‘My lord is not strong enough to receive anyone at this present moment, I’m afraid.’ His voice, unlike the fire, was entirely lacking in warmth.
‘Not even his son?’ Robert asked with a frown.
‘Come, Dudo,’ Malet said to the priest. He gave a cough and slowly set the bowl down on the rushes beside him. ‘I am not as frail as all that. Besides, where are your manners?’
‘I simply think, lord, that it would be better if you rest. The hour is late and-’
Malet waved him silent as, with not a little effort, he rose to his feet and turned to greet us, a gentle smile upon his face.
A smile that vanished the instant he saw me.
‘It’s you,’ he said, scowling. ‘Why do you continue to plague me? Am I not sick enough already?’
Robert began: ‘Father-’
Malet raised a hand against his son’s protest. ‘What have you come seeking this time?’ He almost spat the words. ‘More gratitude for your good service? Further plaudits for your prowess at arms? Your weight in gold coin, perhaps? I can tell you now that you will find none of those things here.’
‘I ask nothing of you, lord,’ I said.
But he was not listening. ‘I do not wish to see this man,’ he said to Robert. ‘Why have you brought him here?’
He had never fully forgiven me for the treachery, as he saw it, that he had suffered at my hands. That was why he had dismissed me from his service: because, in his eyes, I had betrayed the trust he’d placed in me, even though I’d done so for good reason and in good conscience. At the same time, however, he couldn’t deny that he owed me, and that was why he resented me. Twice I had rescued his hide in the last few years. More galling than the knowledge of that debt was his continuing inability to pay it. Each time he saw me must have seemed a further insult. Nonetheless, a little more gratitude would not have gone amiss. He’d hardly had a single kind word to say to me since the night of that battle in Beferlic all those months ago.
‘I come bearing no ill will,’ I tried to assure him. ‘I merely wished to know how you were faring.’
He snorted scornfully, as if he didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth. ‘Leave us,’ he snapped at Dudo.
The priest said nothing but bowed. Without meeting either my eyes or Robert’s, he made for the door, although I sensed he wouldn’t venture too far in case his lord needed him. Why it crossed my mind just then I do not know, but for some reason I found myself thinking again of Ælfwold, the Englishman who had been Malet’s previous chaplain and who had met his end some two years earlier. A kind-hearted man, he had tended to me while I was recovering from injury and fever. From our first meeting I’d taken to him in a way that I could not to this Dudo, which was a strange thing to admit given what Ælfwold had later done, and yet it was true, since for a time at least I had counted the Englishman as a friend.
‘This enmity must end,’ Robert said when the priest had left, his tone sharp and his eyes hard as he glanced first at his father and then at me. ‘I will not have the two of you at each other’s throats.’
This was the real reason why he had brought me here, then. To try to forge a reconciliation between us.
‘Why should I waste my breath dealing with him?’ Malet asked, and turned his back.
‘Because I wish it,’ Robert said.
Shaking his head, Malet limped stiffly across the room to where a pitcher stood on a table beside a stack of parchments, and poured himself a cup. I remembered when our paths had first crossed, in his richly decorated palace at Eoferwic, a very different place to this. How long ago it all seemed, though only two years had passed. How far his fortunes had fallen.
Certainly it was true that I’d never had any especial love for him. While he was more astute and quick-minded than most great barons, many of whom had won their reputations through the sword alone, he was not nearly as cunning as he liked to think. Indeed Malet had always seemed to me arrogant, aloof in manner and calculating: everything that his son was not. But even though I had little respect for him as a lord and a leader of men, I would never wish any harm upon him, and it saddened me to see him brought so low.
‘It was Tancred who came for us at Beferlic,’ Robert said. ‘How can you hold a grudge against a man who risked everything to help save your life?’
‘He never came for me,’ Malet said, almost spitting the words. ‘He came for you, Robert. You are his lord. He would have left me to my fate otherwise.’
The barb stung, but what stung harder was the realisation that there was probably a grain of truth in his words.
‘No, lord-’ I started to protest, but he cut me off.
‘You would have done better to leave me there,’ he said. ‘I would have rotted away as a prisoner of the Danes, rather than live only to rot away here. What difference has it made? What good am I to anyone now?’
His face was ashen, his hair had grown long and was turning the colour of snow, and his deep-set eyes had a weary look about them. Even huddled in his cloak he looked thinner than I had ever known him. Thinner, and also somehow shrunken. It was hard to believe that this was the same man I had witnessed not so long ago leading conrois into battle: a fearless fighter, ambitious and lacking nothing in conviction. All the fire that once he had possessed seemed to have gone out of him, which perhaps was no surprise given that he was then by my reckoning almost fifty in years. Whilst I had come across men of sixty and seventy and even older, they were rare, and fifty was in truth a good age, especially for one whose living and whose reputation were made by the sword, as his had been. War exacted its toll, not just upon the body, as my many battle-marks would attest, but also upon the soul, and Malet had seen more battles in the last few years than many saw in a lifetime. And so in spite of his hostility towards me, I felt sorry for him.
‘Have the physicians been to see you this evening?’ asked Robert, his voice quieter now. He had come not looking for a confrontation but hoping to settle matters. Now those hopes were dashed.
‘I sent them away,’ Malet said. ‘They bleed my veins dry and are continually arguing between themselves, but they do nothing to take away the pain. At least I have Dudo. He reads to me, and prays for me, and sometimes we play chess, which I always seem to win. I suspect he lets me, although he insists that is not the case. I do not want pity, from him or anyone. And besides, my mind still works well enough, even if this husk of flesh is failing me.’
No sooner had he finished speaking than he hunched over and began to cough: a dry, rasping sound that shook his entire body and was painful to hear. A dirty rag hung from his belt and he raised it to cover his mouth. When he lifted it away I saw it was flecked with blood, and even I, who was far from well versed in the healing arts, knew that was never a good thing. Robert passed him the cup from the table; Malet took it in his bony fingers and lifted it to his lips, and after he had taken a few sips his son helped him back to the stool by the fire.
‘We will be leaving soon,’ said Robert as he knelt by his father’s side. ‘The king is preparing for another assault upon the Isle and so he is ordering most of the army back to Alrehetha.’
‘So I am informed,’ Malet said. ‘And I shall come with you.’
‘No, Father. It is better if you stay here and save your strength. Dudo will care for you.’
‘My strength will leave me eventually. I would rather be there to witness our victory over the rebels before I die than simply waste away uselessly in this filthy hovel.’
Robert shot him a reproachful look. ‘You should not speak so.’
‘And why not? There is no sense in denying it. My time is short. We both know it to be true. The physicians think the same, although of course they will not admit it openly, since what then would be the point of us paying them? And so does Dudo, although he is too loyal to say so. No, I have made my decision and will not be swayed from it.’
Robert nodded sadly as he clasped his hands around his father’s, and in the light of the fire I g
limpsed the glisten of a tear as it rolled down his cheek. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will return in the morning, shortly before noon. Until then, rest.’
Malet gazed back at him, but it seemed to me that there was no hint of sadness or regret in his eyes, no sense of self-pity in his demeanour, but merely an acceptance of his fate, and despite everything that had happened and his hostility towards me, I admired that courage.
Robert rose, and after bidding a final farewell we left Malet to his fire and stepped outside, where, as I had suspected, Dudo was waiting, standing so close to the door that he must have been eavesdropping. We’d said nothing of any importance, but even so, I gave him a cold stare as we passed. His face betrayed no feeling, and he spoke not a word to us, but afterwards I could feel his eyes on my back. An odd little man, I thought, at the same time wondering where Malet had found him and how he had come to enter his service.
‘I don’t like that priest,’ I confessed to Robert when we were out of earshot. ‘I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him either.’
‘He is harmless. Strange, I will grant you, but entirely harmless. In any case, it doesn’t matter what either of us thinks. My father trusts him and that is all that matters.’
I supposed he was right, although that did nothing to stave off my suspicions.
‘You must realise, too, that his anger isn’t reserved for you,’ Robert said as we walked back across the yard, which the recent rains had turned into a quagmire. ‘He’s angry at the circumstances he finds himself in, and the knowledge that he will never accomplish all that he set out to do. He is a proud man, Tancred, and always has been. He hates for others to see him looking so weak. Seeing you reminds him of a time when his fortunes were better, when men did not spit his name but instead held him in esteem.’
‘If you say so, lord,’ I said, though I didn’t entirely believe him.
We trudged on through the mud until we arrived back outside the hall’s great doors.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you suggested,’ Robert said as we were about to bid each other farewell. ‘About how, if we could only find the right passages through the marshes, we might be able to surprise the enemy, or at least inflict some damage in return.’
‘Yes, lord?’
‘I want you to take a boat out into the marshes towards the Isle. See if you can capture one or more of the rebels and bring them back alive.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Tonight,’ he confirmed. ‘Take Eudo and Wace with you, and as many other men as you think you might need, so long as you go unnoticed and you return by first light.’
‘And how do you expect us to be able to do this, lord?’
‘I hoped you might have some plan in mind. You were the one who suggested it, after all. Unless, of course, you think yourself incapable of such a task.’
He gave a mischievous smile as he spoke. He meant to goad me, for he knew that I rarely refused a challenge when one was laid before me.
‘Well?’ he asked. ‘For you this should be simple.’
He hardly needed to ask, for he had already worked out what my answer would be even before the words formed on my tongue.
‘I will do this, lord.’
His smile broadened further. He knew me too well, I thought. Robert had a way of seeing into men’s hearts, of understanding their characters and desires and how he might use that knowledge to his advantage: a skill that his father also possessed. In that respect, if in few others, they were very much alike.
With that we parted ways. Robert returned inside while I went to gather my men. Earlier, as the smell of stew bubbling in cooking-pots had wafted on the breeze, my mind had turned to thoughts of food, but it was hunger of a different kind that gripped me now. For this was the chance I’d been waiting for. At last I would be doing something more useful than guarding cartloads of grain. Perhaps this was how Robert sought to repay me for all those days spent riding back and forth on the road from Cantebrigia, or else he was merely indulging my restless spirit. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.
What I did know was that we had to make the most of this opportunity, for otherwise it wouldn’t be long before the clash of steel upon steel would ring out across the marshes once again. At one time that prospect would have gladdened me, but not now. For as much as I longed to feel the heat of the mêlée, the rush of blood as I charged into the enemy battle-lines, I could not shake the doubt nagging at the back of my mind. A doubt that grew with every moment that I dwelt upon it, as I thought of Hereward and the rest of the rebels, ensconced in their impregnable fastness upon the Isle, and the king’s single-minded desire to crush them whatever the cost. By anyone’s estimation we faced a fight the likes of which we had not known since Hæstinges itself: a desperate struggle from which glory or death were the only two routes out. Even if, at the end of it, we emerged victorious, that victory would surely come at a tremendous price, of blood and limbs and life.
And though I did my best to drive such thoughts away, I couldn’t help but wonder whether this battle would be my last.
Five
Tall reed-banks slid by under starless skies. A thick layer of cloud had come across that the waning moon’s milky light could barely penetrate, which made it all the easier for us to slip unnoticed through the shadows. A faint drizzle hung in the air and I felt its cold touch upon my face. All was still save for a gentle splash as I let the punting-pole slip into the black water, felt it strike the riverbed, pushed against the sucking mud and loose stones and heaved it out again, ready for the next stroke. My arms had grown heavy, my shoulders were aching, and I was starting to wonder whether this had been such a wise idea after all. Many miles of pasture and fen lay between us and the rest of the king’s army at Brandune, and I reckoned we couldn’t be far from Elyg itself.
I glanced at our guide, Baudri, who crouched by the prow of our small boat. A brusque man in his middle years, he was one of the king’s scouts: indeed one of the best, if the rumours were right, with sharp eyes and hearing and a keen awareness of strategy. We were relying on his knowledge of the main river-passages to bring us as close as possible to the rebel stronghold. I wasn’t planning to set foot on its shores, not this night, at any rate. What I had in mind was rather different. I only hoped that in the dark and with this mist surrounding us Baudri could still find his way, and that we didn’t end up wandering into an enemy patrol. Certainly he didn’t seem troubled, and I took that for a good sign. Nevertheless, I kept a close eye on each riverbank, expecting at any moment to spy the shadows of foemen following us, watching, or else to hear a sudden whistle of air as clusters of steel-tipped shafts flew from out of the gloom. But the enemy did not show themselves, nor were any arrows loosed upon us, and so I had to assume that we hadn’t been seen.
God was with us.
‘Remind me, lord,’ said Pons. ‘What are we doing here?’
I shot him a reproachful look. He was still angry at the loss of his destrier, which I could well understand, although he would do better to save that anger for use against the enemy, rather than turn it upon his friends.
‘We’re here because Robert ordered it,’ I replied sternly.
‘Because you suggested it, you mean,’ Eudo said. ‘Trust you to say something. If it weren’t for you, we could all be asleep in our tents right now. I could be tumbling with my Sewenna. Have I told you about her?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. He’d hardly stopped talking about her in the last two months, although both Wace and I considered her rather plain. Eudo’s eye for women tended to be less discriminating than those of most men. ‘Now, quiet.’
Eudo returned to keeping a lookout, while I passed the punting-pole to Serlo, whose arms were fresher than mine. Sitting down in the damp bilge where the silt-laden water soaked into my braies, I took up one of the paddles to steer us closer to the bank where we would be less easily seen, and hoped that Wace and Hamo in the two boats behind us did likewise. For my plan to work we would need to draw the
enemy’s attention, but not yet. Not until our trap was set. And so we carried on, making our way up one of the many creeks and channels that I hoped would take us a little closer to the Isle.
‘I’m going to marry her,’ Eudo said suddenly, breaking the stillness, and I realised his mind was still on Sewenna.
‘You’re a fool,’ I said. ‘You’ve barely known her half a year.’
Nor was she the first he’d become besotted with of late. Before Sewenna his heart had been pledged to an English slave-woman named Censwith, who had served in a bawdy house in Sudwerca and who had died of a fever before he could buy her freedom. She’d been pretty, though, whereas the latest object of his affections had a face like a sow’s arse. She was young, probably no more than sixteen summers old, fierce in temper and lacking in humour. Why he had brought her with him on campaign I could not work out, especially since he could have had his pick from more than a hundred camp-followers, any one of whom would have made a better match for him.
‘She makes me happy,’ Eudo said. ‘What’s wrong with that? Besides, you weren’t with Oswynn for much longer than six months. Have you given up looking for her yet?’
‘No,’ I replied, and felt slightly embarrassed to admit it, for I knew what he would probably say. ‘I haven’t.’
Oswynn was my woman, or had been. Dark, beautiful, wild Oswynn, with her inviting eyes and her hair, the colour of pitch, falling loosely and unbound to her breasts, as I liked her to wear it. I had cared for her more than any other woman before or since: more, indeed, than I ever dared admit to myself at the time. Even though she was English and of low birth, the daughter of a village blacksmith, and even though we could speak only a few phrases in each other’s tongue, and even though our time together had been short, nevertheless I had loved her.
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