He began to pace once more. ‘I’ve seen you work harder than this before. All I ask for is thirty men rowing at a time, for a few hours at most before changing over. That way we keep going through the night.’ He delved into the sack for more loaves as he neared the end of the line. ‘For now, though, we eat.’
Nonetheless, it was not much longer before the oars were lowered back into the water and Aubert began to sound the time, a slower pace than before but constant nevertheless. The beat was quickly taken up by the oarsmen, whose ranks I had joined, together with Eudo, Philippe and Radulf; Wace and Godefroi had taken the opportunity to rest, along with the other half of
Wyvern
’s crew. It was many years since I had rowed, and I was surprised by the strength needed to pull the blade through the water, and to lift it clear again for the next stroke, such was the weight of the oar-handle. But though at first my arms and back protested, the feeling soon subsided as I became lost to the rhythm. All thoughts of Malet and Eoferwic fled my mind; for the moment at least nothing else mattered, nothing else existed but myself, the oar in my hands and the constant, driving
beat, beat, beat
.
* * *
I woke the next day just as the sun was coming up, a glimmer on the distant horizon that turned the waters into a sea of shimmering gold. The oars had all been stowed inboard and most of the men lay curled up in their blankets beside their ship-chests. But the wind was rising, gusting at us from astern, and Aubert was amidships giving orders as the mast was raised and the sail unfurled, its alternating stripes of black and yellow billowing out, pushing us on downriver.
The river had broadened, so much so that I could hardly pick out the shores to either side. Blinking, rubbing my eyes to clear the last traces of sleep, I breathed in a deep draught of frigid air. A lone gull swooped low in front of the ship, soon joined by another which flew up from the river, and the two rose to the blue sky, dancing in flight, twisting around and about each other, crying as they did so.
It was a clear dawn, but a cold one. I blew warm air into my hands as I shook off the woollen blankets that covered me. Around me the other knights were all still sleeping; of our party Ælfwold was the only other up and he was at prayer. Aubert soon returned to take the tiller and I spoke to him for a while, though he was bone-tired. He had not slept all night; his eyes looked dark and heavy and he kept yawning. I offered to take his place for a few hours while he rested, and he readily accepted. With open water around us and a following wind, managing the tiller ought not to be difficult, he said. As long as I kept her facing into the sun I could not go wrong.
And so I sat on his ship-chest, gazing out across the wide river, towards the many small islands which drifted past, and beyond, to the south and a shoreline dotted with trees, with low hills in the distance: the part of England known as Mercia.
A sudden shadow was cast over me and I looked up to see Beatrice leaning upon the side of the ship, the profile of her face sharply outlined in the low sun. Her eyes were closed and she wore a slight smile, as if she were enjoying the play of the breeze across her cheeks.
‘My lady,’ I said, a little surprised to see her there. I had expected one of the other knights, or perhaps Ælfwold. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Well enough,’ she replied. The smile faded from her face but she did not open her eyes.
I wondered if she was angry about what I had said the night before, and almost opened my mouth to apologise. Our flight from Eoferwic, the encounter with the English fleet, the pursuit: it had all left me on edge, and I had not been thinking clearly. But I stopped myself long before the words formed on my tongue. I had meant what I said, and there was no point in denying it.
‘Tell me,’ she said abruptly, ‘have you ever been married?’
I stared at her, taken aback by the question. She turned and met my look, but I could not read anything from her expression; her brown eyes gave no clue. The breeze tugged at her cloak but she did not try to pull it closer, cold though she must have been. Her demeanour, the way she carried herself, suggested a maturity which her youthful appearance belied, and I wondered if she were a little older than I had first thought.
‘Only to my sword,’ I answered, when I’d recovered my wits.
She gazed back out upon the river, nodding as if she were coming to some new understanding, but she did not speak. The silver bands she wore around her wrists shone brightly in the morning sun.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Only because if you had,’ she said, ‘you would know what it means to have to leave a loved one behind.’
An image of Oswynn came to mind: an image of her as I had last seen her, that night at Dunholm, with her dark hair falling across her smiling face. And I recalled the moment Mauger had stood before me in the street and told me she was dead, and I felt something of the same fire that had consumed me then returning.
‘I know what it means,’ I said, rising from the ship-chest to face Beatrice, my cheeks burning.
She stared back at me, impassive, though I stood a whole head taller than she. ‘You do not show it.’
‘There’s a lot I don’t show,’ I said, though what I truly meant by that, I didn’t know. All I wanted were words that I could throw back at her.
She smiled again, though it was less a friendly smile than one of
derision – almost as if she understood all this and was enjoying my discomfort.
‘And what about you?’ I asked, turning the attention away from me for one moment. ‘Have you married?’ I didn’t see how she could not, if she were as old as I thought – but on the other hand I had not seen her with any man back in Eoferwic, nor did she wear a marriage-ring on her hand.
A strand of golden hair had fallen loose from under her wimple and she tucked it back behind her ear. ‘Once,’ she said quietly. ‘It was before the invasion, four years ago. We were wed in the summer; he died before Christmas. I didn’t know him long, but the end, when it came, was nonetheless hard to bear.’
Oswynn had not been with me long when she died, either: a matter of months at most.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
She nodded and for a while did not speak, as if she were considering whether or not to accept my apology.
‘Just remember that you are not the centre of the world, Tancred a Dinant,’ she said at last, and there was a hard edge to her voice now. ‘Perhaps next time you’ll think more carefully before you open your mouth.’
Before I could say anything more, she turned on her heels and went. I watched her go, surprised by her sudden change in manner. I still couldn’t see what she, what Aubert and Ælfwold, wanted from me. I had no time to wonder then, though, for the wind was changing direction and one of the men shouted to me to bring the ship around more to steerboard. I pulled on the tiller, leaning back on my heels as I put the weight of my body into it, until the prow pointed into the sun, the full circle of which had risen above the horizon. Above us the gulls circled still, swooping, screeching.
A few others were waking now, sharing bread with each other, pouring out cups of ale to break their fast. Before long Lady Elise also rose and she and Beatrice joined Ælfwold in prayer. Beside me on the stern platform, Wace and Eudo and the rest of the knights were still asleep, as was the shipmaster himself, gently snoring.
The sun climbed higher and the day grew brighter. Aubert woke
after an hour or two more and took back the tiller, though he still looked exhausted. The oarsmen took their places on their ship-chests, soon settling back into their rhythm as the shipmaster beat a languid pulse on the drum, and
Wyvern
soared across the calm waters.
It was mid-morning by the time Alchebarge was spotted ahead of us: first as a few wisps of grey smoke rising above the horizon, then as a long ridge dotted with trees, rising over wide flats. From our steerboard side, across bare fields and past dense thickets, a second river wound its way to meet the Use, the two joining to form a single broad expanse of blue.
‘The Trente,’ the shipmaster said to me. ‘Where the two streams meet, the Humbre begins.’
I nodded, but I was paying him little attention. Instead I was watching the ridge in the distance and the smoke blowing towards the east, and growing puzzled, for it wasn’t the kind that I would have expected to see from houses during the day, and especially not on such a cold day as this. For there were no thick clouds billowing up, as there should have been if their hearths had been freshly stoked, but rather a collection of thin, feeble threads weaving slowly about one another, as when a fire has nearly burnt itself out.
We drew nearer, leaving the Use behind us. I began to make out more clearly the houses there, dotted against the bright sky. Or rather I saw what remained of them: their blackened timbers and collapsed roof-beams, smouldering still. The stone tower and nave of the church were all that was left standing; all else along the ridge lay in ruins.
Aubert’s hand stopped beating upon the drumskin, and the splash of oars against the water ceased. Silence fell like a shadow across the ship. I saw the chaplain cross himself and murmur a prayer in Latin, and I did the same as I stared up at the twisted wreckage of what once had been Alchebarge, but was no more.
The enemy had been here before us.
Sixteen
WE APPROACHED SLOWLY
, drifting on the current with only the occasional pull on the tiller from Aubert to keep us on the correct course. The shipmaster had ordered the sail furled and the mast lowered. We didn’t know whether there were any more of the enemy still watching us from the ridge, with their ships perhaps hidden amidst the reeds and mudbanks that lay beneath, in which case it was better they did not see the black and gold, since then they would know straightaway that we were not of their own fleet.
But if the enemy were there, they did not show themselves. I kept watching for any flicker of movement or a glint that might be steel, and I saw nothing.
The ridge on which Alchebarge stood loomed steeply before us. From its top it must have been possible to see for miles around, and it seemed to me that it would make for a strategic place – if one could hold it – for it commanded the two rivers, the Use and the Trente, at the place where they joined. And it ought to be easily defensible from the water, too, owing both to its steep slopes, and to the mudflats that lay at its foot: a wide expanse of reeds and long shoals, which glistened under the light of the sun.
The tide seemed to be on its way out, for though the part of the flats nearest us was still submerged, on their landward side I could see myriad pools and channels where the river was retreating. If we were to reach Alchebarge at all we would have to make our way – whether by ship or on foot – through that maze.
‘Can we make it across before we lose the tide?’ I asked the shipmaster.
‘It’ll be difficult,’ he said. ‘The channels through the marsh aren’t deep and it’s easy to get stuck upon these banks. But if we don’t try now, we’ll have to wait until the waters return.’
I looked again towards the ridge and the black remains of the halls. ‘Get us as close as you can.’
Aubert shouted to the oarsmen and tugged hard on the tiller;
Wyvern
carved her way between two banks of reeds, which rippled in waves as the westerly breeze played across them. Ahead, a pair of moorhens flapped their wings, shrieking loudly as they skimmed across the surface of the murky water. They took off away from us, flying around in a great loop until we had passed, before settling once more. Amidst the reeds on the banks to either side more birds stretched their wings as if preparing to flee, but they did not; instead they watched us carefully with dark beads of eyes as we scythed our way around the larger islands.
One of the oarsmen stood at the prow, lowering a long pole into the murky water, testing its depth. The tide was flowing fast and the channels were growing narrower the further we went. Eventually the man gave a shout and raised his arm.
‘Slow,’ the shipmaster called to the rest of his crew. He looked to me. ‘I can’t take us much further in,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot.’
I waved my thanks to the shipmaster, and then called to the rest of the knights. We put on our hauberks and helms, slinging our shields over our backs. Again we left behind our chausses; they would only slow us down over the marshes. Besides, they were more useful when mounted, when blows would naturally come from below. On foot, however, opponents tended to aim their strikes more towards one’s chest and head. In such situations speed was all-important; the extra weight of mail would be a burden if we needed to fight.
‘I should come with you,’ Ælfwold called. ‘If there are any dead in the village it’s only right that they be accorded a proper burial.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Stay with the ladies. The enemy could still be about. If so, it’s better that you stay away from danger.’ I still had to make sure he reached Wiltune to deliver Malet’s message; I could not
have him at risk. Besides, it was not the dead that I was concerned with, but rather the living: if there were any Normans still left alive in Alchebarge, it was important that we found them.
‘You’re leaving us?’ Elise asked. She strode towards me, her cloak swirling behind her.
‘We’ll be back before long,’ I said. ‘We have to know if there is anyone left on your husband’s manor. It’ll be safer for both you and your daughter if you stay here on the ship.’
‘And what if the enemy find us while you are gone?’
‘If they were to come upon us in numbers,’ I said, and I spoke honestly, ‘it would make little difference whether or not the six of us were here to help protect you.’
She didn’t look comforted by that, nor had I expected her to, but she said nothing more. And in truth I could not help but feel a little uneasy, even though we had seen no sign of the enemy since the previous night.
‘My men will be here with you,’ Aubert assured her.
‘Can they fight?’ she asked.