The weird sight caused these battle-hardened men to blanch and brought the gorge rising to their throats. One of the soldiers cursed, and two others crossed themselves, glancing around the clearing nervously. "Sacre bleu!" grunted a soldier, prodding a lopped-off hoof with the blade of his lance. "This is the work of witches."

"What?" said the knight, recovering some of his nerve. "Have you never seen a slaughtered beast?"

"Slaughtered," muttered one of the men scornfully. "If they were slaughtered, where are the carcasses?" Another said, "Aye, and where's the blood and hide and bones?"

"Carried away by them that slaughtered the beasts," replied another of the soldiers, growing angry. "It's just a pile of guts." With that, he shoved his spear into the curdling bulk, striking an unseen bladder, which erupted with a long, low hiss and released a noxious stench into the already fetid air.

"Stop that!" shouted the man beside him, shoving the offender, who pushed back.

"Enough!" shouted the knight. Quickly scanning the surrounding trees for any sign that they were being watched, he said, "The thieves may still be close by. Make a circuit of the clearing, and give a shout when you find their trail."

Only too glad to turn away from the grisly mound in the centre of the glade, the soldiers walked to different parts of the perimeter and, bending low, began to look for the footprints of the thieves. One complete circuit failed to turn up anything resembling a human footprint, so the knight ordered them to do it again, more slowly this time and with better care and attention.

They were all working their way around the circle when a strange sound halted them in midstep. It started as an agonised cry-as if someone, or something, was in mortal anguish-and then rose steadily in pitch and volume to a wild ululation that raised the short hairs on the napes of the warriors' necks.

The crows in the treetops stopped their chatter, and a dread hush descended over the clearing. The unnatural calm seemed to spread into the surrounding forest like tendrils of a stealthy vine, like a fog when it searches along the ground, coiling, moving, flowing amongst the hidden pathways until all is shrouded with its vapours.

The searchers waited, hardly daring to breathe. After a moment, the eerie sound rose again, closer this time, growing in force, rising and rising-and then suddenly trailing away as if stifled by its own strength.

The carrion birds in the high branches took flight all at once.

The soldiers, holding tight to their weapons, gazed fearfully at the sky and at the wood around them. The trees seemed to have moved closer, squeezing the ring tighter, forming a sinister circle around them.

"Christ have mercy!" cried a footman. He flung out a hand and pointed across the clearing.

The soldiers turned as one to see an indistinct shape moving in the shadows beneath the trees at the edge of the glade. Straining into the darkness, they saw a form emerge from the forest gloom-as if the shadow itself was thickening, gathering darkness and congealing into the shape of a monstrous creature: big as a man, but with the head and wings of a bird, and a round skull-like face that ended in an extravagantly long, pointed black beak.

Like a fallen angel risen from the pit, this baleful presence stood watching them from across the clearing.

"Steady, men," said the knight, holding his sword before him. "Close ranks."

No one moved.

"Close ranks!" shouted Guiscard. "Now!"

The soldiers, shaken to action, moved to obey. They drew together, shoulder to shoulder, weapons ready. Even as they formed the battle line, the phantom melted away, disappearing before their eyes as the shadows reclaimed it.

The soldiers waited, bloodless hands gripping their weapons, staring fearfully at the place where they had last seen the creature. When a cloud passed over the sun, leeching warmth from the air, the terrified men bolted and ran.

"Stand!" cried the knight, to no avail. He watched his men deserting him, thrashing through the brush in their blind haste to escape the horror encircling them. With a last glance around the tainted meadow, brave Guiscard joined his men in flight.

Back at the builders' camp, the breathless searchers told what they had found in the forest and how they had been attacked by the forest phantom-a creature so hideous as to defy description-and only narrowly escaped with their lives. As for the missing oxen, they had been completely devoured by the creature.

"Except for the vitals," one of the men-at-arms explained to his astonished audience. "The devil thing devoured everything but the guts," he said. The soldier next to him took up the tale. "The bowels it vomited in the meadow. We must have startled it at its feeding," he surmised. Another soldier nodded, adding, "Cest vrai. No doubt that was why it attacked us."

But the soldiers were wrong. It was not the phantom that fed on the stolen oxen. That very evening, in British huts and holdings all along the valley, a score of hungry families dined on unexpected gifts of good fresh meat that had been discovered lying on the stone threshold of the house. Each gift had been delivered the same way: wrapped in green oak leaves, one of which was pinned to the parcel by a long, black wing feather of a raven.

)Brother Aethelfrith paused on the road to drag a damp sleeve across his sweating face. The Norman merchants with whom he had been travelling had long since outpaced him; his short legs were no match for their mules and high-wheeled carts, and none of the four traders or their retainers had consented to allow him to ride in back of one of the wagons. To a man, all had made obscene gestures and pinched their nostrils at him.

"Stink? Stink, do I?" muttered the mendicant under his breath. He was a most fragrant friar, to be sure, but the day was sweltering, and sweat was honest reward for labours spent. "Normans," he grumbled, mopping his face, "God rot them all!"

What a peculiar people they were: big, lumpy lunks with faces like horses and feet like boats. Vain and arrogant, untroubled by any notions so basic as tolerance, fairness, equality. Always wanting everything their own way, never giving in, they reckoned any disagreement as disloyal, dishonest, or deceitful, while judging their own actions, however outrageously unfair, as lawful God-given rights. Did the Ruler of heaven really intend for such a greedy, grasping, gluttonous race of knaves and rascals to supplant Good King Harold?

"Blessed Jesus," he muttered, watching the last of the wagons recede into the distance, "give the whole filthy lot flaming carbuncles to remind them how fortunate they are."

Then, chuckling to himself over the image of the entire occupying population hopping around clutching painfully swollen backsides, he moved on. Upon cresting the next hill, he saw a stream and a fording place where the road met the valley. Several of the carts had paused to allow the animals to drink. "God be praised!" he cried and hurried to join them. Perhaps they would take pity on him yet.

Arriving at the ford, he called a polite greeting, but the merchants roundly ignored him, so he walked a little way upstream until he came to a shady place, where, drawing his long brown robe between his legs, he tucked the ends into his belt and waded out into the stream. "Ahh," he sighed, luxuriating in the cool water, "a very blessing on a hot summer day. Thank you, Jesus. Much obliged."

When the merchants moved off a short while later, he remained behind, content to dabble in the stream a little longer. By all accounts, Llanelli was a mere quarter day's walk from the ford. No one was expecting him, so he could take all the time he needed; and if he reached the monastery by nightfall, he would count himself fortunate.