Walter took a false step and sank to his knees. The surface quivered around him. Wayland helped him onto firm ground.
‘That’s far enough. My armour makes it too dangerous.’
‘There’s still enough light to find her.’
‘We’re already in too far. Take me back.’
‘You return if you want.’
‘I don’t know the way.’
‘Then stay with me. I won’t be long.’
Walter drew his sword. ‘Tell me what Drogo’s planning.’
‘We’re wasting time better spent on searching. Come on.’
Walter dragged him back and raised his sword. ‘You’re wasting
Wayland looked into Walter’s eyes.
‘Well?’
Wayland’s gaze darted. ‘I heard her bell.’
Walter yanked his arm. ‘Liar. The wind’s loud enough to drown a church peal.’
‘No,’ Wayland said, disengaging from Walter’s grip. He walked away, his eyes tracking right and left before stopping. He pointed. ‘It came from over there.’
Walter stumbled along beside him. Every few steps Wayland called out. The bell didn’t sound again. He slowed his pace, scared of treading on the falcon. He peered through the reeds, trying to sieve her form out of the darkness. ‘Where are you?’
The faintest of tinkles. Wayland placed a hand on Walter’s arm. ‘She’s close. Don’t move.’
He dropped on to hands and knees and crawled forward, mouthing sweet nothings. The rasp of the bell came again. He advanced a few feet and the haggard uttered an anxious
He pulled himself towards it. He was only a yard away when the blur shaped itself into the haggard, lying prone with her wings outspread. She was frightened by the darkness and wind, the threat from the eagle. His arrival reassured her and she stood and mantled over her prey. Her bell shivered.
Wayland stretched out his right hand. She hadn’t even started plucking the pigeon. If the eagle hadn’t menaced her, she would have gorged by now and flown off to roost.
His cold fingers fumbled before getting a grip on her jesses. No time to fit the swivel. Teeth chattering, he threaded the leash through the slits. When he’d looped the leash around his glove, his pent up breath burst out.
‘Where are you?’ Walter called. He’d been calling for some time.
Wayland lifted the falcon and her prey onto his glove and rocked back on his knees. ‘I’ve got her.’
The wind blew Walter’s response away.
Wayland slipped the hood on and made his way back.
Walter seized his arm. ‘Now tell me how Drogo and the Frank intend to murder me.’
‘Wait until we’re clear of the bogs. Stay close. Tread where I tread.’
He took his bearings by the twin peaks and set off. The wind had strengthened to a gale and the reeds lashed over his head like swords.
‘Slow down, damn you. I can hardly see you.’
Wayland increased his pace and reached one of the quagmires. He stepped onto it and felt the surface give. He looked behind him.
Walter was out of sight, thrashing through the reeds. ‘Wait for me.’
Wayland took a breath and crossed the bog at a gliding run. On the other side he stopped with a hand held over his thumping heart. He heard a splash and a shocked cry.
‘Blood of Christ! Another foot and I’d have been lost. Where are you, damn you?’
‘Here.’
Walter’s dim outline appeared on the far edge of the bog. ‘Why do you go so fast? What path do I take?’
‘Straight across.’
‘This isn’t the way we came. It’s a bog.’
‘It’s the path I’ve just taken. There are my footprints.’
‘You aren’t wearing sixty pounds of armour.’
‘The surface will bear your weight.’
Walter took one cautious step. ‘It trembles. I’m going to find a way round it.’
‘It’s too late to find another way. Walk towards me. Don’t linger on one spot.’
Walter shuffled forward, knees bent, hands outstretched. Wayland watched with detachment. If he reaches me, he thought, I’ll let him live. Step after step he came closer, muttering to himself. The surface around him wallowed in slow undulations. He looked up, face white with fear in the starlight. ‘It won’t hold.’
‘Keep moving.’
Walter took three more steps and was halfway across when the surface gave way and he plunged into the bog like a man falling through the hangman’s trap. He floundered waist-deep. ‘I can’t move,’ he gibbered. ‘The swamp holds me fast. I’m sinking. Oh my God! Help me!’
Wayland watched him.
‘Save me! Why do you stand there? Why don’t you speak?’
Wayland’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Walter stopped struggling. ‘Is this why you brought me? I understand now. It’s Drogo’s doing. You’re the instrument of his hatred.’ His voice fell away in a moan of despair.
Wayland recovered his voice. ‘It’s nothing to do with Drogo or Vallon!’
Only the stars for witness. Walter’s teeth chattered.
‘Why do you want to harm me? I rescued you from the wilderness. I gave you house space, made you my falconer. Why do you want to harm me?’
Wayland bent forward, his face ugly. ‘Because you cut off a man’s head.’
‘I’ve killed many men in battle. What are you talking about?’
Wayland dropped to a crouch. ‘It was my father’s head.’
‘I don’t know your father. I can’t remember every English warrior who fell by my sword.’
‘He wasn’t a warrior and you didn’t kill him in battle. He was a farmer and you rode into his farmstead one evening four years ago as he was splitting firewood. Your men held him down over the chopping block and you hacked off his head and you laughed. When he was dead, you took my mother and my older sister into the cottage and raped them. Then you cut their throats and set fire to the house with my grandfather inside.’
‘That wasn’t me. It must have been Drogo.’
‘It was you and Drax and Roussel and others. I was there. I was watching.’
Walter began to pant. ‘I did no more than any other Norman would have done. Your father was poaching my deer. The penalty for poaching is death.’
‘My mother and sisters weren’t poachers.’
Walter groaned. ‘Wayland, I could have killed you when I found you in the forest. Show me the same mercy I granted you. Drogo wouldn’t have spared your life.’
Wayland straightened. ‘Confess your crime and repent.’
‘Confess? To an English peasant?’
‘Repent or die.’
‘I repent nothing. My only regret is that I didn’t kill you.’
Wayland’s voice fell to a mumble. ‘All you have to do is repent. Beg forgiveness and I’ll save you.’
‘Never.’
Wayland clawed at his face. All his dreams and hopes had turned rotten. Before the night was much older, he too would be dead, leaving Syth and their unborn child alone in an alien land.
Walter breathed in juddering spasms. ‘This is your own revenge, isn’t it? Vallon doesn’t know.’
‘I’ve told no one.’
