Sworn Sword

by James Aitcheson

  I turned to the rest of the knights. ‘Do you want to get us killed? Because that’s what’ll happen if the rest of this alehouse turns on us.’

  ‘It was but harmless fun,’ said Wace, who I had thought the most sober of them all.

  I stared at him, scarce believing what I heard. ‘You think it amusing to mock an innocent peasant woman?’

  ‘We meant nothing by it,’ put in Radulf.

  I spat on the floor. ‘There’ll be no more drinking tonight,’ I said. ‘I’m going to find the chaplain.’

  Ælfwold had gone upstairs to his room. The door stood open, and I found him kneeling on the floor, his eyes closed and hands clasped as he murmured a prayer in Latin. I waited until he had finished, when he looked up and saw me standing beneath the door-frame. He rose as I entered.

  ‘Father,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘You must keep better control of your men.’ His voice was surprisingly calm; his anger, it seemed, already diminished.

  ‘They are not my men,’ I said. Wace and Eudo were my comrades, it was true, but only Eudo had ever ridden in my conroi before. I thought of Dunholm and faces rose up like spectres in my mind: Gérard, Fulcher, Ivo, Ernost and Mauger. Those were my men – not this group that Malet had burdened me with.

  ‘Lord Guillaume has placed them under your command,’ the priest said simply. ‘Hence they are yours.’

  ‘They don’t respect me,’ I said.

  ‘Then you must make them respect you. Otherwise, sooner or later they will do someone real harm. The English are my people, Tancred. I will not stand them being treated in this way.’

  ‘What about the ætheling and the Northumbrians in Eoferwic?’ I countered. ‘Are they not English too?’

  ‘They are rebels against the lawfully crowned king, and so enemies of our Lord.’ He spoke slowly, as if trying to contain his anger. ‘But this is Wessex; this is different. You cannot just allow your men to do what they will.’

  ‘What do you expect of me?’ I asked. ‘I can’t govern everything they do.’

  What he must have thought of me then, I didn’t know. Doubtless he was coming to resent the way I was always challenging him. Perhaps he was even regretting Malet’s decision to put me in charge of this party in the first place.

  ‘You can teach them to restrain themselves,’ said Ælfwold.

  ‘They are trained warriors,’ I retorted, ‘not boys but men fully grown.’

  ‘Then perhaps they need reminding of that!’

  So surprised was I by the force of his voice that I took a step back. And in any case, why was I defending the others? What they had done was wrong; I knew that and I had told them so. But I also saw that it was borne not out of malice or lack of respect, as the chaplain seemed to assume, but rather out of frustration. And I remembered what Eudo had said to me only a little earlier, and suddenly I understood.

  Like myself, these were indeed trained warriors. Their role on this earth was to fight, and if they could not do that, then they grew restless. Because instead of being where they felt they ought to be, on the march to Eoferwic, they found themselves deep in the English countryside, far from anywhere, without any real notion of what they were doing, let alone why. Like me, except that I alone had some idea, for I had the name that Malet’s son had given me—

  ‘Who is Eadgyth?’ I asked.

  I hadn’t intended to mention her then, but I realised I would get no better opportunity than this.

  The priest stopped still. Outside, the wind buffeted against the thatch; above our heads, the roof-timbers creaked. The sound of men laughing sounded through from the common room below.

  ‘How do you know that name?’ Ælfwold asked.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘It’s none of your concern.’

  ‘I know that she’s the one you’re meeting in Wiltune,’ I said, feeling my heart begin to pound. It was more a guess than a lie: despite what Robert had said, I could not know for sure, though the chaplain’s reaction suggested that I was right.

  He stared at me, blinking, but said nothing.

  ‘Do you deny it?’ I asked.

  ‘Who told you that name?’

  I thought it unwise to mention Robert, and so changed tack. ‘Is she a lover of Malet’s?’ I demanded. I was on unsteadier ground now, but my blood was rising and I wanted to press the advantage as long as I held it. Had she fled to the nunnery to escape him, perhaps?

  ‘You dare to insult my lord?’ he shouted. ‘The man to whom you swore an oath of service?’

  I had half expected him to say something like that, and was not about to be deflected. ‘Is she?’ I said again.

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Then who is she?’

  ‘She used to be wife to the king,’ Ælfwold said, with some impatience.

  ‘To King Guillaume?’ I asked, confused. As far as I knew, he had only ever been married to his present wife, Mathilda.

  ‘To the usurper,’ the priest said, his cheeks flushing red. ‘Harold Godwineson.’

  This was not at all what I had expected. ‘And what business does Malet have with the usurper’s wife?’

  ‘What concern is it of yours?’ he said, his voice rising to a screech. ‘It is the vicomte’s private business, which as his chaplain I am privy to. But you are not. You are just a knight, a sworn sword. You are nothing more than a servant!’

  I was about to open my mouth to reply – to say that as leader of this party how could it not be my business too – but his last remark stirred a fury inside me, and it was all I could do to restrain myself.

  ‘Leave me,’ Ælfwold said, his face scarlet. ‘Go and rejoin your men. We ride again tomorrow at dawn. I don’t want to see any of you until then.’

  I hesitated, searching for something to say, but I could find no words to convey my disgust at him. Just a knight, a sworn sword. Nothing more than a servant—

  ‘Leave,’ he repeated.

  Casting a final glare at him, I turned, slamming the door behind me.

  Twenty-four

  THE FOLLOWING DAY passed in relative quiet. I did not speak to the chaplain and he did not speak to me, instead keeping his gaze on the way ahead as long as we were on the road. The few times that I met his eyes, they held only disdain. But if he expected me to offer him an apology, he would be disappointed, for I had said nothing that hadn’t been deserved.

  And yet I was still no closer to understanding what his business was with this nun Eadgyth; what was so important that Malet would send his men halfway across the kingdom? The fact that she was the widow of the usurper was significant, it seemed to me, though in what way I could not work out. At least I had managed to glean that much from the priest, whose determination to tell us as little as possible was sorely testing my patience. There would be answers once we reached Wiltune; I would make sure of that.

  I told the others none of this, for I was still angry with them. Angry with Eudo, who after his words to me about trust had only betrayed mine in him. Angry with Radulf, who had caused the commotion in the first place. Angry with Wace, whom I had thought would have had more sense. I did not see that they deserved to know what I had learnt. In any case, it would not be long before we were on our way back to Lundene, and thence on to Eoferwic. If it was battle that they wanted, then they would get their chance soon – so long as Malet still held out, I reminded myself.

  Hills rose and fell before us like creases upon the fabric of the earth, each valley a tapestry of green and brown, interwoven with silver threads where streams wound their course. Once or twice we spotted deer amidst the trees in the distance, their bodies rigid as statues, watchful heads turned towards us, though most of the time we didn’t see them until they came darting across the road in front of us: three or four, even five at a time, all in a line, bounding one after another.

  And still the ancient way went on, stretching seemingly without end into the west. Such tremendous builders the Romans must have been, I thought, for
their works to remain standing after so many centuries. And yet, as the chaplain had pointed out, even they were made to suffer God’s wrath; even they had left this island in the end.

  It was evening when we finally left the road, at a place Ælfwold called Searobyrg. Whatever his reason for meeting this nun, he was clearly anxious about it, for he kept looking at the position of the sun between the clouds, then back at us, telling us to keep up the pace, even though we’d been making good progress that day. That he was feeling the burden of our company was obvious, though probably like us he was simply eager for our journey to come to its end. It had been eleven days since Malet had sent us from Eoferwic, and apart from those two nights we had spent in Lundene, we had been travelling all that time. Of course it was nothing compared to the kinds of marches we had endured on campaign, but an army travels slowly, rarely more than fifteen miles from sunrise to sunset, whereas on some days we must have covered more than thirty miles. It was not a pace that could be sustained for long, especially for one unused to long periods in the saddle, as I suspected the priest was.

  As the Roman road turned away to the south, then, we headed west, into the setting sun. The cart-track we followed was rutted and ill travelled, and it took us some time to make our way through the woods; by the time we emerged again the sun had gone completely. Amidst streaks of purple cloud the evening star shone brightly, and beneath it, rising out of the gloom in the depths of the valley, was a church, built of stone with three towers rising to the sky. Around it, a cluster of buildings formed a square cloister. One had smoke rising from it, and that was surely a kitchen; nearby stood a long two-storeyed hall which might have been a dormitory.

  Wiltune. And so at long last we had arrived.

  There was no wind, almost no sound at all. I gazed down upon the church’s towers, silhouetted against the fiery skies with the mist settling around their lower courses, and as I did so, something of the serenity of the sight touched me. It was a feeling I had known before, brought up from the very depths of my memory, more intimate than anything else in the world. The feeling that I was in the presence of God himself.

  Only then did I realise how many years had passed since I’d last set foot in a monastery. Now I was to go there once more, except that this time I was no longer a boy, but rather a man who had knowingly fled that path, who had rejected the ideals of poverty, chastity and obedience which had been laid out before him.

  A shiver ran through me. Yet I had served God with heart and mind in everything that I had done since I’d left. Why did I still feel guilty?

  ‘Tancred,’ Ælfwold called sharply. He was some way down the track, and I realised I had stopped, the other knights behind me, waiting.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to them as I followed the chaplain down the muddy hillside. My cross weighed heavy around my neck, the silver cold as it pressed against my chest.

  I inhaled again, letting the earthy scent of the evening air fill my lungs as I tried to rid my mind of such thoughts. We were here with the priest, I reminded myself: here to make sure he delivered Malet’s message, whatever that was. Until we returned to Lundene, I could not afford to be thinking about anything else.

  I gritted my teeth, concentrating on the track before me. All that could be heard was the faint kew-wick of an owl somewhere off to our right. In the distance, beyond the convent, fires were being lit, for I could see their smoke rising into the steadily darkening heavens.

  The nunnery itself was ringed by a wide ditch and low wattle-work fence, both of which ran all the way down to the river to the south. The entrance was defended by a stout gatehouse of dressed stone, of the kind I might have expected to see at the manor of a lord, not at a house of God. From beneath its archway shone a single feeble light; a number of figures, all in dark vestments, were closing over two great oak doors.

  ‘Onbidath!’ Ælfwold called to them, waving his hand above his head as he pulled ahead of us. ‘Onbidath!’

  The gates stopped and a woman’s voice replied in English. I glanced at Eudo, in case he had managed to make anything out, but he only shrugged.

  ‘Ic bringe ærendgewrit sumre nunfæmnan,’ the chaplain said as he stopped his horse on the cobbles before them.

  ‘He says he brings a message for one of the nuns,’ Eudo murmured.

  I rode forward, motioning for him to follow. Three nuns stood in the gateway, each dressed in a brown habit. The one Ælfwold was speaking to was holding a lantern, and the light flickered across her lined face. She was shaking her head, gesturing up towards the east, where the sky was turning an inky blue.

  ‘Tomorgen,’ the nun said. Then she saw us riding up behind him, and drew back inside the half-closed gates. She was a round woman, and short, with a gaze like a falcon’s, watchful and sharp.

  ‘Ic wille hire cwethan nu,’ the chaplain said, in a stern tone.

  ‘He wants to be allowed to enter now, I think,’ Eudo said. ‘She’s telling us to return in the morning.’

  The nun looked nervously up; the chaplain turned and saw us there, and straightaway raised his hands in what I took for a calming gesture. ‘Ic eom preost; ic hatte Ælfwold,’ he said, producing a wooden cross from his cloak pocket. ‘Me sende Willelm Malet, scirgerefa on Eoferwic.’

  There was a moment of silence, before the nun repeated, ‘Willelm Malet?’ She turned to one of the other women, taller and more youthful in appearance. The two conversed in their own tongue before the younger one hurried away somewhere inside the compound.

  ‘Onbidath her,’ the round one said. She did not leave, but neither did she make any move to close the doors again, which I took for a good sign.

  Ælfwold nodded and breathed out a sigh as he sat back in his saddle.

  ‘What now?’ I asked him.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we wait and see if they will let us in.’

  As much as a quarter of the hour might have passed before the young nun returned. My horse began to grow restive, pawing the ground and tossing his head; I dismounted and paced about with reins in hand, rubbing his flank.

  At last, however, the nun did come back. After exchanging a few words with the one bearing the lantern, the gates were drawn full open with a creaking of hinges, and slowly we led our mounts through.

  ‘Ne,’ the older one said, pointing towards the scabbard at my side. Her face was solemn. ‘Ge sceolon læfan eower sweord her.’

  ‘You must leave your swords here,’ the chaplain warned.

  In any other situation I might have protested, for I did not like to go anywhere unarmed, but I didn’t want to cause a stir here, in a place of God. At the very least, we would still have our knives, since they were as much for eating with as they were for fighting.

  I nodded to the other knights as I unbuckled my sword-belt and held it out to her, and one by one they did the same. I watched closely as she carried them within the gatehouse. As she came out, she called to the other two who were behind us, and they began to close over the gates, before each taking an end of a long wooden bar and dropping it into place. For good or for ill, I was here now.

  The older nun was already hustling ahead, waving for us to follow her across a gravelled yard to a stable building. We left our mounts there, together with our shields, and then she led us on foot up a wide cart-track towards the church and the long stone halls that I presumed were the living quarters. The fence and outer ditch enclosed a wide area, most of which was taken up with fields, from which even now sheep and cows were being herded. The smell of dung wafted on the breeze. Down by the riverbank, on the southern side of the enclosure, I saw the shadowy form of a mill with its wheel turning.

  ‘Where do you think she’s taking us?’ Eudo murmured.

  ‘Somewhere where there’ll be lots of women,’ Radulf answered, glancing at a group of nuns passing us in the other direction. ‘Young ones, too, with any luck.’

  I stopped and turned on him. ‘You keep quiet,’ I said, pointing a gloved finger at his large nose. ‘Do you und
erstand?’

  He stared back at me in surprise. But I’d already had enough of his remarks on this journey.

  ‘This is a house of our Lord,’ I said to all of them. ‘As long as we’re here, we show nothing but respect.’

  As I pulled away, I noticed the chaplain watching me. He said nothing but, before he turned around, I thought I saw the slightest of nods – of approval, maybe, though I could not be sure.

  What Radulf had said made me wonder, though, for the nuns of Wiltune were clearly used to men visiting, or they wouldn’t have admitted us in the first place. Some houses were far stricter; in such places men would not be permitted to enter at all, except for pilgrims and the sick, and the priests who came to deliver Mass and hear confessions. Which meant the women here had decided to trust us, especially surprising considering that we were obviously men of war, and not of their own people either.

  The sun disappeared below the tiled roof of the church ahead of us. Now that it was before us, it was all the more impressive. Each of its three towers were more than four storeys tall, while even the nave looked taller than six men. The glass in the windows was coloured with reds and greens, blues and even yellows, intricately arranged to show pictures of saints or angels, like nothing I’d ever seen.

  Ælfwold took no interest in any of this, however, and I was beginning to wonder whether he’d been here before. But if so, did that mean he also knew Eadgyth?

  We crossed the courtyard towards a large stone-built hall. The nun knocked at the door and then, though I couldn’t make out any reply, entered. Ælfwold went next and I after him, ducking to avoid hitting my head on the low cross-beam. The inside of the hall was lit only by two candles, arranged either side of a slanted writing desk. There was a hearth at one end but no fire had yet been lit, and so there was a damp chill to the air. Beside the hearth, a door led through into the next room, from which a girl promptly appeared. Her hair was fair in colour and unbound. She looked no older than about eleven or twelve years. Her eyes were wide as she saw us all standing there, and I wondered what we must have looked like to her: seven strange men, six of us in mail hauberks and chausses, marked with the scars of battle. If she had grown up solely in the convent, she might never have seen so many men together in one place.