Sworn Sword

by James Aitcheson

  ‘We should rest here,’ I said. ‘It’s sheltered, and we’ll be able to see anyone coming.’

  ‘From the south, maybe,’ Wace replied, his expression stern. ‘It’s those coming from the north I’m worried about.’

  But it was not as if we had much choice, for the horses were spent: we had ridden them hard all the way from the battle, and they would surely not be able to go on much longer, even if we ourselves wanted to. And I could see the tiredness in Wace’s eyes – both his good one and the other – as much as I felt it in my own.

  Not far off I could hear the trickling of a small stream, and we led our mounts to it. We unsaddled them and let them drink before tying the reins to a nearby birch, where there was enough grass around for them to eat: although if they felt anything like I did, they would not be hungry.

  I lay down upon the soft earth, doing my best to ignore the pain. A gust of wind rustled the branches and I shivered, pulling my cloak closer, though it did not offer much protection. Only the night before last I had been sharing my tent with Oswynn, feeling the warmth of her embrace, the tenderness of her touch, and all had been as it should be.

  The wind gusted again. I closed my eyes, seeing her face rise before me, and as I lay there on the damp ground, at last the tears began to flow. My breath came in stutters, catching in my chest, pulling at my heart, and my mind was filled with thoughts of her as I told myself over and over: I could not have known.

  But none of it helped. For she was dead, and I had killed her.

  I slept after that, though it could not have been for long, for the sun was not yet at its highest when I woke, almost blinded by its brightness. Birds chirped in the trees about me; in the distance I could hear the bleating of sheep. The frost had since melted, and now the plains were a patchwork of green and brown. My eyes were sore and there was a dull ache in my head. For a moment I lay still, unsure where I was, until suddenly it all returned to me.

  I blinked and tried to sit up, though straightaway I regretted it as agony gripped my leg, and I cursed out loud. There was no one about to hear me. Wace was not to be seen, though he had left his shield behind. Lord Robert’s hawk looked as though it had seen better days; there were several long scratches across it that would need repainting. Nonetheless, it was in better condition than mine, which rested beside me, its top edge split, the leather strips around its edge hacked away, the wooden planks beneath cracked. It would not last much longer.

  Wace’s horse was still there, too, which meant that he could not have gone far. I watched the animal and he watched me back, his bay coat glistening in what sunlight reached through the branches. Beside him Rollo lay on his side, asleep.

  I shifted, trying to get more comfortable. I was still wearing my hauberk and chausses, though I had removed my helmet. Resting while in mail was never easy, but I didn’t want to be unprepared in case the enemy should happen upon us.

  My leg continued to throb, worse even than it had just a few hours ago. I bent down and saw what I had missed earlier: the blow had gone past the mail of my chausses, tearing through the calf-straps, as well as through my braies, which were stained a deep red. And beneath it all was the cut itself, about a hand’s span in length, beginning slightly above my ankle and ending just short of my knee-joint. I touched at it lightly, wincing at the tenderness of the flesh. My fingers came away smeared with blood. It did not look deep – whatever had struck me, only its point could have broken the skin – and for that at least I was thankful. But it was still a serious wound.

  I heard a chink of mail behind me, and turned to see Wace emerging from the woods, a leather wineskin in hand.

  ‘You’re awake,’ he said.

  He didn’t look as though he had rested at all; his eyes were every bit as red as they had been at dawn. ‘Have you slept?’ I asked.

  He shook his head and tossed me the flask; it was heavier than I expected and I almost fumbled it. ‘One of us had to keep watch,’ he said. ‘You looked as if you needed the rest more than I.’

  I took out the stopper and lifted the wineskin to my lips. It was icy cold, and I nearly choked, the water streaming down my chin, splashing over my cloak and my hauberk, but I did not care. It was the first moisture to pass my lips in a long time, and I drank deeply.

  I held the bottle out to him but he shook his head, and so I put it to one side while I set about removing my chausses. They were attached to my belt by means of leather braces, and I untied them before undoing the unsevered laces. That done, I rolled up the leg of my braies up to my knee, and began to splash some of the water from the flask over the wound, biting back the sudden sting. As a youth I had spent some years in a monastery, where the infirmarian had taught me the importance of keeping a wound clean.

  He had been a quiet, ancient man, I remembered, with a rough fringe of snowy hair around his tonsure, and sad eyes which told of many hardships witnessed but never mentioned. Of all the monks there he was one of the few I took to, and his was the only teaching that stuck in my mind. It had probably saved my life more than once over the years.

  I wiped the half-dried blood from around the cut, revealing a great crimson gash, about one-third the width of my fingernail.

  Wace inhaled sharply. ‘That doesn’t look good.’

  ‘It looks worse than it feels,’ I said, though I was not sure that I meant it. I swallowed, and changed the subject. ‘Where do you think we are?’

  ‘We passed a village a little before dawn,’ he replied, still gazing at the wound. ‘If that was Alclit then it means we can’t be far from the old road.’

  Alclit was one of the places we had passed on our march; we had learnt the name after our scouts had captured one of the families trying to flee. They had been some of the last to leave; most of the rest had gone by then, disappeared into the hills and the forests. The tears of the wife came back to me now, her husband’s terrified silence also. In particular I recalled the wide, uncomprehending eyes of the children, too frightened to speak or even to cry. But once they had given us the answers we needed, Lord Robert set them all free, even giving them horses and supplies so that they could ride on ahead and tell their countrymen of the size and strength of our army, in the hope that they would surrender without a fight. We hadn’t imagined that they would be already lying in wait, like a pack of wolves preparing to ambush their prey. None of us had.

  Wace looked up, over the fields to the south. ‘I confess, though, I don’t recognise the land.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ I drew my knife out from its sheath and began to cut a strip from the hem of my cloak. The wool was thick, but my blade was sharp, and soon I had enough to wrap around my calf, tying it firm to try to close the wound. It was as much as I could do, until we got back to Eoferwic at least. It was a good thing that we had horses, for I couldn’t have walked on it for long without opening the gash further.

  ‘I’ll try to get some rest, if you don’t mind,’ said Wace.

  ‘I’ll keep watch,’ I replied, as he paced about, testing the ground with his feet, searching for a place where it was least damp. Then he lay down, facing away from the sun, his cloak wrapped around him like a blanket. The next time I looked in his direction, he was soundly asleep.

  I sat leaning back against one of the birch trees as the morning passed. Tiredness still gripped me, but even had I not been keeping watch, I wouldn’t have felt able to sleep. The wind had stilled; the branches above my head were motionless. Clouds began to gather and the land became a patchwork of light and dark.

  The jangle of a horse harness from within the woods made me sit up. I looked at Wace, but he was still asleep. I nudged his side and he woke with a start, his hand straightaway leaping to his scabbard, fumbling for his sword-hilt.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ I said.

  He saw me then and paused, his eyes wide and bloodshot, until at last recognition seemed to come and he scrambled to his feet. ‘Where?’

  I got up, too quickly: fire shot through my calf and
I stumbled, but managed to stay on my feet as I gestured back up the track. It sounded like just one rider, though I could not be sure. Our horses were about twenty paces away, a short distance inside the woods where they would be hidden from the plains below. We might make it to them before the enemy was upon us, though we would surely be noticed if we tried to ride away.

  I half ran, half limped forward, following Wace towards the animals, who were both awake now, though they did not seem to have sensed anything amiss. We were just in time, as suddenly I heard hooves and then a rider came into view. There was just one, his mount at no more than a walk as he made his way through the trees.

  An earthen bank lay between us and the path, and we hid behind it. As long as the rider did not look in our direction, he wouldn’t spot the horses and we would be safe. But then I thought: What if he did? We were two against one, and providing that he did not have any friends riding just behind him, we ought to be able to win if it came to a fight.

  The man was tall and long-limbed, with a brown cloak wrapped around drooping shoulders, and a helmet covering his head. Sunlight burst through the clouds and Wace crouched down, further out of sight, but at that moment I saw the rider’s face, and a rush of joy came over me.

  ‘It’s Eudo,’ I said to Wace, and then standing once more, waving out, I called, ‘Eudo!’

  The rider came to a halt. He searched around, and as I stumbled forward through the leaves and the branches, he saw me. There was mud in his hair, there were scratches upon his thin face, and his eyes were red-rimmed from tiredness, but it was clearly him.

  ‘Tancred?’ he asked, as if he did not quite believe it. He slid down from the saddle, laughing, threw his arms about me and embraced me like a brother. ‘You made it out alive.’

  ‘We did,’ I said, and gestured at Wace, who was not far behind me.

  ‘Wace!’ Eudo shouted.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ Wace said, smiling.

  ‘And you,’ Eudo replied, and I thought I spotted moisture in his eyes as he stood back. ‘I never thought I would see either of you again – after what happened …’

  But he could not finish, as suddenly the tears began to brim over.

  ‘What about the others?’ I asked, glancing back up the path in search of more of our conroi. ‘Are any of the others behind you? Mauger, Ivo, Hedo?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And Lord Robert?’ said Wace. ‘What about Lord Robert?’

  Eudo simply stared at him, and then at me, open-mouthed. Dark shadows lay beneath his eyes. A cloud came across the sun; from the north the wind blew and around us I heard the trees themselves shiver.

  ‘Lord Robert …’ he said. His voice trembled, seeming suddenly distant, as if it were no longer his own. ‘Lord Robert is dead.’

  Five

  I STARED AT Eudo, scarce understanding what he was saying. It could not be true. I had been with Robert in the square at Dunholm only hours before. I had spoken to him. I had clasped his hand.

  The pictures whirled through my mind. It seemed to me I was stuck in some terror of a dream, and I needed desperately to wake up, but of course I could not.

  First Oswynn, and now Lord Robert. The man I had served half my lifetime: since I had first taken up arms in my youth. I remembered that look of unspoken despair on his face as he had sent me from the square at Dunholm. And I saw again those eyes, hollow and lost, as if he had somehow known that defeat was at hand, that his own end was near.

  I would have liked to say that the words stuck in my throat, but that would have been false, for in truth no words existed for a moment like this. My mouth was dry, the air gone from my chest. I felt myself sit down upon the ground, though I did not recall having willed my body to do so. I expected tears to follow, but strangely they did not, nor could I summon them. Instead I just felt numb. It was too much to take in.

  I had sworn my life to Lord Robert’s service. By solemn oath I had pledged both my sword and my shield in his defence. Still I remembered that spring morning at Commines many years ago: clear and warm it had been, with the blossom on the apple trees in the orchard and the smell of earth on the breeze. It was on that morning that I’d made my pledge and he had accepted me as one of his household knights: taken me, as he had taken Eudo and Wace not long before, into his conroi, his closest circle of men. And now that pledge lay in tatters; the oath that I had sworn to him was broken. I had not been there to protect him, and now he lay dead.

  Wace’s head was buried in his hands, his face red, weeping, while Eudo sat upon a rock, staring in silence down at the ground. I could not recall having ever seen either of them like this before.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘What does it matter?’ Wace said, and amidst his tears there was anger in his eyes.

  ‘I want to know,’ I replied.

  Eudo wiped a hand across his face. ‘I only saw from a distance,’ he said. ‘You remember I became separated from you?’

  I did. In fact, the last I had seen of him was when we had cut down the thegn with the gilded sword. After that everything had been thrown into confusion. I no longer remembered who had been with me when we came to Wace’s aid, only that that was when the battle had turned against us.

  ‘I didn’t know where you were,’ Eudo went on, ‘but I heard the horns sounding the retreat from the square, saw our banners heading back towards the stronghold. The English were pressing up the hill; there was fighting in every street. I joined with another conroi and we tried to push through to rejoin the rest of the army, but the enemy were too many and it was all we could do to hold them back.’

  He turned his head down towards the earth, his eyes closed. ‘I looked up to the fastness and saw the hawk banner being pushed back. The English had broken through the gates. They had Robert all but surrounded, with the mead-hall at his rear. He retreated inside – it was the only place left to go …’

  He covered his face with his hands, and I saw him tremble.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  He glanced at Wace, and then at me, his eyes full of apology. ‘Then they set the torch to it. The building went up so quickly; he could not have got out.’ He bowed his head again. ‘After that I fled. Men were dying everywhere; the English had won. There was nothing left to fight for.’

  That was when I recalled that I too had seen the mead-hall in flames, the blaze sweeping through its thatch, the smoke rising thick and black. I had not thought anything of it at the time; that Lord Robert could have been there had not crossed my mind. But then Eudo must have had better sight of it. He had seen it all happen, and yet been powerless to do anything to stop it.

  How much longer we stayed there I did not know. Nothing more was said as each of us sat, heads turned down, lost in his own grief. Above, the skies were growing grey and dark. It looked as though more rain was to come.

  ‘Come on,’ Wace said eventually, rising. ‘Let’s get away from the path.’

  We led Eudo with his mount back to where we had tied our horses. I gestured for him to go ahead of me and struggled on behind. My leg was agony to walk on: already it seemed worse than when I had woken.

  ‘You’re wounded,’ Eudo said, when he saw that I was limping. He glanced down at my calf, at my blood-stained braies and the crude bandage I had made.

  ‘It’s not bad,’ I said, grimacing despite myself. ‘I’ll be fine until we can get back to Eoferwic.’

  I saw the doubt in his eyes, but he said nothing. We settled down behind the earth bank close to our horses. Eudo found some nuts and damp bread which he had in his cloak pocket and we shared them out. It was the only food any of us had.

  ‘We should shelter through the day, travel by night,’ Wace said, when we had all finished. ‘If the enemy are still marching, we’re less likely to be spotted that way.’

  I nodded in agreement. With any luck we would be in Eoferwic within a couple of nights. I only hoped that my wound d
id not get any worse in that time.

  After that, each of us took it in turns to keep watch while the others slept. Since I had already rested some that morning, I offered to go first, and neither Eudo nor Wace objected. My eyes stabbed with heaviness but I knew I could not sleep, for fear of what my dreams might bring.

  I thought back to the day I had met Lord Robert, when he had been as old as I was now, and I was but a boy in my fourteenth summer. It had not been all that long since I had left the monastery – a few days at most – and I was travelling I did not know where, free but hungry, walking alone. All I knew was that I wanted never to return.

  Already it had been a hot summer, I remembered, though it was still only June. I had not found a spring in more than a day and all the streams were dry to their beds. Where I could, I had kept to the woods, since there I was protected from the heat of the sun; but as evening drew on I suddenly came upon a winding river: a river I later learnt was the Cosnonis, which marked the boundary between Brittany and Normandy. Between its banks and the edge of the woods a number of tents had been erected around a campfire, beside which half a dozen men were practising with swords and shields, stepping deftly forward and back in time with every stroke, ducking and turning before thrusting again.

  Their blades flashed brightly in the late sun; the scrape of steel against steel rang out as they clashed. I crouched behind a bush and for a while I simply watched them, almost forgetting my thirst and my empty stomach. I had never seen such a thing before. It was like a dance: each movement, each swing, each parry all carefully considered and yet it seemed at the same time instinctive.

  Eventually, though, my hunger had got the better of me, and I realised that if these men meant to stay the night here, they must have food. I moved back amongst the trees, around the back of their camp. There were more men sitting by the fire, passing bread around and speaking in what sounded like French, a tongue which at that time I only half knew. All had beards and wore their hair long, which took me aback a little, having spent so long in the company of monks, with their tonsured heads and clean-shaven chins. One of them was dressed in a mail coat, polished and gleaming, and had silver rings on his fingers. He must be their lord, I thought. His shield he had across his knees, using it like a table from which to eat; on its white face was painted a black hawk.