pass out. The dog nuzzled him and then began to lick at his back. Wayland was so shocked that he smacked it across the jaws. It retreated and lay down with its head couched on its legs, watching him with unblinking reproach.
Wayland could read the dog’s mind. Tentatively, he felt for the pack. Strange. He expected it to be pinned to his back, but it moved freely. He reached over his shoulder, took hold of the crossbow bolt and pulled. The pack lifted. Understanding struck. He threw back his head and laughed. Unnerved by the strange sound, the dog moved away and curled up at a distance.
Wayland struggled out of the pack. The lower part was sopping with blood. He could smell its sickly odour. He unlaced the pack, dug his hand into it and scooped out a handful of bloody porridge. The gore came from the boar they had killed yesterday. He’d poured it into a bladder, intending to use it for pudding. He held out the mess to the dog. Unsure of his mood, it stayed where it was.
Time had gone awry. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting at the base of the alder. For all he knew, the Normans had crossed the bridge and were creeping up on him. He scrambled forward. They were still on the other side, four of them crouched on guard behind trees, the huntsman kneeling on the ground.
‘ … bleeding like a stuck pig. He’s not going far.’
Drax touched the huntsman’s hand, examined his fingers, then bent and wiped them on the leaf litter. He stared across the gorge.
‘It’s nearly night,’ one of the soldiers said. ‘And the dog will be with him. He’ll have crawled off to die in a hole. Leave it until morning.’
Drax looked up at the trees steepling into the darkening sky. ‘Roussel was my comrade. The least I can do is recover his murderer’s corpse. Rufus, come with me. The rest of you, cover us.’
Drax climbed onto the bridge and began to shuffle across, holding out his sword and shield for balance. Wayland watched him. He waited until he’d reached the middle before sighting. It was an awkward shot, a steep downward angle, the target hard to make out in the gloom. He didn’t see where his first arrow went. Drax heard it and stopped, teetering for balance. Wayland shot again and clicked his tongue in annoyance as the arrow dived into the tree behind Drax’s feet.
‘Get back!’
Rufus managed to scurry to safety. Drax turned, manoeuvring like an old man. Wayland shifted to a better vantage but he didn’t have to draw again. Drax’s feet slipped. His legs shot out from under him. He dropped his weapons and managed to hook his arms over the trunk. His legs flailed as he tried to drag himself up, but the rotten wood provided no purchase. He clung for a moment by sheer terrified willpower, then dropped howling into the gorge.
The soldiers didn’t make a sound. Like defeated phantoms, they backed into the trees behind their upraised shields. With a drawn-out groan, Wayland lay down on his back. He spread his limbs and lay unmoving while the sky turned to black and stars blinked through the tree canopy. He grew cold, but still he didn’t move. Bats flitted overhead. Beside him the dog gobbled the mess of blood and meal. Images of the day’s events broke into his consciousness like bubbles. Ever since the day he’d seen his family massacred, he’d fantasised about taking his revenge. He’d imagined the triumph he would feel. Well, now the moment had come, and he didn’t feel a thing.
He crossed the river upstream and sent the dog scouting ahead. It returned and told him that the soldiers had left. In the dark it took him a long time to find his family’s graves. He knelt beside the weed-covered mounds and lit five candles. The flames conjured up spirits. They hovered around him, his mother anxious and disapproving, his grandfather exultant, Edith still lost and scared.
He couldn’t bring them back. Killing a hundred Normans wouldn’t bring them back. Memory was the only bridge between the living and the dead. He’d returned to guard that link, but now he was back he knew that the woods wouldn’t provide a sanctuary for long. The world that had seemed so vast when he was a child was growing smaller each year. The Normans had caught him once; sooner or later they would catch him again. To survive, he would have to move on, across the fells to the west, into unknown territory.
Loneliness overwhelmed him. For the first time in years he yearned for human company. He thought of the fugitives. If they had followed his directions, they would be camped a few miles upriver. Using his bow as a crutch, he levered himself upright and stood with bowed head.
He limped away. At the edge of the clearing he stopped for one last look. The candles burned tiny in the dark. Once they had flickered out, nothing would remain to tell a stranger that a family had lived here. Tears spangled his vision. He turned away and went on.
VIII
Hero and Richard sat side by side under a shared blanket. The fire had dwindled to a single tongue of flame. Raul lay snoring on the other side of it. Vallon was keeping watch somewhere in the trees on the crag above.
Hero was trying to teach Richard how to calculate latitude by measuring the angular elevation of the Pole Star with his astrolabe. Richard had difficulty locating the correct star. ‘Not that one,’ said Hero. ‘Further right. Between the Great Bear and Cassiopeia — the constellation shaped like the letter W.’
‘I think I’ve got it,’ said Richard. ‘I expected it to be brighter.’
‘Now suspend the astrolabe as steadily as you can and line up the sighting bar.’
Richard pivoted the bar and squinted up it.
‘Let me see,’ Hero said, taking the astrolabe from him. He read off the star’s apparent position from the scale on the rim of the instrument. ‘Hmm, more than ten degrees out.’
‘What’s a degree?’
‘It’s an arc equal to the 360th part of the Earth’s circumference.’
Richard thought about it. ‘You’re saying that the Earth is round?’
‘Of course. That’s why the horizon curves when you view the sea from a height.’
‘I’ve only seen the sea once, when we crossed from Normandy. I was sick the whole passage.’ Richard frowned. ‘If the earth is round, we must live on top of it. Otherwise we’d fall off.’
‘Wasps walk round apples without falling off.’
‘They have more legs than we do. They can walk upside down on a ceiling.’
‘There must be some force that keeps us grounded,’ Hero conceded. ‘Perhaps it’s the same force that makes the needle of my compass point south and north.’
Richard sighed in drowsy admiration. ‘How much you know. Tell me more.’
Hero watched the stars sliding around Polaris. Raul gave a rasping snore that tailed off into vigorous lip smacking. ‘It’s time you told
‘I had to leave. At the castle, I had no say in my future.’
‘That’s not what I meant. Vallon isn’t interested in your future. This must have something to do with the ransom.’
‘Hasn’t he told you?’
‘There hasn’t been time to talk. I didn’t even know we were leaving until last night.’
‘Keep it down,’ Raul growled.
Richard moved closer. ‘Lady Margaret has persuaded Vallon to lead an expedition to Norway. First we have to raise the finance. We’re travelling south to a Jewish moneylender. I’m not allowed to tell you where. Vallon says that the fewer people know, the safer for all of us.’
Even though it was the answer he’d been expecting, Hero was shocked. ‘Vallon’s not going to Norway. Why would he risk his life to save a man he’s never met — a man whose brother tried to kill us?’
‘Vallon can use some of the money to trade and make a profit on the venture.’
‘That shows how little you know him. He’s a soldier, not a merchant. It’s just a trick to escape. Once he has
