Fortunately Magnus seemed to be convinced by my reasoning, which was just as well, since I doubted my coin would extend to hiring for myself an army sufficient for this task, as well as a guide who knew the islands and the sea-routes of the Suthreyjar, and not to mention a ship as well. God’s favour was clearly shining upon me, and I accepted with no little thanks these gifts He’d sent my way, welcome as they were after everything I’d endured in recent weeks.
Thus while
‘Most of them left when it was clear I no longer had the means to pay them,’ he told me. ‘It would have been fruitless to try to prevent them going, so I released them from their oaths. Some have taken service with other lords; a few have found themselves Irish wives and a corner of land on which to settle. Still, if I seek them out and tell them what I have in mind, I hope that a few at least will be willing to rejoin me.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘I can but try.’
His faith was well placed. Almost a week after we had first made port in Dyflin, the first of Magnus’s old retainers came to the city and presented himself at his hall. A thickset Englishman in his middle years, he was dressed in mail and armed with spear and sword, as well as a long-handled axe that he carried slung across his back. His top lip was adorned with a thick moustache, and his tangled beard was flecked with breadcrumbs. His name was Ælfhelm and he was, I soon learnt, one of the longest-serving and most trusted retainers of the usurper’s family. He had been left to defend Lundene when Harold had marched to meet King Guillaume, and so had been spared a bloody end at Hæstinges.
On first seeing myself and my knights, and recognising us for the Normans we were, he reached straightaway for his sword-hilt. I believe he would have tried to face all three of us at once had Magnus not blocked his path, explained who we were and why we were here.
Ælfhelm spat on the floor. ‘Why should I ally myself with these whoresons?’
‘Because I wish it,’ Magnus answered.
‘It was men like these who slew your father and his brothers. Have you forgotten that?’
‘They’re friends,’ Magnus insisted, and though that seemed to me a little overstating matters, given that we had met only a few days previously, I didn’t argue. In any case, it seemed to put an end to the debate. The bearded one’s mouth twisted into a scowl and he kept glancing suspiciously at us as Magnus led him into the hall and the two of them exchanged what tidings they had. We would have to keep a close watch over him, I reckoned.
Nor was he the only one we would have to be wary of. In all, twenty-six of Magnus’s huscarls responded to his summons, each one accompanied by a manservant or stable-boy, and a couple with their lovers and mistresses. They were men of all sizes and appearances, some of an age roughly with myself, while others were older even than Ælfhelm, although he seemed to be chief among them. All, however, regardless of age, possessed the same hard eyes, stiff bearing and sour temper that spoke to me of battles fought and lost, of feuds unsettled, of thoughts of vengeance rarely uttered but ever-present, of untold bitterness against the circumstances that had brought each one of them to these shores. These were the men alongside whom I would have to fight if I wanted to reclaim Oswynn.
In my time I had been forced to make cause with some unlikely allies in pursuit of common ends, but these were without a doubt the unlikeliest of all. In another place and another time, they would have had no more hesitation in cutting us down than we would them. As it was, only Magnus stood between us and a grim fate. I supposed since he was their lord and, in their eyes, their king, they were oath-bound to accept his wishes, but even bearing that in mind did not make me feel any safer. I was not alone, either.
‘I don’t like this,’ Serlo confessed to me when the five of us were alone later that day, having ventured down to the market to provision ourselves for the voyage north.
‘Neither do I, lord,’ said Pons. ‘How soon will it be before they turn on us?’
‘They won’t,’ I said firmly, more to convince myself than because I truly believed it. ‘I have Magnus’s word. He’s someone who understands honour, and the value of keeping one’s oaths.’
‘Like his father kept to his oaths, you mean?’ Pons asked, and there was an obvious barb to his tone. He was referring, of course, to the pledge of fealty Harold had made to Duke Guillaume, and his promise to support the latter’s claim to the English crown: a promise Harold later broke when he seized the crown for himself.
I didn’t offer an answer to that, for I knew there was none that would satisfy him.
Pons sighed in exasperation, and shook his head in disbelief. ‘You can’t rely on the word of an Englishman.’
‘That’s not true,’ Godric protested.
‘Except for the whelp here, of course,’ he added. ‘But he’s not like them.’
‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘And what about men like Ædda, and all the folk at Earnford?’
‘You know what Pons means, lord,’ said Serlo. ‘The moment we’re out on the sea, they’ll cast us over the side, if they don’t come for us sooner. In the night, perhaps, while we’re sleeping. They’ll kill us and then they’ll have their way with the girl.’
‘Then make sure your sword is always at hand,’ I said. ‘And stay together. They’re less likely to try anything if we keep close.’
We continued in silence. I found a merchant selling the tufted cloaks that Snorri had praised so highly, and handed over a clutch of silver in exchange for five of his finest. Winter was fast approaching; almost everywhere the branches were bare, having finally cast off the robes they had clung to since summer, the robes that once had been full of brightness but which the turning of the seasons had made drab. Each dawn when we awoke was colder than the last. Across the city the thatch upon the houses and the workshops was covered with frost, and that morning we had stepped outside to find all the puddles in the street hard with ice. It was a good thing that
‘I’m told she’s still letting in some water, but all ships leak to a greater or lesser extent,’ Magnus had told me. ‘So long as we make sure to bail her now and then, she’ll do fine. Were we travelling to Ysland or anywhere across the open sea, I’d want her in better condition, but she’ll suffice for where we want to go.’
Even so, he had insisted upon waiting another day or two in case any more of his retainers showed themselves. Had the decision been mine, I would have set out straightaway rather than delay for the sake of a couple more swords and risk the wind changing in the meantime. Since they were his men and it was his ship, however, I’d had little choice but to defer to him.
‘This whole expedition is folly, lord,’ Pons muttered after we had been walking a while longer. ‘Coming here to Dyflin is one thing, but now you want us to venture in winter across the northern seas, and all in pursuit of a woman.’ He nodded towards a slim, freckled Irish girl of perhaps sixteen summers who was helping her mother, herself far from unattractive, carry rolls of cloth. ‘There are women here, lord!’
‘Oswynn isn’t just any woman,’ I said. ‘She’s my woman.’
‘Truthfully, lord, what chance do you think you have of claiming her back, assuming that she still lives, or that this Haakon hasn’t sold her to one of his pirate friends?’
‘She was alive and in his company when Eithne met them a few months ago.’
‘And happy, lord?’
I stared at him. ‘What?’
Serlo frowned and placed a hand on his sword-brother’s shoulder. ‘Pons,’ he said warningly.
But Pons wasn’t about to listen. ‘Did Eithne ever tell you whether she seemed happy in his company?’
I glanced at the girl, who hadn’t understood what we were saying, although she couldn’t have failed to hear her name, spoken in harsh tones. Her cheeks had turned pale. She sensed something was amiss, even if she couldn’t be sure what.
‘Ask her,’ said Pons. ‘Ask her now.’
‘No,’ I said, doing my best to restrain my anger. ‘I’m not going to ask her. I don’t need to.’
Why? Because I was afraid of what the answer might be? Afraid to learn that all this effort to which I’d gone was, in fact, for naught? Afraid to find myself bereft of any cause to fight for?
‘What is it, lord?’ Eithne asked me in English.
