The Splintered Kingdom (40 page)

Though he had been there at Mechain, I had never seen the man at close hand before, and so at first I was taken by surprise. He was not as men had described him to me, nor how I had imagined him either. Despite his byname he seemed to me far from wild, either in appearance or in manner. In my mind he had been a hulking brute of impulsive nature, built like a blacksmith, stinking and unkempt, with a long, straggling beard and hair growing out of his
nostrils. A young man, indeed, whereas the one stood here was in his middle years, well groomed, with a stiff bearing and small, hard eyes that possessed a gaze sharp enough to pierce the best mail. Surrounding him were his armed retainers, his hearth-troops, his
huscarls
: stout fighters with whom I would have thought twice before crossing swords, even were I fully awake and fit.

The Welshmen dismounted, leaving their ponies by the marker stone and approaching on foot so as to meet the Englishmen on equal terms. The hunting dogs growled and strained at their leashes, but Dyfnwal ignored them.

‘Lord Eadric,’ he said. He spoke in the English tongue, presumably in mock deference, for his words were not respectful. ‘It is a while since I last laid eyes upon your ugly face. Should I assume that—’

‘Assume nothing,’ Eadric cut him off cleanly and sharply, like a butcher’s knife cleaving through a haunch of meat. He nodded towards me. ‘Is this him?’

‘It is.’

He strode towards me, eyeing me closely, as if suspicious that I were not who Dyfnwal claimed. ‘Tancred a Dinant?’

‘So they call me,’ I answered, doing my best to sound defiant, though I wasn’t sure that I succeeded.

‘You’re shorter than I expected,’ he said to me in French, though he was only slightly the taller of the two of us. ‘And thinner too. Hardly the famed warrior whose feats and prowess I have heard so much about.’ He turned to Dyfnwal. ‘I sincerely hope you have been feeding him, Welshman. If he dies of starvation or ill health before the ætheling sees him, I shall hold you to account and he will have your head.’

‘We have kept him fed.’

Not very well, I would have added, but decided it was probably better that I kept my mouth shut, for now at least.

‘As for the price,’ Dyfnwal went on, ‘it has now increased. Twenty pounds in silver, or goods to the same worth.’

‘Twenty pounds?’ Eadric snorted with some indignation. ‘You think I carry twenty pounds of silver with me? No, the price remains
as I agreed with your king. Twelve pounds is what I bring, and that is what you will receive.’

The Welshman considered for a moment, and exchanged some words with his comrades. Either way it was a large sum. I supposed it was a tribute of sorts to the regard in which the enemy clearly held me, and perhaps in other circumstances I might have taken it as a compliment.

Dyfnwal shrugged. ‘If that is all you offer, then you will not have him.’

‘Do not test my patience, Welshman. Believe me when I say it would be better if you took advantage of my beneficence, lest my humour should blacken further.’

‘You will not intimidate me, Eadric. I fear neither you nor your master the ætheling.’

Eadric stood in front of him, so close that I thought he was about to strike him. ‘I don’t ask that you fear me,’ he said slowly, as one might if trying to explain something to a child. ‘I ask only that you give me what was promised to me by your king. Now hand him over.’

‘And if I refuse, then what?’ asked Dyfnwal, smirking.

‘Then this.’ As if from nowhere Eadric’s knife was in his hand. Without warning he plunged it into the other man’s unprotected thigh, driving it deep and leaving it there while he flourished his sword. ‘You will not stop me from taking what is rightfully mine!’

Dyfnwal fell backwards, clutching at the wound and yelling out in agony as blood spurted forth. All at once Eadric and his huscarls were amongst the Welshmen: slashing, swinging, thrusting, driving shining steel into their bellies. For a moment I stood rooted to the ground in surprise, but as the ones guarding me bared their steel and threw themselves into the fray my senses returned. One of the huscarls, more alert than the rest, made a grab for me, but the weight of his mail made him slow. I ducked low and twisted away before he could lay hands upon me. Even as the Wild One bellowed the order to seize me, I was turning, running as I never had before, my bare soles pounding the damp grass as I summoned every last ounce of strength in my legs. Once or twice I stumbled upon the
turf, nearly tripping, but somehow managed to stay on my feet and to keep moving. If I fell they would catch me and all would be lost. This was my one chance and I could not let it slip.

Steel clashed against steel, ringing out through the darkness; the silence of the night was broken by shouts and screams as I rushed to the nearest of the Welshmen’s ponies and clambered ungainly up on to its back, kicking my bare heels into the animal’s flank almost before my arse had found the saddle. The wind buffeted my shoulders and my face as I clung to the reins and raced across the fields that surrounded the fort, following the course of the river as it wound up the valley away from Mathrafal. Before long, however, I heard Eadric’s men riding in pursuit, hooves pounding in rapid rhythm. I dared not look back to see how many they were, but with every stride that my pony made I could hear their cries growing louder and knew they were getting nearer. Their mounts were stronger and faster than mine and in open country they would soon be upon me if I did not do something.

Leaving the main track and the river plain, I climbed the slope towards the woods, hoping to lose my pursuers in the trees, the undergrowth and the night. Relying on the nimbleness and sure-footedness of the Welsh horseflesh beneath me, I darted in and out of the trees, ducking to avoid the larger branches and crashing through some of the smaller ones, wincing as they made great scratches across my face and chest. I knew not where I was going, only that I could not stop. I climbed ever higher, pushing on until the shouts behind me had faded to nothing and my heart was no longer beating quite so hard, and even then I kept going, forcing myself to stay awake as I traversed ditches and streams and crossed grassy clearings where the ashes of old charcoal fires lay, venturing deeper and deeper, until at last I came out on the other side. A river ran before me; whether it was the same one or not I had no way of telling. Although we must have marched not far from here only a few weeks ago, I did not recall this country. Of course the night had a strange way of making even well-known places look new and unfamiliar, but that was only another way of saying what
deep down I knew: as well as being hungry and cold, sweating yet shivering, I was now lost.

The one thing that gave me some cheer was the thought that if I had no idea where I was or where I was going, neither probably would Eadric and his huscarls, since these lands beyond the dyke would be as new to them as they were to me. That was my hope, at least, and since it was only a hope and not anything I could be certain of, I rode on, following the valley upstream for want of any better direction to travel in, trying as much as possible to keep the river in sight.

All too soon, though, my mount began to tire. I had pushed him hard and now his steps were growing ever slower and less steady, until he could go no further and I had to leave him and carry on alone. Somewhere in the distance dogs barked, or perhaps it was only my imagination. Still, I decided it was better not to wait to find out which, and so I forced my legs to carry me just a little further. Shortly I came to another tumbling brook, but this time instead of simply crossing it I splashed on up the slope that it came from. If Eadric’s hounds did have my scent, then I had to lose them somehow, and this was the only way that came to mind. Sharp pebbles dug into my soles as I splashed through the frothy, noisy waters; in some places the bed was so uneven that I had to use my hands to steady myself. To give up was to choose death at the hands of the English, and that thought kept me trudging onwards, one step at a time, gradually climbing, until eventually the stream grew too steep to follow and I left it, instead striking out across the hillside for another mile or more, hoping that I had done enough to evade them.

Certainly I heard no more barking, and for that I was thankful. All my vigour was long spent and I could barely keep my eyes open. A thin rain was beginning to fall and I took shelter beneath the thick drooping branches of an old hornbeam. No sooner had I laid my head down upon the earth than I was lost in sleep.

The next I knew the skies were grown light. My head was heavy and throbbing with pain, my throat dry and sore. Rain pattered upon the ground around me; my braies were wet and clinging to my skin and
I was chilled to the bone. Something was jabbing into my back, once, twice, and again, each time harder than the last. Groaning, still not quite sure how I’d come to be here, I rolled over, straining my neck to see what it was. A man and a woman stood looking down upon me: the former in his middle years with greying hair, holding a crooked branch; his companion probably of an age with Leofrun, thin and with an ill-fed look about her, and guarded eyes.

‘
Byw yw ynteu
,’ the man said, whatever that meant. He exchanged a glance with the woman, who might have been his daughter or possibly his wife; it was hard to tell.

I wanted to say something, but at the very moment I happened to open my mouth a burning sickness swelled in my stomach, rising up my throat, until in one great heave it all spilled out on to the damp ground. Exhausted, I closed my eyes and collapsed back, my neck no longer able to hold up my head.

Dimly I was aware of them speaking, before I felt myself being moved. One taking my shoulders and arms and the other my legs, together they managed to carry me a few paces at a time. I had barely enough strength to move my arms, let alone struggle; my whole body felt numb with cold and fatigue.

How long it was before I realised that we were no longer in the woods, I couldn’t say. No longer when my eyes opened did I see branches swaying overhead; no longer could I hear the wind rustling the leaves and birds calling to one another. Instead I saw soot-blackened timbers and thatch with a hole through which smoke was quickly rising. Kindling crackled in the fire-pit in the centre of the room; above it on a spit hung a small iron pot, inside which something was bubbling.

A rough woollen blanket had been laid over me, but otherwise I was naked. I lay upon a mattress of dried ferns, which in turn was raised off the floor by planks of timber; close by my head stood a large ironbound chest while on the other side of the room, close by the doorway, was a stout bench, upon which sat the young woman, picking at her teeth with a twig while she watched me. Perhaps my eyes had been playing tricks on me before, for my first thought was that she seemed prettier now. Not as pretty as Leofrun,
it had to be said, but attractive nonetheless. She smiled when I met her eyes, and rose from her stool to help me sit up.

My braies, I saw, were drying over a stool beside the fire. While the woman attended to whatever was cooking, I held the blanket close around me, partly because I was cold and partly to keep my nether regions from her sight, though if she had been the one who undressed me then I was probably too late for that.

She returned in short order with a wooden bowl into which she’d ladled some sort of broth. At the very smell of food I thought myself about to vomit again, but somehow I managed to hold it down.

‘
Yf
,’ she said, kneeling beside me and proffering it to me. I took it in shaky hands, clasping it firmly so as not to drop it or spill any over myself. In the thin mixture I saw cabbage and leek, and some other small vegetables chopped finely so that I could not say what they were.

I raised the bowl to my lips and sipped at it, tentatively at first for it was still hot. It was not exactly what I would have called flavoursome, although perhaps had my tongue not been so fuzzy I would have considered it as good as the most lavish of feasts, for it was the first proper food to pass my lips in days.

‘Thank you,’ I said, forgetting for a moment where I was and that the chance of her being able to speak any French was slight at best.

‘
Annest wyf
i
,’ she said, pointing at her chest. ‘
Annest
.
Pa enw yssyd iti?
’

Annest. I supposed that was her name. I was about to give her mine in return when a thought occurred to me. If Eadric and his men were still out searching for me, they might well ask folk nearby if they had heard or seen of anyone calling himself Tancred. Better in that case to give her a false name, or better still none at all. I chose the latter.

‘
Seis?
’ she asked, her expression earnest. That word was familiar for it meant an Englishman; one of the few bits of Welsh that I had learnt in my time on the Marches.

I shook my head. How to say I was a Frenchman, a Norman or
a Breton, all of which I considered myself from time to time, was beyond my knowledge, but then that was probably just as well, for I was unlikely to have volunteered even that much anyway.

‘
Estrawn
,’ she said. ‘
Mi ath alwaf
Estrawn
.’

Whatever she was trying to tell me was lost upon my ears. Certainly my inability to speak her tongue seemed to frustrate or disappoint her, or both. While I took another sip of the broth she stood abruptly and disappeared outside, calling presumably to the man who was her husband or father. The rain still fell, pooling in the rut that had been worn in the doorway. In all my travels I had never known a country as wet and as miserable as this.

Alone, I tried to summon the strength to get up. One thing was for certain: I could not stay here. Where I might go I didn’t know, only that the further it was from Mathrafal and from Eadric and Bleddyn’s men, the less likely they were to find me. Unfortunately my legs were reluctant to do as they were told, my feet uncertain of their grounding. At the same time a sudden dizziness overcame me and I staggered sideways, colliding with the chest and cursing loudly.