Rising again at dawn, the travellers shook the leaves and dew from their cloaks, watered the horses, and continued on. The day passed much like the one before, except that the settlements became more numerous and the English presence in the land became more marked, until Bran was convinced that they had left Britain far behind and entered an alien country, where the houses were small and dark and crabbed, where grim-faced people dressed in curious garb made up of coarse dun-coloured cloth stood and stared at passing travellers with suspicion in their dull peasant eyes. Despite the sunlight streaming down from a clear blue sky, the land seemed dismal and unhappy. Even the animals, in their woven willow enclosures, appeared bedraggled and morose.

Nor was the aspect to improve. The farther south they went, the more abject the countryside appeared. Settlements of all kinds became more numerous-how the English loved their villages-but these were not wholesome places. Clustered together in what Bran considered suffocating proximity anywhere the earth offered a flat space and a little running water, the close-set hovels sprouted like noxious mushrooms on earth stripped of all trees and greenery-which the muddwellers used to make humpbacked houses, barns, and byres for their livestock, which they kept in muck-filled pens beside their low, smoky dwellings.

Thus, a traveller could always smell an English town long before he reached it, and Bran could only shake his head in wonder at the thought of abiding in perpetual fug and stench. In his opinion, the people lived no better than the pigs they slopped, slaughtered, and fed upon.

As the sun began to lower, the three riders crested the top of a broad hill and looked down into the Vale of Hafren and the gleaming arc of the Hafren River. A smudgy brown haze in the valley betrayed their destination for the night: the town of Gleawancaester, which began life in ancient times as a simple outpost of the Roman Legio Augusta XX. Owing to its pride of place by the river and the proximity of iron mines, the town begun by legionary veterans had grown slowly over the centuries until the arrival of the English, who transformed it into a market centre for the region.

The road into the vale widened as it neared the city, which to Bran's eyes was worse than any he had seen so far-if only because it was larger than any other they had yet passed. Squatting hard by the river, with twisting, narrow streets of crowded hovels clustered around a huge central market square of beaten earth, Gleawancaester-Caer Gloiu of the Britons-had long ago outgrown the stout stone walls of the Roman garrison, which could still be seen in the lower courses of the city's recently refurbished fortress.

Like the town's other defences-a wall and gate, still unfinisheda new bridge of timber and stone bore testimony to Ffreinc occupation. Norman bridges were wide and strong, built to withstand heavy traffic and ensure that the steady stream of horses, cattle, and merchant wagons flowed unimpeded into and out of the markets.

Bran noticed the increase in activity as they approached the bridge. Here and there, tall, clean-shaven Ffreinc moved amongst the shorter, swarthier English residents. The sight of these horse-faced foreigners with their long, straight-cut hair and pale, sun-starved flesh walking about with such toplofty arrogance made the gorge rise in his throat. He forcibly turned his face away to keep from being sick.

Before crossing the bridge, they dismounted to stretch their legs and water the horses at a wooden trough set up next to a riverside well. As they were waiting, Bran noticed two barefoot, ragged little girls walking together, carrying a basket of eggs between them-no doubt bound for the market. They fell in with the traffic moving across the bridge. Two men in short cloaks and tunics loitered at the rail, and as the girls passed by, one of the men, grinning at his companion, stuck out his foot, tripping the nearest girl. She fell sprawling onto the bridge planks; the basket overturned, spilling the eggs.

Bran, watching this confrontation develop, immediately started toward the child. When, as the second girl bent to retrieve the basket, the man kicked it from her grasp, scattering eggs every which way, Bran was already on the bridge.

Iwan, glancing up from the trough, took in the girls, Bran, and the two thugs and shouted for Bran to come back.

"Where is he going?" wondered Ffreol, looking around.

"To make trouble," muttered Iwan.

The two little girls, tearful now, tried in vain to gather up the few unbroken eggs, only to have them kicked from their hands or trodden on by passersby-much to the delight of the louts on the bridge. The toughs were so intent on their merriment that they failed to notice the slender Welshman bearing down on them until Bran, lurching forward as if slipping on a broken egg, stumbled up to the man who had tripped the girl. The fellow made to shove Bran away, whereupon Bran seized his arm, spun him around, and pushed him over the rail. His surprised yelp was cut short as the dun-coloured water closed over his head. "Oops!" said Bran. "How clumsy of me,"

"Mon Dieu!" objected the other, backing away.

Bran turned on him and drew him close. "What is that you say?" he asked. "You wish to join him?"

"Bran! Leave him alone!" shouted Ffreol as he pulled Bran off the man. "He can't understand you. Let him go!"

The oaf spared a quick glance at his friend, sputtering and floundering in the river below, then fled down the street. "I think he understood well enough," observed Bran.

"Come away," said Ffreol.

"Not yet," said Bran. Taking the purse at his belt, he untied it and withdrew two silver pennies. Turning to the older of the two girls, he wiped the remains of an eggshell from her cheek. "Give those to your mother," he said, pressing the coins into the girl's grubby fist. Closing her hand upon the coins, he repeated, "For your mother."

Brother Ffreol picked up the empty basket and handed it to the younger girl; he spoke a quick word in English, and the two scampered away. "Now unless you have any other battles you wish to fight in front of God and everybody," he said, taking Bran by the arm, "let us get out of here before you draw a crowd."

"Well done," said Iwan, his grin wide and sunny as Bran and Ffreol returned to the trough.

"We are strangers here," Ffreol remonstrated. "What, in the holy name of Peter, were you thinking?"

"Only that heads can be as easily broken as eggs," Bran replied, "and that justice ought sometimes to protect those least able to protect themselves." He glowered dark defiance at the priest. "Or has that changed?"

Ffreol drew breath to object but thought better of it. Turning away abruptly, he announced, "We have ridden far enough for one day. We will spend the night here."

"We will not!" objected Iwan, curling his lip in a sneer. "I'd rather sleep in a sty than stay in this stinking place. It is crawling with vermin."

"There is an abbey here, and we will be welcome," the priest pointed out.

"An abbey filled with Ffreinc, no doubt," Bran grumbled. "You can stay there if you want. I'll not set foot in the place."

"I agree," said Iwan, his voice dulled with pain. He sat on the edge of the trough, hunched over his wound as if protecting it.

The monk fell silent, and they mounted their horses and continued on. They crossed the bridge and passed through the untidy sprawl of muddy streets and low-roofed hovels. Smoke from cooking fires filled the streets, and all the people Bran saw were either hurrying home with a bundle of firewood on their backs or carrying food to be prepareda freshly killed chicken to be roasted, a scrap of bacon, a few leeks, a turnip or two. Seeing the food reminded Bran that he had eaten very little in the last few days, and his hunger came upon him with the force of a kick. He scented the aroma of roasting meat on the evening air, and his mouth began to water. He was on the point of suggesting to Brother Ffreol that they should return to the centre of town and see if there might be an inn near the market square, when the monk suddenly announced, "I know just the place!" He urged his horse to a trot and proceeded toward the old south gate. "This way!"