‘They met at the court of King Mael Coluim three winters ago. He supported both Eadgar’s rebellions, but there was some disagreement between him and the ætheling after the failure of last year’s campaign. He took his leave by ship shortly afterwards. We didn’t hear of him after that, until a passing trader happened to mention him, and that’s how we learnt he was in Dyflin.’
I was beginning to form an opinion of this Haakon. Like many Danes, he probably made his living by selling his sword and his loyalty to anyone who would offer him sufficient reward. When Eadgar’s efforts to wrest the crown of England from King Guillaume had ended in humiliation, he must have decided he would do better searching for employment or riches elsewhere.
I only hoped I could catch up with him. Eudo might be right, I thought, and Oswynn could be many hundreds of leagues from here, but at least now I had a trail to follow, and a place to begin my search.
‘How would you like to go to Dyflin?’ I asked the girl.
At once the defiance drained from her face. She paled and cast her gaze down. ‘I’ve been there before,’ she said. ‘I have no wish to go back.’
‘Why not?’ I asked, but she didn’t answer. ‘You’ve met Jarl Haakon before. Your knowledge could be useful to me. You could help me find him. And if you know the city, then all the better.’
‘All I want is to find passage back home, to my kin, if they still live,’ she said. ‘I’ve given you what you asked for. Isn’t that enough?’
‘You can either come with me, or else I can leave you here to the mercy of the king’s men. It is your choice.’
‘You promised, lord! You said I’d be allowed to go free!’
‘And you will,’ I said mildly, ‘after you’ve helped me. Then I’ll take you wherever you wish, but not before.’
A glimmer of hope appeared in her eyes. ‘You’ll take me home?’
That had been a rash thing to say, in hindsight. But if it would convince her, then perhaps it was worth it.
‘Not straightaway,’ I said. ‘First we go where I say. But as soon as my business is finished, I’ll do what I can. You have my oath.’
She did not look at me for a long while, and I thought she might still refuse. What reason, after all, did she have to trust me?
Eventually she gave a sigh. ‘Very well.’
‘Good,’ I said, and smiled, but she did not return it. ‘One last thing. What do I call you?’
‘Eithne.’
It sounded like no name I had ever heard. It was neither French nor Breton, nor, from what I could tell, Danish or English.
‘Eithne?’ I repeated, and she nodded.
I called to the guardsman, who was sitting on an ironbound chest with his back to me, polishing his helmet with an oilcloth.
‘I’ll take her with me now, with your permission,’ I said.
‘You’re welcome to her,’ he said. ‘Just watch that she doesn’t gouge out your eyes, or slide a knife between your ribs while you’re not watching her.’
‘Have no fear for my sake,’ I said, and jerked my head in Eithne’s direction as a signal that she should follow me. The scowl was once again upon her face as she rose from her stool. I gave a nod of thanks to the guardsman as we left the tent and emerged into the sunshine.
A new sense of purpose filled me. At last I knew what it was I had to do, and where I needed to go. To the city across the sea, that ill-famed den of villainy and treachery.
To Dyflin.
Fifteen
Five days later, Malet was laid to rest beneath the chancel arch in the small stone church at Heia, with all the ceremony befitting a lord of his standing. Rushlights lit the nave and candles stood upon the altar, while a thurifer spread incense to mask the smell and also remind those gathered of the ever-presence of the Holy Spirit. Prayers were said and hymns sung as Malet’s body, embalmed with cinnamon and salt, clad in a fine crimson tunic and shrouded in plain black cloth, was carried in upon a bier by Robert and five of his household knights, all dressed in white, one of the traditional mourning colours. The coffin was lowered into the hollow space beneath the stone floor, Mass was said, and afterwards alms were distributed to the men and women who worked Heia’s lands, while the church’s bell rang for nearly an hour, so that long after the procession had left and made its way across the crumbling stone bridge, beneath the browning leaves of the orchard and up the winding path that led to the castle, we could still hear its plangent notes sounding out across the manor.
I was in the training yard with Pons and Serlo, teaching Godric some simple thrusts and parries, and how and where to move in order to outflank an opponent in single combat, when Robert called me to see him. I found him in his solar, on the up-floor of the hall in the castle, kneeling in prayer in front of the slit of scraped horn that served as a window. Ashes smouldered in the stone hearth, candles stood in the corners of the room, and tapestries covered the walls, though they weren’t enough to keep out the draughts. He was still dressed in the same white tunic and breeches, which was strange to see, given his fondness for black clothing. He looked up as the wan light of late afternoon flooded in, and rose to greet me. His eyes were red from weeping, or tiredness, or a combination of the two, and he looked suddenly much older than his twenty-eight years.
‘It was as my father would have wished it,’ he said.
‘I’m glad, lord.’
‘As am I,’ he said. ‘Glad, that is, that you had the chance to speak with him before he passed away.’
‘I’m not sure that your mother was so pleased. Nor the priest, for that matter.’
‘Dudo has been his most devoted servant these past couple of years. All he wanted was to ensure that my father suffered as little as possible in his final hours. As for my mother’ — Robert gave a deep sigh — ‘she still holds to the belief that you betrayed his faith in you during the business with Ælfwold, as you saw. For that she will not forgive you.’
I stiffened. All that was more than two years in the past. How was it that talk of such things continued to plague me, after so long?
‘Do you hold to the same belief, lord?’ I asked.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘And if my father ever truly believed that you’d wronged him, don’t you think he might have discouraged me from accepting you as my man?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Not once. At heart he knew that you did the right thing, hard though that was for him to admit openly. I think in truth he always appreciated what you and your companions did for him.’
I wasn’t entirely convinced by that, remembering all too clearly the venom with which he had spoken to me but a couple of weeks ago. The memory of that still stung, despite the kindness he’d shown on his deathbed. He would not be the first to have felt a desire for reconciliation once he realised his time was short.
‘In any case,’ Robert went on, ‘what has passed, has passed. Regardless of what once happened between you and my father, and regardless of whether or not he recognised your good service, you have more than proven your worth to me, and that is all that matters in my eyes.’
‘Yes, lord.’
He looked troubled for a moment, but I did not press him. A draught blew in and caused the candles on the altar to gutter, and one of them to go out. There was a chill to the air, and a dampness too. Truly summer had departed.
Using a taper, Robert relit the candle that had been extinguished. ‘I realise that I am already in your debt, Tancred. Yet there is something more that I would ask of you.’
‘What might that be?’
‘I have received a message from the king. There is trouble in Flanders.’
