Tuck by Stephen R. Lawhead Read Free Book Online Page B

message to Hugo myself and alone.”
    “Why alone?” said Bran.
    “Priest to priest,” replied Tuck. “That is how I mean to approach him—two men of God answerable to the Almighty. Blesséd are the peacemakers, are they not?”
    “As Angharad suggests,” put in Mérian, “the abbot may welcome the opportunity to be rid of this bloodshed.”
    “Hugo will welcome the opportunity to carve him like a Christmas ham,” observed Scarlet. To Tuck, he said, “He’ll roast your rump and feed it to his hounds.”
    “Nay,” said Tuck. “He’ll do no such thing. I am a brother cleric and a minister of the church. A rogue he may be, but he will receive me, as he must.”
    “While I do not expect the abbot to honour any offer we put before him,” said Iwan, “I agree with our man Tuck—we should do what we can to avoid another bloodletting, as it may well be our blood next time instead of theirs. Try as I might, however, I can think of no other way to avoid it—our choices are that few. It is worth a try.”
    There was more talk then, as others added their voices to the discussion—some for the idea, others against. In the end, however, Tuck’s proposition carried the day.
    “Then it is decided,” declared Bran when everyone had had their say. “In observance of our Christian duty, and for the sake of our people, we will make this offer of peace to Hugo and urge him by all means to accept it and to support me before King William.”
    “It is the right decision, my lord,” said Mérian, pressing close. “If Hugo will listen to reason, then you’ll have reclaimed what is rightfully yours without risking the lives of any more of your people.”
    “Right or wrong it makes no difference,” Bran told her. “We are too weak to pursue the war further on our own.” He declared the council at an end and said, “I will frame a message for Tuck to deliver to the abbot. If he accepts my offer, we will soon be out of the forest and back in our own lands.”
    “I’ll believe it when it happens,” grumbled Siarles.
    “You’re not alone there,” Scarlet said. “Give ’em a year o’ Sundays and a angel choir to show ’em the way, the bloody Ffreinc will never shift an English inch.”
    “Then pray God to change their hearts,” Tuck said. “Do not think it impossible just because it has never happened.”

CHAPTER 5
    T he council concluded, and as everyone dispersed Tuck lingered in Angharad’s presence a little longer. Close to her, he was aware once again of a curious sensation—like that of standing beneath one of the venerable giants of the forest, an oak or elm of untold age. It was, he decided, the awareness that he was near something so large and calm and rooted to depths he could scarcely imagine. With her face a web of wrinkles and her thinning hair a haze of wisp on her head, she seemed the very image of age, yet commanded all she beheld with the keen intelligence of her deep-set, dark eyes. “I hope I have served him wisely,” he told the old woman.
    “So hope we all,” she replied.
    “I am afraid Siarles is right—offering peace is just begging for trouble.”
    “Trouble have we in abundance,” the banfáith pointed out. “It is a most hardy crop.”
    “Too true,” the friar agreed.
    “Hear me, friend priest,” she said, holding him with her deep-set, dark eyes. “This war began long ago; we merely join it now. The trouble is not of our making, but it is our portion and ours to endure.”
    “That does not cheer me much,” sighed Tuck.
    “Regrets, have you?”
    “No, never,” he answered. “That is the duty of any Christian.”
    “Then trust God with it and that which is given you, do.”
    “You are right, of course,” he said at last.
    Angharad regarded the friar with a kindly expression. The little priest with his rotund, bandy-legged form, his shaggy tonsure, his stained and tattered robe—smelling of smoke and sweat and who knows what else—there was that much like a