you is the Breton, Tancred of Earnford.’
That surprised me, for I hadn’t expected him to have come by that information.
‘I am,’ I said curtly as I felt my sword-arm itch and imagined how, if I could only get close enough to him, I would slice my blade-edge across his steed’s neck, unhorsing him. Then, while he lay on the ground, I would drive the point down into his mailed chest, using all my strength to bury it deep. One strike was all it would take to puncture his heart. One strike, and we could end this now. But he was too watchful to allow that to happen. I only had to take a couple of paces towards him and he would turn and gallop away with ease.
He smiled with the warmth of an old friend who had not seen me in years. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you are the one I have heard so much about. The one who gave Eadgar Ætheling his scar. A worthy warrior.’
I wasn’t about to confirm or to deny it for him, and so instead I said, ‘How do you know my name?’
At that Haakon gave a laugh. ‘You cannot send your spies, your knowledge-gatherers, all across Britain, and yet expect me not to hear that you’ve been seeking me out. I’ve suspected for months that you’d be coming. It was only a question of when. To tell the truth, I didn’t think it would take you this long.’
‘They told you I was paying them?’ Not only had those whoresons failed to bring me the information I wanted, but they had in turn sold what they knew about me to my enemies.
The Dane breathed a sigh. ‘It tires me to relate how it all happened, so let us not waste our breath discussing it. Suffice it to say that you are not the only one who has his spies. I’ve heard the tales of your deeds. I know who you are, Tancred, and what brings you here.’
I wondered how much he did know. Certainly I wasn’t about to let slip anything which might turn out being to his advantage. Did he think I had come because of the life he had taken, or because he had stolen my woman from me?
‘You killed our lord,’ I said, deciding that, of the two reasons, that was the one he was more likely to know about. ‘You killed Robert de Commines.’
He stared at me for long moments, that wolfish look having returned. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.
‘You admit it, then?’ Eudo asked.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Haakon countered. ‘Yes, I killed him. I watched the mead-hall burn and I heard the screams of those inside. I remember how he stumbled out with the smoke billowing around him. I remember how easy it was for me to ram my sword home. I remember how he died with barely a whimper.’
‘You don’t deserve to live,’ Eudo said. The wind had dropped and in the stillness I heard the hiss of steel against his scabbard’s wool lining as he drew his sword.
‘Eudo,’ I said warningly. The Dane had clearly come to parley with us for a purpose, and I wanted to know what that was, not to scare him off.
Wace laid a hand upon our friend’s shoulder. ‘Put your sword away.’
Eudo hesitated, but eventually he must have realised that it was a useless gesture, for he slid the blade back whence it had come.
‘Even if you did kill me, it wouldn’t bring your lord back to you,’ Haakon said. He turned to Magnus. ‘Nor your brothers.’
‘That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t enjoy watching you squirm while your lifeblood dripped away,’ Harold’s son retorted.
The Dane smiled. ‘The young pup has a loud bark, I see. It’s a shame that he lacks the bite to match it.’
‘Enough of this,’ I said, growing impatient. ‘Have you come with anything worthwhile to say?’
‘There is one thing.’
‘Then spit it out.’
A smirk was upon his face. ‘Vengeance isn’t the only reason that brought you here, is it?’
So he knew. Knew why I had come here, what it was that had brought me on this journey in the first place.
‘Where is she?’ I demanded.
Haakon didn’t answer, not in any words. Instead he merely raised a hand in what I took for a signal to his six companions waiting by the bridge. Still mounted, they advanced now. Suspecting a trick, I laid my hand upon my sword-hilt, and out of the corners of my eyes I saw the others doing the same. If the Dane was at all concerned, however, he didn’t let it show.
I fixed my gaze on the six figures as they approached, realising as they did so that only five of them were men. For in the middle of them rode a woman, and not just any woman either. Long before she was close enough for me to make out her features, I knew who she was.
As if it could have been anyone else.
Oswynn.
Twenty-five
‘Oswynn,’ I said, under my breath at first, and then more loudly, so that she could hear: ‘Oswynn!’
Her hands were tied in front of her and her mount was being led by one of the riders flanking her. She wore a cloak that might have been otter fur over a fine-spun woollen dress, but all that expensive garb did not disguise the bruises on her face, which was thinner and paler than I recalled. Her head was bowed as if in submission, and when she did look up her eyes were hollow. All the fire she’d once possessed seemed to have been extinguished. The summer when we met had been her sixteenth, and three more summers had come and gone since then, but she looked much older than her years might have suggested. And yet she was still as beautiful as ever. Her hair, black as the night when the moon is new and cloud veils the stars, which I had liked her to wear unbound, was braided like that of a married woman.
‘I presume she’s the one you came for,’ I heard Haakon say, but I was not paying him attention, not really, for I couldn’t tear my eyes from her.
I willed her to say something, even just my name, but she did not utter any sound at all, nor so much as smile, which I ascribed to fear of what they might do to her if she did, rather than because she didn’t recognise me. She did, I was sure of it, just as I was sure that even in those hollow eyes I spied a glimmer of something like relief or hope. I tried not to imagine what the Dane had done with her in the years we had been apart, but it was impossible. The way she held herself told me all that I needed, or wanted, to know.
‘Striking, isn’t she?’ Haakon went. ‘Prettier than any Danish girl, for sure, and I’ve known my share of them. I can well understand why you would want to come all this way to steal her from me.’
‘You’re the one who stole her,’ I said. ‘She’s my woman, not yours.’
‘Is that so? Where were you that night to lay claim to her?’ He gave a flick of a hand, beckoning her forward. Reluctantly, she came sidling up alongside him. ‘She belongs to me,’ he said, reaching over and untying the bonds around her wrists. A gasp of surprise or protest escaped her lips as he seized her forearm and held up her left hand. ‘Here is the proof.’
A marriage-band glinted in the cold light of that winter’s day. Oswynn, in tears now, tried to snatch her hand away, but Haakon’s grip was firm and all her struggling was in vain.
My blood boiled and I set my teeth in anger, but somehow I held myself back. I didn’t believe for a heartbeat that she had become his wife out of choice, nor do I think he expected me to. All he wanted was to taunt me, but I refused to rise to the bait. Losing my temper would achieve nothing, and indeed could end up costing me everything. Haakon’s men were close; if I came within five paces of their lord, they would strike me down without hesitation.
‘I don’t want to see blood spilt upon my lands any more than you wish to lose good hearth-troops,’ the Dane said as he released Oswynn’s wrist at last. ‘Better men than you have tried to take Jarnborg from me, and all have died by my sword-edge. For that reason, and because I am a generous man, I will give you one piece of advice. Do yourselves and your followers a favour, and leave these shores.’
‘What happens if we don’t?’ asked Magnus.
‘You aren’t the only one who has friends,’ Haakon replied mildly. ‘I sent word to mine three days ago. They will be here within the week, if not sooner, at which point we will not hesitate in crushing you and making drinking
