was simply weary after the siege and the battle; the fire had gone out of him and he had not the will to be angry.
‘You know?’ he asked. His gaze fell on each of us in turn. ‘I suppose it was always possible that you might find out. Aelfwold told you, I presume.’
‘Not willingly, lord, but yes,’ I said.
Malet glanced about. ‘We can’t talk of this here, surrounded by so many people. Come with me, back to the castle.’
We passed through the bailey, past the tents and burnt-out campfires. There were men guarding the gates, but if they thought it strange to see their lord returning so soon, they did not question it.
Malet led us to the tower, to the same chamber where he had first spoken to me of his task all those weeks ago. It was much as I had remembered it: there was the same writing-desk, the same curtain hanging across the room, the same rug upon the floor.
‘I would ask you to sit as well, but this is the only stool I have,’ Malet said as he sat down. ‘You will forgive me, I am sure.’
None of us spoke, waiting as we were for him to begin, though he seemed in no rush to do so. An iron poker hung beside the hearth and he picked it up, prodding at the burnt logs in the fireplace. There were still some embers amidst the ash, and a faint tendril of smoke curled upwards as he disturbed them, but it was cold in the chamber nonetheless.
Eventually he turned back to us. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You have read my letter to Eadgyth.’
I did not answer. He already knew that we had. There was nothing else to add.
‘You cannot let this be known to anyone,’ he said, a fearful look in his eyes. ‘If the king were to find out that I had told her …’
He did not finish, but bowed his head as he wrung his hands. His lips moved without sound, and I wondered if he were whispering a prayer. The morning sun shone in through the window, causing the sweat upon his brow to glisten.
‘You must understand why I did what I did,’ he said. ‘When I wrote that letter — when you swore to undertake this task for me — I did not think that Eoferwic would hold. And if the enemy managed to take the castle, I did not know whether I would survive.’
He had said something similar that evening when I had given my oath to him. Indeed I recalled how struck I had been by his honesty, how he had seemed almost resigned to the fact that his fate was bound with that of the city: that if Eoferwic were to fall to the English, then so too would he. But I did not see what that had to do with the business at hand.
Nor, it seemed, was I alone. ‘What do you mean, lord?’ asked Wace.
‘I was the only one who knew the truth,’ Malet said. ‘Were I to have been killed, all knowledge of Harold’s resting place would have been lost.’ He sighed deeply, and there was a hint of sadness in his tone. ‘I was only doing what in my mind was right. Eadgyth always saw me as having betrayed her husband, having betrayed our friendship. I thought that by doing this I might somehow atone for that — for all the hurt I had caused her.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. Not for the first time, I thought.
‘All she wanted was to mourn her husband properly,’ he went on. ‘I have lost count of the number of times she has sent letters to me, demanding to know where he was buried, and of the number of times I have sent word back, saying that I did not know. But when I heard that the English army was marching on Eoferwic, I knew I might not have another chance. The guilt upon my conscience was too great to bear.’ He looked up from the floor, towards us. ‘And that is why I had to tell her.’
‘Tell her what?’ I asked. He was not making sense.
Malet stared at me as if I were witless. ‘Where Harold’s body lies, of course.’
I glanced at Eudo and Wace, and they back at me, and I saw that they were thinking the same. For something was not right. I recalled Malet’s message to Eadgyth: those two simple words.
‘But you wrote that it was safe, nothing more,’ said Eudo.
Malet’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I saw the letter, lord,’ I said. ‘
‘But that is not what I wrote.’ The vicomte stood to face us now, and there was colour in his cheeks again as a puzzled look came across his face.
‘I saw the letter.’ My blood was still hot from the battle, but I tried not to show my frustration. ‘Your seal was on it, lord.’
‘I did not write those words,’ Malet insisted. ‘That was not the message I sent.’
‘But if you didn’t write them, then who did?’ Wace asked.
So far as I could see, there was but one person who could have seen that scroll, apart from myself and Eadgyth. Indeed I remembered his anger when I let slip that I’d read it. He would not have reacted like that unless he himself had also known. Unless he himself were the one who had written those words. A shiver came over me.
‘It was Aelfwold,’ I said.
‘The priest?’ Eudo asked.
‘He must have changed the letter.’ It was not difficult: all it needed was for the original ink to be scraped away with a knife, which if done well meant that the parchment could then be used afresh. I had sometimes watched Brother Raimond doing it in the scriptorium, when I had been growing up in the monastery. More difficult would have been forging Malet’s writing well enough to trick Eadgyth, and yet I did not doubt that the chaplain could have done it, for who else would be more familiar with the vicomte’s hand?
‘No,’ Malet said, shaking his head. ‘It is not possible. I know Aelfwold. He has given me and my family many years of loyal service. He would never do such a thing.’
‘There is no one else it could be, lord,’ I said. I felt almost sorry for him, discovering that someone whom he had trusted so closely, and for so long, could have deceived him thus. But I knew that this time I was right.
Malet turned away from us, towards the hearth, his fists clenched so tight I could see the whites of his knuckles. I had not known him to lose his temper before, but he did so now as he swore, over and over and over, before burying his face in his palms.
‘Do you realise what this means?’ he said. ‘It means that he knows. Aelfwold knows where Harold’s body lies.’
‘But what good will that do him?’ Wace asked.
‘It depends what he means to do,’ Malet replied. ‘He wouldn’t have acted without some purpose in mind, of that I’m sure.’
Silence filled the chamber. I thought back to that night we had burst in on Aelfwold, trying to remember what he had told us. There was only one reason that I could think of why the priest would do this.
‘He means to take Harold’s relics for himself,’ I said. ‘To establish them elsewhere and make him a saint, a martyr to the English.’
‘To start a rebellion of his own,’ Malet said, so softly it was almost a whisper. He stared at me, as if he did not believe it could be true. But I did not see that there was any other explanation.
‘How long ago did you leave Lundene?’ Malet asked.
I counted back in my mind. We had spent four days riding to catch the king’s army, and another six on the march before the attack on Eoferwic. ‘Ten days,’ I said.
‘Then that is ten days in which he could already have carried out his plan.’ He spoke quietly, his face reddening. ‘If you’re right and Aelfwold succeeds, this will be the ruin of me. He must be stopped.’
Not only the ruin of Malet, I thought, but of everything we had fought for since first we had sailed from Normandy more than two years before. For there were many among the English who had no love for Eadgar Aetheling and yet would march in Harold’s name: men who if called upon would not hesitate in fighting under his old banner. If we let Aelfwold get away, it would not be long before the whole kingdom from Wessex to Northumbria was rising: before in every village men laid down their hoes, left their ploughs and their oxen to march against us;
