‘They’re growing bolder,’ Serlo said, and even though he was turned away from me, I pictured the scowl that would be on his face. ‘There’s something brewing, something big. Isn’t there, lord?’
I hesitated. Apart from the raids, the last year had in truth been fairly settled. While there were often tales of disturbances in one corner of the country or another, for the most part they were local matters, and easily put down. There had been no news of the northern rebels, who were lurking somewhere in the hills and the woods of Northumbria. Nor had anything been heard of Eadgar Ætheling, the man I had sworn to kill, who last year had murdered my former lord in the ambush at Dunholm. He was out there with them, though no one knew where, and while many suspected he would make another attempt to take the crown that he believed was his, there had been no sign of it yet; no word of his men marching or of his ships sailing.
Many months lay between now and winter, though: plenty of time in which to mount a campaign, and I didn’t doubt that the ætheling was busy plotting something. And so a part of me couldn’t help but share Serlo’s suspicions. My sword-arm itched at the very thought. It had been too long since I’d had the chance to test it in battle, and by that I meant a proper fight, not the small raids and skirmishes we were always fighting in this border land. I yearned for the clash of steel upon steel, the blood rushing through my veins, the delight of the charge, the pounding of hooves, the weight of the lance in my hand ready to strike, the cries as we drove into the enemy’s lines. The bloodlust. The battle-joy.
‘Lord?’ Serlo said again.
But I had no answer for him. Instead I passed him the flask I’d been drinking from. ‘Here. Try some of this. I need a piss.’
I ventured down the hill, towards the willows by the stream, though not so far that I lost sight of the tents upon the rise. My right leg had gone numb from the way I had been sitting and I tried to stretch it out, limping slightly as I went.
I reached the stream and was just about to unlace my braies when, carrying on the faint breeze, I heard what sounded like sobbing. Frowning, I ducked beneath the branches and the drooping leaves, fending them away from my face as I made my way towards the noise. I did not have to go far. Barely ten paces away from me, kneeling down by the stream with her head in her hands, was Hild.
How had she managed to slip away without either Serlo or I noticing? Probably while we were speaking, I thought, and silently I castigated myself for not being more careful. If I couldn’t keep close watch over our own camp, how easy would it be for the enemy to take us by surprise?
She saw me standing there, and straightaway scrambled to her feet, brushing dirt from her skirts, speaking quickly in words I didn’t understand. She was a thin girl, short of stature; not yet married, for her hair was uncovered and unbound, and not unattractive either, despite the graze to her cheek where she had been struck.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, raising my hands and opening my palms to show that I meant her no harm. She was probably only about sixteen or seventeen summers old, though I was never much good at guessing ages. I tried to remember whose daughter she was, but I could not.
She did not move, as if her feet had taken root where she stood. I felt I ought to say something more. In the past year I’d learnt to speak some English, but at that moment few words came to mind.
‘It’s all right,’ I said again, though I was not prepared for what was to come, as she spluttered into tears and threw her arms around me. I was too surprised to do anything but stand there as she clutched at me, her face buried in my cloak.
‘Lyfing,’ she said, between sobs. ‘Lyfing.’
I felt a stab of regret. There was no way we could have carried his body with us so many miles back to Earnford, and we’d had no time to dig a proper grave either, and so we’d had little choice but to leave him for the crows and the wolves to feed upon.
And yet I knew what it meant to lose someone so close. The same night that my lord had died at the Northumbrians’ hands, I’d also lost Oswynn. I had not even had the chance to say farewell, nor to tell her how much she had truly meant to me, and now that chance was gone for ever. She still came to me in my dreams from time to time: her black hair unbound and unkempt, falling loose to her breasts; her embrace as tender as I remembered. But what I missed above all else was not her dark beauty but her strength of will, her lack of fear even in the face of the proudest of my fellow knights. The world may be governed by men, but it is women who govern our hearts, and I had never known another woman like Oswynn. Even though our time together had been short, and many things had changed for me since then, one thing remained the same, for still I missed her.
It was then that I remembered the comb with the initial ‘H’ carved into it that Ædda had found on the path, which I still carried in my coin-pouch. Gently I prised first Hild’s hands, then the rest of her away from me and drew out the small piece of antler.
‘This is yours, I think.’
Her eyes, heavy from so many tears, opened wide. She took it from me, clasping it in both hands close to her chest, before pressing it to her lips. I wondered whether it was Lyfing who had given her that comb, and, if so, how hard he must have worked and how long he must have saved his few silver pennies to be able to afford it, to help win her affections. Though it had all come to nothing. Perhaps he would be waiting for her at the end of days, just as I hoped Oswynn was waiting for me.
She murmured something: a thanks, perhaps, or else a prayer. In the distance a wolf howled, and its call was answered by a second and then a third. A pack returning from the hunt, I thought, just like us.
‘Come,’ I said. ‘It’s not safe here.’
She was looking towards the stream, gazing into the broken waters tumbling over the stones. I didn’t know if she had even heard me, but I placed a hand on her shoulder and she met my eyes.
‘We’ve got a long day’s travel ahead of us,’ I said. ‘You should get some rest.’
Unspeaking, she nodded. After a final, forlorn glance at me, she bowed her head and was gone.
It was growing late when we arrived back the next day. Now that our numbers had swollen, we travelled more slowly than I would have liked, but at last around sunset the summit of Read Dun – the Red Hill, as it was known to the people who lived at its foot – came into sight. Its forbidding and thickly wooded slopes marked the western bounds of my land, and I knew we did not have far to travel. Before long we had emerged from its shadow, and in front of us lay fields thick with green wheat, with the silver ribbon of the river winding its way between them. Cottages and hovels nestled by its banks, with spires of smoke rising from the thatch. Beyond them on the higher ground stood stables and granaries, the slaughtering shed and the hen coop and the still-empty house that formed the steward’s lodgings, with the great hall at their centre, all of it enclosed by a simple ditch and timber stockade.
Earnford. The manor given to me by my new lord, Robert Malet. The place that I called home, strange though it seems when I look back upon those times now. Of course I couldn’t have known then what lay ahead, what path fate and God had chosen for me, so perhaps it was not so strange at the time. Besides, by that summer – my twenty-seventh, and the one thousand and seventieth since our Lord’s Incarnation – I’d already held the manor for the better part of a year. Indeed it was fifteen months since King Guillaume had been victorious at Eoferwic: since we had routed the English rebels under their leader, the pretender Eadgar, and driven them from the city back to their halls in the north. Back then I had been but a knight in my lord’s service, oath-sworn and hungry for battle, for redemption and vengeance and the chance to prove myself. Now I was a lord in my own right, with lands and a hall and a gatehouse, with loyal knights to lead under my banner.
The wind was rising, gusting from the west. From the gable of the hall flew my device: a black hawk on a white field. It had once been the symbol of my old lord, the Earl of Northumbria, before he met his end at the hands of the rebels, and I’d kept it a
s my own out of respect to him. He had taught me the way of the sword, had been like a father to me, had helped to make me the man I was. In return I had sworn to serve him unto death, and in the same way I hoped that by taking on the hawk banner I could serve his memory still.
Pons gave a blast upon the horn, so that the villagers would not see our shadows in the distance and think we were the enemy coming back for another attack. A shout went up as we approached and young and old alike came rushing from the fields and their houses, abandoning cart and oxen and spindle and distaff to greet us. Children raced to their mothers, shrieking as they threw their arms around their legs, while the girls we had rescued ran to their fathers and husbands: the ones who had been too old or infirm to come with us. Everywhere men and women held each other, crying tears of happiness, crying with the joy of being alive.
Turold smiled at me, and I smiled back. Families were something of a mystery to me. I had never really known my own; both my mother and my father had died when I was young. But it was hard not to be touched by such a sight.
Men clutched at our sleeves and cloaks as we rode through the throng. Others knelt down in the dirt before us, bursting forth with what I imagined to be thanks, until there were so many of them surrounding us, reaching out to clasp our hands, that my mount could barely move, and I had to slide down from the saddle to lead him on foot.
‘Hlaford Tancred!’ Ædda cried out loud, raising his fist to the sky. His words were taken up by the rest of the men, until they were all chanting as if with one voice: ‘Hlaford Tancred!’
And then through the midst of the crowd, I glimpsed Leofrun. Her auburn hair fell loosely across her shoulders as I liked her to wear it, shining in the late sun. She smiled softly, and there was a tear of gladness in her eye. I left the reins of my horse for someone else to take as she rushed towards me. Taking her in my arms, I held her close.
‘You were gone so long,’ she said in French. ‘I thought—’ She stopped herself. ‘I’m glad you’re safe.’
‘Me too,’ I replied with a grin.
Her cheeks glowed. Her belly looked even more swollen than I remembered, even though we’d been gone but two days. Already she was several months with child, and I reckoned it could not be long now before her time: another couple of months at most. I was nervous, as I knew she was herself. Although I think she cared for me more than I did for her, she made me happy enough, and I did not want to lose her. She was strong both in body and in mind, with wide hips that would make the birth easier, but even so I was uneasy.
Placing one hand on her belly, and with the other wiping the tear that had rolled down her soft cheek, I kissed her.
‘Those men who came,’ she said. ‘Are they—?’
‘Yes.’
‘All of them?’
‘All of them.’
She nodded, as if contemplating this fact, then closed her eyes and threw her arms around me. ‘I’m glad you’re safe.’
Before all else we buried the three who had been killed in the Welsh attack: a father and both his sons. We laid them in the ground in the same place where his wife also lay, having died of the pox last autumn. Erchembald the priest performed the rites while the villagers watched, and afterwards he spoke a few words for Lyfing, offering consolation to Nothmund the miller, to his wife Gode and to Hild, for all that it was worth. It would not bring him back to them.
While it was only right that we remembered those who had died, however, there was also reason to be happy. And so as day turned to dusk, the rest of Earnford celebrated our safe return. A great fire was built by the banks of the river, and everyone gathered around it. I had a haunch of salted beef brought down from the hall and laid out on a long trestle table, along with platters of smoked fish caught at the weir, rounds of cheese, loaves of that day’s bread, pots of honey from the beehives on my demesne, pitchers of ale and mead, casks of cider brought across from Normandy and barrels of wine from Burgundy. Thus we feasted, filling the air with our laughter and the joy of hard-earned victory.
Children chased each other around the flames, wrestled upon the ground and played in the ford, splashing water in each other’s faces, soaking their clothes and their hair. Men danced with their women as a cheerful song sounded out across the valley, led by the aged swineherd Garwulf on a kind of lyre known as a crwth, which his Welsh father had taught him how to play. His fingers darted furiously up and down the strings; with every stroke of his bow he stamped his foot upon the ground. Shortly he was joined by another man on a wooden flute, who added soft flourishes and flurries to the swineherd’s rhythms, and then someone else brought out a drum and began to beat a steady time on it. Their music rose to the heavens and I led my smiling Leofrun by the hand beneath the arches made by the others’ arms, holding her gaze all the while, looking deep into those grey-blue eyes and thinking that I did not deserve a woman so devoted and caring as she.
Ale flowed and spirits soared. But I could not keep from my mind those who were not there: the miller and his wife and their three younger children, not to mention those the Welsh had slain. As the dance quickened and men took different partners, I slipped away from Leofrun and all those people into the shadows. It had grown dark by then and so no one saw me retreat to the grassy slopes beneath the stockade. For a long while I simply sat there, swigging from the flagon I’d brought with me as I watched the flames writhing into the sky. Two of the field labourers – Odgar and Rædwulf – cast another log on to the pile, throwing up plumes of dark smoke that twisted about each other and billowed with thick clouds of sparks.
Still I couldn’t shake the feeling that Lyfing’s death was my fault. An image rose unbidden to my mind of his limp, crimson-stained body, and of his woman looking up at me with those helpless eyes. He was no warrior, just a mill-hand, but nevertheless he hadn’t hesitated to take up arms, to follow me into battle, to risk his neck for me, for his kin, for his woman. He hadn’t needed to fight, but he had chosen to do so out of loyalty and love, and because of that he had lost everything.
More than a decade had passed since I set out on the sword-path, since I had first given my oath, and in those years I had seen countless comrades fall. Many I could no longer recall by face or by name, but many more had been close friends of mine, and I would have been lying if I said that their deaths had not affected me. Lyfing, on the other hand, I had hardly known at all, even though he was one of my people, one of those I was sworn to defend. Perhaps that was why I was taking his loss hard, for it meant that I had failed in my duty, not just to him but to his family as well, to Hild and to the whole of Earnford.
‘It isn’t good for you to spend so much time alone, lord.’
The voice came from behind, startling me, and I turned to find Father Erchembald. A Norman, he was a stout man, short of stature, with a youthful face that belied his years and his wisdom. After the events of last year and the business with the chaplain Ælfwold, I had grown more wary around men of the cloth, but I could not help but like this man, who always seemed in good humour.
‘I’m not alone now,’ I replied. The flagon by my side was almost empty but I offered it to him anyway.
He waved it away as he sat down, cross-legged, on the grass beside me. I shrugged and drank down the few drops that were left, while he watched me with a look that was somewhere between concern and disapproval.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘You should be down there, with them,’ he said. ‘With Leofrun.’
I didn’t know what to say to that, and after a few moments of silence had passed between us, he sighed and tried again: ‘It is because of you that Earnford rejoices rather than mourns tonight.’
Down by the fire some of the village girls approached Turold and Pons and Serlo, taking them each by the hand and pulling them into the circle as a new song began. French and English making merry together: I hadn’t thought I would live to see it happen. Even now, somewhere in the north, the rebels could be gathering their forces, preparing to ma
rch. But when I watched the village men drinking and singing and dancing in the last light, I found it hard to imagine any of them taking up arms under Eadgar’s banner. All they wanted was to tend their animals and plough their fields, to sow their crops and feed their families. They cared nothing for the kingdom. What did it matter to them whether a foreigner wore the crown, or one of their own race? As long as they were governed by a lord who would protect them from the Welsh who came with fire and sword across the hills, they had everything they needed.
Except that this time I had not protected them, and four men had died needlessly.
‘It is because of me that a boy was killed yesterday.’ I could not meet the priest’s eyes but instead stared down at the ground. ‘I ought to have stopped him. Instead all I could think about was my own glory.’
‘We must all make our own choices,’ Father Erchembald said, ‘and young Lyfing chose to fight. He knew the risks, and I’m sure you did all that you could for him. You cannot blame yourself for his death.’
I gazed at the blazing fire, remembering the way the flames had swept through the town, through the fastness and the mead-hall that winter’s night at Dunholm. For a long time I had blamed myself for what had happened there too, before swearing instead to kill the man who was responsible. Lyfing’s killer already lay dead, and so in that sense the blood-price was paid, though I was no happier for it.
‘Those women wouldn’t be here were it not for you,’ the priest said, gesturing at the figures dancing down by the river. ‘You did a good thing, Tancred, and you must not forget that. They are indebted to you. Let them show you their thanks.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘It is for the best,’ said Erchembald. ‘It seems to me that a man can spend so much time in his own head that he forgets the world around him. The things which are truly important.’
‘What do you mean, father?’
‘I know that you still seek vengeance. You long to be with your old comrades, to ride into battle once more, to hunt down the man who murdered your former lord.’
The Splintered Kingdom Page 3