Knights of the Hawk

Nineteen

We spent a restless two nights at the Two Boars while the Dane, whose name we learnt was Snorri, concluded his business. Restless, because I was convinced that those men who had come looking for me at Earnford would not be far behind us, and because I was aware, too, that the longer we lingered in one place, the greater the chance of our being caught.

But they did not come, and so it was with some relief that at last we sailed, Hrithdyr’s hold having been filled with bolts of wool-cloth, barrels of salted porpoise- meat, Rhenish quernstones and casks of English wine that came from the vineyards further up the Saverna valley. The wind was on the turn, however, a sure sign of worse weather to come, and Snorri kept looking to the grey- darkening skies and muttering in his own tongue, all the while fingering a small chain that hung around his neck from which, I noticed, hung both the heathen hammer and the Christian cross. Perhaps he still held to some of the old ways but was fearful of our Lord’s wrath and so wore the cross as well to placate Him, or possibly he thought that by worshipping both our God and those of his pagan ancestors, his soul would be guaranteed a place in one heaven or the other. Whatever he believed, his prayers seemed to work, for the storm that we’d all predicted failed to come, at least on that day.

We entered the Saverna early that afternoon, hugging close to the Wessex shore while the grey waters grew ever choppier and the wind whipped the waves into white stallions. No storm came that evening either, though, and so the following day we crossed to the Welsh side, making port on an island where stood a small stone chapel dedicated to a certain St Barruc, of whom none of us had ever heard. We were just in time, too, for no sooner had we dragged the boat up the shingle on that island’s sheltered shore than we were pelted with hail, and a gale rose from the west and the sea foamed and crashed against the cliffs. There we were forced to wait until the wind turned again and the seas calmed.

Still England lay in sight to our larboard side, although it was no more than the faintest sliver of green and brown and grey on the horizon. Only then did I realise that in the five years since the invasion, not once had I left its shores. I had ventured on brief forays into Wales and marched into the far corners of the kingdom, close to the borderlands where King Guillaume’s realm ended and that of the Scots began, but never in all that time had I made the voyage back across the seas, as so many others had done. The Breton had become a Norman, had become bound to England. And now I would leave that land behind me. The land where I’d made my reputation, where I had lived and loved and lost. The kingdom I’d given everything short of my life to defend, and all, it seemed now, for nothing.

I stood by the stern, looking out across the white-tipped waters towards those vanishing cliffs as Hrithdyr rose and dipped in the swell and the wind filled its sails, until a sudden squall blew in and cloud veiled that land, and I could see it no longer.

It took more than a week for us to reach Dyflin. Even I, who knew little of the sea, knew that the autumn was ever a difficult time to set sail. The winds were changeable, storms could arrive with little warning, and pirates lurked, looking for easy plunder, knowing that shipmasters were eager to make it home in time for Christmas or Yule or whatever other name they gave to the winter feast, their holds filled and their coin-purses bursting with whatever they had earned from that year’s dealing. God must have been with us, for we saw no sign of them, despite all the warnings of the folk who lived on those shores, who said that their low-hulled, dragon- prowed longships had been spotted roving further along the coast. Nevertheless we proceeded with care.

The journey could probably have been made in better time, but Snorri was a cautious man, and one who clung to his superstitions, too. He refused to leave sight of land unless the signs were wholly favourable, and even then only after he had cast the runesticks to assure himself that a watery fate did not await us. Not that I blamed him. Far better to be cautious than dead. Besides, the open sea was already rough enough for my liking. As we left the Welsh coast behind us and, with a following breeze filling our sails, struck a course west towards Yrland, I remembered one of the reasons I’d never made the journey back across the Narrow Sea in the past five years. The horizon rose and fell and rolled and pitched from one side to another, and my belly churned, and I huddled down by the stern, my eyes closed, as I tried to hold back the sickness swelling within. To no avail.

‘I thought you Flemings were well used to the sea,’ Snorri said after what must have been the third time I’d spewed over the ship’s side. He slapped me on the back as I heaved up what I hoped were the last of my stomach’s contents, wiped away some that had seeped down my chin, and spat in an effort to rid my mouth of the taste.

‘Not this Fleming.’ Another swell of bile rose up my throat, and I readied myself to retch once again, but it subsided.

‘The last time I was in Saint-Omer, it was still being rebuilt after the great storm, the one that struck that midsummer’s night. Were you there then?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I wasn’t.’

He shook his head sadly. ‘I was there. I saw the winds bring down the monastery’s bell-tower, saw rain such as you have never seen turn the streets into rivers, wash whole houses away. Ships were torn from their moorings, cast downriver and out to sea, though not Hrithdyr. She alone weathered the tempest. That’s how she got her name. Stormbeast, I suppose you would call her in your tongue. A terrible night, that was.’

‘I heard the tales,’ I lied. This was the first I’d heard of any such storm. If only he would stop harassing me with these questions about a place I’d never so much as visited.

‘That tavern is almost the only part of the old town that still stands.’ He gave a laugh. ‘The Monk’s Pisspot, everyone called it, on account of that’s what the ale there used to taste like. You know the place I’m talking about, don’t you?’

‘Of course,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘Who could forget it?’

But Snorri was not laughing any more, and that was when I realised my mistake. Saint-Omer was among the richest ports in Flanders. Had there been any such disaster, news of it would surely have reached our ears. There had been no midsummer’s storm, and neither, I realised now, was there any tavern by that name. He was testing me.

If he’d had his suspicious before, he knew for certain now that I was not who I claimed to be.

‘So what are you?’ he asked. ‘An outlaw? An oath-breaker, maybe?’

‘I’ve broken no oath.’

‘Then what? You’re obviously fleeing something. Old Snorri has wits as well as beauty, you know. He can tell these things.’

I returned his stare but did not speak.

‘You’re entitled to your secrets, I suppose, if that’s the way you want to keep it. Your gold’s good and that’s all that concerns me. I’m not one to pry into another man’s business. I knew you were no Fleming, though, from the moment we met.’

‘How?’

‘The way you speak, for a start. Did you think you could trick someone who’s travelled as widely as I have? Anyone who lives his life on the whale-road can easily tell a Fleming from a Norman from a Gascon from a Ponthievin by the sound of their voice.’ He sighed the heavy sigh of one who had seen his share of fools over the years, and had grown tired of their games. ‘If you want my advice-’

‘I don’t,’ I muttered, but he went on, unperturbed.

‘-it’s that you should tread carefully, Goscelin of Saint-Omer, or whatever you’re really called. Count yourself lucky that I’m not the sort who’s easily offended, but there are many that won’t take kindly to men who try to deceive them. If there’s one place you don’t want to start making enemies, it’s in Dyflin.’

‘I can take care of myself,’ I answered, though the conviction in my words was undermined somewhat as I felt another heave coming. Grabbing the gunwale to steady myself, I leant over the side, but by now I had nothing left to give and only the slightest dribble came out.

‘Onions,’ Snorri said.

‘What?’ I asked, after I’d wiped a sleeve across my mouth.