The Splintered Kingdom c-2

by James Aitcheson

  ‘Here,’ said Beatrice, and she pressed a bundle of dark cloth against my shoulder in an effort to stem the flow of blood. I grimaced at the sting but did not pull away. She rolled up my sleeve and began to wipe some of the blood from around the wound. ‘Can I use your knife?’

  I nodded wordlessly.

  ‘Hold this,’ she said and placed my hand on top of the bundle of cloth. I kept it pressed to the wound while she reached down to the sheath on my belt and carefully drew out the blade, which was still covered with blood. Taking her cloak from me, she used the knife to hack a long strip from it to serve as a bandage. Now that I could see the wound better, it did not look nearly as bad as I had imagined, though knowing that did nothing to ease the pain. First folding it so that it formed a double layer, Beatrice passed the bandage under my arm and then tied the two ends together, tightly enough that it would bind the gash and, at the very least, keep it from bleeding further.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said when she had finished.

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, grimacing in spite of myself as another bolt of agony stabbed through my shoulder.

  ‘I can’t afford to stay out any longer,’ she said. ‘We have to get back before we’re missed. If anyone were to notice that I’m gone. .’

  She did not finish, but I knew what she was thinking. At the very least there would be talk: about what she was doing out so late and by herself, with only her maidservant to help protect her.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ I said. ‘The streets aren’t safe.’

  ‘No, it’s better if you don’t. We can’t risk being seen together.’

  It was a little late to be worrying about that, I thought. Indeed, if she had made that decision an hour ago, then she would not have sent the girl to me in the first place; I would still be asleep in my tent and two men would not have lost their lives in needless bloodshed.

  I was too tired to argue, though. I needed to find water or, better, spirits to put on the gash, and the sooner the better. A slight cut such as it was would heal by itself without any need for stitches, but I had to keep it clean.

  She took my hand in hers, squeezing it tenderly, and I realised that with everything that had happened, I’d failed to divest her of this notion that there could exist something between us. Before I could say anything, though, she had let go, turning her attention to Papia, who was sitting huddled on the ground with her back against a stack of barrels, shivering with cold and with fear, her knees drawn up towards her face, which was buried in her hands. There was blood on her fingers, blood staining her dress.

  Beatrice crouched down in front of her. ‘We have to go.’

  Sobbing, the maidservant shook her head. Her hair fell in disarray over her eyes, and gently Beatrice pushed it aside and hugged the girl tightly to her chest. ‘Come,’ she said.

  This time the girl nodded and got to her feet. Not once did she look at me. Beatrice held her hand as the three of us made for the far end of the alleyway, where it opened out on to one of the main streets.

  I glanced out into the road to make sure that no one was watching. One way headed up the hill, towards the heart of the town; the other led back in the direction of the camp. Both were deserted.

  ‘This is where we part, then,’ I said.

  ‘Be safe, Tancred.’

  ‘And you, my lady.’

  She held my eyes, but only for a moment, before she and the girl were hurrying away up the rutted street. The skies were cloudy and there was little light from either moon or stars. It wasn’t long before they had vanished into the night.

  I woke the next day to find the sun shining in through the flaps at the entrance to my tent, confusing me, for in my dreams it had been night and I was in my hall at Earnford, with?dda and Erchembald and all the rest. But then I recalled where we were: Scrobbesburh.

  Blinking at the light, I rolled over on to my side, remembering my wound too late. Sharp heat flashed through my shoulder and I clutched at it, wincing and cursing at the same time, and sat up. Thankfully the cut had long since stopped bleeding; the bandage that Beatrice had tied around it had helped see to that. I loosened the knot she had made, hoping to get a better look at the wound now that it was day, though there was not much to see. A narrow line of dried blood ran down my upper arm, about the length of my little finger: proof that last night had been real and I had not just imagined it. Proof that I had fought those men, that I had met Beatrice in the church. I retied the cloth and rolled my sleeve back down, covering it lest anyone should see.

  A fire was already burning when I emerged from the tent. Serlo, Turold and Pons were sitting around it, together with Snocca and Cnebba and several of Robert’s men, as well as his own servants: resting their shields on their knees and using them as tables, passing around bottles filled with water fetched from the river.

  But among all those faces was one I hadn’t expected to be there. Someone I hadn’t seen in a long time, but whom I recognised at a glance: rangy and long-limbed, with a thin face, thick eyebrows and dark hair.

  ‘Eudo!’ I let out a laugh at the sight of my old friend and comrade.

  ‘Tancred,’ he said, likewise grinning as he leapt to his feet. ‘I was wondering when you’d wake.’

  For more than a dozen years we had served the same lord, fought under the same banner in the same conroi. Shoulder to shoulder we had stood in the shield-wall; knee to knee we had ridden alongside each other in the charge. Together we had lived through so many battles that I had long since lost count, and in so doing we had forged a bond stronger even than that of kinship: a bond that could never be broken.

  ‘It’s been a while,’ he said.

  ‘It has,’ I agreed. Indeed the last time I’d seen him was the previous summer, when the king had gathered his host to stand against the great Danish fleet that had been supposed to sail. The fleet that we had been waiting all year for, but which in the end never came. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘The same as you,’ Eudo said. ‘I was in Hereford with Lord Robert when we heard the news about the Welsh. We got here the day before yesterday, although my men and I were all out on sentry duty last night, so I didn’t hear you’d arrived until this morning.’

  He had come with Robert all the way from the other end of the kingdom, then. While I had been given Earnford, both Eudo and Wace had been granted demesnes from Robert’s holdings in distant Suthfolc, close to where the land ended and the marshes that bordered the sea began: a region that was no less troubled than these parts, since that coast was often plagued by pirates and raiders from across the German Sea.

  ‘Robert didn’t say you were with him,’ I said.

  Eudo shrugged. ‘With everything that’s been happening he probably forgot. His mind has been on other things lately: first the arrangements for his sister’s marriage, and now the threat from across the dyke. Did you know that Lady Beatrice is to be married again?’

  ‘I had heard,’ I said, and it came out more stiffly than I had meant.

  Not that Eudo seemed to notice. Even if he had, I doubted he would have made anything of it. ‘It’s strange to think it’s already more than a year since we were all fleeing Eoferwic together,’ he said. ‘You, me, Wace, the ladies. Malet’s chaplain.’

  Indeed it was more than a year since the business with?lfwold: since we had fought him and his hired swords beside the Temes; since he had tried to kill me upon the cliff-top and had fallen to his death. A breaker of oaths, he had remained a treacherous man to the end. Eudo would not speak of any of this openly, of course, yet I knew he was thinking it.

  ‘More than a year since the battle, too,’ I added. ‘Since Dunholm.’

  At once I regretted having said it as Eudo fell quiet. I hadn’t meant to darken the mood, though it was difficult to think upon the events of last year and not to remember what had taken place there that cold winter’s night.

  Eudo was the one to break the silence. ‘Still,’ he said
, sighing, ‘after all that, here we are. Soon to ride together once more.’

  ‘Is Wace with you?’

  ‘He was, at least until yesterday. Fitz Osbern sent him ahead to Cestre to bear the summons to Earl Hugues there.’

  ‘He must be worried if he’s looking for help from the Wolf,’ I said.

  ‘The Wolf?’

  ‘Hugues Lupus,’ I explained. ‘That’s how he’s known, here on the March at least. It’s Latin.’

  It was fitting, too. Hugues d’Avranches, the Earl of Ceastre, was known for his wild nature and his fierce temper, as well as for the brutality with which he dealt with anyone who crossed him: all in all a man to be feared and respected, though it was said he was only twenty in years. As with most bynames, he had first been called the Wolf in jest, but after learning of it he had grown to like it, so much so that he soon adopted the animal as his symbol, much to the anger of Fitz Osbern, whose own banner bore the same device. The two had been at odds ever since, and I took the fact that Fitz Osbern was now calling upon Hugues for aid as a clear sign of how serious he considered the threat posed by the Welsh.

  ‘Did you hear what happened last night?’ Eudo asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘What?’

  ‘Two men were murdered in the town. They were out whoring with three others of their company when they were set upon in the streets. Cut down in cold blood, they were.’

  I froze. To hear the tale from someone else’s lips was strange to say the least.

  ‘The word is it was the doing of one man alone,’ Pons put in. ‘Or that’s what I’ve heard anyway.’

  ‘One against five?’ asked Turold.

  ‘That’s what those who survived say,’ Pons replied as he stuffed more bread into his mouth. ‘They claim their attacker was lying in wait for them; that he came on them like a shadow out of the night, slew their comrades before they could even draw their swords.’

  Serlo snorted in disdain. ‘You’d choose to believe the words of cowards? They clearly abandoned their friends to save their own skin. It’s exactly the kind of yarn you would expect them to spin.’

  ‘It sounds unlikely, doesn’t it?’ Eudo agreed. ‘Probably they’d been drinking and managed to get into a brawl, and were just unlucky to be on the wrong side.’

  My throat was dry. I realised I hadn’t yet said anything, and forced myself to speak. ‘Did they see their attacker’s face?’

  ‘They say not,’ Pons replied. ‘It all happened too quickly, their heads and bellies were filled with ale, and it was dark besides.’

  ‘Another reason to think they’re lying,’ Serlo muttered. ‘Probably they got into some fight between themselves over a girl, and ended up killing each other.’

  ‘There could be a hundred different explanations,’ said Turold. ‘Maybe there was money involved, or else the killings were part of some feud that none of them wish to speak about.’

  At least it seemed I didn’t have to worry about those men recognising me. That thought had been plaguing me in the hours since. Not that I recalled particularly what they looked like either, apart from the one named Gisulf, with the large ears, so it wasn’t as if I could even take much care to prevent our paths crossing.

  ‘Whatever happened and whatever the reason behind it, Fitz Osbern is furious,’ Eudo said. ‘He’s ordered all the bawdy houses closed to stop something like this happening again.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Pons said, with a mischievous look in his eyes. ‘There could be a rogue killer lurking in our midst, waiting to strike again even as we speak. It might be anyone. Maybe he’s sitting with us right now.’ He glanced about mock warily, before his gaze eventually settled on Serlo, who was sitting next to him, and he grinned. ‘Maybe his name is Serlo.’

  The big man scowled back at him. ‘I know who I’d stick my knife in first, if he doesn’t shut his mouth soon.’ He lifted an end of cheese from his shield and threw it at Pons, who raised a hand to defend himself, in vain as it turned out, for it hit him on the cheek.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I don’t want your mouldy food.’ He retrieved the end and hurled it back, striking Serlo in the eye before he could turn away.

  ‘What was that for?’ the other man said, rubbing the spot where the cheese had hit him.

  ‘Because you’re a humourless goat-turd who doesn’t know a joke when it hits him in the face, that’s what.’

  Straightaway Serlo flung himself at Pons, sending their shields with their knives and bread and lumps of cheese clattering to the ground. Grabbing hold of the other’s shoulder, he tried to wrestle him to the ground, but Pons was too quick for him, twisting free so that even though Serlo’s hand was still on his collar, it was he who was on top and pinning the big man.

  ‘Do you give up yet?’ Pons asked as he pressed down on Serlo’s neck.

  ‘Hardly.’ Serlo gritted his teeth and rose, using all his great strength to throw Pons off him. Each holding the other’s tunic, they rolled through a puddle towards a clump of blackberry bushes. The rest of the men scrambled out of the way, cheering one or the other on, calling to their friends nearby to come and watch, and suddenly there were twenty, thirty men pushing forward, trying to get a better view of the tussle.

  ‘Should we do something?’ Eudo asked.

  ‘Let them be,’ I said as first Serlo and then Pons found themselves amongst the brambles, much to the laughter of all those who had gathered. Between the curses I heard the ripping of cloth, but still neither of them would give in.

  As long as I had known him Pons had been the most restless of all my knights, and when there was no fighting to be done he often liked to provoke his sword-brothers. In particular he seemed to enjoy baiting Serlo, who, far from being the dour soul that others often took him for, had something of a playful streak to his character, and was usually all too eager for a fight if one came looking for him.

  A boy of no more than thirteen pushed past me, trying to edge his way towards a better view. There were now so many men in front of me that even though I could hear Serlo and Pons I could no longer see them. Still, I had watched them brawl before, and I was fairly certain this wouldn’t be the last time either.

  ‘Anyway,’ Eudo went on, ‘I didn’t come here to spread rumours. There are enough of them as it is, if not about the Welsh or the?theling, then about the Danes.’

  ‘The Danes?’ I echoed. That was new information to me, though of course Eudo, with his hall by the wind-battered coast on the other side of the kingdom, would have better sources than I. Not only that, but he would have an interest in knowing what was happening across the sea, since his lands were among those most vulnerable should any ship-band ever come raiding.

  ‘We don’t know much for certain,’ Eudo said. ‘Still, the merchants who frequent those ports have been telling us that the order has gone out from King Sweyn for his fleet to assemble once again, and that he means to sail this autumn.’

  After his plans to invade last year had come to nothing, I had assumed that Sweyn had given up pursuing his claim to the English crown. But perhaps the schisms within the royal household and the squabbling between the jarls — his warlords and noblemen — that together had prevented him leaving his kingdom last year were now resolved, or were less severe than many had been saying. Or else those same warlords had heard tell of what was happening elsewhere in England and were now swayed by the prospect of easy plunder: eager all of a sudden for silver, for adventure, and for the chance to win renown in foreign lands.

  The men who had crowded to watch Serlo and Pons gave another cheer as the two of them emerged from the brambles, having clearly decided to make a truce at last. Their tunics were torn and covered in leaves and grime and thorny twigs, and each had taken cuts and grazes to his face and arms, but they were both grinning widely, no doubt enjoying the attention.

  Gradually the crowd began to return to their own campfires, and I turned back to Eudo. ‘How much do you trust these merchants?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ he admit
ted. ‘But some are more reliable than others, and we’ve been hearing much the same stories for weeks now, so there’s likely to be some truth in them.’

  First the Northumbrians, then the Welsh, and now it sounded like the Danes as well. If what Eudo was saying turned out to be true, I didn’t see how we could fight them all. A shiver passed through me in spite of the warmth of the morning, and I had a hollow feeling in my stomach.

  ‘Not that any of this is likely to happen for some months yet,’ Eudo went on, more brightly. ‘If it happens at all. And anyway, in the meantime we have other battles to fight first.’

  Other battles, other enemies. I glanced around us at the sea of tents, at the banners in all their colours fluttering as the wind rose, at the sheep and the cattle in their pens, at the chickens that some lords had brought to help feed their retinues, darting about in pursuit of the seed being thrown to them. At the many scores of men who had gathered with their swords and their shields, their spears and their helmets and their hauberks of mail, ready to test their sword-arms against the enemy.

  Already it was a formidable host, and of course hundreds more would come in the days to follow as Hugues the Wolf and others responded to Fitz Osbern’s call to arms. Yet even as I gazed across the camp, I could not stop doubt from creeping into my mind. For the first time I began to wonder if it would be enough.

  Nine

  The days grew hotter and tempers became ever more frayed as we waited for the rest of Fitz Osbern’s barons to respond to the summons, for the Wolf to arrive from Ceastre and Wace with him. Men always grow restive when they have nothing to do, and never was that more true than when speaking of men of the sword. Over the week that followed I could sense a growing agitation amongst our army. Almost every day fights broke out: by the wharves, on the streets, in the alehouses and even at times in the middle of the camp itself; sometimes between English and Norman but more often between Frenchmen themselves.