Stephen Lawhead - Hood

The abbot crossed to the table on which cups and a jar were waiting. He placed his hands flat on the table. "You will, of course, return to face the wrath of Baron de Braose," he said. "However, I propose to send you with a letter informing the baron of certain mitigating facts which should be taken into consideration, facts which will ultimately exculpate you. Furthermore, I am prepared to argue, not for imprisonment or dismissal, but for your reassignment. In short, I might be persuaded to ask the baron to assign you to me here. I would then be willing to take full responsibility for you and your actions."

At this, the knight raised his eyes.

The abbot, pacing slowly around the small room of the former chapter house, continued, "After the debacle in the forest last night, de Braose will not refuse me. Far from it. He will think it a most salubrious suggestion-all the more when I offer to make up the pay for the workers out of my own treasury."

"You would do this?" wondered Guy.

"This and more," the cleric assured him. "I will request troops to be placed under my command. You, my friend, shall lead them."

Abbot Hugo paused again to regard the unlucky knight. He might have chosen someone older and more experienced for what he had in mind, but Gysburne had dropped into his lap, so to speak, and another opportunity might be a long time coming. All things considered, Sir Guy was not such a bad choice. "I trust this meets with your approval?"

"What about the count?"

"Count Falkes will have nothing to say about it one way or the other," the abbot assured him. "Well?"

"Your Grace, I hardly know what to say."

"Swear fealty to me as God's agent by authority of the Holy Church, and it is done."

"I swear it! On my life, I do so swear."

"Splendid." Hugo returned to the table and poured a cup of wine for his guest. "Please," he said, offering the goblet to the knight. Guy accepted the cup, almost expecting it to burn his hand. Even if it had been offered by the devil himself, he would still be bound to receive it. The calamity in the forest had left him with no better choice.

The abbot smiled again. Distressing as the loss of his property was, the strange turn of events had nevertheless provided him a welcome means of increasing his authority. With his own private army, he would be the most powerful prelate in all Wallia. "As you will appreciate, I lost a very great deal last night. The church lost treasure of significant value. That cannot be allowed to happen again." He poured wine into the second cup. "That will not happen again."

"No, Your Grace," agreed Guy. He raised his cup and wet his lips. Although greatly relieved not to have to return to Baron de Braose empty-handed, the knight had yet to obtain the measure of the abbot: less a saint, he thought, than a merchant prince in priestly robes. Job's bones, he had met more holy-minded pickpockets!

Guy took another sip of wine, and his thoughts returned to the events of that morning.

As soon as he had regrouped his men-who were still exhausted and shaken by the unnatural events in the haunted wood-he had started out by dawn's first light to bring the count and abbot the bad news. "It was most uncanny beginning to end," he had reported. "On my life, it seems the very stuff of nightmares." He then went on to explain, to an increasingly outraged and disbelieving audience, all that had transpired in the forest.

"Fool!" the abbot had roared when he finished. "Am I to believe that you think there is more to this affair than the rapacious larceny of the reprobate and faithless rabble that inhabit this godforsaken country?"

At those words, the unearthly spell surrounding the entire incident had relinquished some of its power over him. Guy de Gysburne stood blinking in the sunlight of the abbot's reception room. It was the first time he had stopped to consider that the attack had been perpetrated by mere mortals only cunning mortals, perhaps, but fleshand-blood humans nonetheless. "No, my lord," he had answered, feeling instantly very embarrassed and overwhelmingly absurd.

Obviously, it had all been an elaborate trap-from the dead creatures strung up along the roadside, to the flames and falling trees that had cut off any chance of escape…

But no.

Now that he thought about it, the ambush had begun well before that-probably with the broken wagon axle earlier in the day: the hapless farmer and his shrewish wife, loud and overbearing, impossible to ignore as they stood arguing over the spilled load, standing in mud where no mud should have been…

Yes, he was certain of it. The deception had begun far in advance of the actual attack. Moreover, the individual elements of the weird assault had taken a considerable amount of time to prepare-perhaps many days-which meant that someone had known when the treasure train would pass through the forest of the March. Someone had known. Was there a spy in the baron's ranks? Was it one of the soldiers or someone else who had passed along the information?

As Guy sat clutching his cup, his heart burned for revenge. The offer of a new position with the abbot notwithstanding, he vowed to find whoever had ruined his position with the baron and make them pay dearly.

"Mark me, lord marshal, these pagan filth will learn respect for the holy offices. They will learn reverence for the mother church. Their heinous and high-handed deeds will not go unpunished." Though the abbot spoke softly, there was no mistaking the steel-hard edge to his words. "You, Marshal Gysburne, will be the instrument of God's judgement. You will be the weapon in my hand."

Sir Guy could not agree more.

The abbot poured another cup and lifted it in salute. "Let us drink to the prompt recovery of the stolen treasure and to your own swift advancement."

The marshal raised his cup to the abbot's, and both men drank. They then put their heads together to compose the letter to be delivered to the baron. Before the wax was dry on the parchment, Guy was already scheming how to find the stolen treasure, expose the traitor in their midst, and exact revenge on those who had disgraced him and robbed the abbot.

Qnder the keen watch of sentries hidden in the brush along the road, the Grellon walked hidden pathways. Moving with the stealth of forest creatures, men, women, and children ferried the plunder back to their greenwood glen on litters made of woven leather straps stretched between pine poles. It took most of the day to retrieve the spoils of their wild night's work and store it safely away. Thus, the sun was low in the sky when Bran, Iwan, Tuck, Siarles, and Angharad finally gathered to open the iron-banded caskets.

Iwan and Siarles set to work, hacking at the charred wood and metal bands of the first two strongboxes. The others looked on, speculating on what they would find. Under the onslaught of an axe and pick, Iwan's box gave way first; three quick blows splintered the sides, and three more released a gleaming cascade of silver onto the hearthside floor. Tuck scooped up the coins with a bowl and poured them into his robe, as Siarles, meanwhile, chopped at the top of the chest before him and presently succeeded in breaking open the ruined lock.

He threw open the lid. The interior was filled with cloth bags each one tied by a cord that was sealed in wax with the baron's crest. At a nod from Bran, he lifted one out and untied the string, breaking the seal, and poured the contents into Brother Tuck's bowl: forty-eight English pennies, newly minted, bright as tiny moons.

"There must be over two hundred pounds here," Siarles estimated. "More, even."

Iwan turned his attention to the third box. Smaller than the other two, it had suffered less damage and proved more difficult to break open. With battering blows, Iwan smashed at the lock and wooden sides of the chest. The iron-banded box resisted his efforts until Siarles fetched a hammer and chisel and began working at the rivets, loosening a few of the bands to allow Iwan's pick to gain purchase. Eventually, the two succeeded in worrying the lid from its hinges; tossing it aside, they upended the box, and out rolled plump leather bags-smaller than the baron's black bags, but heavier. When hefted, they gave a dull chink.