Not only the ruin of Malet, I thought, but of everything we had fought for since first we had sailed from Normandy more than two years before. For there were many among the English who had no love for Eadgar Ætheling and yet would march in Harold’s name: men who if called upon would not hesitate in fighting under his old banner. If we let Ælfwold get away, it would not be long before the whole kingdom from Wessex to Northumbria was rising: before in every village men laid down their hoes, left their ploughs and their oxen to march against us; before halls and castles and towns were put to the torch, just as at Dunholm; before Normans in their hundreds were slaughtered across the land.
‘How do we stop him?’ I asked the vicomte. In ten days the priest could already have travelled far. So far that we might never find him, I realised with sinking heart.
The vicomte began to pace about. ‘Have you heard of a place called Waltham?’
‘Waltham?’ I repeated. The name was not familiar. ‘No, lord.’
‘It lies half a day to the north of Lundene, not far from the Roman road,’ Malet said. ‘There is a minster church there – Harold’s own foundation. That is where I had him buried; that is where Ælfwold will have gone. I want the three of you to ride there as swiftly as you are able. If he is still there, you must apprehend him and bring him to me. I will give you the fastest horses from my stables. Ride them to exhaustion if you have to; exchange them for fresh animals when you can, or else purchase new ones. The cost is not important. Do you still have the silver I gave you?’
‘Some, yes.’ The coin-pouch lay back at the camp, along with our packs and our tents and all the rest of our belongings.
‘I will give you more,’ Malet said. ‘Do you understand what I am asking?’
‘Yes, lord,’ I replied.
‘Then there is not a moment we can lose,’ Malet said. ‘I am relying on you all.’
Thirty-seven
WE RODE HARD
, rising before dawn and travelling long into the nights, stopping only when we could no longer keep our eyes open, and even then not for long. For every hour that went by I knew that Ælfwold could be getting ever further away, and so we pressed on, pushing our horses as far and as fast as they could manage.
Hooves pounded in constant rhythm as hills and forest, marsh and plains flew past. The skies were heavy with cloud, threatening rain which never came, while all the time the icy wind gusted at our backs. My eyes burnt with pain and every part of my body was clamouring for rest, but determination kept me awake, kept me going, until around noon on the fourth day, we arrived at Waltham.
It was a small village, set upon a hill above a brown, winding river. On the eastern side, looking down upon the valley, stood the minster in whitewashed stone: not quite as large nor as grand as the church at Wiltune, but then we had not come to admire its splendour or the tranquillity of its surroundings. At that time of day the gates to the minster precinct were open, and we rode up to them, where a greying, hunchbacked man leant heavily upon an oaken staff.
‘Stop there,’ he called out in our tongue, clearly recognising us for Frenchmen. He hobbled towards us, obstructing our path. ‘What’s your business here?’
‘We’ve come on the orders of the vicomte of the shire of Eoferwic, Guillaume Malet,’ I said. ‘We’re searching for a traitor. We think he might be here.’
‘More of Malet’s men?’ he asked, his brow wrinkling as he eyed us suspiciously. ‘You’re not the ones who were here last night.’
I felt my sword-arm tense. ‘What do you mean? Who was here last night?’
‘Three of them there were: one a priest, the others men of the sword like yourselves. They left this morning, not long before dawn.’
After everything, then, we were too late. We had missed Ælfwold by less than a day. ‘Where did they go?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You would have to ask Dean Wulfwin. There was some commotion, I can tell you that.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Men rushing about in the middle of the night, all manner of crashing in the church, as if the last days of this world were upon us—’
‘Where is this Wulfwin?’ Wace said, interrupting him. ‘We need to see him now.’
‘He is in his hall at the moment, meeting with the rest of the canons, but if you would kindly wait I’m sure he will see you presently.’
‘This matter won’t wait,’ I said. ‘Stand aside.’
‘My lords,’ he said, drawing himself as tall as he could manage, which with his bent back was not all that much. ‘This is a place of God. You cannot just come here and demand to be let in.’
‘If you don’t let us past,’ Eudo said, ‘you will have our swords to answer to.’
‘Lord!’ the man protested, his face turning pale. I fixed my eyes upon him, edging my horse forward. He began to step backwards, clinging to his staff, watching me as the animal snorted clouds of mist into his face.
‘Let us past,’ I said.
I saw the lump in his throat as he swallowed, and then at last he shuffled to one side. I did not wait a moment longer, spurring my mount on, past the hunchback, into the church precinct. We had no time to spare; as long as there remained the slightest chance of catching Ælfwold, we had to do whatever we could.
‘Come on,’ I called over my shoulder, and Wace and Eudo followed, leaving the gate guard shouting his protests to our backs.
I knew that to enter such a place armed was a grievous sin, but we were here for a greater purpose and I trusted that, when all was done, God would forgive us.
A cluster of some dozen high-gabled houses stood to the south of the church, with smoke rising from their thatch. They were surrounded by fields, where men and boys were sowing seed, or else tending to sheep and cattle. All stopped and stared at us as we passed: no doubt knights were a rare sight in the minster grounds.
One house was set apart from the rest. Standing on the northern side of the precinct, it was joined to the church by means of a cloister, and I guessed that this was where the dean lived. The recent rains had left the ground sodden, and the fishpool by the hall had flooded. We left our horses beside it and entered the cloister through a narrow archway. A row of stone pillars, painted white and red and yellow, ran all around, while in the middle a yew spread out its branches.
As we neared the door to the dean’s hall, I began to make out a voice, intoning some words in Latin. It sounded like scripture, though I did not recognise the verse.
‘This must be it,’ I said to Wace and Eudo as we arrived before the doors. They were not barred or locked, and I flung them open. Both met the stone walls at the same time, sending a double crash resounding through the candlelit chamber.
At the far end a bald, round-faced man stood behind a lectern, with a thick-bound gospel book set upon it, its leaves open. His cheeks were ruddy, and his ears stuck out from the side of his head, and for some reason I thought he looked familiar, though I could not place him exactly.
He had stopped reading and his mouth hung agape. Another twelve canons, all of them dressed in black robes, sat upon wooden benches around the edge of the room. All looked up; a couple of them rose and were quickly seated again when they saw our mail and the scabbards swinging from our belts.
‘Dean Wulfwin?’ I asked.
‘I-I am Wulfwin,’ the man at the end said, his voice trembling as he stepped back from the gospel book. ‘Who are you? What is going on?’
And suddenly I remembered where I knew him from. He was the priest I had seen in Lundene, that night I had been attacked – so long ago, it seemed, that until this moment it had all but faded from my mind. The bald head, the red cheeks, the prominent ears: it all came back to me now, as clear as if I were standing there still.
Which meant that the one he had been speaking with had to have been Ælfwold. Nothing else made sense; it was too much of a coincidence otherwise. I saw now how stupid I had been. If I had but trusted my own eyes, rather than let myself be tricked by him, then we might have saved ourselves all this trouble. But of course I hadn’t known then everything we did now about Eadgyth and Harold. I only hoped that it was not too late to make amends.
I stared at the dean. ‘You,’ I said. ‘You were in Lundene four weeks ago.’
Perhaps he was too afraid, or perhaps he simply had no answer to that, for he did not speak.
I advanced across the tiled floor towards him. ‘Do you deny it?’
‘H-h-how …’ Wulfwin began, faltering over his words as he stepped away. ‘How did you know that?’
‘I saw you by St Eadmund’s church. You were speaking with the priest Ælfwold, conspiring with him against the vicomte of Eoferwic, Guillaume Malet, and against the king.’
A murmur rose up amongst the assembled canons, who until then had been silent, and out of the corner of my eye I saw them exchanging glances with one another. They did not concern me; I was interested only in finding the truth.
‘No,’ the dean said as he backed against the wall. ‘It’s not true. I would n-never speak against the king, I swear!’
‘The dean is a loyal servant of King Guillaume,’ another of the canons spoke up. ‘You have no right to come in here and address him in this way, to accuse him of such things.’
I turned to the one who had spoken: a wiry man not much older than myself. He shrank back under my stare. ‘We won’t leave until we have the answers we’re looking for,’ I said, and then to the rest of them: ‘Go. We will speak with the dean alone.’
He glanced at me, then at Eudo and Wace, whose hands rested upon their sword-hilts in warning.
‘Go, Æthelric,’ Wulfwin said. ‘The Lord will protect me.’
The man called Æthelric hesitated, but at last his better judgement prevailed and he signalled to the rest of the canons. I watched as they filed out of the chamber. Wace closed the doors after the last had left and then set the bar across. I thought it unlikely that any of them would try to disturb us, especially since they knew we all carried swords, but I did not like to have to resort to such threats if I could help it.
Throughout all of this the dean had not moved, as if his feet had somehow taken root where he stood. He watched me with wide eyes as I marched up to him.
‘Tell me, then,’ I said. ‘If you weren’t conspiring, what were you doing?’
‘I w-was only receiving the instructions that Malet had sent me, through his chaplain, Ælfwold. He wanted Harold’s relics removed to another place of his choosing.’
‘He wanted them moved?’ Eudo asked, but I waved him quiet. I would take care of this.
‘P-please,’ the dean said. ‘I have merely been doing as the vicomte asked. I swear I have done nothing wrong.’
‘Where is the usurper’s body now?’ I said. ‘Is it still here?’
Wulfwin shook his head. ‘They took it. The chaplain and two of Malet’s knights came for it last night. I had to arrange for the high altar to be moved, the church floor to be pulled up. The coffin was buried beneath it—’
‘Wait,’ I said, as a memory long buried came suddenly to mind. ‘These two knights. Describe them to me.’
A look of bewilderment crossed his face. ‘Describe them?’
‘We don’t have time for this, Tancred,’ Wace said. ‘What does it matter what they looked like?’
The dean glanced at him, then back at me, uncertain what to do. I glared at Wace. We had been on the road for four days; I had not slept properly since before the battle, and I was not prepared to stand here arguing while Ælfwold put ever more miles between us and him.
‘Think,’ I told Wulfwin. ‘What did they look like?’
The dean swallowed. ‘One was tall, about the same height as him –’ he pointed at Eudo ‘– while the other was short. I remember the tall one’s eyes, of the kind that you imagine could see right into a man’s soul, with an ugly scar above one of them—’
‘He had a scar?’ I interrupted. That was what I had been waiting to hear. ‘Which eye was it?’
‘Which eye?’ There was a note of despair in the dean’s voice. He hesitated for a moment, and then said, ‘The right one, as you would look at him.’
‘To him it would be his left, then,’ I murmured.
‘How is this important?’ asked Eudo.
‘It’s important because the man who attacked me, that night we arrived in Lundene, had a scar above his eye. His left eye.’
‘There could be hundreds of men with a mark like that,’ Wace pointed out. ‘How can you be sure it’s the same one?’
‘This man,’ I said to the dean. ‘He was unshaven, with a large chin?’
He looked at me in surprise. ‘That’s right,’ he replied.
‘It was him,’ I said, turning to Eudo and Wace. ‘Which means those men were serving Ælfwold all along.’
To have hired them he must have been planning this for some time, I realised. Since before we set off from Eoferwic, at least, and perhaps longer ago than that: since before we’d even met him. Which meant that all this time he had been deceiving us. At last I was beginning to see how everything fitted together. My fingers tightened around my sword-hilt. Not only had the priest lied to me, but his own hired swords had tried to kill me.
I cursed aloud, filling the chamber with my anger. The dean withdrew towards the far wall, his face even paler than before. He was trembling now, his breath coming in stutters, and I wondered if he thought we meant to kill him now that we had our answers.
‘P-please,’ said Wulfwin. ‘I have t-told you all that I know. By God and all his saints I swear it.’
‘It’s all right,’ Wace told him. ‘Our quarrel is not with you.’
Indeed I knew that for all the dean’s squirming, he was not at fault. He was merely unlucky to have been caught up in this business.
‘You were deceived,’ Eudo said. ‘Those weren’t Malet’s knights who came to take Harold’s body away, but sell-swords. And the instructions you received came not from the vicomte but from Ælfwold himself. He is a traitor; we’re trying to stop him.’
‘A traitor?’ A little colour was returning to the dean’s cheeks, but he nevertheless kept his distance. ‘Who, then, are you?’
‘We’ve been sent by Malet from Eoferwic,’ I said, though even as I did so I was aware of how feeble it sounded. ‘We are knights of his household.’
Wulfwin glanced about at each of us. ‘How do I know that you’re speaking the truth?’