Tuck

Of course, everyone stood with him then-as who would not?- and raised their cups, shouting, "Attente! Attente!"

The Spanish count tipped down a great draught of wine, wiped his mouth, and said, speaking loudly and with some little passion, "My friends and I have enjoyed our sojourn here in your realm, my lord earl. Your hospitality is as expansive as your girth-"

The earl looked puzzled as this was spoken, and Alan quickly corrected the count's meaning, saying, "-generosity… as expansive as your generosity, my lord. Please excuse my poor translation. He means your hospitality is as great as your generosity."

"It is nothing," replied Earl Hugh grandly. "Nothing at all!"

"I must beg your pardon, my good earl," replied Count Rexindo a little blearily, "but it is not nothing to me. In Spain, where all the virtues are accorded great regard, none sits higher in our esteem than the welcome given to kin and countrymen, and the strangers in our midst." His words came across a little slurred through the wine, though Alan cleaned them up. "As one who knows something of this, I can say with all confidence that your hospitality is worthy of its great renown." He lifted his cup once more. "I drink to you, most worthy and esti… estimable lord."

"To Earl Hugh!" came the chorused acclaim.

All drank, and everyone sat down again and made to resume the meal, but Count Rexindo was not finished yet. "Alas, the time has come for us to leave. Tomorrow's hunt will be my last, but it will be memorable…" He paused to allow these words to penetrate the haze of drink and food befogging his listeners' heads. "Indeed, all the more if our exalted earl will allow me to suggest a certain refinement to tomorrow's ride."

"Of course! Of course!" cried the earl, his spirits lofty, goodwill overflowing like the wine sloshing over the rim of his cup. "Anything you desire," he said with an airy wave of his hand. "Anything at all." He smiled, his ruddy face beaming with pride at the way he'd been feted and flattered by the young count in the presence of his visiting noblemen.

"How very gracious of you, my lord. In truth, I expected nothing less from one whose largesse is legendary," Count Rexindo replied, beaming happily.

"Come, man!" bellowed the earl, thumping the table with his hand. "What is it that you want? Name it and it is done."

Count Rexindo, all smiles and benevolence, gave a little bow and said, "In my country, when a lord wishes to make a special hunt in honour of his guests he releases a prisoner into the wild. I can assure you that it is sport second to none."

Ah, there it is, thought Tuck. Our Bran has remembered his Bible story at last.

It took a moment for the earl and the others to work out what had just been suggested. "Hunt a man?" said the earl, his smile growing stiff.

"Yes, my lord," agreed the count, still standing, still commanding the proceedings. "A criminal or some other prisoner-someone of no account. It makes for a very good chase."

"But…" began the earl, glancing around the table quickly. He saw his other guests looking to him expectantly. Tuck saw the hesitation and, instantly, the distress that followed, and knew the earl was well and truly caught in Bran's trap. "Surely, that is unworthy of your attention," Hugh replied lamely. "Why not choose something else?"

"I see I have overreached myself," the count said, sitting down at last. "I understand if you have no appetite for such rich sport…"

"No, no," Earl Hugh said quickly, seeing the frowns appear on the faces of his gathered noblemen. Having accepted the count's effusive praise for his untethered largesse, how could he now refuse to grant Rexindo's wish? He had no wish to appear tightfisted and mean before his noblemen. So, like a ferret trapped in a snare, squirm though he might he could not get free without gnawing off one of his own legs. "Did I say no? I am intrigued by your suggestion," he offered, "and would be eager to try it myself. It is just that I keep no criminals here. As it is, I have only one captive in my keep…"

"And he is too valuable," concluded Count Rexindo, his disappointment barely contained. "I understand."

The earl glanced around at his noblemen as if to explain, saw their frowns growing and his own reputation diminishing in their eyes, and hastily reconsidered. "However, it seems to me that this prisoner would be well worthy of our sport-a king in his own country who has enjoyed my hospitality far too long already."

"Splendido!" cried the count. Through Alan, he continued, "It will give me a chance to try the hounds I am buying."

Again, a slight hint of a grimace crossed the earl's face. He did not like the idea of using valuable dogs for such dangerous sport-especially, considered Tuck, dogs that had not yet been purchased. This required a small conference, whereuponBut, rising to the bait, the earl shrugged off his misgivings. "Why not?" he roared, stirring the feast to life once more. "Why not, I say! Here! Let us drink to the count, and to tomorrow's sport!"

Thus, the trap was set and sprung, and the prey neatly captured. Tuck waited until the festivity slowly resumed, and when the music and drink were once again in full spate, he rose. Bowing to their host, who had recovered his good cheer, he approached the earl's chair and, with Alan's help, declared, "This game you propose sits ill with me, I do confess, my lord."

"Does it?" he replied lazily. "Does it indeed? How so, pray?"

"The hunting of men is an abomination before the throne of God." Before the earl could reply, he added, "True, it is a custom long honoured in Spain and elsewhere, but one that the church does not endorse."

This rocked the old wolf back a step or two. He frowned and swirled the wine in his cup. "If I told you that this rogue of a prisoner has earned his death ten times over, would that make it sit more comfortably with you?"

"Perhaps," Tuck allowed. "Though I would still wish to give the wretch the benefit of absolution. By your leave, Earl, I will hear his confession and shrive him now. Then he will be ready to face his ordeal with a clear mind and clean soul."

Seeing that Bishop Balthus was determined, and he equally anxious to maintain his top-lofty dignity in the eyes of his guests, Earl Hugh agreed. "Then do so," he said, as if it had been his own idea all along. He put his nose in his cup once more. "Do so by all means, if it pleases you. One of my men will take you down to him."

Tuck thanked him, begged his dinner companions to excuse his absence, and then departed. In the company of the earl's seneschal, who was standing at the door, the friar made his way down and down into the low-vaulted under-castle, to the hostage pit, to see for the first time the man they had come to free. Leaving the hall and its uproar behind, they passed along a dark, narrow corridor to an even darker, more narrow passage through the castle inner wall to a round chamber below what must have been the guardhouse. "Attendre ici, s'il vous plait," said the seneschal, who disappeared up the steps to the room above, returning a few moments later with a dishevelled man who had very obviously been drug from his bed. Yawning, the guard applied a key to an iron grate that covered a hole in the floor, unlocked it, and pulled back the grate. He took up a torch from a basket on the floor, lit it from the candle in the seneschal's hand, and beckoned Bishop Balthus to follow. A short flight of spiral steps led them to another passage, at the end of which stood another iron grate which formed the door of a cell. Upon reaching the door, the guard thrust his torch closer, and in the fitful light of it Tuck saw the prisoner slumped against the wall with his head down, legs splayed before him, hands limp at his sides, palms upward. With his thick and matted tangle of hair and beard, he looked more like a bear dressed up in filthy rags than a man.