Stephen Lawhead - Hood

Though it was daylight still, the banqueting room was lit by rows of torches aflame in sconces on the walls. The immense oak doors were opened wide to allow the baron's guests to come and go as they pleased; iron candletrees in each corner and a bright fire in the hearth at the far end of the room banished the shadows and gloom like uninvited guests.

Boards had been set on trestles to form rows of tables down the length of the hall, at one end of which another table had been established on a riser so that it overlooked all the others. The room was aswarm with people-both guests in their courtly finery and servants in crimson tunics and mantles, bearing trays of sweetmeats and dainties to sharpen the appetite. Up in a small balcony in one corner of the hall, five musicians played music that sounded to Merian like birds twittering in the trailing branches of a willow while water splashed in a crystal pool. It was so beautiful, she could not understand how it was that no one seemed to be listening to them at all. She had time enough to spare them only a fleeting glance before being drawn to observe the arrival of the baron and his lady wife.

"All hail the Lord of the Feast!" cried Remey, the baron's seneschal, as the couple appeared in the doorway. "Presenting my lord and lady, the Baron and Baroness Neufmarche. All hail!"

"Hail!" replied the guests with fervour. "Hail the Lord of the Feast!"

Baron Neufmarche, tall and regal in his black tunic and short red cloak, with his long, fair hair brushed back, the gold at his throat and on his tunic gleaming, stood on the threshold and passed a beneficent gaze over the glittering assembly. He carried a small jewelled knife on his wide black belt and wore a cross of gold on a gold chain around his neck. Beside him, slender as a willow wand, stood the baroness, Lady Agnes. She wore a pale gown of silvery samite that glistened like water in the torchlight; on her head was a small, square-cornered caplet beaded with tiny pearls. A double circlet of tiny pearls adorned each slender wrist. Oh, but she was thin. The outlines of her hip bones could be seen through the fine material of her dress, and the bones at the base of her throat stood out like twin arrow points. Her cheeks were hollow. Only when she smiled, stretching her tight lips across her teeth, did a scrap of vitality steal into her features.

Neufmarche and his wife were attended by a dark-haired young woman-their daughter, Lady Sybil-whom Merian judged to be a few years younger than herself. The girl wore a bored and aloof expression that declared to the world a lively disdain for the gathering and, no doubt, her forced attendance. Behind the imperious young lady marched a bevy of courtiers and servants carrying trays heaped with tiny loaves of bread made with pure white flour. Other servants in crimson livery followed pulling a tun of wine on a small wagon; still others brought casks of ale. Two kitchen servants followed bearing an enormous wooden trencher on poles; in the centre of the trencher was a great wheel of soft white cheese surrounded by brined onions and olives from the south of France.

The servants proceeded to make a slow circuit of the room so that the guests might help themselves to the cheese and olives, and Merian turned her attention to the other guests. There were several young ladies near her own age, all Ffreinc. As far as she could tell, there were no other Britons. The young women were gathered in tight little gaggles and cast snide glances over their shoulders; none deigned to notice her. Merian had resigned herself to having her mother's company for the evening when two young women approached.

"Peace and joy to you this day," one of the young women offered. Slightly the elder of the two, she had an oval face and a slender, swan like neck; her hair was long, so pale as to be almost white, and straight and fine as silken thread. She wore a simple gown of glistening green material Merian had never seen before.

"Blessings on you both," replied Merian nicely.

"Pray, allow me to make your acquaintance," said the young woman in heavily accented Latin. "I am Cecile, and"-half-turning, she indicated the dark-haired girl beside her-"this is my sister, Therese."

"I am Merian," she responded in turn. "I give you good greeting. Have you been long in England?"

"Non," answered the young woman. "We have just arrived from Beauvais with our family. My father has been brought to lead the baron's warhost."

"How do you find it here?" asked Merian.

"It is pleasant," said the elder girl. "Very pleasant indeed."

"And not as wet as we feared," added Therese. She was as dark as her sister was fair, with large hazel eyes and a small pink mouth; she was shorter than her sister and had a pleasant, apple-cheeked face. "They told us it never stopped raining in England, but that is not true. It has rained only once since we arrived." Her gown was of the same shiny cloth, but a watery aquamarine colour, and like her sister's, her veil was yellow lace.

"Do you live in Hereford?" asked Cecile.

"No, my father is Lord Cadwgan of Eiwas."

The two young strangers looked at each other. Neither knew where that might be.

"It is just beyond the Marches," Merian explained. "A small cantref north and west of here-near the place the English call Ercing, and the Ffreinc call Archenfield."

"You are Welsh!" exclaimed the elder girl. The two sisters exchanged an excited glance. "We have never met a Welsh."

Merian bristled at the word but ignored the slight. "British," she corrected lightly.

"Les Marches," said Therese; she had a lilting, almost wispy voice that Merian found inexplicably appealing. "These Marches are beyond the great forest, oui?"

"That is so," affirmed Merian. "Caer Rhodl-my father's stronghold-is five days' journey from here, and a part of the way passes through the forest."

"But then you have heard of the-" She broke off, searching for the proper word.

"L'hanter?" inquired the elder of the two.

"Oui, l'hanter."

"The haunting," confirmed Cecile. "Everyone is talking about it."

"It is all anyone speaks of," affirmed Therese with a solemn nod.

"What do they say?" asked Merian.

"You do not know?" wondered Cecile, almost quivering with delight at having someone new to tell. "You have not heard?'

I assure you I know nothing of it," Merian replied. "What is this haunting?"

Before the young woman could reply, the baron's seneschal called the celebrants to find places at the board. "Let us sit together," suggested Cecile nicely.

"Oh, do please sit with us," cooed her sister. "We will tell you all about the haunting."

Merian was about to accept the invitation when her mother turned to her and said, "Come along, Daughter. We have been invited to join the baron at the high table."

"Must I?" asked Merian.

"Certainement,"gushed Cecile. "You must. It is a very great honneur."

"Precisely," her mother replied.

"But these ladies have kindly asked me to sit with them," Merian countered.

"How thoughtful." Lady Anora regarded the young women with a prim smile. "Perhaps, in the circumstance, they will understand. You may join them later, if you wish."

Merian muttered a hasty apology to her new friends and followed her mother to the high table where her father and brother were already taking their places at the board. There were other noblemen-all of them Ffreinc, with their resplendently jewelled ladies-but her father was given the place at the baron's right hand. Her mother sat beside her father, and Merian was given the place beside the baroness, at her husband's left hand. To Merians relief, Lady Sybil was far down at the end of the table with young Ffreinc nobles on either side, both of whom appeared more than eager to engage the aloof young lady.