Hawk Quest

wind, uttering woeful cries.

‘We’re wasting time,’ Hero said. ‘Brant’s deserted.’

‘Wait. I thought I heard a voice.’

‘Only the gulls.’

‘No. Listen.’

Hero raised his head. ‘You’re imagining it.’

‘There it comes again. Listen.’

‘It’s nothing. Let’s go.’

But as Hero turned into the wind he caught the tail-end of movement over to his left. He picked it up again and thought it was an animal scuttling along a dune. It stopped and he saw that it was Brant, only his head showing. Arms flailing with effort, Brant gained the crest and threw a desperate glance behind him before flinging himself into the next hollow. Hero knew that he was fleeing for his life, yet his own reactions were strangely sluggish. It was as if he were spectating an event in some parallel world. When Brant appeared again, he was close enough for Hero to see the terror on his face. He must have noticed them because he seemed to shake his head in despair before floundering down into the next gully.

He was still hidden when the warhorses came rearing up out of the sand-sea behind him, swinging their heads like mallets, their hooves smashing breaches in the crest.

‘Run!’

Arms windmilling, they raced down the face. The Normans rode in different directions, weaving across each other, the horses galloping haywire though the warren of gullies.

Sliding down the next scarp, Richard tore his shoe and stumbled on with one sole flapping. They reached another summit and risked a backward glance. By some quirk of timing, all the Normans were hidden in the depressions. Then suddenly, like marionettes jerked on a string, up they rose, whipping their horses, bracing back in their saddles for the next crashing descent. Richard’s breaths came in wheezing gasps. Hero was so winded that he scrabbled up the last slope on all fours.

Raul and Wayland were waiting by the boat. Hero gave a feeble shout and they looked up, idly curious for an instant before springing into action. Hero launched into space, lost his footing and somersaulted down to the beach. Head spinning, he looked up at Wayland and found enough breath to speak.

‘Normans. Chasing Brant.’

Wayland lugged them down the beach. Raul was pushing the boat into the surf.

Wayland dragged them through the waves. Raul seized them one in each hand and plucked them aboard. They grabbed oars. Hero squirmed round to see Brant stagger on to the last dune. He covered his face with his hands at the awful sight of the boat rowing away. A spear flew past him and he plunged off the crest.

‘We can’t just leave him,’ Hero cried.

‘He left us,’ Raul panted, not breaking rhythm.

Brant fell down the dune as if part of him were broken. When he gained his feet, he seemed disoriented, limping away up the beach before turning towards the boat. His right leg had an arrow in the thigh and dragged behind him. He was halfway down the strand when the first Normans rode on to the sand ridge. They saw that he couldn’t escape and halted while the rest of the force gathered. Upwards of twenty crested the skyline by the time Brant staggered to the water’s edge. He spread his arms, his mouth gaping in a howl of outrage.

Some of the Normans dismounted and left their horses and descended on foot. Others led their mounts sideways down the face, while the bolder cavaliers kicked with their spurs, their steeds sliding down the dune on their hindquarters. One soldier drew a bow and aimed at Brant, but an officer shouted and the archer slackened off.

Raul grabbed his crossbow. ‘Stop rowing!’

‘He’s a dead man,’ said Wayland. ‘Don’t waste your bolts.’

Raul backhanded him across the chest. ‘Stop rowing.’

He knelt, resting one elbow on the thwart to steady his aim.

Brant turned to face his hunters and held up his hands in a gesture so abject that Hero groaned for pity.

‘Everyone keep still,’ Raul ordered.

The boat slopped up and down. Raul muttered something and froze into greater concentration. Hero heard a small explosion as the pent-up energy of the bolt was released. Brant arched back, hands fluttering, took a couple of steps sideways and pitched into the shallows.

Raul picked up his oar. ‘I had to kill him. He’d have told them our course and destination.’

Two soldiers ran into the sea to recover the body. The rest gathered around their commander. Hero could see him giving directions. The force split, half a dozen men riding back up on to the dunes, the rest galloping hard up the beach.

‘What are they up to?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Raul, ‘but they ain’t given up on us.’

*

On board Shearwater, Wayland reported that the island was cut off from the mainland by a shallow bay riddled with banks and bars.

‘Is there a way out?’ Vallon asked.

‘There’s a narrow channel at the other end.’

‘That’s probably where the cavalry are making for,’ said Raul.

‘Any shipping in the bay?’

Wayland shook his head.

‘What about the island? Is it inhabited?’

‘I saw only ruins.’

Vallon studied the dunes. Against the gloomy evening sky, the Norman soldiers waited in menacing silhouette. The detachment that had galloped north was out of sight. The tidal current had eased and the wind had fallen. ‘We’ll take a look at the bay,’ he said.

They rowed parallel with the beach, the soldiers on the dunes reining in their horses to keep pace with them. The fugitives reached the point at the end of the beach. The bay was draining to mud, veined by dozens of channels gleaming in the gathering dark. ‘We won’t cross it without stranding,’ said Vallon. He studied the island and pointed at its rocky southern point less than a mile away. ‘Make for the shelter of the cliffs.’

Night caught up with them before they reached the lee. They felt their way in and dropped anchor when they heard the sound of waves sucking among rocks. Hero tried to conjecture some form in the darkness. Seals moaned out on the flats. Surf boomed on the cliffs around the headland.

‘Do you want me to go ashore and explore?’ Wayland asked Vallon.

‘Wait a while.’

Just then a light appeared high above them.

‘The Normans must have crossed on to the island,’ Raul muttered.

‘They wouldn’t wave a lantern. Everybody stay quiet.’

Hero watched the lantern bobbing down the black face of night. The light reached sea level and stopped. A voice called.

‘Anyone catch that?’

‘Sounded like English,’ said Wayland. ‘English and then another language.’

‘Don’t you go answering,’ Raul hissed. ‘They could be wreckers.’

The voice called again and the lantern swung like a censer.

‘He’s speaking Latin,’ said Hero. ‘Pax vobiscum. Peace be with you. Venite in ripam. Nolite timere. Come ashore. Don’t be afraid.’

Raul spat. ‘Not likely. Wreckers try all sorts of tricks to lure sailors into their clutches.’

Vallon snorted. ‘How many wreckers do you know who speak Latin? Maybe there’s a monastery on the island. Hero, ask him who he is.’

Hero made a trumpet with his hands. ‘Quis es tu?’

Laughter in the dark. ‘Brother Cuthbert, erimetes sum.’

‘He says he’s a hermit monk.’

‘Ask him if there are any Normans on the island.’