and I were talking… Then we heard shouts and voices… scared… We met some of the Grellon on the path, running away. Cel Craidd had been discovered, they said; the Ffreinc had found us. Everyone had scattered, and everyone had got away. 'What about Nia? Did anyone see my little girl?'" Noin shook her head, her lips trembling. "No one had seen her. I started running toward the settlement. But it was all over." She shook her head in bewilderment. "The Ffreinc were gone. There was no one around. I began calling for Nia, but there was no answer. I started looking for her, calling her… I thought, I hoped-maybe one of the others picked her up in the confusion, someone had taken her to safety. I searched one path and then another until…" She let out a wrenching sob and lowered her face into her hands. "I found her on the path-just before you came. I think she got trampled by a horse… one of the hooves struck her head…" She turned eyes full of tears to the others. "How could anyone do that to a little child? How could they?"

Bran and Tuck left Noin and Scarlet to their grief then and went to see what could be done for Tomas. The wounded warrior had been laid out on a bed of rushes covered with a cloak.

"He is sleeping," Rhoddi told them. "I did as you said, Friar-I put a clean cloth and some dry moss on the cut. It seems to have stopped bleeding."

"That's a good sign, I think," said Tuck.

Bran nodded. He raised his eyes; the tops of the tallest trees were fading into the twilight. "We must bury Nia and Angharad soon. I will dig the graves."

"Allow me, my lord," said Rhoddi.

Bran nodded. "We'll do it together."

"I want to help," said Tuck.

"Is it wise to leave him alone?" said Rhoddi, with a nod towards Tomas.

Tuck glanced at the sleeping warrior beside him. "We'll hear him if he wakes," he said. So the three went off to begin the bleak task of digging the graves: one pitifully small for Nia, and another for Angharad. Iwan and Scarlet came to help, too, and all took their turn with the shovel. While they were at their work, some of the Grellon who had fled the settlement began coming back-one by one, and then in knots of two or three-and they gave their own account of what had happened.

The settlement had been discovered by a body of Ffreinc knights on horseback-eight or ten, maybe more-who then attacked. The forest-dwellers fled, with the knights in pursuit. They would have been caught, all of them, but Angharad turned and blocked the trail. They had last seen her facing the enemy with her staff raised high, a cry of challenge on her lips; and though it cost her life, the enemy did not follow them into the forest. The returning Grellon were shocked to find their good bard had been killed, and dear little Nia as well. The tears and weeping began all over again.

The women attended Noin, helping her wash and dress little Nia in her best clothes. They combed her hair and plaited flowers in the braids, and laid her on a bed of fresh green rushes. They washed the blood from Angharad's body and dressed her in a clean gown and brought her staff to lay beside her. Bran made a cross for the graves using arrows which he bound together with bowstring. Meanwhile, Tuck moved here and there, comforting his forest flock, giving them such solace as he possessed. He tried to instil some hope in the hearts of the grieving, and show a way to a better day ahead. But his own heart was not in it, and his words sounded hollow even to himself.

When the graves were ready, Scarlet came and, taking Noin by the hand, said, "It is time, my heart." Noin nodded silently. He knelt and gathered up his daughter and carried her to the new-dug grave; Noin walked beside him, her eyes on the bundle in her husband's arms.

Iwan and Owain bent to Angharad, but Bran said, "Wait. Bring her Bird Spirit cloak and put it on her. And her staff. We will bury her as befits the last True Bard of Britain."

Owain fetched the black-feathered cloak and helped Bran wrap it around the old woman, and the two bodies were laid to rest in the soft earth. Iwan brought Angharad's harp to place in the grave, but Bran prevented him. "No," he said, taking the harp. "This I will keep." As he cradled the harp to his shoulder, his mind flashed with the memory of one of their last partings. "All that needs saying have I said," his Wise Banfaith had told him. "Now it is for us to remember."

He held the harp, and his mind returned to the time of their first meeting-in the old woman's winter cave hidden deep in the forest. There, she had healed his body with her art, and healed his soul with her songs. "A raven you are, and a raven you shall remain-until the day you fulfil your vow," Bran murmured, remembering the words of the old story. He turned his eyes one last time to the face of his friend-a face he had once considered almost unutterably ugly: the wide, downturned mouth and jutting chin; the bulbous nose; the small, keen eyes burning out from a countenance so wrinkled it seemed to be nothing but creases, lines, and folds. Death had not improved her appearance, but Bran had long ago ceased to regard her looks, seeing instead only the bright-burning radiance of a soul alight with wisdom. "She called me a king."

"My lord?" said Iwan. "Did you say something?"

"She had never done that before, you see? Not until now."

Darkness deepened in the greenwood. The Grellon lit pitch torches at the head of each body and began a service for the dead which Tuck led, praying softly through the Psalms and the special prayers for those recently deceased. It was a service he had performed as many times as christenings and weddings combined, and he knew it by heart.

The mourners held vigil through the night. Bran, Scarlet, and Noin kept watch while others came and went silently, or with a few words of comfort and condolence. Twice in the night, Bran was heard to groan, his shoulders heaving with silent sobs. The tie that had bound him and Angharad together was strong, and it had been cruelly severed, the wound deep and raw.

Then, at sunrise, the Grellon gathered at the graveside. Tuck said another prayer for the dead and for those who must resume life without them. Noin and Will wept as the dirt was replaced and heaped over the mounds. Bran pressed the small wooden crosses he had made into the graves and then knelt, solemn but dry-eyed, and said a last, silent farewell to the woman who had saved his life. Then, while the rest of the forest-dwellers prepared to abandon Cel Craidd, Tuck went to look in on Tomas. Bran joined him a little later to ask after his injured archer. "My lord," said Tuck softly, "I fear we have lost a good warrior."

"No…" sighed Bran.

"His wounds were greater than we knew," the friar explained. "I think he must have died in the night. I am sorry." He looked sadly at the still body beside him. "If my skill had been greater, I might have saved him."

"And if there had been no battle and he had not been wounded…" Bran shook his head and let the rest go unsaid. He pressed a hand to Tomas's chest and thanked the dead warrior for his good service, and released him to his rest. Then, bidding Tuck to have the body prepared for burial, he rose and went to dig another grave.

Caer Rhodl

When were you going to tell me that Friar Tuck had been here?" asked Merian, her tone deceptively sweet. "Or did you plan to tell me at all, brother mine?"

"I did not think it any of your concern," answered Garran dismissively. He leaned back in his chair and regarded his sister with suspicion. And then the thought struck him. "But how did you know they had come here?"

Merian offered Garran a superior smile. "Bran has been a visitor to these halls more often than you know. Did you really think he would leave without seeing me?"