Roger glanced at Geoffrey, passing a silent message, then, before the sailors understood what was happening, both knights launched simultaneous attacks, swords whistling in a series of vicious swipes and thrusts. The ferociousness of the offensive allowed for no rejoinder. Geoffrey dropped one man with a thrust through the chest, then twisted around and sent the dagger skittering from the grasp of another. Fingerless, the man fled, ignoring Donan’s screech to stand fast. Out of the corner of his eye, Geoffrey saw another man fall to Roger’s onslaught.
Donan faced him, spitting his fury at what was becoming a rout. Geoffrey feinted to his left, then chopped at a man’s shoulder, but before he could follow up, he felt a burning pain as a dagger slid under the mail on his right side. He whipped around and saw off the attacker with a thrust that penetrated the man’s thigh, but the sharp sting of his own cut did not encourage him to press his advantage. Swearing vilely, the sailor limped after his retreating fellows, Donan among them.
‘We should finish this,’ said Roger grimly. ‘We shall have no peace as long as they are alive.’
‘If you want peace, then give them back their gold,’ snapped Geoffrey, hand to his side.
‘I will not! It is mine, and I will kill anyone who tries to take it.’
As the sounds of the pirates’ flight receded, Geoffrey leaned against a tree to catch his breath. Roger took Ulfrith to check there were no lingerers, and Bale hurried to take his sword and clean it – a task he always enjoyed. The knight could see from the squire’s bloody hands that Bale had triumphed in his own skirmish.
‘Did you kill the cabin boy?’ he asked, disapprovingly.
‘Unfortunately, he was too nimble for me,’ said Bale unhappily. ‘I am not the hare I once was. But I slipped up behind one villain and slit his throat before he knew I was there.’
Geoffrey did a quick survey. The encounter had left six dead and several seriously wounded, and he suspected Donan would not attack again until Fingar and the remaining seamen were there to reinforce him. Then he saw the gleam in Bale’s face that always shone when there was violence.
‘Do not gloat over your victims,’ he said sharply. ‘It is not seemly.’
‘Why not, sir?’ asked Bale with genuine curiosity. ‘He would have killed me – and you. Why should I not be pleased I got him first?’
‘We treat our dead enemies with respect.’ Geoffrey’s side was burning, and he was in no mood to discuss battle etiquette with a man who was incapable of understanding.
Bale’s face was a picture of confusion. ‘William the Bastard did not treat the Saxon dead at Hastinges with respect. He left them for carrion and made no attempt to bury them.’
‘Perhaps so, but no one went around pawing their corpses and stealing their jewellery.’ Geoffrey looked pointedly at the gold earrings Bale held in one bloody paw.
‘Sir Roger took a dagger from the man he killed in Bristol last year,’ argued Bale. ‘He said the corpse no longer needed it, so it should go to a good home. I was following his example.’
Geoffrey sensed he was losing the debate and did not have the energy to regain the initiative. ‘I cannot make it any clearer except to say that you should not steal from corpses or take pleasure in your opponents’ deaths,’ he said shortly.
‘But I
do
enjoy it, sir,’ protested Bale. ‘There is something satisfying about dispatching a man who would have killed me, and to pretend otherwise would be dishonest.’
Geoffrey gave up. He shook his head in weary defeat and heaved himself upright as Roger and Ulfrith returned.
‘Is that a serious wound, Geoff?’ asked Roger. ‘Shall I see to it?’
Geoffrey shook his head, not wanting to be subjected to Roger’s rough and clumsy ministrations. ‘We should leave before they come back. Where are the others?’
‘Well, poor Harold is over there,’ said Roger with a vague wave. ‘He is dead.’
Geoffrey walked to where he indicated, aware of a sinking sensation in his stomach when he saw the slashed throat. Bright yellow hair tumbled across the cheerful, once-smiling face, and he crouched down to push it back.
‘Damn you, Bale,’ he said softly. ‘You have just killed a contender for the English throne.’
‘
Bale
killed King Harold?’ asked Roger, gaping in horror. ‘God’s blood! Now we shall have Saxon rebels baying for our blood, as well as pirates!’
‘But he was racing towards you with a sword, sir,’ objected Bale. ‘I acted from instinct.’
‘He did look fearsome,’ said Ulfrith loyally. ‘I saw him dash towards you while I was fighting that helmsman – the one I defeated.’
‘How did you know he was not aiming for the pirates?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘That he did not intend to join the fight on our side?’
Bale thought carefully before replying. ‘Well, I did
not
know, not for certain. But he came out of that church, and everyone else in there is dead. Obviously,
he
killed them all, so I thought I had better cut his throat before he slaughtered you, too.’
‘What are you talking about?’ snapped Geoffrey impatiently. ‘Who is dead in the chapel?’
‘The villagers, I suppose,’ replied Bale with a shrug. ‘Ask King Magnus.’
‘Where
is
Magnus?’ asked Roger.
‘Over there, being sick.’ Bale’s voice took on a note of defiant pride. ‘
He
does not have the stomach for massacres. You would never see
me
vomiting at such sights. And I
told
you I could smell blood. I was right – the church is drenched in it. I peeped inside it after that boy ran away.’
Ulfrith was listening to the discussion with growing horror. He gazed at Bale with wide eyes. ‘Are you saying King Harold murdered the villagers while we were fighting pirates?’
Ulfrith’s sword was stained, indicating he had inflicted some sort of harm on his opponent. The same could not be said of Juhel and Lucian, who came to join them, cool and unmarked. Geoffrey was not surprised Lucian had declined to fight – he was supposed to be in holy orders, after all – but he was disappointed in Juhel.
‘Well, Harold’s sword is bloody,’ Bale was saying, pointing at the stained weapon that lay in the grass next to the body. ‘Of course, he was not the only one who went inside the place where the slaughter took place.
Others
did, too.’ His accusing gaze encompassed the vomiting Magnus, Juhel and Lucian.
‘
I
do not kill,’ said Lucian indignantly. ‘I am a monk. Besides, I am not ashamed to admit that such situations terrify the wits out of me. I fled when I saw Donan coming, and, although one sailor pursued me, I ran fast enough to lose him.’
‘Well,
I
certainly did not kill anyone,’ said Magnus, white-faced and shaking as he approached. ‘I do not even own a weapon. I am afraid I hid
behind
the church when you were skirmishing.’
‘And where were
you
?’ Roger demanded of Juhel.
The parchmenter held up the cage containing Delilah. ‘I was making sure the sounds of battle did not distress her, but I did not succeed. What should I do to calm her, do you think?’
‘Cover the cage and leave her to settle,’ advised Ulfrith. ‘She will soon forget it.’
‘I wish that would work for me,’ said Magnus miserably. ‘I shall remember this day for the rest of my life. Did Harold really kill all these poor people?’
‘They were dead when we arrived,’ said Geoffrey, recalling the eerie silence.
‘And Harold could not have killed them before that, because he was with us,’ added Roger. Then he frowned. ‘He could have killed them before he went to the mud shelter, I suppose.’
Bale disagreed. ‘These villagers are fresh dead; the blood is still wet and bright.’
Geoffrey supposed he should not be surprised that such a gruesome detail had stuck in Bale’s mind.
‘Then how did he do it?’ asked Ulfrith. ‘If they were dead when we arrived, and he did not have the chance to do it before . . .’
Geoffrey felt blood oozing from his own cut and was aware of a sense of unreality. It was a reaction he often experienced after fierce fighting, but he knew he could not afford to give in to it – at least, not until they were safe in the abbey. Wincing, he knelt to inspect the corpse more closely.
‘This is not Harold,’ he said. ‘He is wearing different clothes and his face is thinner. And he does not have scars on his wrists. Unless I am mistaken, this must be Ulf. Harold’s twin.’
‘But why would
he
want to kill villagers?’ asked Roger. ‘Because he asked them to side with his revolt, and they refused? Magnus and Harold said this was a place loyal to Normans.’
‘But Magnus also said Ulf was violent,’ said Juhel. ‘So
he
must have killed these people.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Magnus. ‘This must be Ulf, although I have not seen him in years. I was not exaggerating when I described his evil character, though: destroying an entire village is exactly the kind of thing he would enjoy. Yet even so, he had no cause to attack Werlinges.
Ergo
, I do not believe he had anything to do with this.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Of course, pirates are hardened killers, too. It is possible they dispatched these people, so that they would not warn us against walking into an ambush.’
Magnus wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘I agree. One man could not have done this. It is the work of a violent horde.’
Reluctantly, Geoffrey supposed he had better inspect the church for himself. It contained at least thirty people, all lying in twisted heaps or sprawled in a chaotic jumble of limbs. There was not a weapon in sight, and injuries to their arms suggested they had tried to defend themselves with their bare hands. A child near the altar was huddled with his knees drawn up to his chin, as if he had hoped he might not be noticed. It was a massacre, and although Geoffrey had seen its like many times on the Crusade, he had never thought to do so in England.
He forced himself to move among the bodies, to see whether any had survived, but he knew none had. The killers had done their work too well, and most corpses had multiple injuries.
‘Christ God!’ breathed Roger, appalled. ‘They sliced the priest’s head clean from his body.’
He pointed to the altar, where an old man with a tonsure had evidently been praying as he had been struck down. There was a tiny room to one side, which had served as a vestry. Harold was in it, sitting on a bench. His head was bowed, his eyes glazed with shock.
‘I cannot find Father Wennec,’ he said dazedly, looking up when Geoffrey entered. ‘Perhaps he escaped. He is an elderly fellow with a tonsure . . .’
‘Come outside,’ said Geoffrey gently. ‘There is nothing you can do here.’
‘What evil, wicked monster could do such a thing?’ asked Harold, stumbling slightly as Geoffrey pulled him to his feet. ‘There are children . . .’
‘I do not know. But I do not think we should wait here to find out.’
‘They process salt here,’ said Harold as Geoffrey escorted him from the chapel. He was burbling irrelevancies, and Geoffrey supposed it was his way of dealing with what he had seen. ‘Werlinges is famous for its lovely salt, and it made the place wealthy. I suppose that is why it was attacked.’
‘No doubt,’ said Geoffrey. There was no point saying more: Harold was incapable of listening.
‘I saw them all alive before I went to meet Magnus,’ Harold went on. ‘And they told me all about their salt. They were proud of it, you see. And Wennec promised to hire me two good horses.’
Geoffrey stood with him while Roger led the squires in a search of the village’s outbuildings, hoping to find someone who had escaped and might be able to tell de Laigle what had happened. The brutal execution of an entire village was sure to trigger an official enquiry, and it was important to secure eye-witnesses before they disappeared.
‘I am sorry I did not help you fight the pirates,’ said Harold dully. ‘But I did not have a sword. I ran to the chapel to see whether someone might have left a weapon in the porch that I might use – a pike or something. But when I saw . . . I must have swooned . . . And then you came . . .’
‘You were quite right not to have joined the skirmish, Harold,’ said Magnus, coming to stand with them. ‘And so was I. What would happen to England if we were killed or injured?’
‘
Ulf
would not have acted like a stupid coward,’ said Harold, full of self-loathing. ‘But I am not him. To tell you the truth, I prefer playing the horn to fighting and the like.’
‘You play like an angel,’ said Magnus comfortingly. ‘Do you think Donan did this alone, Sir Geoffrey, or did Fingar help?’
Geoffrey shrugged, thinking that Fingar and his men would have needed a place to stay when the storms struck and might well have imposed themselves on Werlinges. And then, to ensure no one reported pirates at large, they had killed any witnesses. He frowned. But would they really resort to such extremes? Or was it the work of Ulf, the violent marauder? Geoffrey knew that one man with a sword could do a lot of damage to unarmed people in a confined space.
‘The massacre was recent, just as Bale says,’ said Roger, coming to report. Ulfrith was white-faced at his side and making a valiant but futile attempt to conceal his shock, whereas Bale seemed energized. ‘This morning, probably.’
‘Then it
must
have been the pirates,’ said Magnus. ‘When I am king, I will see
them
chopped into pieces for this outrage! That evil Donan—’
‘No,’ said Geoffrey, taking a deep breath and forcing his wits to work. ‘You saw how much blood was spilled. The killers would have been drenched in it, but Donan and his men were not.’
‘Perhaps they washed before we came,’ suggested Bale.
‘Their clothes were those they wore when they escaped the wreck, and they were not wet. They are not the culprits. However, that is not to say Fingar and the rest of the crew are innocent.’
‘They may be wandering along some path even now, all red and splattered with gore,’ added Bale, eyes gleaming.