Sworn Sword

see the anger building within him.

I lowered my head and shut my eyes, trying to push the image of the fire, of Lord Robert from my mind. This was not the time to be thinking of such things.

‘They did the same here,’ I heard Godefroi call.

I opened my eyes; the sunlight flooded back. Godefroi was beckoning us over to what I realised must have been the stables, for under a fallen roof-beam lay a horse’s head. The hair and skin had burnt away to expose the yellow-white of the skull, its jaw set wide as it would have been at the moment of death. As we rounded the smouldering remains, I saw the charred corpses of two more animals.

‘The enemy couldn’t have been interested in plunder, or else they would have taken them,’ I said.

‘Or they might not have been able to carry them away easily,’ Wace said. ‘If they came by ship, they probably didn’t have space.’

‘But if they approached by river, why did no one in the village spot them coming?’ Eudo asked. ‘In the time it’d have taken them to cross the flats, the villagers could all have fled. Instead they held their ground and died.’

‘Unless the enemy landed somewhere further downriver and marched overland,’ I said. ‘Any retreat into the country would have been cut off, and if the tide was out at the time, the villagers would have been trapped by the marshes.’

‘That would make sense, given the punts still moored by the jetty,’ Wace said.

Aubert gave a cry. I turned quickly, my hand darting towards the sword-hilt at my waist, imagining hordes of Northumbrian warriors rushing upon us from the south. But there was no enemy; instead the shipmaster was kneeling beside one of the bodies, not far from the eastern end of the hall.

‘His name was Henri,’ he said as we approached. ‘He was Lord Guillaume’s steward here.’

The man’s face was crusted with blood and crossed with sword cuts, but it seemed to me that it would have been a handsome face, strong-featured and youthful too. Henri could not have been much older than I when he died. There was a gaping wound at his breast, across which lay one of his hands; his fingers, like his tunic beneath, were stained a dark red. His other arm was stretched out by his side, palm facing the sky, fingers curled as if he meant to be clutching something in them. If there had been anything there, however, then the enemy had already taken it.

‘Did you know him well?’ I asked.

Aubert got to his feet, still gazing down upon Henri’s body. ‘Hardly at all,’ he said. ‘I met him only once, a few months ago when we put in here on our way up to Eoferwic. He was a generous man, as I knew him. He arranged a feast for the whole crew.’ The shipmaster sighed. ‘Have you found anything?’

‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘The enemy left nothing.’

‘There’s the church,’ Philippe said. ‘They didn’t take the torch to that.’

I glanced up towards its stone tower and nave, overlooking the village. It was built on the highest point along the ridge, its yard marked out by a narrow ditch which ran in a continuous circuit, broken only at its eastern end. If the villagers had taken refuge anywhere, it was likely to be there, for that was the only place that seemed in any way defensible. Even so, I didn’t have much hope of finding anyone alive inside.

Indeed, as it turned out there was no one; the church was small and it did not take long for us to search. Surprisingly, the rebels’ respect for the building had extended to its property, for there was much of worth that had not been taken: a large pewter dish displaying the Crucifixion, inlaid with silver lettering; three silver candle- holders; and a small gold cross. But of any priest, or indeed of anyone at all, there was no sign. Of course, I realised, if the same rebels we had encountered last night were responsible for what had happened here in Alchebarge, then the attack was already one day old. If anyone had survived, they would have long since fled.

We stayed a short while in the church, praying for Malet’s men who had died. It was the best that we could hope to do, considering that we had not the time to give them the burials they deserved. I was aware that the day was wearing on, and so as soon as we had finished we returned through the village and down the hillside, back across the marshes to the ship.

The tide was at its lowest point and so Wyvern was waiting for us not far from the edge of the flats, where there was still enough water that she could float. Oylard had done well, for he had found a place between two large mudbanks, both of them thick with reeds, which ensured that she could not have been seen from the river.

The sun was high by the time we returned to the ship and related news of what we had seen in the village.

‘What do we do now, then?’ asked Elise, a worried expression on her face. She had paled on hearing of the hall-burning. ‘We have no horses, and we can’t travel to Lundene on foot.’

‘The Trente flows through Lincolia,’ the chaplain said. ‘Surely we could sail upriver and meet the old road there.’

The shipmaster stroked his chin, looking doubtful. ‘The tide is still on the ebb. We’ll need to wait for the next flood before we can sail upriver,’ he said. ‘No, you’d be quicker going by land. If we carry on down the Humbre, there’s a town not more than an hour or two from here called Suthferebi, where you should be able to purchase horses.’

‘You know the river better than all of us,’ I said. ‘I leave the decision to you.’

Aubert nodded. ‘Suthferebi it will be, then.’ He gave the order to the oarsmen, retaking the tiller and slowly steering Wyvern clear of the flats, until we were back out upon the open water. More villages passed by as we travelled downriver, many of which had suffered the same fate as Alchebarge, though there were some the rebels had left untouched. Indeed in the distance I heard cattle lowing, and could see men and women out in the fields with their oxen, ploughing the earth. But why those had been spared, and not the rest, I could not discern. I only hoped that Suthferebi had escaped the devastation.

True to the shipmaster’s judgement, it was but a little after midday that the town was spotted off our steerboard side, first as a few spires of smoke, then as a cluster of hovels along the shoreline, until as we grew closer it was possible to make out a palisade, a church, a hall. I smiled at Wace and Eudo, who were watching too, and they returned the same expression. We had made it safely from Eoferwic, and Northumbria was at last behind us.

Seventeen

We rode south that same afternoon, as soon as we had mounts for the journey. I had half hoped there would be a stud nearby where we might find good warhorses for myself and the rest of the knights, but there was not, and so we had to settle for what we could come by in the town.

Fortunately Suthferebi turned out to be a thriving port: a favoured stopping-place both for trading ships on their way to Eoferwic, and for travellers on the way north, before they crossed the Humbre. Among the many alehouses, we learnt, was one whose owner kept a trade in horses. His name was Ligulf; a large-bellied man in his middle years, he had fair hair, blue eyes and a gruff manner, and I sensed there was more than a little Danish blood in him. Swigging from a flagon, he led us around into the yard behind the alehouse, and showed us more than a dozen of the animals that he stabled. Most of them were beyond their best years, while a few were so thin that I wondered if they had been fed at all this week, but it wasn’t as if we had much choice and so I chose the nine who looked strongest.

‘They only need to get us as far as Lundene,’ Eudo pointed out. I had brought him to translate for me while Aelfwold stayed with the ladies back at the ship. ‘We can sell them there and recover their cost.’

‘We’ll never recover what he’s asking,’ I said, and I kept my voice low, though I did not know why, since the man could not understand me anyway. He wanted no less than four pounds of silver for the nine animals: a ridiculous amount, and more than Malet had given me for the whole journey.

‘I might be wrong. He speaks with a strange accent and I don’t understand all of his words.’

‘Tell him we’ll give him one-and-a-half pounds.’ That was a fair price, considering the animals’ condition.

Eudo talked at length with Ligulf, who made a face as if he were being insulted.

‘Threo pund,’ he said at last. His cheeks flushed red, although whether it was