‘I’ll see that he’s well taken care of, lord, and the other destriers too. I have a friend at Clune who owes me a favour. He’ll gladly keep them for you, make sure they’re well exercised and given the finest grazing, at least until you return. I’ll make sure to visit them when I can, too.’
I gave him my thanks. The Englishman went to fetch a bundle of hay from the lean-to that served as a storehouse.
‘Has there been any sign of the Welsh while we’ve been away?’ I asked when he came back.
‘None. It’s been quiet. There was only one raid, if you could call it that. Two lads tried to steal a pig from the pens the night of the feast of St Oda, but the animal squealed and woke half the manor. Galfrid caught them, but they were so young that he took pity on them and sent them away.’
I didn’t bother asking when St Oda’s feast was. The English had so many saints, some of them barely known outside of the shire they hailed from, that it was a wonder they could remember even half of them.
At least there hadn’t been any further attacks, and that was some relief. Probably the Welsh were still licking their wounds after their defeat at King Guillaume’s hands last autumn, which had sent them fleeing back to the hovels that passed for halls in their land.
‘Has there been any news of Bleddyn?’
The King of Gwynedd and Powys, Bleddyn had held me captive for several weeks last year, and even tried to sell me to some of the English rebels. His was yet another name on the list of men who had wronged me, and whom I’d sworn to kill, although as yet I hadn’t succeeded in delivering on any of those promises.
‘Nothing,’ said Ædda. ‘As I said, it’s been quiet.’
‘With any luck things will stay that way a while longer.’
‘I hope so, lord.’
We embraced. ‘I wish you well,’ I said. ‘Both you and Sannan.’
‘And the same to you, lord. God willing, we’ll see you again before long.’
‘You will,’ I said. ‘I know it.’
And I wished I believed it.
One final thing remained for me to do before we left. As the first of the sun’s rays gleamed through the woods to the east, I ventured down towards the half-built church. In its yard, amidst the fallen leaves, I found what I had come for. There was no stone cross, no grave-marker to show it, but I knew by the way the ground rose and dipped and the way that the grass grew thickly that this was the place.
Kneeling down on the dewy ground, I closed my eyes, bringing back to mind Leofrun’s face and all the happy times we had enjoyed together. It was probably true that I had never cared for her quite as deeply as she cared for me, although whether she ever realised that, I wasn’t sure. I had known few women as warm in heart or as generous in spirit as she. Now I was leaving Earnford behind to go in search of another. I only hoped that, if we met again in the heavenly kingdom, she would understand. After giving a prayer for the safekeeping of her soul and that of Baderon, our son — the son I’d never known, who had died almost before he had lived, and was buried beside her — I breathed a long sigh, reluctantly raised myself and made back in the direction of the hall. Day was upon us and we couldn’t tarry here any longer.
We set off not long after that, as soon as the horses were ready and our saddle-packs had been crammed with provisions for the days ahead. In a chest hidden in the hollow space beneath the timber floor of my new hall were six leather corselets, one reinforced with iron studs, that I’d taken from a Welsh chief and members of his household guard during one of our raids across the dyke a few months earlier. They were made for shoulders broader than my own, but they were in good condition and so we took them with us, thinking that if nothing else we might be able to sell them. There were also several knives and a rusted seax that I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d kept. We took the best of the weapons, since one never knew when a blade might shear. It would be useful to have spares, and so we buckled the sheaths upon our waists. I even gave one of the knives to Eithne, hoping that didn’t prove to be a mistake and that I didn’t end up with the blade buried in my back the next time I let my guard slip. That didn’t seem likely; the longer she spent in our company, the more comfortable she seemed to grow. This was my way of repaying her trust.
Lastly, buried at the very bottom of the chest, there was a small pouch of coins that I’d forgotten about. There wasn’t much there, but I knew that every slightest shaving of silver would prove useful in the days and weeks and months ahead, or however long it would take me to find this Haakon, and to be reunited with Oswynn, and so I took it too, hanging it by a leather cord around my neck, under my tunic. To that meagre hoard Galfrid offered me a purse containing gold and a few precious stones that had come from selling fleeces and fish to traders at market over the past few months.
‘I only wish there was more,’ he said as he bade me take it.
‘I can’t accept this,’ I said. ‘What if the winter is harsh, like last year? What if the harvest isn’t enough, and you need to buy more grain?’
‘We have all that we need. That’s what’s left. Your entitlement as lord.’
‘And I want you to take this, too,’ said Father Erchembald, who along with Ædda had also risen early to bid us farewell. He unfastened a silver chain from around his neck, from which hung a gold-worked and garnet-studded cross.
‘Father-’
He took my hand, pressed the cross into my palm and closed my fingers around it. ‘You have been a good lord to us, and a good friend too. A better defender of this manor and these people I could not have asked for. This is the smallest token of my gratitude. God be with you always, Tancred. I only pray that you will be safe on your travels, wherever they take you.’
‘I will,’ I assured him. ‘I promise. As long as we have our swords by our sides, no harm will come to us.’
I tried to sound confident, but the truth was that the thought of venturing beyond the sea to lands unknown filled me with not a little trepidation. Some of that uncertainty must have been betrayed in my manner, for the priest gave me a look that suggested he didn’t entirely believe me.
‘I hope that you’re right,’ he said. ‘But, please, take care all the same.’
They had been steadfast allies through all the recent tumults, and a part of me wished they could come with me, but I knew very well that they couldn’t. Their place was here, at Earnford. Asking them to follow me into exile as outlaws was something I could never ask them to do. Besides, they had already given me so much: more, indeed, than Robert had in the past year, in spite of all his promises. Merely by harbouring me they were making themselves complicit in my crimes and thus putting themselves in danger. Words could not express my gratitude.
Having made our farewells, armed ourselves, gathered what other provisions we might need for the days ahead, saddled the palfreys and the rounceys that would carry our packs, and been offered trinkets and various good luck charms by the alewives and their menfolk, at last we set out along the winding tracks, leaving Earnford behind us for what, for all I knew, could be for ever. In time, perhaps, the rift between Robert and myself would be healed and I would find myself back here once again. But despite my best attempts to convince myself otherwise, I couldn’t shake the feeling deep inside that I would never again so much as look out over that valley, or tread its soil.
I’d reasoned that anyone pursuing us would be coming on Earl Roger’s orders from Scrobbesburh to the north, and so with that in mind we struck out in the other direction, making first for Hereford, where we were given directions to Glowecestre, the town on the Saverna in which the king had celebrated Christmas and held his court a couple of years previously. There we sold our horses, and managed to secure a good price for them, too, though not without some negotiation on my part, before buying passage on a wide-bellied Norman trader, which was bound for Cadum, where its captain planned to sell fleeces in exchange for stone for building. He wasn’t planning to make port elsewhere, but at the sight of our silver quickly cha
nged his mind, agreeing to take us to Brycgstowe, where I reckoned we were more likely to find a ship that would take us where we wanted to go.
News had only just reached those towns of the king’s victory over the rebels, and so I doubted we would find any trouble there, but even so I was wary of attracting too much attention to ourselves. Thus we took care to disguise our appearance as far as possible, carrying rough staves hewn from fallen branches and smearing our faces and covering our cloaks and trews with dust and mud, while those of us who had beards allowed them to grow. That way, if we did by some coincidence cross paths with anyone who might otherwise have recognised the faces of Tancred the Breton and his companions, they would see instead only five dishevelled, road-worn travellers. Or so, at least, I hoped. Thankfully no one challenged us during the five days it took us to reach Brycgstowe, by which time I reckoned we were probably safe. The city was a busy port, and wealthy too, second in all of England probably only to Lundene: a place where merchants from all corners of Christendom and beyond came to sell their wares, where slavers sometimes held their markets, where wealthy pilgrims sought passage to holy places in far-off lands, all of them accompanied by bands of men for protection, so that a group of armed travellers such as us was far from unusual.
We jostled our way along the quayside, past snorting oxen laden with packs and horses pulling carts, around groups of dockhands vying for the attention of captains, who wanted only the strongest lads to help them unload their cargo. I tried asking some of them where I might find a ship bound for Dyflin, but failed to get much of an answer from them, until one of the younger ones pointed a short way downriver to where a broad-beamed ship some twenty benches or so long had been drawn up above the tideline on the mudflats to the west of the city’s ramparts.
‘That’s Hrithdyr,’ he said. ‘Her master is a Dane, from Haltland or Orkaneya or somewhere like that. I don’t know his name but I’ve heard from some of the others who’ve worked her that this is his last voyage before winter, that he’ll be sailing back north before long. If you’re wanting passage across the sea to Yrland, he’s the one to ask.’
‘Are there any others?’
‘Not so far as I know, lord. One sailed that way two days ago, and there might be another in a week’s time.’
That was useful knowledge to have, for it gave me some idea of the position I’d be bargaining from. I thanked him and signalled to the others to follow me.
‘You won’t find him there,’ he called as we were about to walk away.
I stopped and turned. ‘Where, then?’
He gave a shrug, but I saw in his eyes that he knew. The lad wasn’t stupid. He’d realised that if we had money for passage across the sea, then we must have coin enough to spare a penny or two for his help.
I drew one from my purse and held it up. His eyes gleamed and he reached for it, but I closed my fist and snatched it away before he got so much as a fingertip to it.
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘Most of the ship captains stay in the town at a tavern called the Two Boars. That where he’s most likely to be at this hour.’
‘Show me to this tavern and the coin will be yours,’ I said. ‘Not before.’
He scowled but gave in, leading us through a series of narrow, rutted alleys until we stood beneath a sign on which had been crudely daubed a pair of tusked, four-legged animals that could, I supposed, if one squinted hard and for long enough, be taken for boars. I tossed him the coin I’d promised and he caught it deftly before scurrying away.
Inside, men sat at tables, drinking, playing at dice and at tæfl, a game not unlike chess, played on a squared board, of which I had been taught the rudiments but which I’d never been able to master. A woman with a brace of keys dangling from her belt, whom I took for the innkeeper’s wife, came to greet us, and I asked her where I might find the captain of Hrithdyr. She pointed towards one of the tæfl-players, a bearded, corpulent man in his middle years who was sitting close by the blazing hearth-fire, his brow glistening with sweat, his small eyes peering out from under heavy brows as he contemplated his next move. He and his opponent, a thin-faced greybeard, both glanced up as we approached.
‘What do you want?’ snarled the fat one in English. ‘Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a game?’
‘I’m looking for a ship to take us across the sea to Dyflin,’ I replied, unperturbed. ‘I hear that’s where you’re bound.’
‘Who wants to know?’
It was probably unwise to give him my real name, and so instead I gave him one I’d used before on occasion. ‘Goscelin,’ I said. ‘Goscelin of Saint-Omer, in Flanders.’
I extended a hand, but he did not take it. ‘I know where Saint-Omer is,’ he said curtly. ‘A few years ago I happened to meet a travelling monk who came from there. Talkative, he was, always babbling about some saint or another. He was called Goscelin, too, as it happens. He would have been around your size, though I don’t remember his face. You’re not him, are you?’
‘Do I look to you like a man of the cloister?’
He grunted, and I took that for an answer. ‘If you’re from Flanders, why are you wanting to go to Dyflin?’
‘My business is my own. I have silver enough to pay for the passage, and that’s all you need to know.’
The greybeard made to rise from his stool, saying, ‘If you’re going to spend the next hour-’
‘Sit down, Wulfric,’ said the Dane. ‘This won’t take long.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ the one called Wulfric grumbled. ‘You’ve won anyway.’ He took an enamelled ring from his finger and laid it down on the table. ‘There, as wagered. Perhaps next spring when you come, I’ll have the chance to win it back from you.’
‘Perhaps.’ The Dane grinned in a manner that put me in mind of a wolf while the old man shuffled off, then, when we were alone, he said to me: ‘What makes you think I want any passengers? Maybe I do well enough from my trade that I have no need for your money. Have you considered that?’
On my belt was a purse containing a clutch of gold coins that bore a strange curly script I couldn’t decipher, which had been part of Galfrid’s gift to us. I untied the knot, tossed it on to the table so he could hear the clink of metal within, and gestured for him to open it, which he did, loosening the drawstring and allowing the tiny discs to spill out into his palm. He examined them closely, holding them to the light and testing each one with his teeth.
‘Five of you?’ he asked, his eyes flicking to each of us in turn before settling on Eithne. A smirk came to his lips. ‘The girl as well?’
‘That’s right.’
He looked her up and down, and I saw hunger of a sort in his expression. ‘She’d fetch a fine price, I reckon. Does she belong to you?’
‘She’s not for sale, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘What is she then? Your wife?’
‘A fellow traveller.’
If the Dane was at all insulted by my terse manner, he didn’t show it. He shook his head. ‘I don’t have space aboard for that many. Three of you, easily, possibly four. But not five.’
Tæfl wasn’t the only game he knew how to play. I supposed I should have expected as much. I removed the smaller and thinner of the two arm-rings that I wore, and placed it in front of him.
‘Do you have space now?’
He fingered it, his sweaty brow furrowing while he contemplated whether or not to accept, and I stood watching, waiting, thinking that this was already a steep price to pay, and wondering how much more I could afford. Thankfully that was a decision I didn’t have to make.
‘We sail in two days, on the morning flood tide,’ he said.
‘Two days?’ I repeated. The sooner we could leave these shores, the better, and I’d been hoping to find a ship that could take us almost straightaway.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘In a hurry to leave, are you?’
I knew that to protest would be pointless, and might only further arouse his suspicions,
of which I was sure he already had a few, and so instead I kept my mouth shut.
‘It makes no difference to me who you are or what it is you’re running from. But I’ll tell you this: we won’t wait for you. If you’re not there by the time we’re ready to cast off, you can swim to Yrland for all I care. Do you understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘You can keep your gold until we’re out on the water,’ he said. ‘So that you don’t have to worry about me sailing away with it. I’ve been called many things in my life, but a thief isn’t one of them. I have a reputation to maintain, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.’
I knew only too well the value of reputation, marred though mine was in those days. He passed the gold and the arm-ring back to me, we clasped hands, and it was agreed. We were going to Dyflin.
Nineteen
We spent a restless two nights at the Two Boars while the Dane, whose name we learnt was Snorri, concluded his business. Restless, because I was convinced that those men who had come looking for me at Earnford would not be far behind us, and because I was aware, too, that the longer we lingered in one place, the greater the chance of our being caught.
But they did not come, and so it was with some relief that at last we sailed, Hrithdyr’s hold having been filled with bolts of wool-cloth, barrels of salted porpoise-meat, Rhenish quernstones and casks of English wine that came from the vineyards further up the Saverna valley. The wind was on the turn, however, a sure sign of worse weather to come, and Snorri kept looking to the grey-darkening skies and muttering in his own tongue, all the while fingering a small chain that hung around his neck from which, I noticed, hung both the heathen hammer and the Christian cross. Perhaps he still held to some of the old ways but was fearful of our Lord’s wrath and so wore the cross as well to placate Him, or possibly he thought that by worshipping both our God and those of his pagan ancestors, his soul would be guaranteed a place in one heaven or the other. Whatever he believed, his prayers seemed to work, for the storm that we’d all predicted failed to come, at least on that day.
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