‘Well enough, my lady. What they lack in skill they make up for in strength. There are more than fifty of them on the
Wyvern
; that ought to be sufficient.’
‘And what of yourself?’
‘I’ll be going with Tancred.’ He saw my glance but he cut me off even before I could open my mouth. ‘If you’re to take anyone it should be me. You’ll need someone who knows the village well.’
‘We also need the ship prepared,’ I pointed out. ‘We might need to leave suddenly.’
‘That’s easily done without me.’ He turned to one of his men, older than the rest, and I noticed that it was the same grizzled face who had challenged Aubert the night before. ‘Oylard,’ he said. ‘I leave you in charge of
Wyvern
until we return.’
‘Yes, Aubert,’ he replied, with a slight bow of his head.
‘Keep her out of sight from the river if you can, hidden amongst the reeds, but at the same time ready to sail in case you see us running down that hill with the enemy behind us.’
‘I’ll make sure of it,’ Oylard said.
Of course, if more rebel ships were to come, there would be little chance of us making a quick escape, but I kept that thought to myself.
‘Are you ready, then?’ I asked the shipmaster. ‘I don’t want to spend any longer here than we have to.’
‘Let me fetch my sword,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll be ready.’
I waited while he did so, and while he donned a leather jerkin, then I jumped down from the ship’s prow. Straightaway my shoes sank into the mud, and already I was beginning to wonder whether this was so wise after all. But I found firmer footing along the top of the bank, and I waved to Aubert and the other knights to follow. Once the seven of us had climbed down the shipmaster waved to Oylard, who shouted to the oarsmen to push
Wyvern
off.
‘Don’t take her too far,’ Aubert warned him. ‘We have to be able to find our way back to you.’
Oylard waved back in acknowledgement and then we set off, trudging on through the reeds and over the mudbanks, splashing through the pools that remained where the tide had gone out. Water seeped into my shoes and with every step I felt a fresh bite of cold at my toes. Wading birds flocked down upon the flats, digging in the bare mud for worms and whatever else they might find. They scattered as we approached, lifting up into the sky as if with one mind, and I shivered at the sight, for if we had not been spotted before, we almost certainly would have been now. The hairs on my neck stood on end; I had the feeling that we were being watched. I kept glancing up at the buildings upon the ridge, and once or twice I thought I saw a shadow moving in between them, but I could not be sure. I did not want to mention it, in case the others took it wrongly for a sign that I was growing nervous.
The footing became easier the further we went on, as the land became firmer and the waters receded yet more, until at what I guessed would have been the line of the high tide we came upon a wooden landing stage. To its timbers were roped a collection of rowboats and small punts, with poles for pushing them across the flats, and fine nets for catching eels. Beyond it the hill itself rose steeply, affording little by way of cover, apart from the occasional
bush. At its crest stood the remains of what was once a large building, around the same length as
Wyvern
’s hull.
‘Lord Guillaume had that hall built last summer,’ Aubert said, shaking his head. ‘Not that he came here much; I don’t believe his womenfolk ever did. Since he was made vicomte he’s rarely been away from Eoferwic.’
We continued up the hillside, hands ready at our hilts in case we should find any of the rebels waiting to ambush us when we arrived at the top. But the air had gone still and, save for the cawing of the carrion birds circling above the village, the day was quiet. Nor was there any sign of the shadows that I thought I had seen earlier, but even so we trod carefully, taking care not to let our mail make too much sound.
At last the ground began to grow less steep and we could see the whole of Alchebarge before us. It didn’t look as though it had been a large village – perhaps a dozen families at most – and there was even less of it now. Where houses and workshops had once stood, all that now remained were piles of quietly smoking timbers and ash. There were bodies everywhere: men, women and children, oxen and cattle all lying together in death. The stench of burnt flesh wafted on the wind.
‘They didn’t leave anything,’ Wace said as we walked amidst the corpses. Crows picked at them with black beaks, tearing skin from bone, flapping their wings angrily at any others of their kind who tried to come near. They watched us closely as we approached, hopping aside grudgingly before flocking back as soon as they thought we were far enough away.
Many of the bodies were hacked to pieces, missing arms and even heads. Several of them were Normans; indeed some were still in their mail, with shields lying by their sides. Most, however, seemed to be English, and from their dress I took them mostly for the villagers of Alchebarge rather than the ones who had wrought this destruction.
‘They killed even their own kinsmen,’ I said, scarce believing what I saw, before I recalled that they had done the same to Oswynn. I imagined her body lying unburied at Dunholm, just as these did
here, and hoped that if we met again at the end of days she would forgive me.
Eudo spat upon the ground. ‘They’re no better than animals,’ he said.
‘Why would they do this?’ Wace asked.
‘Perhaps the villagers tried to fight them,’ Aubert suggested. ‘Or perhaps there was no reason.’
I wondered how long Oswynn had been able to fight. Before our march to Dunholm I had gifted her with a knife, and had spent many hours showing her how to use it: how to thrust and how to slice; the places to aim for; how to twist it in a man’s belly to kill him quickly. I hoped she had remembered. I hoped she had sent many Northumbrians to their deaths that night.
We walked on in silence, up towards Malet’s hall. The only parts still standing were the posts which supported the roof, and those only up to waist height. The roof-beams themselves, along with the walls, had all collapsed, and in most places there was nothing more than a thick pile of grey ash. Beneath some of the broken timbers, huddled together in the middle of the hall, lay several blackened corpses, burnt away so that only their bones and teeth were left.
‘A hall-burning,’ Radulf muttered.
I nodded grimly. ‘They would have trapped them in here before setting the torch to the whole building.’ It would have taken mere heartbeats for the flames to sweep through the thatch, and hardly much longer to spread downwards and engulf the rest of the hall. The terror those inside must have felt as the blaze surrounded them, growing ever closer, ever hotter—
‘Just as they killed Lord Robert,’ Eudo said. He glanced first at Wace, then at me, long enough that I could see the anger building within him.
I lowered my head and shut my eyes, trying to push the image of the fire, of Lord Robert from my mind. This was not the time to be thinking of such things.
‘They did the same here,’ I heard Godefroi call.
I opened my eyes; the sunlight flooded back. Godefroi was beckoning us over to what I realised must have been the stables, for
under a fallen roof-beam lay a horse’s head. The hair and skin had burnt away to expose the yellow-white of the skull, its jaw set wide as it would have been at the moment of death. As we rounded the smouldering remains, I saw the charred corpses of two more animals.
‘The enemy couldn’t have been interested in plunder, or else they would have taken them,’ I said.
‘Or they might not have been able to carry them away easily,’ Wace said. ‘If they came by ship, they probably didn’t have space.’
‘But if they approached by river, why did no one in the village spot them coming?’ Eudo asked. ‘In the time it’d have taken them to cross the flats, the villagers could all have fled. Instead they held their ground and died.’
‘Unless the enemy landed somewhere further downriver and marched overland,’ I said. ‘Any retreat into the country would have been cut off, and if the tide was out at the time, the villagers would have been trapped by the marshes.’
‘That would make sense, given the punts still moored by the jetty,’ Wace said.
Aubert gave a cry. I turned quickly, my hand darting towards the sword-hilt at my waist, imagining hordes of Northumbrian warriors rushing upon us from the south. But there was no enemy; instead the shipmaster was kneeling beside one of the bodies, not far from the eastern end of the hall.
‘His name was Henri,’ he said as we approached. ‘He was Lord Guillaume’s steward here.’
The man’s face was crusted with blood and crossed with sword cuts, but it seemed to me that it would have been a handsome face, strong-featured and youthful too. Henri could not have been much older than I when he died. There was a gaping wound at his breast, across which lay one of his hands; his fingers, like his tunic beneath, were stained a dark red. His other arm was stretched out by his side, palm facing the sky, fingers curled as if he meant to be clutching something in them. If there had been anything there, however, then the enemy had already taken it.
‘Did you know him well?’ I asked.
Aubert got to his feet, still gazing down upon Henri’s body. ‘Hardly at all,’ he said. ‘I met him only once, a few months ago when we put in here on our way up to Eoferwic. He was a generous man, as I knew him. He arranged a feast for the whole crew.’ The shipmaster sighed. ‘Have you found anything?’
‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘The enemy left nothing.’
‘There’s the church,’ Philippe said. ‘They didn’t take the torch to that.’
I glanced up towards its stone tower and nave, overlooking the village. It was built on the highest point along the ridge, its yard marked out by a narrow ditch which ran in a continuous circuit, broken only at its eastern end. If the villagers had taken refuge anywhere, it was likely to be there, for that was the only place that seemed in any way defensible. Even so, I didn’t have much hope of finding anyone alive inside.
Indeed, as it turned out there was no one; the church was small and it did not take long for us to search. Surprisingly, the rebels’ respect for the building had extended to its property, for there was much of worth that had not been taken: a large pewter dish displaying the Crucifixion, inlaid with silver lettering; three silver candle-holders; and a small gold cross. But of any priest, or indeed of anyone at all, there was no sign. Of course, I realised, if the same rebels we had encountered last night were responsible for what had happened here in Alchebarge, then the attack was already one day old. If anyone had survived, they would have long since fled.
We stayed a short while in the church, praying for Malet’s men who had died. It was the best that we could hope to do, considering that we had not the time to give them the burials they deserved. I was aware that the day was wearing on, and so as soon as we had finished we returned through the village and down the hillside, back across the marshes to the ship.
The tide was at its lowest point and so
Wyvern
was waiting for us not far from the edge of the flats, where there was still enough water that she could float. Oylard had done well, for he had found a place between two large mudbanks, both of them thick with
reeds, which ensured that she could not have been seen from the river.
The sun was high by the time we returned to the ship and related news of what we had seen in the village.
‘What do we do now, then?’ asked Elise, a worried expression on her face. She had paled on hearing of the hall-burning. ‘We have no horses, and we can’t travel to Lundene on foot.’
‘The Trente flows through Lincolia,’ the chaplain said. ‘Surely we could sail upriver and meet the old road there.’
The shipmaster stroked his chin, looking doubtful. ‘The tide is still on the ebb. We’ll need to wait for the next flood before we can sail upriver,’ he said. ‘No, you’d be quicker going by land. If we carry on down the Humbre, there’s a town not more than an hour or two from here called Suthferebi, where you should be able to purchase horses.’
‘You know the river better than all of us,’ I said. ‘I leave the decision to you.’
Aubert nodded. ‘Suthferebi it will be, then.’ He gave the order to the oarsmen, retaking the tiller and slowly steering
Wyvern
clear of the flats, until we were back out upon the open water. More villages passed by as we travelled downriver, many of which had suffered the same fate as Alchebarge, though there were some the rebels had left untouched. Indeed in the distance I heard cattle lowing, and could see men and women out in the fields with their oxen, ploughing the earth. But why those had been spared, and not the rest, I could not discern. I only hoped that Suthferebi had escaped the devastation.
True to the shipmaster’s judgement, it was but a little after midday that the town was spotted off our steerboard side, first as a few spires of smoke, then as a cluster of hovels along the shoreline, until as we grew closer it was possible to make out a palisade, a church, a hall. I smiled at Wace and Eudo, who were watching too, and they returned the same expression. We had made it safely from Eoferwic, and Northumbria was at last behind us.
Seventeen
WE RODE SOUTH
that same afternoon, as soon as we had mounts for the journey. I had half hoped there would be a stud nearby where we might find good warhorses for myself and the rest of the knights, but there was not, and so we had to settle for what we could come by in the town.
Fortunately Suthferebi turned out to be a thriving port: a favoured stopping-place both for trading ships on their way to Eoferwic, and for travellers on the way north, before they crossed the Humbre. Among the many alehouses, we learnt, was one whose owner kept a trade in horses. His name was Ligulf; a large-bellied man in his middle years, he had fair hair, blue eyes and a gruff manner, and I sensed there was more than a little Danish blood in him. Swigging from a flagon, he led us around into the yard behind the alehouse, and showed us more than a dozen of the animals that he stabled. Most of them were beyond their best years, while a few were so thin that I wondered if they had been fed at all this week, but it wasn’t as if we had much choice and so I chose the nine who looked strongest.