Nor would he have, if he’d been any later. ‘Well, you can give thanks to God that you won’t have to look upon our faces any longer,’ I said.
He frowned and cast his gaze about, at Eudo and Wace and the rest of our men, all dressed and ready to ride out. ‘Where are you going? Are you and your lord deserting again? Too afraid to fight, are you?’
I would not rise to Berengar’s jibes, not this time. ‘Our lord and his family are prisoners of the?theling and King Sweyn in Beferlic,’ I told him. ‘I mean to bring them back alive.’
At first he must have thought I was jesting, for he began to laugh, until he saw the solemnity of my expression and those of the men around me.
‘You aren’t serious, surely?’
I had nothing to lose by asking him; at worst I could expect to receive another barrage of his scorn, and I was well used to that by now.
‘To do this I need the best men I can find,’ I said. ‘I saw how you fought at Mechain; I saw how you captured the banner of King Rhiwallon.’
That was not entirely true, for I had lost sight of him entirely during much of the fray, and had missed the moment when he had killed the enemy’s standard-bearer. Nonetheless I hoped that he would accept the flattery.
As it happened I had no need to ask the question, for he understood at once what I meant.
‘You think I will follow you, after all the injury you inflicted upon me, after all your insults?’
He spat on the ground at my feet and backed away. My hopes, it seemed, were ill founded.
‘You tried to kill me once,’ I reminded him, not content to let him heap all the blame upon my shoulders. ‘I won’t forget that, but I’ll gladly forgive it and end this feud between us so long as you’re willing to do the same.’
I held out my arm towards him in a gesture of goodwill, much though it pained me to do so. He eyed my hand with suspicion.
‘You mock me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how, but you do. Whatever trickery you have in mind, I will not fall for it.’
He stalked off, still rubbing the back of his shoulder. He had given no less than I had expected from him. Still, a part of me had thought we might at least be able to resolve our differences, even if he couldn’t bring himself to offer his sword in our aid.
‘An old friend of yours?’ asked Erchembald, who had been watching with interest.
‘Hardly.’
I was not in the mood for explanations, but thankfully the priest did not enquire further. ‘Ten men against a thousand,’ he said. ‘You realise you do not have to do this, Tancred. There would be no shame if you were to change your mind now.’
We had become good friends over the past year, the priest and I, and it was clear he did not want me to go.
‘I made an oath to Robert upon holy relics, under the gaze of our Lord,’ I said. ‘If I break that oath then I am damned. You know this.’
He sighed. ‘God understands it is an arduous task you take upon yourself. He will not punish you for refusing it. He is merciful; He will forgive you.’
‘But I may never forgive myself if I let Robert and Beatrice and their father go to their deaths.’
Sadness filled his eyes, though he did his best not to show it by bowing his head. ‘Then do what you must.’
‘God will protect us,’ I said, and hoped that it was true. ‘We will meet again.’
Erchembald nodded and clasped my hand. Together we prayed for our safekeeping and that of the Malets, before at last he heard my confession and absolved me of my sins.
‘I wish you good luck,’ he said. ‘God be with you.’
As soon as I left him we mounted up and rode out, leaving the orange dots of the campfires behind us as we traversed that night-shrouded land.
And so we were on our way. To Beferlic, and whatever fate awaited us there.
From Eoferwic Runstan led us south, following the course of the river. Before long we came to a shallow point on the Use where the riverbed was firm and the waters not too fast-flowing. With some coaxing we led our horses across, and from there made for what I supposed was the east, riding hard through the night until we could see the first grey light of dawn rising above low wooded hills.
There we sheltered through the following day. Under the cover of a brown-gold thicket we took it in turns to rest and to keep watch. As soon as night fell we moved on again, descending from the wolds into flatter country towards the swamps that made up Heldernesse. It was a clear, moonlit night and a much colder one than of late. A thick mist soon settled over the low-lying pastures, which was fortunate, for it meant we could ride without fear of being spotted. Before long the shadows of Beferlic came into sight: a cluster of squat houses, workshops, alehouses and halls sitting on a low and narrow promontory of dry land that jutted out into the marshes, with the belfry of a church at its centre, rising towards the sky, and around it the dormitory and other buildings that comprised the monastery. Somewhere amongst all of that were Robert and his family, and Eadgar too.
On the town’s eastern flank the land fell away to the marshes and the river Hul, upon the banks of which five small ships had been drawn up. Around the three landward sides, meanwhile, a sturdy palisade had been thrown up, and a deep ditch dug in front of it into which sharpened stakes had been driven. Outside those defences, straddling the roads that led towards the gates, an array of tiny pinpricks of firelight showed where the enemy had made their camp. Often armies would disguise their true numbers by building more fires than needed on the edges of their camp, and yet even with that in mind I could not see how the garrison could be as large as Runstan had told us. Either the enemy were on the move, which seemed strange given the efforts they had made to fortify this place, or else he’d lied. And if he had, what else about his story might be false?
‘Surely this is a good thing, though,’ said Eudo. ‘We won’t have to battle our way through so many of them.’
‘I’d rather know what I’m fighting before it kills me,’ Wace muttered. Now that we saw what we faced, he was probably beginning to have further doubts about this expedition.
Possibly it was a ruse designed to lure King Guillaume and his army to assault the town, when in fact within those walls were gathered scores upon scores of men that we could not see.
Sharing Wace’s concerns, I turned to the Englishman. ‘You said there were a thousand men in Beferlic. Where are the others?’
‘Some among the Danes prefer to sleep by their ships rather than in camp,’ Runstan said. ‘They’ve taken a quarter of their force into the marshes a mile or so upstream to guard against an attack from across the hills to the north.’
Or else to catch an unwary foe in the rearguard, and crush them between their swords and the walls of Beferlic. Which meant that in the town itself and the camp surrounding its walls were probably somewhere between seven and eight hundred men.
‘From now on you’ll tell us everything,’ I said, grabbing him by the collar. ‘Do you understand?’
He nodded, but I sensed my threats were meaningless to him. He was no longer trembling, no longer afraid; he knew as we did that he was of more use to us alive than dead.
We circled around the town so as to approach it from the south. We left our horses inside what must at one time have been a barn or storehouse, albeit one long abandoned for it was in need of some repair. An ideal hiding place, since there was little reason for the enemy to venture there, though in any case it was well out of sight of both the town and the river.?dda offered to stay with the animals and wait for our return, and to judge from the anxiety in his eyes that was probably the best thing. He had served me loyally and done more for me than anyone in recent weeks. He had come this far, and I could ask no more of him.
‘If first light comes and there is no sign of us, you must get yourself away from here,’ I told him. ‘Forget about us; make sure you get back safely to Eoferwic and the others.’
He nodded solemnly. How I thought we might escape Beferlic when I didn’t even know how to get in, I wasn’t sure. With luck an answer would present itself when we needed one; that was the best we could hope for.
Nine of us there were, then, who set out across the sucking bogs. Nine, that was, not counting our guide. We
