Hood by Stephen R. Lawhead Page B

in the dusky light. Even so, Iwan, wounded as he was, would have challenged them and taken his chances, but Ffreol prevented him. “Iwan! No!
    They’ll kill you.”
    “They mean to kill us anyway,” replied the warrior carelessly. “We must fight.”
    “No!” Ffreol put out a restraining hand and pulled him back. “Let me talk to them.”
    Before Iwan could protest, the monk stepped forward. Stretching out empty hands, he walked a few paces to meet the advancing knights. “Pax vobiscum!” he called. Continuing in Latin, he said, “Peace to you this night. Please, put up your swords. You have nothing to fear from us.”
    One of the Ffreinc made a reply that neither Bran nor Iwan understood. The priest repeated himself, speaking more slowly; he stepped closer, holding out his hands to show that he had no weapons. The knight who had spoken moved to intercept him. The point of his sword flicked the air. Ffreol took another step, then stopped and looked down.
    “Ffreol?” called Bran.
    The monk made no answer but half turned as he glanced back toward Bran and Iwan. Even in the failing light, Bran could see that blood covered the front of the monk’s robe.
    Ffreol himself appeared confused by this. He looked down again, and then his hands found the gaping rent in his throat. He clutched at the wound, and blood spilled over his fingers. “Pax vobiscum,” he spluttered, then crashed to his knees in the road.
    “You filthy scum!” screamed Bran. Leaping to the saddle, he drew his sword and spurred his horse forward to put himself between the wounded priest and the Ffreinc attackers. He was instantly surrounded. Bran made but one sweeping slash with his blade before he was hauled kicking from the saddle.
    Fighting free of the hands that gripped him, he struggled to where Brother Ffreol lay on his side. The monk reached out a hand and brought Bran’s face close to his lips. “God keep you,” he whispered, his voice a fading whisper.
    “Ffreol!” cried Bran. “No!”
    The priest gave out a little sigh and laid his head upon the road. Bran fell upon the body. Clutching the priest’s face between his hands, he shouted, “Ffreol! Ffreol!” But his friend and confessor was dead. Then Bran felt the hands of his captors on him; they hauled him to his feet and dragged him away.
    Jerking his head around, he saw Iwan thrashing wildly with his sword as the marchogi swarmed around him. “Here!” Bran shouted. “To me! To me!”
    That was all he could get out before he was flung to the ground and pinned there with a boot on his neck, his face shoved into the dirt. He tried to wrestle free but received a sharp kick in the ribs, and then the air was driven from his lungs by a knee in his back.
    With a last desperate effort, he twisted on the ground, seized the leg of the marchogi, and pulled him down. Grasping the soldier’s helmet, Bran yanked it off and began pummelling the startled soldier with it. In his mind, it was not a nameless Ffreinc soldier he bludgeoned senseless, but ruthless King William himself.
    In the frenzy of the fight, Bran felt the handle of the soldier’s knife, drew it, and raised his arm to plunge the point into the knight’s throat. As the blade slashed down, however, the marchogi fell on him, pulling him away, cheating him of the kill. Screaming and writhing in their grasp, kicking and clawing like an animal caught in a net, Bran tried to fight free. Then one of the knights raised the butt of a spear, and the night exploded in a shower of stars and pain as blow after blow rained down upon him.

CHAPTER 10
    Y ou are Welsh, yes? A Briton?”
    Bruised, bloodied, and bound at the wrists by a rope that looped around his neck, Bran was dragged roughly forward and forced to his knees before a man standing in the wavering pool of light from a handheld torch. Dressed in a long tunic of yellow linen with a short blue cloak and boots of soft brown leather, he carried neither sword nor spear, and the