‘I told you he wouldn’t come,’ Wace muttered as we made our way back that second morning under the grey light of dawn. ‘We’re wasting our time.’
‘He’ll come,’ I said, although I was steadily growing less sure of that. ‘If Morcar has any sense at all, he won’t let this chance slip from his grasp.’
Once more, then, we set out for the island of Litelport. Since we didn’t know whether Godric would heed the instruction to come alone, we travelled in force. With me were Serlo and Pons, Eudo and Wace and all their knights, together with Hamo and a few of his bowmen. That way, if Godric’s friends tried to take revenge for our ambush, we would be ready. We were joined this night by Lord Robert, who brought a handful of his household knights, his father’s fever having abated a little, for now at least.
‘He grows weaker by the day,’ he told me. His face was drawn and his eyes hollow. ‘The bouts of sickness come more frequently, and though tonight he enjoys some respite, tomorrow he will grow worse again.’
I didn’t know what to say to that. I confess I wasn’t much used to families, and had never really understood them. Whereas Robert was close to his father, I’d hardly known mine. A Breton lord of no great standing named Baderon, he had been killed in a feud with a rival when I was only five or six summers old. Of my mother, Emma, my memories were even more vague. She had passed from this world a year earlier while giving birth to the girl who would have been my sister. The only kinship I knew, and had ever really known, was that which existed between myself and my sword-brothers: the bond of the conroi.
‘I see such pain in his eyes,’ Robert went on. ‘He is determined to live to see our victory over the rebels, but God only knows when that may be, if indeed it happens at all.’
‘I pray for him,’ I said. ‘We all do.’
He smiled in thanks, but it was a smile that quickly faded. ‘I sent word a few weeks ago both to my mother at Graville, and to Beatrice. I hope they will have a chance to see him before he passes away, although with each day that goes by, it seems ever more unlikely.’
‘We can but hope, lord,’ I said, although to speak truthfully I wasn’t looking forward to meeting Malet’s wife, Elise, again. A stern-faced woman lacking in humour, she hadn’t much taken to me the last time we’d met, and I had little reason to suppose she would be any better inclined now. With Beatrice, Robert’s sister, I was on better terms, and indeed counted her as a friend, one of the few I seemed to have in those days. She was married now, or so Robert had told me, to the vicomte of Archis in Normandy, a baron of moderate wealth and noble parentage, who was both a close friend and a tenant of the Malets. It could easily be a week before word reached them across the Narrow Sea, however, and another before they were able to make the crossing, depending on the wind and the tides, and perhaps another still to reach us here in the fen country. Whether Malet had strength enough to last out until they arrived, none but God could know. Doubtless Robert was making the same reckoning, for he had fallen quiet now, lost in his own thoughts.
In silence, then, we rounded the northern shore of the island until we found the familiar inlet where the water ran shallow and the willows grew. We guided our punts close to the bank, where banks of tall reeds kept us out of sight from the river and the low-hanging branches provided a good mooring place. Leaving a few men behind to guard the boats, we ventured away from the inlet, up a gentle rise through long grasses and thick bramble hedges until we were just within sight of the marker stone that I’d chosen as our meeting place. And there, for the third night, we crouched in the shadows and we waited.
And waited.
Hours passed. The glittering stars became obscured as cloud spread across the sky. The wind rose, rustling the grass so that it seemed there were voices all around us, whispering, and the rain soon followed, hesitantly at first but quickly growing heavier. We huddled down inside our cloaks, our hoods raised, letting the water roll off the wool. The smell of moist earth rose up, reminding me of the green pastures of Earnford, and for a moment I was back there again, as it was during the spring with the new shoots breaking the soil and the first leaf-buds appearing on the trees in the woods.
Thunder pealed out, like the roar of some fearsome beast unleashed from the caverns of hell to wreak its fury upon the world. I made the sign of the cross to ward off any evil spirits that might be lurking, hoping that it wasn’t a sign of ill fortune to come. No sooner had I done so than the rain began to ease. Another roar resounded through the night sky, but it seemed further away. It was followed some moments later by another, and another, each one quieter than the last, until all was still again.
And through that stillness came a sound. A sound like a voice, except that this time I was sure it wasn’t just the wind. It came from the direction of the marker stone, though from so far away I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
‘Did you hear that?’ I asked, taking care to keep my voice low.
Robert nodded and put a finger to his lips, while out of the corner of my eye I saw Pons rest his hand upon his sword-hilt. Through the heads of the grass and the all-enshrouding mist I glimpsed twin points of orange light, the sort that could only come from torches or lanterns.
Godric had not come alone.
Shadowy figures moved around the light; in the darkness and from such a distance it was hard to tell exactly how many, but at a guess I would have said they numbered about ten, most of them warriors, if the glint of their spearpoints and their helmets were anything to judge by.
‘Show yourselves,’ a man shouted out in French, but I didn’t recognise his voice, which was deep and harsh and carried the proud tones of one who was used to being obeyed. ‘I know you’re there.’
Serlo looked at me. ‘What do we do, lord?’
I glanced at Robert, whose face bore a grim expression. ‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘Wait until I say.’
‘I have no time for this,’ the man called. ‘I’ve come to talk, not to fight.’
That sounded like the kind of thing Morcar was likely to say, although I hadn’t been expecting him to come in person. I’d thought he would prefer to stay where there was no danger, in his hall in the monastery at Elyg, rather than speak with us himself.
‘You’ve come to talk, have you?’ Robert shouted out. ‘You have a strange way of showing it.’
He rose and strode forward, towards the flickering torch-glow, at the same time signalling to the rest of us to get to our feet, which we did, albeit a little stiffly after so long spent crouched in the cold and the damp. Hamo and his men nocked arrows to their bowstrings in warning, and I laid my sword-hand upon my hilt as I followed Robert, my boots sinking into the soft earth. A thin drizzle still fell; droplets rolled off the leaves, pattering on to the sodden earth.
‘I didn’t come with a whole army to protect me,’ the man pointed out. He stepped closer to the light and I saw him properly for the first time. What I was expecting, I wasn’t sure. There was little resemblance between nephew and uncle, for while the boy had been short of stature, fair in complexion and round in the cheek, the elder one was tall and dark-featured, with a face composed of hard lines that drew together to form a stern expression. How many he was in years, I could not say exactly, although I might have guessed around thirty- five.
‘Are you Morcar?’ Robert asked, coming to a halt about ten paces from the Englishmen.
‘Were you expecting someone else?’
Robert shrugged. ‘At least you had the nerve to come yourself this night, rather than send a boy to do a man’s work.’
‘If you’re hoping to win my allegiance, you’re not doing very well,’ Morcar said. ‘I might decide I don’t want to parley after all, and go back to the Isle. Then you would have to face your king’s displeasure for having let your one chance at winning this war slip away.’
‘Or else I could kill you now and be done with it.’
‘You could, but you would as likely die trying,’ Morcar said with a sneer. ‘And several of your men with you, besides. Your little raiding-band might have managed to surprise my nephew the other night, but we both know that an open fight is another matter entirely.’
Had the numbers lain more in our favour, I might have thought like Robert, but as it was I found myself agreeing with Morcar. Giving battle was always a risky business, and never a course of action to be undertaken lightly, unless victory could be all but assured, which in this case it could not.
‘Where is your nephew?’ Robert asked. ‘Is he here, or have you left him back at Elyg where he can do no harm?’
‘He is here,’ Morcar said, and gave a snap of his fingers. ‘Godric!’ One of the men I’d taken for Morcar’s
