They were right, and I knew it. I cursed aloud. How had it come to this?
‘We can’t come with you, but we’ll do what we can to sway Robert and make him reconsider,’ Wace said. ‘Until then you’d be wise to find someplace quiet where you can weather the storm. I wouldn’t put it past Elise to send some of her friends to hunt you down before too long. If she does, it’s better that you’re as far away from here as possible.’
I nodded, feeling helpless in a way that I hadn’t for many years.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘You should go,’ said Eudo, jerking his head towards the stable door. ‘Before I beat you to death myself. I have half a mind to.’
I led a reluctant Fyrheard out into the yard. From further up the hill I heard men shouting, though what was being said was impossible to make out. Dogs were barking, and it sounded as though they were getting closer. Orange lantern-light played across the stonework of the inner gatehouse, where several figures, all in shadow, suddenly appeared, a hundred paces away still but rushing in our direction, some of them with swords drawn. No doubt they’d seen the light of Wace’s torch.
Not daring to delay any longer, I vaulted up into the saddle. ‘We’ll meet again soon,’ Wace said. ‘Of that you need have no doubt. For now, though-’
‘I know.’
I reached down to clasp first his and then Eudo’s hand, before spurring Fyrheard into a gallop, across the bailey and towards the outer gatehouse. His hooves pummelled the earth as I galloped beneath its vaulted arch, deaf to the questions of the men on sentry duty that night. I raced on, on, on, down the winding track towards the river’s tumbling black waters and the old stone bridge. The rain spat down, stinging my cheeks. My hair was plastered against my skull, my tunic and trews were soaked, and there was a hollowness inside me of a kind I’d never before known.
How could this have happened? I kept asking myself. How?
Only once I was on the other side of the river did I pause to look back towards Heia, at the dark shadow on the hill that was the castle, expecting to find a horde of horsemen riding hard in pursuit. Perhaps I’d lost them in the darkness, for I saw no one, and if there were any hoofbeats to be heard, they were lost amidst the patter of raindrops on the fields and the trees around me.
I tore my eyes away, dug my heels in, and from then on I did not look back as I rode away from Heia. Away from Robert. Away from the Malets.
And a part of me wondered if it would be the last time I ever saw them.
Seventeen
Serlo, Pons and Eithne were waiting at the crossroads for me. No doubt they had heard all about what had happened from Godric, but although I felt my hearth-knights’ cold stares upon me, they did not say anything, and that was probably for the best. The Englishman was there too, having decided that he was coming with me after all, and I was too tired to argue any further. We had no time to spare. Every hour that passed was another few miles that we put between us and Heia, and another few miles closer to safety.
We didn’t stop until morning, and only then because we needed to give the horses a chance to rest and to eat. There were no stars that night and so in the darkness we kept to drove roads and ancient trackways, which tended to be better kept and where the footing was more assured. We rode on through the rain and the wind, until, a couple of hours after sunrise, with heavy limbs and bleary eyes, we arrived in a miserable river town by the name of Gipeswic, which I remembered had been raided by the Danes when they came last year. There was nothing much left of it now, save for the wharves and the slipways, a few warehouses and cottages that had escaped the fire, and a larger, two-storeyed hall that might have belonged to the port-reeve, but among those ramshackle buildings we managed to find an alehouse close by the river where we could stable the animals, rest our saddlesore arses, sup at the thin broth that the tavern-keeper brought us, and work out what to do next.
We sat in silence around a table close by the common room’s hearth. At this hour the fire wasn’t lit, but the alehouse’s walls were thin, the cob crumbling away from the wattle-work, and that was the only place where the draught didn’t seem to reach.
‘I never thanked you, lord,’ Godric said, in between mouthfuls.
‘Thanked me for what?’ I asked.
‘For vouching for me,’ Godric said. ‘Again.’
Not that it had done me much good. Because of his reckless boastings and my own foolish sense of honour we now found ourselves here, cast out and wandering the bleak, flat lands of East Anglia.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘For whatever that might be worth.’
As well he should be. I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps I’d have done better to leave him to whatever fate Guibert might have dealt him. Straightaway I castigated myself for the thought. The boy had saved my life, and for that I owed him. What else could I have done?
My head ached. I rubbed at the lump that had formed, though it did nothing to relieve the pain. Serlo lifted his bowl to his lips and drained what was left of its contents. My own was going cold in front of me. There was cabbage in it, and leek as well, and the smell of both was enough to make me wrinkle my nose, but it was the whiff of salted eel that made me want to spew. For weeks in the marshes we had lived on almost nothing but eel stew, and I was sick of it.
Serlo nodded towards it. ‘Are you going to eat that?’
‘It’s yours if you want it,’ I replied.
The big man needed no second invitation. He reached across the table, slid the bowl towards himself and began ladling it into his mouth, so quickly that some failed to reach his mouth, spilling instead down his beard and the neck of his tunic.
He paused when he saw us all looking at him. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t eaten since last night.’
‘You can have mine too,’ Eithne muttered in English, scowling as usual. She pushed her own bowl towards Serlo. Like me, she had barely touched hers. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You’ll eat what you’re given and be glad for it,’ I told the girl, and placed it back in front of her. ‘I paid good silver for it, and I’m not letting you waste away. You’re thin enough as it is.’
‘You don’t have to speak to me as if I’m a child,’ she said, with that same scowl as before. ‘I’m fifteen summers old.’
‘So is Godric, but he’s under my protection just as you are.’
‘You’re telling me he’s the same age as me?’ Eithne asked. She gazed doubtfully at Godric, looking him up and down as if appraising a horse. ‘He doesn’t look it.’
Insulted, Godric frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You think yourself a warrior?’ she scoffed. ‘I could probably best you in a fight, if it came to it.’
‘I wouldn’t fight you,’ said Godric.
‘Why not? Because I’d win, you mean?’
‘No-’
‘Because you’re afraid of getting hurt?’
Godric’s cheeks flushed red. ‘I’m not afraid.’
‘Prove it, then.’ Eithne rose from her stool and stood over him. ‘If you’re the fighter you claim to be, prove it to me.’
He glanced uncertainly at me. ‘Lord?’ he asked, clearly at a loss as to what to do, though what help he thought I might offer, I wasn’t sure. In my time I had known many strong-willed women, none more so than Oswynn, but for all that experience, still I hadn’t worked out how best to manage them, or if it were possible at all.
‘Sit down,’ I said, pointing at the girl. ‘And eat. No one’s doing any fighting today.’
My head was hurting enough as it was, and I didn’t need their squabbling adding to my woes.
‘What was that about?’ asked Pons. He, like his sword-brother Serlo, had yet to learn much of the English tongue.
