finally moving ahead again

I finished hiding the food and returned with two rabbits as Father told me to. Clearly the visitors had demanded a big bright fire, and they sat close around it, warming themselves and filling the cramped space with their bulk and the smells of sweat and wet wool. My sister moved from one to the next, like a faerie, passing out chunks of cheese and bread, while Father spouted one of the casks of ale.

Gryffyd was talking. "You'll make a good profit this time, moneyer," he said to Father.

"You say that every time," Father said.

"This time it's twice your fee -- two parts of each hundred."

Father set the cask on its side and reached first to Gryffyd and then to each of the others in turn, taking their cups and filling them. "And what do I have to do to earn this windfall?" he said.

"Do what you always do. Make coins. Maybe a little faster this time, that's all."

Father's eyes narrowed. "What could possibly make Lord Llewelyn so generous?"

"It's not Llewelyyn" Gryffd laughed. "It's these Franks. They're paying all of us twice our price."
I looked across the two strangers. They were across the fire, stripped of their armor, talking between themselves in a low tone, in a strange language. A thrill shot through me. So these were Franks. I had never seen a Frank before. I didn't know if Father had, but he looked at them carefully. My sister was staring at them, too.

The two stopped talking, aware of our attention, and looked back at us. They were dark-haired, clean shaven and had hard, dark eyes. They had the look of knights. I had only seen Norman and English knights before, and those at great distance, but these men seemed to me, a boy, there in the firelight that they certainly could have had warrior ancestors going back to Charlemagne.

They nodded to Father and each said a few words that I couldn't understand but which I'm sure included their names, and Father said something to welcome them and told them our names, and we drank, and then all went back to our own conversations.

"Strange bastards," Gryffyd said.

Father took the frozen rabbits from me. "I gathered in the wood," I said.
He nodded to tell me he understood. "Good," he said, and began hacking the rabbits into quarters with the ax. "Go sit by the fire and dry out."

My sister was already settled on the bench beside Gryffyd. She liked Gryffyd and was always curious about him and we he first came that past summer had followed him about for hours at a time. Gryffyd liked her, too, and called her llinos--finch--and in fact there beside him on the bench she looked like a finch perched beside a tree trunk.

I sidle past the reticent Tail-Beard to take the narrow place between him and the Franks, and when I did I saw piled in against the wall the four small chests and the rest of their baggage, on which they'd laid out their cloaks and armor. And there were the knight's hauberks. They weren't at all like Gwyffyd's or Tail-Beard's mail. These had long sleeves and caps and were crafted of such small rings and were so brightly polished that they looked like silver cloth. I reached out to touch them.

"What do the Franks want with us?" Father said, and with his mention of the Franks my hand shot back to me and I dropped down into the bench.

"The Franks like Llewellyn slaughtering the English and burning down their castles," Gryffyd said. "It keeps the whoreson English king's eyes on Wales instead of on crossing the channel and attacking them. And they're eager to keep things that way." He nodded toward the Franks. "I was told these two are King Philippe's men--though I have no way to ask them--and the silver is from Philippe Augustus himself."

"I'll be impressed when I'm paid," Father said.

"Amen," Gryffyd said, and they drained their cups. We'd had no ale since Gryffyd had come in the summer, and I was hoping myself to have a small share before Father and the visitors finished the cask.

Gryffyd looked into the cooking pot. "Tomorrow while you're making coins, Cynwrig, I'll get us plenty to eat." I remembered Gryffyd's bow. It was almost as tall as he was, and his arrows were like small javelins and could fly to a target two hundred paces away. I looked around and saw what must be the unstrung bow but could just as easily have been a tall curved staff, leaning against the wall, still wrapped in the leather that had protected it in the storm.
"No--better," he said, smirking, "I'll send the Franks out. Let's see what kind of hunters they are in a Welsh snow."