‘Are you fit to ride?’ Eudo asked.
‘He’s too weak,’ Wace said grimly.
‘We’re two days from Eoferwic, out in the open country without food or shelter, and with the enemy behind us. We can’t stay here.’
Wace said nothing. He glanced at me briefly and then turned his head down towards the ground, his eyes closed as if deep in thought.
‘What do you suggest we do?’ Eudo asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Wace said, and there was frustration, even anger, in his voice. His hand clenched to form a fist. ‘If I did, don’t you think I would say?’
‘We have to get to Eoferwic.’
‘I know that.’ Wace stood and began to pace about, his hands clasped upon his brow.
I heard the two of them speaking to one another, though I could not make out what they were saying. At length I found the energy to sit up, but without help I could not get to my feet. And as the feeling returned to my body, so did the pain.
Eventually they came back, Wace making for his horse and mounting up without delay. ‘I’ll see what I can find,’ he said to Eudo as he worked his feet through the stirrups and gripped the reins. ‘Rest here, but don’t light a fire. Give him water; keep him warm. I’ll return soon.’
Then he dug his heels in and galloped away down the hill. The sound of hooves was muffled against the mud, until it faded and once more there was silence.
‘Get some sleep,’ Eudo told me when Wace had gone. ‘I’ll keep watch.’
‘Where’s he going?’ I managed to say. It was a struggle even to get the words out: they seemed to grind against my throat.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Eudo said. ‘He’ll be back, and we’ll be in Eoferwic before long.’
I wanted to press him further, but I had so little strength. I lay back down, giving in to my tiredness. But I did not sleep, not truly. Instead I found myself slipping in and out of wakefulness: one moment staring up at the stars in the sky; the next back in Dinant, where I had spent so much of my youth, or in Commines that autumn long ago. Except that both places were different to how I remembered them, now nothing but grey wildernesses, empty of all life, the halls and houses ancient and crumbled, and though I tried many times to call out, no one ever answered.
But then at last I heard voices again. I opened my eyes. It was still dark, the night still cold. I turned my head and saw Wace, or perhaps I only imagined him. He stood beside his horse, with what appeared to be a wooden cart attached to its harness. And then there were arms beneath my shoulders and my legs, and I felt myself raised up, the ground disappearing from beneath me. I was being taken someplace I did not know, and I tried to struggle, but my limbs were weak and their hold strong, and I could do nothing.
Then there was something hard and flat beneath my back, and I was laid down once more. I tried to ask them what was happening, but could not find the words. I heard the same voices, and horses whinnying. I remembered Rollo, but then my head grew heavy and I gave in to sleep.
I felt myself jolted from side to side, drifting through broken dreams. Before long black skies changed to grey, and then from grey to white. About me on wooden planks were strewn loose stalks of straw, and I tried to cling to them, though they kept slipping from my fingers. The wind wrapped its icy tendrils about me, shaking me as if it had my entire body in its grip. I felt so cold, and yet at the same time my leg was burning: burning like nothing I had ever known.
The voices still murmured to one another, though I could not make out what they were saying. Later a shadow came across me and I saw a face leaning over, but his features seemed blurred, and I did not recognise him, though for some reason I felt that I should have. He pressed a hand to my forehead and spoke some more, but whatever it was that he said, I couldn’t understand.
Then he was gone and the jolting began again. I closed my eyes and tried to rest, to escape the cold, to escape the pain. I no longer knew what time it was; always when I woke it was to unchanged skies. Then from above I noticed white flakes falling, dancing silently down to settle on my cloak. A few landed upon my face, and I felt the warmth drain from my cheeks as they melted.
‘Snow,’ someone said. Eudo, I thought, though he seemed somehow far away, and I struggled to hear him.
‘We have to carry on. If we keep moving we might reach Eoferwic by dawn tomorrow. It’s the only way we can help him.’
Forms danced about me in the darkness, shifting and changing like coils of smoke. Figures came and went, and I thought I knew who some of them were, but I could not be sure. For a long time I didn’t know where I was, but when the shadows cleared, I found myself riding through the streets, sword and shield in hand.
Dunholm was in flames. A roof collapsed, sending up sparks; of another house only blackened timbers remained. Our men were fleeing, running and riding past me in their scores. I fought against the flow, pressing on alone, up the hill towards the fastness and the mead-hall. That was where Lord Robert was, and I knew I had to get to him before it was too late. Nothing else mattered.
Rollo’s hooves pounded the dirt below. My ears were filled with the clanging of the church bell, the screams of the dying, the roars of the enemy. One Englishman after another came to challenge me, charging at me with spears and axes, and one after another they fell to my blade as I carved my path through them, riding them down. Blood sprayed across my sword-arm, but I did not feel it.
Before me stood the palisade that ringed the fastness, its tall timbers rising up to the sky. I spurred Rollo on, and then I was riding through the gates, with spears and arrows raining down to right and left. Ahead I saw the mead-hall, and in front of it, Lord Robert. He was on foot and on his own, and for every one of the enemy he felled, two more came to face him as he was pushed back towards the hall.
I called out to him, but he did not hear me. My blade swung as I pushed through the enemy’s midst, but each time I looked towards Robert, he seemed ever further away, until eventually I could see him no longer. The mead- hall was ablaze and suddenly I was surrounded, fending off attacks from all sides. Beside me Fulcher was thrown from his saddle, Gerard dragged down and set upon, and I wondered where they had been, why they had not been with me when I had needed them.
And then without warning the pain rushed up on me, and I was on the ground, clutching at my leg, staring at the blood that was gushing forth. One of the enemy stood over me, grinning. He raised his spear high, ready to thrust down, to make the finishing blow. I stared back up at him despairingly as I tried to move, and found that I could not.
He gave a laugh of disdain, booming and hollow, before finally the steel point stabbed down and darkness engulfed me.
Seven
The sun was in my eyes when next I woke, so bright that for the briefest moment I wondered if I had died and if this were heaven. But as I blinked the moisture from my eyes, raising a hand to shield them from the light, slowly the world came into view.
I found myself lying upon a narrow bed in a chamber barely larger than a horse’s stall. There was a single glass slit for a window, and the light was shining straight in, glaring off the whitewashed plaster. I must have slept a long time, for the sun was high, but even so I still felt tired. A fire crackled in the small hearth. Two stools stood beside the bed, and on top of one was a wooden cup. The rest of the room was empty; there was no sign of my mail or shield, or even of my cloak or shoes.
I did not recognise this place. The last I remembered, it had been night and we were riding along the old road, making for Eoferwic. I had collapsed, fallen from the saddle; Wace had gone away and then returned. But what had happened after that I did not know. I tried to think back, but it was like chasing shadows in the night: no sooner did an image come to mind than it slipped away again, melting back into darkness.
Only the battle came back to me clearly: the one thing I would rather have forgotten. Even as I lay there I could almost feel the thunder of hooves beneath me; I could see myself leading the charge as we drove into the
