Stephen Lawhead - Hood

"Be that as it may…," sniffed Hugo, glancing around the darkened chapel. It smelled old and musty and made him sneeze. "I see you are ready to depart. I shall not keep you."

"We were waiting to pass the reins to you, as it were," replied Asaph.

"That will not be necessary."

"No? We thought you might like to know something about your new flock."

"Your presumption has led you astray, bishop. It is the flock that must get to know and heed the shepherd." Hugo sneezed again and turned to leave. "God speed you on your way."

"Abbot, see here," said the bishop, starting after him. "There is much we would tell you about Elfael and its people."

"You presume to teach me?" Abbot Hugo turned on him. "All I need to know, I learned from the saddle of my horse on the way here." He glanced balefully at the rude structure and the two lorn priests. "Your tenure here is over, bishop. God in his wisdom has decreed a new day for this valley. The old must make way for the new. Again, I wish you God's speed. I do not expect we will meet again."

The abbot returned to his horse across the square, passing the carpenter, who was now sitting on a stack of lumber with a saw across his lap. "What about this?" called the carpenter, indicating the unfinished jumble of timber behind him. "What am I to do with this?"

"It is a tithe barn," replied the abbot. "It will need a wider door."

– you, Tuck, have the most important duty," Bran had told him as he boosted the priest into the saddle. "The success of our plan rests on you.

"Aye," he had replied, "you can count on me!" Borne on waves of hope and optimism, he had departed Cel Craidd with cheers and glad farewells still ringing in his ears.

Oh, but the fiery blush of enthusiasm for his part in Bran's grand scheme had faded to dull, muddy pessimism by the time Aethelfrith reached his little oratory on the Hereford road. How, by the beards of the apostles, am I to discover the movements of the de Braose treasure train?

As if that were not difficult enough, he must acquire the knowledge far enough in advance to give Bran and his Grellon enough time to prepare. To that end, he had been given the best of the horses so that he might return with the news at utmost speed.

"Impossible," Aethelfrith muttered to himself. With or without a horse. Impossible. "Never should have agreed to such a lack-brain scheme."

Then again, the idea had originated with himself, after all. "Tuck, old son," he murmured, "you've gone and put both feet in the brown pie this time,"

As he approached the oratory, he was relieved to see that no one was waiting for him. People had visited in his absence; small gifts of eggs, lumps of cheese, and beeswax candles had been placed neatly beside his door. After tethering his mount in the long grass around back, he filled a bucket from the well and left it for the animal. He gathered up the offerings from his doorstep and went in to light the fire, eat a bite of supper, and contemplate his precarious future. He fell asleep praying for divine inspiration to attend his dreams.

As the morning sun rose to dispel the mist along the Wye, so it brought a partial solution to Tuck's problem. Rising in his undershirt, he went out to the well to wash. Drawing his arms through the sleeves, he pushed the shirt down around his waist and splashed water over himself. The cold stung his senses and made him splutter. He dried himself on a scrap of linen cloth and stood for a moment, savouring the sweet air and calm of the little glade surrounding his cell. He watched the mist curling along the river, and it came to him that whatever else they did, the wagons would have to use the bridge at Hereford. It only remained to find out when. He could simply wait until the wagons passed his oratory on their way to Elfael; then he could saddle the horse and race to Bran with the warning and hope it gave him time enough. Bran had said they would need three days at least. "Four would be better," Bran had told him. "Give us but four days, Tuck, and we have a fighting chance."

He hurried back inside to pull on his robe and lace up his shoes. Taking his staff, he walked down to the bridge and into town. It was market day in Hereford, but there seemed to be fewer people around than usual-especially for a clear, fine day in summer. He wondered about this as he watched the farmers and merchants setting out their goods and opening their stalls.

As he loitered amongst the vendors, idly wandering here and there, he heard a cloth merchant complaining to another about the lack of custom. "Poor dealings today, Michael, m'lad," he was saying. "Might have stayed home and saved shoe leather."

"'Twill be no better next market week," replied the merchant named Michael, a dealer in knives, pruning hooks, and other bladed utensils.

"Aye," agreed the other with a sigh, "too right you are. Too right."

"Won't get better till the baron returns."

"Good fellows," said Aethelfrith, speaking up, "forgive me-I heard you speaking just now and would ask a question."

"Brother Aethelfrith! Mornin' to you," said the one named Michael. "God be good to you."

"And to you, my son," replied the friar. "Can you tell me why there are so few people at market today? Where has everyone gone?"

"Well," replied the cloth dealer, "sure as Sunday, it's the council, ent it?"

"The council?" wondered Aethelfrith. "I have been away on a little business and only just returned. The king has called a Great Council?"

"Nay, brother," replied the clothier, "not a king's council-only a local one. Neufmarche has convoked an assembly of all his nobles-"

"And their families," said Michael the cutler. "Off beyond the Marches somewhere. We'd ha' done better to follow the lot of them there."

"Indeed?" mused the priest. "I have heard nothing about this."

The two merchants, with no customers and time on their hands, were only too glad to oblige Aethelfrith of the news he had missed: the fierce battle and resounding defeat of the Welsh King Rhys ap Tewdwr, and the swift conquest of Deheubarth by the baron's troops. The cutler finished, saying, "Neufmarche called council to square things away, y'see?"

The squat friar nodded, thanked them, and asked, "When did they leave? Do you know? When did the council begin?"

The clothier shrugged. "I couldn't say, brother."

"Why, if I be not mistaken," said Michael, "it ent rightly begun as yet.

No?

"Don't see how it could." Michael picked up a small kitchen knife and tried its blade with his thumb. "The baron and his people rode out but yesterday-morning, it was, very early. I reckon 'twill take them two days at least to reach the moot-them and the other lords. The council would seem to begin a day or two after that. So make that three days-four, to be safe. Five, maybe six, at most."

"Too right," agreed the clothier. "And all that means we lose custom next week-and maybe the week after as well."

"Blessings upon you, friends!" called Aethelfrith, already darting away. He fled back across the bridge, his soft shoes slapping the worn timbers, and steamed up the hill to his oratory. He wasted not a moment, but threw a few provisions into a bag, saddled the horse, and rode out again.

He knew exactly when Baron de Braose's money train would roll.

"Ls Baron Bernard de Neufmarche gazed out upon the upturned faces of his subject lords gathered at Talgarth in the south of Wales, the treasure train of his rival Baron de Braose was approaching the bridge below his castle back in Hereford: three wagons with an escort of seven knights and fifteen men-at-arms under the command of a marshal and a sergeant. All the soldiers were mounted, and their weapons gleamed hard in the bright summer sun.

Hidden beneath food supplies and furnishings for Abbot Hugo's new church were three sealed strongboxes, iron-banded and bolted to the wagon beds. With ranks of soldiers leading the way and more riders guarding the rear, the train passed unhindered through Hereford. If any of Neufinarche's soldiers saw the train passing beneath the castle walls, they made no move to prevent it.