Sworn Sword

by James Aitcheson

  No one had said anything in a while, when Eudo delved into his pack and brought out a wooden pipe, about two hands’ spans in length and with half a dozen holes along its length. His flute, I realised, with some surprise; it was a long time since I had heard him play.

  ‘I thought you’d lost it months ago,’ I said.

  ‘I did,’ he answered. ‘Some bastard stole it from my pack around Christmas. I bought this one while we were in Eoferwic.’

  He held it before him, closing his eyes as if trying to remember how to use it, then put the beaked end to his lips, breathed deeply, and began: softly at first but slowly building, lingering on every wistful note, until after a short while I began to recognise the song. It was one I remembered from our campaigns in Italy all those years ago, and as I listened and gazed into the fire I found myself there again: feeling the heat of the summer, riding across the sun-parched fields with their brown and withered crops, through olive groves and cypress thickets.

  Eudo’s fingers danced over the holes as the music quickened, rising gracefully to a peak, where it trembled for a while, before settling down to a final pure note and fading away to nothing.

  He lifted it from his lips and opened his eyes. ‘I ought to practise more,’ he said, flexing his fingers and laying it down beside him. ‘I haven’t played in a long while.’

  If he hadn’t said so, though, I wouldn’t have been able to tell, so confident and sweet was his playing.

  ‘Give us another song,’ Wace said.

  The fire was dwindling, I noticed, and most of the stack of branches we’d collected was gone.

  ‘I’ll go and find some more wood,’ I said, getting to my feet.

  It had rained earlier that day and so there was little dry wood to be found anywhere, but eventually I’d gathered enough to keep the fire going, for a few hours at least. I began to make my way back, a bundle of damp sticks beneath my arm, when I thought I heard a voice amidst the trees, not far off.

  I stopped. The night was still, and for a moment the only other sound I could hear was that of Eudo’s flute, this time playing a quicker song: one that was lighter and more playful. But then the voice came again, low and softly spoken. A woman’s voice, I realised, and as I came nearer I saw that it was Beatrice.

  She was kneeling upon the ground, her head bowed and her hands clasped together in prayer. Her back was to me, the hood of her cloak drawn back to reveal her fair hair, which was bound in a tight braid at the back of her head. My footfalls sounded softly upon the sodden earth and she showed no sign of having heard me.

  ‘My lady,’ I said. ‘I thought you were abed.’

  She looked up with a sharp intake of breath, her expression putting me in mind of a deer that has just heard the sound of the hunting-horn.

  ‘You startled me,’ she replied crossly, her lips tight.

  ‘It isn’t safe to be wandering the woods. You should be with the others.’ I glanced back towards the fire, wondering how they could have let her from their sight. I would speak with them later.

  ‘I’m not wandering,’ she said. ‘And I don’t need you to watch over me.’

  She turned and again bowed her head, closing her eyes, hoping perhaps that if she ignored me, I would soon go away. As the faint moonlight fell upon her face, however, I saw that her cheeks were wet, and I realised she had been crying.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  She said nothing, but she did not have to, for no sooner had the question left my lips than I already knew the answer. ‘You’re thinking about your father, aren’t you?’

  She raised her hands to her face, as if hiding her tears from me. ‘Leave me,’ she said between sobs. ‘Please.’

  But Ælfwold’s words from a few days ago were still fresh in my mind, and the sight of Beatrice on her knees and trembling was more than I could bear. Here was a chance to set things right.

  I crouched beside her, setting down the firewood before gently resting my hand upon her shoulder. She flinched at my touch, though she did not try to get up, or to shake my hand away.

  ‘You don’t understand what it feels like,’ she said, ‘not knowing whether you will ever see someone again.’

  Lord Robert, Oswynn, Gérard, Fulcher, Ivo, Ernost, Mauger: I would not see any of them again. Not in this life, at least. But I knew that wasn’t quite what she meant.

  ‘No,’ I said instead, ‘I don’t.’

  I didn’t know what more I could add, nor did she speak, but I stayed there, until my legs began to ache and I felt my wound twinge and I sat down on the wet leaves instead. The damp seeped through the thin cloth of my braies, cold against my skin, but I did not care.

  ‘I barely knew my father,’ I said quietly, after a while. ‘Or my mother either. Both died when I was young.’

  Almost twenty years ago, I realised. What would they think of me, were they here to see me? Would they recognise the man I had become?

  ‘The closest to a father I ever truly had was Robert de Commines,’ I went on. ‘And now he is gone too, along with all my sworn brothers, and Oswynn—’

  I broke off, suddenly aware of Beatrice’s gaze resting upon me. I had hardly spoken of my family in years. Why was I doing so now, and to her? Why was I telling her about Robert, about Oswynn?

  ‘Oswynn,’ Beatrice said. Her tears had stopped, and in the soft light her skin was milky-pale. ‘She was your woman.’

  I sighed deeply, letting the bitter night air fill my chest. ‘She was.’

  ‘You cared for her.’

  Not as much as I should have, I thought, though at the same time probably more than I had ever dared admit to myself. Would I ever have made her my wife, had she lived? Probably not; she was English, and of low stock besides, the daughter of a blacksmith. And yet she’d been unlike all the other girls I’d known: strong-minded and fiery in temper; unafraid of anyone; able to face up to even the most battle-hardened of Lord Robert’s knights. There would never be another like her.

  ‘I did,’ I said simply, leaving Beatrice to take from that what she would.

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was one of my men who told me. I never saw what happened.’

  ‘Perhaps it was better that way.’

  ‘Better?’ I echoed. ‘It would have been better if I had never left her in the first place. If I had been with her, I could have protected her.’ And she would still be alive now, I thought.

  ‘Or else you might have died with her,’ Beatrice said.

  ‘No,’ I said, though of course she was right. If the enemy had come upon them suddenly, as Mauger had said, there was probably little I could have done. Yet what did it matter to Beatrice what had happened to Oswynn?

  Discomfited all of a sudden, I got to my feet. ‘We should get back. The others will be wondering where we are.’

  I held out my hand to help her up; she took it in her own. Her fingers were long and delicate, her palm cold but soft. She rose, smoothing down her skirt, brushing off the leaves and twigs. There were patches of mud where she had been kneeling, but that could not be helped. She pulled her hood back over her hair, while I gathered up the wood for the fire, and together we returned in the direction of the camp. Eudo had finished playing, for the meantime at least, and the knights were laughing amongst themselves as they took draughts from a wineskin that they passed around.

  We arrived at the edge of the clearing, where I bade her a good night and watched her make her way back to her tent. For the first time in weeks, I realised I felt free, as if merely by talking about Robert and Oswynn a weight had been lifted from my heart.

  I was going to join the others by the fire, when I glimpsed Ælfwold standing in the shadows beside his tent. How long had he been there? I made to walk away, ignoring him, but hardly had I gone five paces when he called my name. For a moment I considered pretending that I had not heard, had not seen him, but then he called a second time and I turned to see him marching towards me.

  ‘Wh
at were you doing?’ he demanded.

  I stared back at him, surprised. I had known the chaplain only a few weeks, but never before had I seen him provoked to such anger. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he answered, and gestured towards the ladies’ tent.

  I realised then that he must have seen me with Beatrice. Indeed, how must it have looked, the two of us emerging together from the trees?

  ‘She was upset,’ I said, feeling the blood rising up my cheeks. Yet I had no reason to be ashamed, and if the priest thought I did, then he was mistaken. ‘I was comforting her.’

  ‘Comforting her?’

  ‘What sort of a man do you think I am?’ I asked, trying to restrain my temper. I looked him up and down, disgusted that he would so much as imply such a thing. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I know exactly—’

  I did not let him finish, as I pointed my finger towards his face. ‘You should hold your tongue, priest, in case you say something you might regret.’

  He froze, blinking at me, but heeded my warning and stayed quiet.

  ‘I would never besmirch the lady Beatrice’s honour,’ I said as I drew away. ‘And if you doubt my word, you can ask her in person.’

  I half expected him to offer some retort, but instead he turned his back and disappeared into his tent, leaving me standing there, alone and confused. How could he think so little of me, when all I had done was try to follow his advice?

  I heard the fire crackling, the other knights laughing. I shook my head, trying to clear it, and went to join them.

  Eighteen

  I KEPT MY distance from Ælfwold the next morning, and from Beatrice as well: I didn’t want to give the priest any reason to think that his suspicions might be founded. Once or twice I exchanged a glance with him, but most of the time he rode on in front, never so far that he was out of sight or hearing, but always apart from the rest of us.

  It was only when we stopped to eat at noon that the Englishman approached me again. His temper had cooled, for he came with head bowed and hands clasped sombrely in front of him.

  He sat down beside me. ‘I’ve been meaning to apologise for last night,’ he said. ‘It was wrong for me to imply that anything’ – he hesitated, as if searching for the right word – ‘anything untoward might have taken place.’

  I did not reply, nor even look at him as I took another bite of bread.

  ‘I fear I may have been too hasty in my presumptions,’ the chaplain went on. ‘I was merely concerned, for Beatrice’s sake. I have known her since she was very young, and she is dear to me. I hope you understand.’

  ‘I thought nothing of it,’ I lied. In fact I had spent a great deal of time turning it over in my mind. I hadn’t thought the chaplain the kind of man to anger so easily – not, at least, until last night.

  ‘That is good,’ Ælfwold said, nodding, and once more produced that gentle smile I had grown used to seeing.

  Still, I could not help but feel uneasy, and I kept a close watch over him over the next couple of days, though exactly what I was looking for I was not sure.

  The rest of the journey was passed in an ill humour: little was said and the rain and wind did nothing to lift the mood. Nothing more was said of Eoferwic or Malet, and the fact that none of the towns we passed through had heard any news only unsettled me even more.

  So it was that on the following Sunday, the twenty-second day in the month of February, and the sixth after we had left Suthferebi, we finally left the woods to the north of Lundene. The familiar Bisceopesgeat hill came into sight, its crest occupied by the stone church and attendant buildings of the convent of St Æthelburg, lit orange by the low sun. Since first coming across the Narrow Sea two-and-a-half years before, I had been to Lundene more often than I could recall; more than anywhere else in England, it felt like home.

  Fields gave way to houses as we made our way up the other side of the valley towards the Bisceopesgeat itself, which was one of the seven gatehouses, built of stone and more than thirty feet high. The city was girded on its landward sides by great stone walls left by the Romans, the first people to have taken this island, so many centuries ago. I remembered how, the first time I had arrived, I had marvelled at the sight: it had seemed more of a fortress than a town. But a town it was, by far the largest in the kingdom: more than twice the size of Eoferwic and easily a rival to Cadum and Rudum, the great cities of Normandy.

  The road was quiet; it was growing late and I imagined that most men would be at home with their wives, drinking ale or mead by the warmth of their hearths. Children played in the road, chasing each other between and around the backs of the houses, hardly noticing us. It was a pleasant change after Eoferwic, where Frenchmen were still greeted in the streets with hostility or, at the very least, suspicion. Of course the south of the kingdom was long accustomed to our presence, having made its surrender within a month of our victory at Hæstinges. In the time since, the people in Lundene had come to understand that we were here to stay, in a way that the northerners so far had not.

  The gatehouse rose tall in front of us, solid and imposing as it must have appeared for hundreds of years, although I could see from the lighter coloured stone in the upper courses where it had been repaired and added to. Behind a wooden parapet on its roof, two men stood silhouetted against the yellowing sky, facing out across the fields towards the north, spears in hands, their long hair blowing in the wind where it protruded from beneath the rims of their helmets. How many sieges, how many assaults had these walls withstood? How many others had kept watch atop the same tower?

  We passed in single file beneath the shadow of its archway; hooves clattered against the paving stones, echoing in its darkened confines. There were four knights guarding the gate, pacing about, blowing warm air into their hands. When they saw that most of us were Normans, however, they let us pass, and then the low sun was on my face again.

  We carried on climbing the hill until we had passed the church, whereupon the road fell away once more, straight down towards the river. The whole city sprawled out before us. Houses and workshops clustered together along the main streets, sending up coils of smoke that wound about each other in the still evening air. Beyond them the murky waters of the Temes swept in great curves across the land. A number of ships were out on the river that evening: fishing boats returning from the estuary with their day’s catch; trading vessels, wide-beamed and broad in sail; a solitary longship, fighting its way against the current. I remembered what Aubert had said back in Suthferebi, and for a heartbeat wondered if it might be Wyvern, before I saw her sail, which was blue and white rather than black and gold.

  In the south-eastern quarter of the city stood the castle, more impressive still than the one at Eoferwic, while in the far distance, a mile and more upriver of the city, was the great abbey church of Westmynstre, its towers rising high above the stone-and-timber halls of the royal palace and the houses and farms of Aldwic, the old town.

  ‘Where from here?’ I asked the chaplain.

  ‘Down to Wæclinga stræt,’ he replied. ‘Lord Guillaume’s house lies the other side of the Walebroc.’

  I nodded, picturing both street and brook in my mind as we carried on down the hill, towards the bridge which carried the road across the Temes to Sudwerca and thence on to the southern coast and the Narrow Sea. Squawks pierced the air as a lone chicken scurried down the road in front of us, flapping its wings; a young girl chased after it, shrieking with excitement while a woman in a grey dress called after her. A dull clanging sounded out from the open front of one of the workshops, where a blacksmith hammered away at a glowing red horseshoe, throwing up sparks, before taking it in a set of tongs and thrusting it back into the forge.

  The sun had fallen below roof-level by the time we reached Malet’s townhouse. It was a simple long hall, two storeys high and built of timber and thatch, distinguished by the banner of black and gold which flew from its eastern gable. After s
eeing his residence in Eoferwic it was in truth something of a disappointment. There were no walls or gatehouse, although there was a small fenced enclosure running around the side of the hall, with a yard and stables behind. Its oak door opened almost directly out on to the road and was guarded by a single servant.

  Ælfwold rode up to him and spoke some words in English; the other man disappeared inside the hall. I dismounted, motioning for the rest of the knights to do the same, and then offered my hand to Elise to help her. She accepted but did not meet my eyes as she climbed from the saddle. Beside her, Beatrice gratefully accepted Wace’s hand, leaning on his shoulder and stepping down with grace.

  The oak door opened again and a tall, red-faced Englishman appeared; he smiled when he saw the chaplain standing there and the two briefly embraced, speaking in their own tongue.

  Ælfwold broke off. ‘The ladies Elise and Beatrice,’ he said, gesturing towards them.

  The Englishman knelt on the ground before them, leaning forward to kiss each of them on the back of the hand. ‘My ladies,’ he said. ‘It’s a relief to see you safe. When we heard the news from Eoferwic, we feared the worst.’ Like the chaplain, he spoke French well.

  ‘Wigod,’ said Ælfwold, ‘this is Tancred a Dinant, to whom Lord Guillaume has entrusted our safety. Tancred, this is Lord Guillaume’s steward, Wigod son of Wiglaf.’

  The steward rose, looking me up and down with indifference. He had dark hair, cut fairly short for an Englishman, with a pink patch of scalp showing where he was beginning to bald. His upper lip bore a thick moustache, though he was otherwise clean-shaven. He extended a hand and I clasped it.

  ‘Wigod, I must know,’ Elise said, interrupting, ‘what news is there from Eoferwic?’

  The Englishman stepped back, his expression solemn. ‘Perhaps it is best if you come inside, into the warmth, rather than discuss such matters in the open.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘My ladies, Ælfwold,’ he said, and then to the rest of us: ‘I’ll have the boy show you the stables.’ He put his head around the doorframe into the hall. ‘Osric!’