Hood by Stephen R. Lawhead

tell his father. They met the king in the yard, along with the rest of the warriors of the warband. “You let them go—and yet dare to show your face to me?” growled the king when Bran told him what had happened.
    “We would have been slaughtered outright,” Bran explained, backing away. “There were too many of them.”
    “You worthless little coward!” the king shouted. The warriors gathered in the yard looked on as the king drew back his hand and let fly, catching Bran on the side of the head. The blow sent the boy spinning to the ground. “Better to die in battle than live as a coward!” the king roared. “Get up!”
    “Lose ten good men for the sake of a few cows?” countered Bran, climbing to his feet. “Only a fool would think that was better.”
    “You snivelling brat!” roared Brychan, lashing out again. Bran stood to the blow this time, which only enraged his father the more. The king struck him again and yet again— until Bran, unable to bear the abuse any longer, turned and fled the yard, sobbing with pain and frustration.
    The bruises from that encounter lasted a long time, the humiliation longer still. Any ambition Bran might have held for the crown died that day; the throne of Elfael could crumble to dust for all he cared.
    They did not stay in Lundein again that night but fled the city sprawl as if pursued by demons. The moon rose nearly full and the sky remained clear, so they rode on through the night, stopping only a little before dawn to rest the horses and sleep. Bran had little to say the next day or the day after. They reached the oratory, and Brother Aethelfrith prevailed upon them to spend the night under his roof, and for the sake of wounded Iwan, Bran agreed.While the friar scurried about to prepare a meal for his guests, Bran and Ffreol took care of the horses and settled them for the night.
    “It isn’t fair,” muttered Bran, securing the tether line to the slender trunk of a beech tree. He turned to Ffreol and exclaimed, “I still don’t see how the king could sell us like that. Who gave him the right?”
    “Red William?” replied the monk, raising his eyebrows at the sudden outburst from the all-but-silent Bran.
    “Aye, Red William. He has no authority over Cymru.”
    “The Ffreinc claim that kingship descends from God,” Ffreol pointed out. “William avows divine right for his actions.”
    “What has England to do with us?” Bran demanded. “Why can’t they leave us alone?”
    “Answer that,” replied the monk sagely, “and you answer the riddle of the ages. Throughout the long history of our race, no tribe or nation has ever been able to simply leave us alone.”
    That night Bran sat in the corner by the hearth, sipping wine in sombre silence, brooding over the unfairness of the Ffreinc king, the inequity of a world where the whims of one fickle man could doom so many, and the seemingly limitless injustices—large and small—of life in general. And why was everyone looking to him to put it right? “For the sake of Elfael and the throne,” Ffreol had said.Well, the throne of Elfael had done nothing for him—save provide him with a distant and disapproving father. Remove the throne of Elfael—take away Elfael itself and all her people.Would the world be so different? Would the world even notice the loss? Besides, if God in his wisdom had bestowed his blessing on King William, favouring the Ffreinc ascendancy with divine approval, who were any of them to disagree?
    When heaven joined battle against you, who could stand?
    E arly the next morning, the three thanked Friar Aethelfrith for his help, bade him farewell, and resumed the homeward journey. They rode through that day and the next, and it was not until late on the third day that they came in sight of the great, rumpled swath of forest that formed the border between England and Cymru. The dark mood that had dogged them since Lundein began to lift at last. Once amongst the sheltering trees of Coed Cadw,