The Splintered Kingdom (43 page)

As sincerely as he spoke, his words could do nothing to raise me from my sorrow. So many I had known had perished of late: men and women who might not have died had it not been for me. With every day that passed it seemed the list of their names grew longer and longer.

But as day turned to night and fresh wood was cast on to the campfire, a new resolve kindled within me. Even if Bleddyn and Eadric and their kind were not responsible for Leofrun’s death, they had taken everything else from me. They had stripped me of my mail and sword and dignity, had slain my companions and torched my home. For those things I would not forgive them.

Under Ædda’s direction the others had built rough shelters by leaning branches against the trunks of two wide-bellied oaks and laying armfuls of bracken over the top to keep out the rain and the wind. Beorn and Nothmund kept watch by the fire while everyone else bedded down upon the stony ground and tried to rest. Everyone, that was, except for me. My mind was racing as I thought about what we would do come the morning, how I would sow terror in the hearts of my enemies and how I would make them suffer for everything they had done.

We marched as soon as the birds began their chorus. Eight men, five women, six children, a priest, three horses and myself. We were all that was left of the proud manor that had once been Earnford.

On our way I told them of everything that had happened since I had left, from our expedition across the dyke to the battle at Mechain, our retreat and then our desertion from Scrobbesburh, my capture by Bleddyn and how I had managed to get away. There were parts that I left out: some of it seemed so long ago that it was already fading from my memory, but there was plenty, too, that I was less proud of and which they did not need to hear about, my quarrel with Berengar being one of those things. How petty did all that seem now, after everything that had happened?

When we were nearing Earnford I made the rest wait while Ædda and I rode ahead on two of the palfreys that, along with one of my stallions, he’d managed to save from the stables. The sight of the burnt houses and the smell of decay was no easier to bear than it had been the day before, but we skirted around the worst of it and I tried to keep my gaze fixed on the summit of the Read Dun ahead of us, and on the path that led there. Crows scattered from our path, cawing in chorus as they circled above us, their obsidian beads of eyes watching us.

‘I don’t like this,’ said Ædda, making the sign of the cross upon his breast as we began to climb the hill. ‘This is an evil place, lord. Why have we come here?’

‘You know why,’ I replied. ‘We aren’t leaving until we have what we came for.’

Despite the Englishman’s mutterings, I spoke no more until we had climbed the steep stony paths that led through the trees to the ridge above, and from there along the ridge to the summit where the stones kept lookout over the valley. It took me a little while searching in the long grass, but eventually I found the smallest one, slid my palm into the gap beneath its flat underside, and with the Englishman’s help lifted it and rolled it to one aside.

The enemy had not found my hoard, I was relieved to see. All was exactly as I had left it.

Ædda made a sound of astonishment when he saw it. He knew I
sometimes came here, but perhaps he had not quite guessed how much silver and gold I had managed to amass over the last few months.

‘How much of this do you mean to take with us?’ he asked.

‘All of it,’ I answered. ‘We won’t be coming back here.’

We lifted out the saddlebags filled with coin, the pagan arm-rings with the strange inscriptions – which I donned straightaway – and the two gilded brooches. I had no idea exactly how much it was all worth, but I reckoned there was sufficient for a dozen strong warhorses, with enough left over to buy spears and shields for every man, woman and child in our party. Of the three seaxes I gave one to the Englishman, kept one for myself and placed the third with the silver, thinking to give it to one of the other men later. Odgar, perhaps: he was the youngest and the strongest of them, and would be a useful man to have beside me in a fight.

That left the sword, the last of three I had once owned, and now my only one. It had been given me by Lord Robert’s father, Guillaume Malet, when I had entered his service for a few months the year before. Though he had released me from my oath after the unpleasant business with his traitorous chaplain, he had never asked me to return the blade. In some ways I would rather he had, for in my eyes the steel was imbued with the memory of that time, with all the betrayal and deceit that had surrounded it. For that reason I’d never much liked using it and thus it had lain resting in the ground for all these months. That I had not sold it had proven a blessing. Perhaps I’d known there would be a time when it would be needed again.

I buckled the sword-belt around my waist as I looked down upon the valley and upon Earnford, at the same time praying silently that it was not for the last time. But even as we began the slow journey back down the hillside, a cold sensation came over me, as if I knew it would be. As if my words to Ædda had been somehow prophetic, though I had not meant them in that way. In my mind I’d been speaking about the hoard and the hiding place upon the hill, but perhaps there was a greater truth contained within them: a truth I did not want to admit but which deep down I knew.

The truth that we would not be coming back to Earnford at all.

Twenty-four

WE STRUCK OUT
across that burnt and wasted land, staying off the main tracks as much as possible, while also keeping a look out for any raiding-bands that might be roaming. Spires of smoke rose on the horizon where the torch had been taken to other manors, and we took care to avoid them in case some of the enemy still lurked. Even from a distance it was clear they had not spared a single house, animal or soul. All about wheatfields lay blackened, the pastures devoid of any sign of movement. Where I might have expected to hear the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle and oxen, there was only an unearthly stillness.

‘
Crungon walo wide
,’ Ædda muttered as we skirted the edge of one such manor. ‘
Cwoman woldagas
,
swylt eall fornom secgrofra wera
.’

Something about those words was familiar. ‘Far and wide men were slaughtered,’ I said, trying to remember. ‘Days of pestilence came, and death took all the brave men away.’

Surprised, he shot me a glance. ‘You know it, lord?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘But you said the same thing when you were insensible with the poppy-juice after you were injured. Erchembald thought it might be Scripture, although he didn’t know the passage.’

‘Not Scripture,’ he said, his voice solemn as he turned his gaze down. ‘It comes from an old verse, one that was spoken to me when I was small by my mother, God rest her soul. She received it from her father, and he from his father in turn, and in that way it has been passed down through my family across several lifetimes. I know not who first laid down the words, but all my life I have never forgotten them. Sometimes I think of all those
I have known who have perished, and certain lines will spring to mind.’

Death took all the brave men away.
I thought of Serlo and Pons and Lord Robert, and hoped that somewhere they still lived: that death had not also taken them, my own fellow brave men.

And yet I sensed there was something the Englishman was not telling me: something he had hinted at before but of which he had never spoken openly. For my part I had never pressed him, but it seemed more important than ever now, when I needed strong and reliable men around me.

‘You used to be a warrior yourself, didn’t you?’ I asked. ‘You’re no stranger to the field of battle.’

He did not answer, not straightaway at least, and for a while we rode on in silence. I caught a glimpse of a dog, thin and wretched, wandering the ruins of its former home, plaintively barking for its master who would not come. Apart from birds and the occasional hare darting across the path, it was the only creature we had seen all day.

‘Do you remember that day earlier this summer when the Welsh came, when we pursued them into the lands across the dyke?’ Ædda asked.

He knew I did, and so I waited for him to go on.

‘That was the first time I had killed a man in fourteen years.’ Anger stirred in his eyes and in his knuckles, which had turned white as his hands balled into fists. ‘I did not like doing it then, and I like it even less now. Yes, it is true that I have seen war, but I am no warrior.’

‘What happened fourteen years ago?’

He snorted, as if the idea that I might be interested were somehow ridiculous, but when he saw my stern expression, he answered: ‘This story I have told to very few others. If I am to tell you, lord, you must swear not to repeat it, not to the priest or anyone else either.’

The rest of the party was a little way behind us, not so far separated from us as to be vulnerable should any attack come, but far enough to be out of earshot.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

He regarded me for a moment, as if considering whether or not he could trust me, then sighed. ‘Since the beginning of that year the Welsh had been raiding all along the borderlands: plundering, raping and burning much as they are now. In the summer my lord chose me and my two brothers, Brun and Tatel, to go with him when he was summoned to the war-band of Bishop Leofgar of Hereford, whose writ at the time held sway along this part of the March.’

‘The bishop?’ I asked. ‘What would he know of war?’

‘Very little, as we would come to learn,’ Ædda said bitterly. ‘He was an angry man as I remember, overly fond of his wine and with a high opinion of his own talents. For all his posturing he was no more a war leader than myself or my brothers. I was barely twenty summers old then, and they were some years younger, both of them strong-willed and eager lads. Of the three of us only I knew anything of horsemanship or had any sort of skill at arms, but even I had not seen battle before.’

He inhaled deeply, as if to calm himself. ‘Not until that night at Clastburh. The Welsh came upon our camp while we slept and inflicted a slaughter such as I could never have imagined. I lost my eye when one of the bastards put it out with a spear, although I was among the luckier ones, for I survived. Tatel and Brun fell beside me in the shield-wall, both meeting their ends along with most of our host, my lord, and the bishop himself.’ He shook his head, and there was the slightest moisture in his eye. ‘I was the one who had to take the news back to my sick mother. I was the one who tried to console her, but the grief proved too much for her heart to bear and she too died soon afterwards. After that there was nothing left for me, and though it shames me, I ran away from my old manor, begging in the towns and by the roadsides until my wanderings brought me to Earnford. The steward at the time took pity on me and gave me work in the stables. Until these last few days, that has been my life.’

Ædda had ever been a solemn man, who kept to himself and rarely smiled, and I had long suspected that some sort of hardship
lay in his past. Unlike the rest of the villagers he had no kin anywhere on the manor or those neighbouring. Now I knew why.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, knowing the words were trite but having no others to use in their stead.

He nodded, wiping a hand across his face to rid his one good eye of the tears that were forming. ‘I am not like you, lord,’ he said, his voice suddenly small. ‘I do not seek adventure; I have no desire for riches or glory. Just as your sword determines your path, so the horses determine mine, and that is all I have ever wanted.’

‘I understand.’

He did not seem to hear me, but went on: ‘Then this year the Welsh came again, and I slew them because they had done the same to men I’d known. In the same way I ride with you now. When the time comes I will be content to fight alongside you and send our enemies to their graves, for it will be justice. But I will not enjoy it.’

He turned to face me, wearing a grim, troubled expression. That was the most the Englishman had ever spoken in my company, and it took me a few moments to take in everything he had said.

Like me he had set foot upon the sword-path. He had tasted battle, had wielded naked steel and sent men to their deaths. But that was as far as our stories could be compared, for he had only ever done so out of duty. Ever since my fourteenth year all I had ever dreamt of was taking up arms, of serving my lord well and seeing my fame spread. Even now, after everything that had happened in my life, after seeing so many of my friends fall and knowing that I might easily have been among them, still I dreamt of those things. Still I craved the bloodlust, the feel of my sword and shield in my hands, the thrill of the kill. I could neither deny nor restrain it, so deeply was that fighting instinct ingrained within my very bones. It was as much a part of myself as my heart or my head or my stomach. Cut it out and I would die.

In pursuing those desires these last few months, however, I had somehow lost myself and forgotten who I was. Exactly when it had happened I could not say, but at some point my reputation
had overtaken me. I had grown proud, and deaf to the good advice of my friends and comrades: all the things I despised in others; all the things I’d promised myself I would never become. I had spent too long glorying in my newfound fame, listening to the tales that other men wove around my exploits, until I had started to believe them myself. Until the myth figured in my mind more clearly than the truth. All this I had allowed to happen, and in so doing had nearly lost everything. Leofrun’s death, Earnford’s destruction: these were God’s ways of punishing me, of putting me back in my place, of reminding me who I was.

And yet the Tancred who led this desperate and hungry band of folk was an altogether different man to the one who had first arrived in Earnford over a year ago. I could see the change being wrought in myself, could feel fresh determination rising up and filling me. All the bruises I had suffered and all the ruin and slaughter I had witnessed only served to make me stronger.