deserved answers, and I was the only one who could give them.
I took a deep breath, and then slowly, starting from the very beginning, I told them everything.
Eighteen
I began with the king’s siege of the Isle and our assault upon Elyg. At the same time we trudged up the slope towards the new hall, which had been built in the place of the one the Welsh had torched. Somehow it felt safer to talk about everything there than in the open, and besides my throat was parched and I felt as if I hadn’t eaten a proper meal in a month. We had spent the last few days on the road eating nothing but hard bread and stale cheese, and my stomach had been paining me since dawn at the thought of the hot food that would greet our arrival. While stable-hands came to see to our mounts and Galfrid sent to the kitchens for ale and sausage and some of that day’s bread, I related how we had come to meet first Godric and then, after our victory over the rebels, Eithne as well, followed by the story of Guibert’s killing and our flight from Heia. Once in a while Serlo or Pons or Godric would add something that had slipped my mind, but their interruptions aside, everyone was content to listen while I spoke.
After I’d finished, silence lingered. Neither the priest nor the steward seemed to know quite what to say. They sat at the round table that stood in the middle of the chamber, while I paced up and down the length of the hall, from the door to the dais and back again. My legs were aching from our travels, but at the same time my mind was burning with a thousand thoughts, and I could not keep still. So much in Earnford seemed to have changed in the few months I’d been away, or perhaps it was I who had changed. I had become an outlaw, a stranger in my own hall. This place that for so long had been my home was now a place of danger.
‘What will happen now?’ Erchembald asked after some time. ‘What does this mean for you, and for us?’
‘Robert wants to bring me to justice. That’s why those men came the other day, and that’s why they’ll be back for me before too long.’
‘Because you killed a man?’ Galfrid asked, and gave a grunt that I took for a sign of his disbelief. ‘You slay a dozen, twenty, a hundred and the poets praise you, but you slay one more and for that Robert wants your head?’
‘This is hardly the same thing,’ Erchembald pointed out.
He was right, too. ‘I killed a fellow Frenchman, and in my lord’s own hall. A man who was guilty of nothing, whose only crime was that he was drunk and not in possession of his wits.’
‘You said that he attacked you,’ Galfrid said. ‘Doesn’t that count for anything?’
So I had thought, too. Clearly I was wrong.
‘I have enemies,’ I said bitterly. ‘Enemies who, for different reasons, wish to see me brought low, who would poison the bond between myself and Lord Robert, who would take joy in my suffering.’
‘What reasons?’ Father Erchembald asked.
‘Jealousy,’ I answered. ‘Spite. Because of things I’ve done in the past.’
‘And Robert didn’t defend you?’
‘He tried.’ I saw that now, at least. ‘By allowing me to walk away from there, he did what little he could.’
‘Anything more, and he might have started a revolt,’ Serlo added.
‘I can see that,’ Galfrid said. ‘What I don’t understand is why he would let you go, only to change his mind days later?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe Elise and some of the other barons who were there that night prevailed upon him to do so. I don’t know.’
I was guessing, admittedly, but what other explanation could there be? Obviously Wace and Eudo’s attempts to assuage his anger had been in vain.
That was when another thought crept into my mind. Robert had only just inherited his father’s barony, and all the responsibilities that came with it. His new vassals were looking for him to assert himself and to set an example that would prove he was every bit as strong a lord as the elder Malet had been. If he lost their confidence now, he might rue it for years to come. If men became disaffected and wavered in their loyalty, then the elaborate web of oaths and alliances that his father had carefully woven over so many years could quickly collapse. The legacy that he had tried to leave to his son would be ruined before Robert had the opportunity to build upon it.
And suddenly I understood. If he surrendered me to my fate, then he still had a good chance of winning back the respect he needed. So long as his reputation was maintained, he didn’t care what happened to me.
I felt sick. After all that we had undergone together, after all the trials we had endured in recent years, after all the occasions on which I’d saved his life and pulled him from the fray, after all the leagues I’d travelled in his service, venturing the length and breadth of the kingdom, after all the times I’d accepted tasks on his behalf that he was too craven to undertake himself, how could he turn his back on me? Did none of that count for anything? Were it not for me, he would be dead several times over by now. How could he contemplate giving me up to my enemies?
‘Tancred?’ the priest asked, and I realised he’d been speaking without my being aware of what he was saying. ‘What do we do now?’
‘I can’t stay here,’ I said. ‘That much is certain. They’ll come for me again sooner rather than later, and when they do I need to be far away from here. If Robert’s men catch up with me, I’ll have no choice but to go with them and stand trial, and suffer the penalty, whatever that might be.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Erchembald said. ‘Perhaps all Robert desires is to be reconciled.’
I cast him a wry glance. He was a good friend and meant well, I knew, but he was fooling himself if he truly believed that. If I went back to Heia, there could be only one outcome.
‘If they find me guilty, which they will,’ I said, ‘the very least I can expect is that I’ll be condemned to exile, in which case I’ll find myself in the same situation as I am now. But what if it’s decided that banishment isn’t sufficient penalty?’
‘Your life will not be forfeit,’ the priest said. ‘You can be sure of that much. The law does not allow it.’
‘If I surrender myself to the mercy of my enemies, there’s no telling what might happen. Even if they allow me to keep my head, they might still demand my sword-hand, and that’s if they’re feeling generous. So you see that I have no choice. I have to go.’
‘Where?’ the priest asked.
That part I’d worked out. Indeed my mind had almost been made up even before I became embroiled in this storm, before what happened with Guibert, before that fateful night had even begun. Now that I had nowhere else to go, no lord to obey, no oath to discharge, no wars to fight, I was free to do as I wished, to go in pursuit of my own desires, my own ambitions. To venture across the sea.
‘It’s better if you don’t know,’ I said. ‘That way if Robert’s men come asking, you can profess ignorance. Pretend I was never here.’
Erchembald was shaking his head. ‘There must be a way of settling this. A way that satisfies everyone concerned.’
He had always, as long as I’d known him, provided a voice of reason, and many were the times I’d relied on his counsel in the past. But he was hoping beyond hope for a way to untie this knot that I found myself entangled in.
‘If you have some idea in mind, I’ll gladly hear it,’ I said. ‘Otherwise it’s better if I don’t linger here any longer than I have to. Those men could return tomorrow, or even tonight for all any of us know.’
‘You have our protection here for as long as you need it,’ Galfrid said. ‘No one from beyond the manor need know that you’re here.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I’d rather face exile than be reduced to cowering in my own hall.’
‘Stay this night, at least,’ Erchembald urged.
I was about to refuse, to tell him that all we needed were fresh horses and provisions for the journey and we would be on our way again before dusk, when I glanced at the road-weary faces of Serlo and Pons, Eithne and
