The bishop remained in a corner of the yard, lifting his voice in prayer. He was still praying when, a little later, Count Falkes's seneschal came looking for them. "My lord will deal with you now," Orval told him and started away again. "At once."
The bishop followed the seneschal to the door of the hall and was conducted inside, where the count was seated in his customary chair beside the hearth. Baron Neufmarche was also in attendance, standing a little to one side; the visiting baron appeared to pay no heed to the bishop as he continued talking quietly to his own men. "Pax vobis- cum," said the bishop, raising his hand palm outward and making the sign of the cross.
"Yes? Yes?" said the count, as if irritated by his visitor's display of piety. "Get on with it. As you can see, I am busy. I have important guests.
"I will be brief," replied the bishop. "Simply put, the people are hungry. You cannot make them work all day without food, and if they have none of their own, then you must feed them."
Count de Braose stared at the cleric for a moment, his lip curling with displeasure. "My dear confused bishop," began the count after a moment, "your complaint is unfounded,"
"I think not," objected the bishop. "It is the very truth."
The count lifted a long, languid hand and raised a finger. "In the first place," he said, "if your people have no food, it is their own fault merely the natural consequence of abandoning their land and leaving good crops in the field. This was entirely without cause, as we have already established," Another finger joined the first. "Secondly, it is not-
"I do beg your pardon," interrupted Neufmarche, stepping forward. Turning away from his knights, he addressed the count directly. "I could not help overhearing-but am I to understand that you make your subjects work for you, yet refuse to feed them?"
"It is a fact," declared the bishop. "He has enslaved the entire valley and provides nothing for the people."
"Enslaved," snorted the count. "You dare use that word? It is an unfortunate circumstance," corrected the count. Turning his attention to the baron, he said, "Do you undertake to feed all your subjects, baron?"
"No," replied the baron, "not all of them-only those who render me good service. The ox or horse that pulls plough or wagon is fed-it is the same for any man who labours on my behalf"
The count twitched with growing discomfort. "Well and good," he allowed, "but this is a predicament of their own making. A hard lesson it may be, but they will learn it all the same. I rule here now," the count said, facing the bishop once more, "and the sooner they accept this, the better."
"And who will you rule," asked the baron, "when your subjects have starved to death?" Advancing a few paces toward the bishop, the baron made a small bow of deference and said, "I am Baron Neufmarche, and I stand ready to supply grain, meat, and other provisions if it would aid you in this present difficulty."
"I thank you, and my people thank you, sire," said the bishop, careful not to let on that they had already spoken of the matter in private. "Our prayers for deliverance are answered."
"What?" objected the count. "Am I to have nothing to say about this?"
"Of course," allowed Neufmarche, "I would never intrude in the affairs of another lord in his realm. I merely make the offer as a gesture of goodwill. If you prefer to give them the grain out of your own stores, that is entirely your decision."
The bishop, hands folded as if in prayer, turned hopeful eyes to the count, awaiting his answer.
Falkes hesitated, tapping the arms of his chair with his long fingers. "It is true that the storehouses are nearly empty and that we shall have to bring in supplies very soon. Therefore," he said, making up his mind, "I accept your offer of goodwill, Neufmarche."
"Splendid!" cried the baron. "Let us consider this the first step along the road toward a peaceful and harmonious alliance. We are neighbours, after all, and we should look toward the satisfaction of our mutual interests. I will dispatch the supplies immediately upon my return to Hereford."
Seeing in Baron Neufmarche a resourceful new ally, and emboldened by his presence, the bishop plucked up his courage and announced, "There is yet one more matter I would bring before you, lord count."
Knowing himself the subject of the baron's scrutiny, Falkes sighed, "Go on, then."
"The two farms you burned-special provision must be made for the farmers and their families. They have lost everything. I want tools and supplies to be replaced at once so they can rebuild."
Hearing this, the baron swung toward the count, "You burned their farms?"
The count, aghast to find himself trapped between two accusers, rose abruptly from his chair as if it had suddenly become too hot. "I burned some barns, nothing more," blustered the count nervously. "The threat was merely an enticement to obedience. It would not have happened if they had complied with my request."
"Those families had little enough already, and that little has been taken from them. I demand redress," said Asaph, far more forcefully than he would have dared had it not been for the baron looking on.
"Oh, very well," said Count Falkes, a sickly smile spreading on his lips. He turned to the baron, who returned his gaze with stern disapproval. "They will be given tools and other supplies so they can rebuild."
Regarding the bishop, the baron said, "Are you satisfied?"
"When the tools and supplies have been delivered to the church," said the bishop, "I will consider the matter concluded."
"Well then," said Baron Neufmarche. He turned to an extremely agitated Count Falkes and offered a sop. "I think we can put this unfortunate incident behind us and welcome a more salutary future." He spoke as a parent coaxing a wayward child back into the warm bosom of family fellowship.
The count was not slow to snatch a chance to regain a measure of dignity. "Nothing would please me more, baron." To the bishop, he said, "If there is nothing else, you are dismissed. Neufmarche and I have business to discuss."
Asaph made a stiff bow and withdrew quietly, leaving the noblemen to their talk. Once outside, he departed Caer Cadarn in a rush to bring the good news of the baron's kindness to the people.
CHAPTER
27
)By the end of his second day in the forest, Bran was footsore, weary, and voraciously hungry. Twice he had sighted deer, twice loosed an arrow and missed; his shoulder still pained him, and it would take many more days of practise before he recovered his easy mastery of the weapon. He had retrieved one arrow, but the other had been lost-along with any hope of a meal. And though the berries on the brambles and raspberry canes were still green and bitter, he was proud enough to refuse the growing impulse to return to the cave and beg Angharad's help. The notion smelled of weakness and surrender, and he rejected it outright.
So as the twilight shadows deepened in the leaf-bound glades, he drank his fill from a clear-running stream and prepared to spend another night in the forest. He found the disused den of a roe deer in a hollow beneath the roots of an ancient oak and crawled in. He lay back in the dry leaves and observed a spider enshroud a trapped cricket in a cocoon of silk and leave it dangling, suspended by a single strand above his head.
As Bran watched, he listened to the sounds of the woodland transforming itself for night as the birds flocked to roost and night's children began to awaken: mice and voles, badgers, foxes, bats-all with their particular voices-and it seemed to him then, as never before, that a forest was more than a place to hunt and gather timber, or else better avoided. More than a stand of moss-heavy trees; more than a sweet-water spring bubbling up from the roots of a distant mountain; more than a smooth-pebbled pool, gleaming, radiant as a jewel in a green hidden dell, or a flower-strewn meadow surrounded by a slender host of white swaying birches, or a badger delving in the dark earth beneath a rough-barked elm, or a fox kit eluding a diving hawk; more than a proud stag standing watch over his clan… More than these, the forest was itself a living thing, its life made up of all the smaller lives contained within its borders.