"Do they indeed?" wondered the friar, much intrigued. "What does it look like-this giant bird?"
The merchant stared at him in disbelief. "By the rood, man! Are you dim? It looks like a thumping great raven."
"Shut up!" hissed one of the others just then. "You will have the demon down on us!"
Before anyone could reply to this, one of the other traders threw out his hand and shouted, "There it is!"
Friar Aethelfrith glimpsed a flash of blue-black feathers glinting in the sun and the suggestion of a massive black wing as the creature emerged from the brushwood on the opposite bank a few score paces downstream. Two of the merchants gave out shouts of terrified surprise, and two others fell to their knees, clasping their hands and crying aloud to God and Saint Michael to save them. The rest fled back down the road to the safety of Castle Truan, leaving their carts behind.
"Christ have mercy!" gasped one of the remaining merchants as the creature's head came into view. Its face was an oval of smooth black bone, devoid of feathers, with two round pits where its eyes should have been. Save for the wickedly long pointed beak, its head most resembled a charred human skull.
Lifting its swordlike beak, the thing uttered a piercing shriek that resounded in the deathly silence of the wood. Even as the cry hung in the air, the phantom turned and simply melted back into the shadow of the wood.
The terror-stricken merchants leapt to their feet and ran for their wagons, lashed their mules to motion, and fled back into the valley. Of all those at the stream, only Aethelfrith was left to give chase-which he promptly did.
CHAPTER
35
Gathering up his robe, Aethelfrith strode boldly across the stream and started after the phantom. Upon reaching the far side of the stream, he paused and, finding nothing, proceeded into the brushwood, where the thing had vanished. There was no sign of the creature, and after a few paces he stopped to reconsider. He could hear the traders clattering away into the distance as their wagons bumped over the rutted road. Then, even as he was wondering whether to continue the chase or resume his journey, he saw the faint glimmer of glistening black feathers-just a quick flash before it disappeared into a hedge bank a few hundred paces down the trail. He hurried on.
The ground rose toward the ridge, and he eventually reached the top. Sweating and out of breath, he stumbled upon a game trail that led along the ridgetop. It was old and well established, overarched by the huge limbs of plane trees, elms, and oaks that formed a vault overhead and allowed only intermittent shafts of sunlight to strike down through the leaf canopy and illuminate the path. It was dark as a cellar, but since it was easier than pushing his way through the heavy underbrush, he decided to follow the run and soon realised just how quickly it allowed a man on foot to move about the forest.
The heat had been mounting steadily as the sun arced toward midday, and Aethelfrith was glad for the shade beneath the hanging boughs. He walked along, listening to the thrushes singing in the upper branches and, lower down, the click and chirrup of insects working the dead leaf matter that rotted along the trail. At any moment, he told himself, he would turn back-but the path was soft underfoot, so he continued.
After a time, the trail branched off the left-hand side continued along the ridgetop, and the right-hand side descended the slope to a rocky hollow. Here the priest stopped to consider which path, if either, to take. The day was speeding from him, and he decided to resume his homeward journey. He turned around and started back, but he had not gone far when he heard voices: murmured only, light as thistledown on the dead-still air, there and gone again, and so faint as to be easily dismissed as the invention of his own imagining.
But years of living alone in his oratory with no company save his own inner musings had made his hearing keen. He held his breath and listened for the sound to come again. His vigilance was rewarded with another feather-soft murmur, followed by the unmistakable sound of laughter.
Frail as a wisp of cobweb adrift on the breeze, it nonetheless gave him a direction to follow. He took the right-hand trail leading down the back of the ridge. The path fell away steeply as it entered the hollow below, and Aethelfrith, his short legs unable to keep up with his bulk, plunged down the hill.
He entered the hollow in a rush, tripped over a root, and fell, landing with a mighty grunt at the feet of the great black phantom raven. He slowly raised his fearful gaze to see the ominous black head regarding him with malevolent curiosity. The fantastic wings spread wide, and the thing swooped.
The priest rolled on his belly and tried to avoid the assault, but he was too slow, and he felt his arm seized in a steely grip as he squirmed on the ground. "God save me!" he cried.
"Shout louder," hissed the creature. "God may hear you yet."
"Let be!" he cried in English, wriggling like an eel to get free. "Let me go!"
"Do you want to kill him, or should I?"
Aethelfrith twisted his head around and saw a tall, brawny man step forward. He wore a long, hooded cloak into which were woven a multitude of small tatters of green cloth; twigs and branches and leaves of all kinds had also been attached to the curious garment. Regarding the priest with a frown, he drew a knife from his belt. "I'll do it."
"Wait a little," spoke the raven with a human voice. "We'll not kill him yet. Time enough for that later." To the friar, he said, "You were at the ford. Did anyone else follow?"
Struggling in the creature's unforgiving dutch, it took the priest a moment to realise that the thing had spoken to him. Turning his eyes to his captor once more, he saw not the bone-thin shanks of a bird, but the well-booted feet and legs of a man: a man wearing a long cloak covered entirely with black feathers. The face staring down at him was an expressionless death's head, but deep in the empty eye sockets, Aethelfrith caught the glimmer of a living eye.
"I ask for the last time," the black-cloaked man said. "Did anyone follow you?"
"No, sire," replied the priest. "I came alone. God have mercy, can we not talk this out? I am a priest, am I not?"
"That you are, Aethelfrith!" said the creature, releasing him at once.
"Pax vobiscum!" cried the priest, scrambling to his feet. "I mean no harm. I only thought to-"
"Tuck!" exclaimed the man in the leafy cloak.
Reaching up a black-gloved hand, the creature took hold of the sharp raven beak and lifted it to reveal a man's face beneath.
"Blessed Jesus," gasped the astonished friar. "Is it Bran?"
"Greetings, Tuck," laughed Bran. "What brings you to our wood?"
"You are dead!"
"Not as dead as some might wish," he said, removing the highcrested hood from his head. "Tell us quickly now-how did you come to be here?"
"A hood!" cried the friar, relief bubbling over into exultation. "It is just a hood!"
"A hood, nothing more," admitted Bran. "Why are you here?"
"I came to find you, did I not?" The friar stared at the strangely costumed man in amazement. "And here you are. Sweet Peter's beard, but you do not half frighten a body!"
"Friar Tuck!" called Iwan, stepping dose. He gave the priest a thump on the back. "You held your life in your hands just then. What of the others-the men at the ford-did they see you?"
"Nay, John. They all ran away clutching their bowels." He smiled at the memory. "You put the fear of the devil in them, no mistake."
Bran smiled. "Good." To Iwan he said, "Bring the horses. We will meet Siarles as planned."
"Tuck, too?" wondered Iwan.
"Of course." Bran turned and started away.