‘Nothing,’ I muttered. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘You’ve said yourself that it’s been nearly three years since you were last with her, lord,’ Pons said. ‘Even if we do find her, and even if you manage to bury your sword-point in Haakon’s throat, that doesn’t mean she’ll necessarily thank you for it.’
I stopped in the middle of the street. ‘She will. I know it. And besides, what else is there for me? For us. Tell me that.’
Pons didn’t answer straightaway. Men and women shouted at us in tongues I didn’t understand, berating us for getting in their way as they tried to roll barrels and drive oxen up the way, but I paid them no heed. If Pons did not support me in this, then I needed to know. My mind was already made up, for I was going with Magnus to whatever fate awaited me in the north. But I had no place on this expedition for men who would not give their all in this cause.
‘Well?’ I demanded.
‘I don’t know, lord,’ Pons said eventually.
‘Serlo?’
He took a deep breath, and his hesitation betrayed his uncertainty. He glanced sidelong at Pons before turning back to me. ‘I’m with you, lord, as always. But that doesn’t mean I’m altogether happy about it.’
Pons nodded in agreement. I supposed that was the best I could hope for. That they had followed me this far, without so much as a murmur of dissent until this moment, was testament to their loyalty, and a reminder of how much I owed them.
‘What about you, Godric?’ I asked. ‘You, at least, could return to England, if you’d rather not come with me.’
‘Where would I go? Back to my uncle?’ He shook his head. ‘There’s nothing for me there, lord. Not any more.’
It hadn’t been two months since we’d first met, but already he seemed a different person. He was his own man now, subject to no one. That he nevertheless chose to stand by me, though he was bound by no oath to do so, earned my respect.
I turned to Eithne, and briefly wondered what she might say if I asked her the question Pons had wanted me to. I tried to drive such thoughts from my mind.
‘Do I have a choice?’ she retorted, when I asked her whether she was still willing to come with me.
‘I can give you money enough for passage back home, if that’s what you want. There’ll be ships that can take you, I’m sure.’
‘You place too much faith in other men,’ she said in that mocking manner I had grown used to. ‘How far do you think I would get, travelling alone, without anyone for protection? At least with you I am safe.’
That made sense, I supposed. If these last few weeks had taught her anything, it was that she could trust us. Why put herself at risk by striking out on her own? No doubt that was why she had stayed with us this long; she’d had plenty of opportunity along the way to flee if she’d wanted to.
We were all agreed, then. Breton, Normans, English and Irish would travel together into the north, albeit some more reluctantly than others.
Unspeaking, we ventured on past the rows of stalls where cloth merchants, fishmongers, wine-traders, candlemakers, wood-sellers and spicers plied their trade, until we came upon an open square close by the thing- mount, where rows upon rows of men, women and children of both sexes and all colours of hair and skin sat upon the muddy ground, bound together with ropes and chains, their heads bowed and faces leaden, huddled inside clothes that seemed either too large or too small and were dirty and frayed at the hems; all being watched over by men armed with clubs and staves.
The great slave-market for which Dyflin was renowned. Beside me, Eithne shrank back. At first I wondered if she’d spotted her former master, Ravn, somewhere among that throng, but there had to be hundreds of slaves, owners, traders and guards, variously crying and shouting and negotiating and cursing, and so I reckoned she was merely nervous.
‘You’re with me, so you’re safe,’ I told her. ‘Isn’t that what you said?’
‘Let’s leave,’ she said. ‘Please.’
I was about to, for her sake, when my gaze fell upon three dark-skinned young women, one short and the other two tall, all of them wide-eyed and trembling, being led away by a fierce-looking man whose arms were covered in silver rings and who was shouting at them in Danish. I’d glimpsed Moorish women before, but not often and not for long. They were a strange sight to me, and I confess that I could not take my eyes off those girls, spellbound as I was with a mixture of curiosity and admiration, for although they looked thin and ill fed, they were nevertheless creatures of wonder.
‘Lord,’ said Serlo in a warning tone, jolting me from my thoughts. He was gesturing down the street whence we had come, where I saw now a group of four men clad in hauberks and chausses, with swords on their belts. To begin with I didn’t know why he was drawing my attention to these in particular, when so many walked the streets of this city armed and mailed, but as they stopped by the stall of one of the cloth-sellers and turned to speak with him, I saw the distinctive close-cropped hair at the backs and sides of their heads.
We were too far away to make out their features, but I knew at a glance they were Normans, and knights, too. But why were they here, in Dyflin of all places?
Only one reason came to mind. They had to be Robert’s men. Who else?
I’d thought that leaving England behind and going into exile would be enough to satisfy them. Obviously I was wrong. So determined were they that I should face trial for my crime that they had taken ship across the sea in order to haul me back to England. Now they were here, barely fifty paces away, if that.
‘This way,’ I said to the others, my heart pounding all of a sudden. ‘Quickly, but not too quickly.’
I’d realised that if we could see them, then they would just as easily be able to see us. I didn’t want to linger, but at the same time knew that we would only draw attention upon ourselves if we ran. Without looking back, I slipped through the market crowds, towards an alley where the smoke of a blacksmith’s forge billowed white and thick.
‘Do you think they saw us?’ Godric asked when we had all gathered, coughing and with eyes stinging, on the other side of that cloud, safely out of sight of the marketplace.
‘I hope not,’ I replied.
We pressed on in the direction of Magnus’s house, which was only a short distance away, close to the city’s southern gates. From time to time I risked a glance behind us, but didn’t want to attract suspicion. Fortunately there were many different ways one could take through the streets, and, having spent now a little more than a week in this city, I was beginning to learn them. From time to time I risked a glance over my shoulder to see if they were behind us, until eventually I had to concede that they weren’t following.
‘They’re determined, aren’t they?’ Pons remarked.
It didn’t make sense. Why pursue us here, all this way? For that matter, how did they even know where we were headed? I’d held that piece of information back from Ædda and Galfrid and Father Erchembald for this very reason. Neither had I told Eudo and Wace, at least not so far as I could recall. Where were they now? Had they gone with Robert on the king’s planned expedition to Flanders?
And then I remembered. I’d let it slip to Robert, on the very day that we had buried his father, in his solar at Heia.
I’d been a fool. An accursed fool. At every turn I’d given my enemies the means to ensnare me and bring about my downfall. First Atselin, and now Robert himself, difficult though it was to think of him as such. But I could hardly count him as a friend any longer.
‘They’re looking for me,’ I said, after we’d arrived at Magnus’s hall and I’d explained to him what had happened and what we’d seen. ‘They’ve already driven me from England, and now they’ll scour this town until they find me.’
‘What did you do?’ Ælfhelm growled. He and a number of his brothers in arms whose names I hadn’t yet learnt sat along the benches, passing between them a leather flask from which they filled clay drinking pots.
‘That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we get away from here, and as soon as possible.’
Many pairs of eyes had noticed us walking Dyflin’s streets in recent days, coming and going from Magnus’s hall, and there would be plenty of rumours passing from tongue to tongue, some of them accurate and others less
