animals had made their homes. All the while I kept watching the woods for signs of movement. I never saw anything, but one could not be too careful, and as much as possible I tried to keep our column out of arrowshot of the trees.
‘Once we reach the pass at the top of the valley the country will be easier,’ Maredudd assured me.
Ithel sounded less certain, but being the younger of the two he was content to defer to his brother. I would have asked Haerarddur, who seemed to know these parts well, but the longer the day went on the less I trusted what he said. Indeed now that the threat of death no longer seemed imminent he seemed to have found his confidence again. His earlier fear had diminished, and despite the fact that he was supposed to be our hostage, he kept trying to make conversation with the men guarding him, even at one point sharing what must have been a joke, for afterwards none of them could stop laughing. I soon put a stop to that, instead placing the Welshman with Eudo, under whose charge I hoped he would prove less talkative.
We came upon a number of other villages that afternoon, and for the most part we left them alone, sometimes harrying their cattle or else stealing sheep that we could kill that evening for meat, but no more than that. An army of several hundred men quickly grows hungry, and what supplies we had brought with us from Scrobbesburh were dwindling, so we had little choice but to live off what we could find. Besides, the more smoke spires we sent up, the more easily the enemy would find us, and I wanted to avoid meeting them in battle if at all possible, for almost without question they would outnumber us. So long as they knew we were roaming, it was better that they did not know our exact movements, since then we could appear to be everywhere at once.
We raided in the same fashion for the better part of a week, making what I trusted was a great circle west of the valley of Mathrafal. But for all the miles that passed beneath our horses’ hooves, for all the woods we circled, the hills we crossed and the rivers we forded, none of the enemy ever showed themselves. There was growing discontent among our men, many of whom were tiring of wandering with seemingly no purpose in a land they did not recognise, especially since the higher we ventured into those hills and the further from the dyke we found ourselves, the fewer people we saw and the less plunder there was to be had. For, as I had learnt, a man will follow you anywhere so long as he has meat and drink enough to satisfy his stomach and the promise of silver to fill his coin-pouch. Take away either one of those things and he soon grows restless, and a restless ally is often as good as an enemy: dangerous and unpredictable.
And so it proved then. It didn’t help that Berengar was still seeking to stir up resentment, although many of the barons were beginning to grow tired of his remarks and jibes, which I supposed was reason to be thankful. Whenever we stopped to fill our water bottles I could hear him. No longer content to voice his disquiet behind my back, instead he made sure that whenever he spoke out I was within earshot, as if taunting me. For a while after Caerswys he had said hardly a word in my presence, and I’d wondered if what had happened had finally cowed him into silence. Clearly that had been wishful thinking.
‘From what I’ve heard he used to be held in high favour by both the king and Fitz Osbern,’ Wace told me when next I saw him. ‘He won his fame at H?stinges. His was the hand that slew the usurper’s brother Gyrth; the one who rallied the English forces after Harold himself fell.’
That part of the battle had been among the hardest fought, as I remembered. It had been late in the day; we had managed to force our way on to the ridge above the field of blood, but still their shield-wall had held. Thousands of their countrymen lay dead and yet Gyrth and his huscarls continued to fight on, defending his family’s wyvern banner to the last. Only after he had fallen to the charge did their line crumble and the rout finally begin. But that Berengar was the man who made that happen — round-bellied, pudgy-faced Berengar — I found hard to believe.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked.
‘It’s what they say.’
‘You mentioned that the king used to hold him in favour. What happened?’
‘It seems he was rewarded generously with lands and for the next couple of years there he sat, growing ever fatter on the wealth of his estates. The next time he was called upon to fight, apparently his arse was so large that his horse collapsed under his weight. Some months after that he somehow managed to kill his two young nephews in a training match and was made to forfeit most of his lands in recompense. All he has left now is one manor near to Hereford, and not a rich one at that.’
‘That still doesn’t explain why he hates me so much.’
‘It ought to,’ Wace said. ‘Don’t you see? He’s you, except that you haven’t yet eaten your own weight in mutton or beaten your sister’s sons to death. He used to be the one who was lauded. Now he finds himself ridiculed and shouted down in council, while you’ve taken his place. Of course he hates you.’
‘Because of that?’
Wace shrugged. ‘Men have killed each other for less.’
He’d been right; none of that brought me closer to working out what I could do to repair the damage that had been wrought. If unpleasant words were the worst Berengar could offer, I wouldn’t have been concerned, but he had slain two of his own kinsfolk, and the way that Wace had spoken of it suggested it was no mere accident. Nor had I forgotten how he had almost killed that mother and child. If their lives were worth nothing to him, what did that say about mine?
The next day I sent Eudo and Ithel ahead at the head of a party of ten men, with Haerarddur as well, both to explore the land around Mathrafal and, if they managed to get close enough, to catch a glimpse of the enemy encampment. They were gone longer than I had expected, and by the time they arrived back it had already been dark for several hours. We had pitched our tents within the ringworks of an ancient hill fort, and I was pacing their circuit, anxiously keeping a lookout for Eudo’s return, when I heard a shout of greeting from the men on watch by the eastern ramparts. I hurried across the enclosure to find, emerging from out of the black, the dark forms of thirteen horsemen climbing the slope towards the causewayed entrance. The skies were clouded that night, and at first I could not make out their faces, but I knew it was them.
‘They’re gone,’ was the first thing Eudo said once he had reached me and let someone take care of his mount.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘We saw the hall with its moat, and the village as well, but the enemy weren’t there,’ he said with a sigh. His shoulders hung low and he looked bone-tired, but then I supposed he must have been riding hard since daybreak. ‘Their campfires were still smouldering, so they couldn’t have left long before we arrived. A few hours, perhaps; no more than half a day.’
Not for the first time I wished that?dda were with us. He would have been able to tell us.
‘The place looks to be defended by barely fifty spears,’ Ithel added, and there was an eagerness to his tone that I had not heard before. ‘We could storm the palisade and take the fastness; it would not be all that difficult.’
Eudo snorted. ‘You would try to capture it?’ he asked, as if the mere suggestion was a ridiculous idea, a sentiment that I shared.
Ithel looked taken aback. ‘We have the numbers,’ he said defensively. ‘Why not?’
I’d had my doubts before about his ability and experience as a war leader, and what he had said only served to strengthen them. ‘Even if we manage to take it,’ I said, ‘what would we do with it?’
Eudo nodded in agreement. We both knew that there was nothing to be gained in wasting time and men trying to capture such a place when we had little need of it, when we could just as easily skirt around it.
‘It is Mathrafal,’ Ithel replied, as if it were as simple as that; as if that were all he need say. When he saw that we were waiting for more he went on: ‘It has been the seat of their house for a hundred years and more; it is where they hold their court, where their treasure hoard lies. If we strike at the heart, the head will fall soon after. How can their vassals and followers continue to brave the shield-wall for men who cannot even protect their own halls?’
All this had come out in an excitable rush, and despite his years I saw Ithel now for the youth that he was. A noble youth, for certain, and by no means stupid, but rash nonetheless and as yet lacking in knowledge of how wars were waged. The hour was late and I was too weary to listen to his ramblings.
Ignoring him, I turned to Eudo instead. ‘Was there any sign of which way the enemy went?’
‘There were tracks leading away downriver,’ he said. ‘I can only guess that they received word that the Wolf was afield to the north and marched to head them off. Why else would they have left so suddenly?’
Which either meant that they did not consider us a significant threat, or else that they still knew nothing of
