some other affliction to gain entry; sometimes they would come alone, sometimes in bands. The details changed from tale to tale, but in each one they wasted no time in showing their true purpose once they were inside: marching straight to the chapter house, or wherever else the nuns might be gathered at that time of day, and then stealing away just as quickly.
And so I didn’t resent Burginda for continuing to watch over me, though I did my best to ignore her. My thoughts, however, were not of any of the nuns here, but of Oswynn, and the dreams I’d had the other night. It troubled me, the way her face had been hidden from me; as if my memory of her were already fading.
I heard raised voices behind me. Over my shoulder I saw Wace trying to get by the nun, who was standing in his path.
‘Let me past,’ Wace said, and even in this faint light I could see the tiredness in his eyes.
I straightened and turned back towards the door. Burginda glanced at me, then back at Wace, before grudgingly moving aside, no doubt deciding that two of us was more than she could deal with.
‘I thought you were asleep,’ I said to him. I had waited until both he and Eudo had gone upstairs before venturing out, and had not expected to see either of them again until the morning.
‘I came down for a piss,’ he said. ‘What are you doing out?’
‘Thinking,’ I said, and looked away again, towards the main part of the convent and the three dark towers of the abbey church, like giant pillars holding up the great vault of the heavens. ‘Until today I hadn’t set foot inside a monastery since I was thirteen. Being here brings so much from that time back to my mind.’
Wace said nothing. How much of this did he understand?
‘I was just seven years old when my uncle gave me up to the monks,’ I went on. ‘He was the only family I had left, after my father’s death.’ Of course I had told Wace all this before, though it would have been long ago, and whether he would remember, I did not know. At any rate he did not stop me.
‘It was probably the kindest thing he could do for you,’ he said.
‘Probably,’ I agreed. ‘Though it did not seem that way at the time.’
‘Nor after what happened later, I’m sure.’
I nodded. ‘You know the rest.’
‘Why do you mention it now?’
‘I’ve been thinking how much our lives are shaped by events beyond our control. My father’s death, and everything that followed. What happened at Dunholm, and where that has brought us now.’
‘What of it?’
‘Is all of it just chance?’ I asked, and I could hear the bitterness in my own voice. ‘Or have all these things happened because that is God’s will?’
He shot me an admonishing look. ‘We must believe that it is,’ he said. ‘Otherwise what meaning is there to anything?’
I fingered the cross that hung around my neck. I knew that he was right. For everything on this earth there was a purpose ordained by God, difficult though it might be to comprehend what that was. From that at least I knew I ought to draw some comfort: the thought that He had a design for me, in spite of all that had happened.
‘And He has brought me here,’ I murmured. I looked up again across the orchard and towards the bell-tower, and hesitated, unsure whether I should say what I was about to. ‘I’ve been wondering,’ I said. ‘Wondering what it would be like to go back.’
‘You would give up your sword?’ he asked, with a wry smile. ‘You’d take the vows?’
He sounded like Radulf had only a few hours ago, I thought. It was a mistake to have mentioned it. ‘Someday, perhaps,’ I said, trying not to let my irritation show. ‘Not for many years, but someday, yes.’
The smile faded from his face. Maybe he had not known at first how seriously I was speaking, but now understood. I often found it hard with Wace to tell what he was thinking, and it was rare that he let anyone, even those closest to him, know his true feelings.
‘I’ve been wondering as well,’ he said after a while. He glanced behind him at Burginda, who was only a dozen paces away from us, and spoke more softly. ‘About Malet and everything that we spoke of earlier. And I know that whatever friendship he might once have had with Harold Godwineson, he can’t be a traitor.’
‘What makes you say that?’ I asked.
‘Because if he were, he wouldn’t at this moment be under siege by an English army in Eoferwic.’
Indeed in the midst of all our excitement earlier we had forgotten that. Of course it made no sense for Malet to be engaged in any kind of plot with Eadgyth when he himself was threatened by her own countrymen in Northumbria — when his own life was in peril. Had we been trying to make connections where there were none, where in fact there was a perfectly ordinary explanation?
Even if that were true, I could not help but still feel uneasy. There were so many things that we didn’t yet understand.
‘Have you spoken to Eudo?’ I asked.
‘Not yet,’ he replied. ‘I wonder if we owe the chaplain an apology.’
‘Perhaps.’ After what Aelfwold had said last night, the idea was not a welcome one.
‘He’s not our enemy.’
‘How do we know that?’ I asked, and when I saw that Wace had no answer, said, ‘The longer we travel in his company, the less I trust him.’
I was thinking of that night in Lundene, in the street outside St Eadmund’s church. At the time I had been so sure that it was him; it was only later that I convinced myself I had been mistaken. But now I had seen how much the priest was hiding from us, I wondered if perhaps he had been lying about what he had been doing that night as well. What if my instincts had been right, and if they were, what did that mean? What did any of it mean?
‘All we can do is what Malet has asked of us,’ Wace said. ‘After this, after we’ve driven the English from Eoferwic, any obligation we might have to him will be over. We’ll be free to do what we want, and what Malet does then is his concern, not ours.’
‘
Sometimes I thought that if I could only wake myself from this dream then I’d find myself back in Northumbria, with Oswynn and Lord Robert and all the others, with everything just as it had been before. I felt like a ship cast adrift on the open sea, subject to the whims of the tide and the wind, riding each and every storm while always clinging to the hope that I would soon find a safe haven. A hope that seemed to be growing fainter by the day.
‘Let’s see what happens when Eadgyth arrives,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll know what to do.’
Wace placed a hand briefly on my shoulder before he walked away, around the side of the hall.
I stood there a moment longer, gazing out across towards the dormitory and the thin tendrils of smoke rising from its chimney to the stars. Soon, however, the silence was broken by the sound of bells pealing out, this time for matins, I realised. I had not known it was so late.
I returned inside, back to my room. Shortly I heard footsteps on the stairs and on the landing beyond my door: Wace returning, I thought. The creak of hinges followed and then all was still. I shrugged off my cloak and lay down on the bed. The straw mattress was hard and offered little in the way of comfort, no matter how I positioned myself, and after several attempts, at last I stopped trying and sat up instead.
In the darkness I held my head in my hands as I mulled over everything. Amidst all the uncertainty, one thing was becoming ever clearer: I could not carry on not knowing the truth. Above all my conscience would not allow me to serve a man who was a traitor to his king and to his people. If there was some conspiracy between Malet and Harold’s widow, I had to know. Despite what I had said to Wace, I knew there was no guarantee that we would have any answers even when she arrived. I could wait no longer.
And suddenly I knew what I had to do.
The bells had stopped ringing some time ago; if anyone in the house had been woken by them, they would surely now be settled again. I stood up and went to the door, opening it just enough to be able to look out on to the landing. A faint orange glow played across the stairs from the hearth-fire in the hall below.
For a moment I wondered again: what if we were wrong? But I knew that if I carried on thinking in that vein, then I would lose this chance. There was no other way. We had to know.
