"The Welsh," said Falkes. "The people of Elfael, your countrymen-that is who I mean."
"The men of Elfael are gone," scoffed the bishop. "The best were slaughtered on their way to Lundein," he said pointedly, "and the rest fled. The only ones left are those who had nowhere else to go, and if they have any sense at all, they will stay far away from this valley."
The count glared from beneath his brows. "Courtesy, priest," warned de Braose. "Sarcasm ill becomes you."
"Count de Braose," appealed the bishop, "every able-bodied man gathered his family and his flocks and fled the valley the moment you and your soldiers arrived. There are no men."
"Then you must find some," said Falkes, growing weary of the bishop's unwillingness to see things from his point of view. "I do not care where you find them, but find them you will."
"And if I decline to aid you in this?"
"Then," replied Falkes, his voice falling to a whisper, "you will quickly learn how I repay disloyalty. I assure you it can be extremely unpleasant."
Bishop Asaph stared in disbelief. "You would threaten a priest of Christ?"
The young count shrugged.
"And this… after I delivered the king's treasury to you? This is how I am to be repaid? We agreed that the church would not be harmed. You gave me your word."
"Your church will be in a town," said the count. "Where is the harm?"
"We are under the authority of Rome," Asaph pointed out. "You hold no power over us."
"I hold a royal grant for this commot. Any interference in the establishment of my rule will be reckoned treason, which is punishable by death." He spread his hands as if to indicate that the matter was beyond his immediate control. "But we need not dwell on such unhappy things. You have plenty of time to make the right decision."
"You cannot do this," blurted the bishop. "In the name of God, you cannot."
"Oh, I think you will find that I can," replied Falk-es. "One way or another there will be a town in this valley. You can help me, or you and your precious monks will perish. The choice, my dear bishop, is yours."
CHAPTER
20
winter laid siege to the forest and set up encampment on the hilltops and valleys throughout Elfael. The tiny, branchframed patch of sky that could be seen from the mouth of the cave was often obscured, cast over with heavy, snow-laden clouds. Bran, warm beneath layered furs and skins, would sometimes wake in the night and listen to the gale as it shrieked through the naked trees outside, beating the bare branches together and sending the snow drifting high and deep over the forest trails and trackways.
The cave, however fierce the storm outside, remained dry and surprisingly comfortable. Bran spent his days dozing and planning his eventual departure; when he grew strong enough to leave this place, he would resume his flight to the north. Having no other plan, that was as good as any. For now, however, he remained content to sleep and eat and recover his strength. Sometimes he would wake to find himself alone, but Angharad always returned by day's end-often with a fat hare or two slung over her shoulder, and once with half a small deer, which she hung from an iron hook set in the rock at the entrance to the cave. In the evenings, she cooked their simple meals and tended his wounds while the pot bubbled on the fire.
And at night, each night of that long winter, the cave was transformed. No longer a rock-bound hole in a cliff face, it became a shining gateway into another world. For each night after they had eaten, Angharad sang.
The first time it took Bran by surprise. Without any hint or warning of what was to come, the old woman disappeared into the dark interior of the cave and returned bearing a harp. Finely made of walnut and elm wood, with pegs of oak, the curve of its shapely prow was polished smooth by years of handling.
Bran watched as she carefully brushed away the dust with the hem of her mantle, tightened the strings, and tuned the instrument. Then, settled on her stool, her head bent near as if in dose communion with an old friend, a frown of concentration on her puckered face, Angharad had begun to play-and Bran's bemusement turned to astonished delight.
The music those gnarled old fingers coaxed from the harp strings that night was pure enchantment, woven tapestries of melody, wonder made audible. And when she opened her mouth to sing, Bran felt himself lifted out of himself and transported to places he never knew existed. Like the ancient harp cradled in her lap, Angharad's voice took on a beauty and quality far surpassing the rude instrument. At once agile and sure and gentle, the old woman's singing voice possessed a fluid, supple strength-now soaring like the wind over the far-off mountains, now a bird in flight, now a cresting wave rolling upon the shore.
And was it not strange that when Angharad sang, she herself was subtly changed? No longer the gray hag in a tattered robe, she assumed a more noble, almost regal aspect, a dignity her shabby surroundings ordinarily denied, or at least obscured from view. Well-accustomed to her presence now, Bran was no longer repulsed by her appearance; in the same way, he no longer noticed her odd, archaic way of speaking with her thee and thou and wouldst and goest, and all the rest. Neither her aspect nor her speech seemed remarkable; he accepted both the same way he recognized her healing skilclass="underline" they seemed natural to her, and most naturally her.
In fact, as Bran soon came to appreciate, with a harp in her weathered hands, Angharad became more herself.
Extraordinary as it was to Bran, that first night's performance was merely the seeding of a disused well, or the clearing of a brush-filled spring to let fresh new waters flow. Thereafter, as night after night she took her place on the stool and cradled the harp to her bosom, Angharad's voice, like fine gold, began to take on added luster through use. A voice so rare, Bran mused, must come from somewhere else, from some other time or place, from some other world-perhaps from the very world Angharad's songs described.
The world Angharad sang into being was the Elder World, the realm of princely warriors and their noble lovers. She sang of longforgotten heroes, kings, and conquerors; of warrior queens and ladies of such beauty that nations rose and fell at the fleeting glance of a limpid eye; of dangerous deeds and queer enchantments; of men and women of ancient renown at whose names the heart rose and the blood raced faster.
She sang of Arianrhod, Pryderi, Llew, Danu, and Carridwen, and all their glorious adventures; of Pwyll and Rhiannon, and their impossible love; of Taliesin, Arthur Pendragon, and wise Myrddin Embries, whose fame made Britain the Island of the Mighty. She sang of the Cauldron of Rebirth, the Isle of the Everliving, and the making of many-splendoured Albion.
One night, Bran realised that he had not heard such tales since he was a child. This, he thought, was why the songs touched him so deeply. Not since the death of his mother had anyone sung to him. This is why he listened to them all with the same awed attention. Caught up in the stories, he lived them as they took life within him; he became Bladudd, the blighted prince who sojourned seven years in unjust servitude; he became the lowly swineherd Tucmal, who challenged the giant champion Ogygia to mortal combat; he flew with doomed Yspilladan on his beautiful wings of swan feathers and wax; he spent a lonely lifetime in hopeless pining for the love of beautiful, inconstant Blodeuwedd; he was a warrior standing shoulder to shoulder with brave Meldryn Mawr to fight against dread Lord Nudd and his demon horde in a land of ice and snow. All these and many more did Bran become.
After each night's song, Angharad laid aside the harp and sat for a time, gazing into the fire as if into a window through which she could see the very things she sang about. After a time, her body would give a little shake, and she would come to herself again, like one emerging from a spell. Sometimes the sense of what he had heard eluded himshe could tell by the frown that knitted his brow and tugged at the corner of his mouth that he had not understood. So, wrapping her arms around her knees as she sat on her three-legged stool, she would gaze into the fire and talk about the story and its inner meaning-the spirit of the song, Angharad called it.