‘Come on,’ Robert said as he turned in the direction of the inlet where the willows grew, where Baudri and the others were waiting with the boats to take us back to Brandune. ‘Let’s leave this place.’
Eight
Fortunately the king seemed to be satisfied by Morcar’s terms and the gift of the two slave-girls, for the next morning, under cloudless skies and a fierce sun, we made ready to quit Brandune, and I prayed it was the last we would see of that fetid cesspit.
Awaiting us was Alrehetha, where the bridge was being rebuilt. Most of our host had already assembled there, and we were among the last few hundred men to make the journey, along with the king and his retinue. A token force would be left to guard the boats moored there, together with enough provisions to keep them fed. Everything else we took with us: bundles of firewood, timber planks, sacks of grain to feed our horses, barrels of salted fish and pickled eels, spare spearheads and mail hauberks, all of which were loaded on to carts or sumpter ponies. With us, too, travelled all the leech-doctors and fletchers, wheelwrights and armourers and priests who attended upon an army, as well as the ever-present rolls-keepers who recorded every last bundle of wool and roll of cloth taken from the royal storehouses, every chicken and goose placed in a cage for the journey, and made a tally of every cart and haywain as it was harnessed to a team of oxen and sent on its way to join the main column.
And among those rolls-keepers, as always, was Atselin. He sat at his usual desk in the yard outside the king’s hall, except that a canopy had now been erected above his head to shield his bald head and his precious parchments from the sun and the rain. He was overseeing the other clerks, who scurried about from building to building with bundles of scrolls under their arms on which presumably were written lists of goods, which they brought to him for his approval and his seal. A crowd was forming about his writing-desk and I hoped to escape his attention as I made my way past, towards the paddock where my destrier, Fyrheard, was grazing.
I wasn’t so lucky. My gaze must have lingered a little too long. Even as I looked away, he called my name. For an instant I hesitated, deciding whether to heed him or pretend I hadn’t heard, but then he called a second time, louder this time, and I realised I couldn’t ignore him. Sighing, I turned and made my way over as, with a wave of his hand, he dismissed the queue of grumbling underclerks.
‘What do you want, Atselin?’ I asked, without so much as a word of greeting. He would not have offered me that courtesy, and I saw no reason why I should do any differently.
He did not look up but continued to scrawl, squinting intently at the page. The grey of the goose-feather quill in his hand matched the crown of hair around his tonsure.
‘I merely wished to congratulate you,’ he said, although there was no warmth in his voice. ‘I understand that Morcar agreed to the king’s most generous offer.’
I frowned, suspecting some manner of snide remark to follow. ‘That’s right. What of it?’
‘Nothing, save to remind you that you are fortunate that your idea was successful, that young Godric remained true to his word and that his uncle was willing to listen to what he had to say. But don’t expect that King Guillaume will grant you or your lord any special favours because of it.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The king still remembers how you defied him by venturing out on your little raiding expedition without his approval. Your good fortune changes none of that. Don’t forget, either, that had your plan failed, it would have been on your head. He would have given up a valuable hostage for no good reason.’
‘You’re wrong,’ I said. ‘He had no intention of keeping Godric prisoner. Had I not spoken when I did, the boy’s corpse would be swinging from the highest branch overlooking the fens as a warning to his countrymen. We wouldn’t have Morcar on our side but instead would surely be marching towards almost certain defeat.’
Atselin’s quill stopped, his hand suspended above the page, but still he did not look at me. ‘You think very highly of yourself, Tancred of Earnford.’
‘You were there,’ I said, almost spitting the words. My blood ran hot, as it always did whenever I found myself trying to reason with this weasel. ‘You were there, in Robert’s hall, when the boy’s fate was decided. So tell me, monk, which part of what I’ve said isn’t true?’
I waited for long moments, but no words were forthcoming. Instead he dipped his quill in the inkwell and carried on writing as if I weren’t there.
‘Speak to me, you miserable, shit-stinking rat,’ I said, and snatched the parchment he was working on out from beneath his hand. ‘Am I or am I not telling the truth?’
At once he leant across the desk, trying with his free hand to claim the sheet back, but I held it just out of reach.
‘Give that to me,’ he said, wearing a tired expression on his face.
‘First apologise, and answer me.’
He stared at me as if I were speaking in some foreign tongue. ‘Why should I apologise to you?’
‘Why?’ I echoed. ‘You call me over only to sneer at my deeds, and then you all but accuse me of telling lies. That’s why.’
He rose from his stool and made another attempt to grab at the parchment, but I was too quick for him, and he succeeded only in getting a fingertip to it.
‘No more of these games,’ he said. ‘Give that back to me now.’
‘Or what?’ I challenged him.
In the brief time I’d known Atselin, I had never seen him roused to anger. Always he had maintained a serene expression, as if he had seen all there was to see in the world and there was no longer anything that surprised or vexed him, but there was fire in his eyes then, and in his cheeks, too, which were burning red.
‘I will offer you some advice, Tancred. You do not wish to get on the wrong side of me.’ He spoke though gritted teeth. ‘You do not want me as your enemy.’
I’d heard words to that effect before, although not from his lips. I gave a snort of disdain. ‘Am I supposed to take that as a threat?’
‘It is a warning. Heed it or ignore it, as you wish.’
‘Do you think I’m frightened of you?’ I asked. ‘You, with your quill and your rolls? What are you going to do? Drown me in ink, perhaps, or else bore me to death by reciting your records?’
Atselin’s eyes were like knives. ‘I’m not concerned whether or not you fear me. But I will tell you now that I’ve suffered enough of your insults. For too long I have tolerated your boorish manner and withstood your contempt. No longer.’ He made another attempt to seize back his precious sheet of vellum, and this time I was too surprised by his outburst to stop him. ‘Now, leave me in peace,’ he said. ‘The morning is wearing on and I have work I must attend to.’
I gave him a final glare, but he was unmoved, and so I left him to his parchments, striding away towards the paddock as the clerks in their black robes once more descended, crowding about his desk with scrolls and writs for his attention.
As I walked away, I tried to make sense of what Atselin had said. From what I recalled, we’d been assured of reward as long as our ploy worked and Morcar agreed to join our cause, but the monk had suggested otherwise. Had the king since changed his mind on the matter? If so, it seemed strange that the first any of us would learn of it was from Atselin. Unless he were lying to me, but what reason would he have for doing so?
And what did he mean by his threat, or warning, or whatever one cared to call it? I didn’t know, but resolved to keep my distance from the monk over the coming days: not because I feared him, but because I had no patience left for such distractions. Soon we would be riding into battle, and if I was to make it through alive, I wanted to be as ready as possible, to spend every moment I could honing my sword-skills and imagining what I would do when we met the enemy battle-lines. Nothing else mattered. My own fate, not to mention those of my knights and companions, depended on it.
The march to Alrehetha took the rest of that day, and all of the next, too. Though the route was probably only thirty miles, we were prevented from travelling as swiftly as we would have liked by the baggage train, which was forever drawing to a halt whenever an ox fell down lame, or a horse lost its shoe, or an axle became detached from one of its wheels and we had to move the offending haywain or wagon off the track so as not to
