‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
She nodded and for a while did not speak, as if she were considering whether or not to accept my apology.
‘Just remember that you are not the centre of the world, Tancred a Dinant,’ she said at last, and there was a hard edge to her voice now. ‘Perhaps next time you’ll think more carefully before you open your mouth.’
Before I could say anything more, she turned on her heels and went. I watched her go, surprised by her sudden change in manner. I still couldn’t see what she, what Aubert and Aelfwold, wanted from me. I had no time to wonder then, though, for the wind was changing direction and one of the men shouted to me to bring the ship around more to steerboard. I pulled on the tiller, leaning back on my heels as I put the weight of my body into it, until the prow pointed into the sun, the full circle of which had risen above the horizon. Above us the gulls circled still, swooping, screeching.
A few others were waking now, sharing bread with each other, pouring out cups of ale to break their fast. Before long Lady Elise also rose and she and Beatrice joined Aelfwold in prayer. Beside me on the stern platform, Wace and Eudo and the rest of the knights were still asleep, as was the shipmaster himself, gently snoring.
The sun climbed higher and the day grew brighter. Aubert woke after an hour or two more and took back the tiller, though he still looked exhausted. The oarsmen took their places on their ship-chests, soon settling back into their rhythm as the shipmaster beat a languid pulse on the drum, and Wyvern soared across the calm waters.
It was mid-morning by the time Alchebarge was spotted ahead of us: first as a few wisps of grey smoke rising above the horizon, then as a long ridge dotted with trees, rising over wide flats. From our steerboard side, across bare fields and past dense thickets, a second river wound its way to meet the Use, the two joining to form a single broad expanse of blue.
‘The Trente,’ the shipmaster said to me. ‘Where the two streams meet, the Humbre begins.’
I nodded, but I was paying him little attention. Instead I was watching the ridge in the distance and the smoke blowing towards the east, and growing puzzled, for it wasn’t the kind that I would have expected to see from houses during the day, and especially not on such a cold day as this. For there were no thick clouds billowing up, as there should have been if their hearths had been freshly stoked, but rather a collection of thin, feeble threads weaving slowly about one another, as when a fire has nearly burnt itself out.
We drew nearer, leaving the Use behind us. I began to make out more clearly the houses there, dotted against the bright sky. Or rather I saw what remained of them: their blackened timbers and collapsed roof-beams, smouldering still. The stone tower and nave of the church were all that was left standing; all else along the ridge lay in ruins.
Aubert’s hand stopped beating upon the drumskin, and the splash of oars against the water ceased. Silence fell like a shadow across the ship. I saw the chaplain cross himself and murmur a prayer in Latin, and I did the same as I stared up at the twisted wreckage of what once had been Alchebarge, but was no more.
The enemy had been here before us.
Sixteen
We approached slowly, drifting on the current with only the occasional pull on the tiller from Aubert to keep us on the correct course. The shipmaster had ordered the sail furled and the mast lowered. We didn’t know whether there were any more of the enemy still watching us from the ridge, with their ships perhaps hidden amidst the reeds and mudbanks that lay beneath, in which case it was better they did not see the black and gold, since then they would know straightaway that we were not of their own fleet.
But if the enemy were there, they did not show themselves. I kept watching for any flicker of movement or a glint that might be steel, and I saw nothing.
The ridge on which Alchebarge stood loomed steeply before us. From its top it must have been possible to see for miles around, and it seemed to me that it would make for a strategic place — if one could hold it — for it commanded the two rivers, the Use and the Trente, at the place where they joined. And it ought to be easily defensible from the water, too, owing both to its steep slopes, and to the mudflats that lay at its foot: a wide expanse of reeds and long shoals, which glistened under the light of the sun.
The tide seemed to be on its way out, for though the part of the flats nearest us was still submerged, on their landward side I could see myriad pools and channels where the river was retreating. If we were to reach Alchebarge at all we would have to make our way — whether by ship or on foot — through that maze.
‘Can we make it across before we lose the tide?’ I asked the shipmaster.
‘It’ll be difficult,’ he said. ‘The channels through the marsh aren’t deep and it’s easy to get stuck upon these banks. But if we don’t try now, we’ll have to wait until the waters return.’
I looked again towards the ridge and the black remains of the halls. ‘Get us as close as you can.’
Aubert shouted to the oarsmen and tugged hard on the tiller; Wyvern carved her way between two banks of reeds, which rippled in waves as the westerly breeze played across them. Ahead, a pair of moorhens flapped their wings, shrieking loudly as they skimmed across the surface of the murky water. They took off away from us, flying around in a great loop until we had passed, before settling once more. Amidst the reeds on the banks to either side more birds stretched their wings as if preparing to flee, but they did not; instead they watched us carefully with dark beads of eyes as we scythed our way around the larger islands.
One of the oarsmen stood at the prow, lowering a long pole into the murky water, testing its depth. The tide was flowing fast and the channels were growing narrower the further we went. Eventually the man gave a shout and raised his arm.
‘Slow,’ the shipmaster called to the rest of his crew. He looked to me. ‘I can’t take us much further in,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot.’
I waved my thanks to the shipmaster, and then called to the rest of the knights. We put on our hauberks and helms, slinging our shields over our backs. Again we left behind our chausses; they would only slow us down over the marshes. Besides, they were more useful when mounted, when blows would naturally come from below. On foot, however, opponents tended to aim their strikes more towards one’s chest and head. In such situations speed was all-important; the extra weight of mail would be a burden if we needed to fight.
‘I should come with you,’ Aelfwold called. ‘If there are any dead in the village it’s only right that they be accorded a proper burial.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Stay with the ladies. The enemy could still be about. If so, it’s better that you stay away from danger.’ I still had to make sure he reached Wiltune to deliver Malet’s message; I could not have him at risk. Besides, it was not the dead that I was concerned with, but rather the living: if there were any Normans still left alive in Alchebarge, it was important that we found them.
‘You’re leaving us?’ Elise asked. She strode towards me, her cloak swirling behind her.
‘We’ll be back before long,’ I said. ‘We have to know if there is anyone left on your husband’s manor. It’ll be safer for both you and your daughter if you stay here on the ship.’
‘And what if the enemy find us while you are gone?’
‘If they were to come upon us in numbers,’ I said, and I spoke honestly, ‘it would make little difference whether or not the six of us were here to help protect you.’
She didn’t look comforted by that, nor had I expected her to, but she said nothing more. And in truth I could not help but feel a little uneasy, even though we had seen no sign of the enemy since the previous night.
‘My men will be here with you,’ Aubert assured her.
‘Can they fight?’ she asked.
‘Well enough, my lady. What they lack in skill they make up for in strength. There are more than fifty of them on the Wyvern; that ought to be sufficient.’
‘And what of yourself?’
‘We also need the ship prepared,’ I pointed out. ‘We might need to leave suddenly.’
‘That’s easily done without me.’ He turned to one of his men, older than the rest, and I noticed that it was the same grizzled face who had challenged Aubert the night before. ‘Oylard,’ he said. ‘I leave you in charge of Wyvern until we return.’
‘Yes, Aubert,’ he replied, with a slight bow of his head.
‘Keep her out of sight from the river if you can, hidden amongst the reeds, but at the same time ready to sail in case you see us running down that hill with the enemy behind us.’
‘I’ll make sure of it,’ Oylard said.
Of course, if more rebel ships were to come, there would be little chance of us making a quick escape, but I kept that thought to myself.
‘Are you ready, then?’ I asked the shipmaster. ‘I don’t want to spend any longer here than we have to.’
‘Let me fetch my sword,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll be ready.’
I waited while he did so, and while he donned a leather jerkin, then I jumped down from the ship’s prow. Straightaway my shoes sank into the mud, and already I was beginning to wonder whether this was so wise after all. But I found firmer footing along the top of the bank, and I waved to Aubert and the other knights to follow. Once the seven of us had climbed down the shipmaster waved to Oylard, who shouted to the oarsmen to push Wyvern off.
‘Don’t take her too far,’ Aubert warned him. ‘We have to be able to find our way back to you.’
Oylard waved back in acknowledgement and then we set off, trudging on through the reeds and over the mudbanks, splashing through the pools that remained where the tide had gone out. Water seeped into my shoes and with every step I felt a fresh bite of cold at my toes. Wading birds flocked down upon the flats, digging in the bare mud for worms and whatever else they might find. They scattered as we approached, lifting up into the sky as if with one mind, and I shivered at the sight, for if we had not been spotted before, we almost certainly would have been now. The hairs on my neck stood on end; I had the feeling that we were being watched. I kept glancing up at the buildings upon the ridge, and once or twice I thought I saw a shadow moving in between them, but I could not be sure. I did not want to mention it, in case the others took it wrongly for a sign that I was growing nervous.
The footing became easier the further we went on, as the land became firmer and the waters receded yet more, until at what I guessed would have been the line of the high tide we came upon a wooden landing stage. To its timbers were roped a collection of rowboats and small punts, with poles for pushing them across the flats, and fine nets for catching eels. Beyond it the hill itself rose steeply, affording little by way of cover, apart from the occasional bush. At its crest stood the remains of what was once a large building, around the same length as Wyvern’s hull.
‘Lord Guillaume had that hall built last summer,’ Aubert said, shaking his head. ‘Not that he came here much; I don’t believe his womenfolk ever did. Since he was made vicomte he’s rarely been away from Eoferwic.’
We continued up the hillside, hands ready at our hilts in case we should find any of the rebels waiting to ambush us when we arrived at the top. But the air had gone still and, save for the cawing of the carrion birds circling above the village, the day was quiet. Nor was there any sign of the shadows that I thought I had seen earlier, but even so we trod carefully, taking care not to let our mail make too much sound.
At last the ground began to grow less steep and we could see the whole of Alchebarge before us. It didn’t look as though it had been a large village — perhaps a dozen families at most — and there was even less of it now. Where houses and workshops had once stood, all that now remained were piles of quietly smoking timbers and ash. There were bodies everywhere: men, women and children, oxen and cattle all lying together in death. The stench of burnt flesh wafted on the wind.
‘They didn’t leave anything,’ Wace said as we walked amidst the corpses. Crows picked at them with black beaks, tearing skin from bone, flapping their wings angrily at any others of their kind who tried to come near. They watched us closely as we approached, hopping aside grudgingly before flocking back as soon as they thought we were far enough away.
Many of the bodies were hacked to pieces, missing arms and even heads. Several of them were Normans; indeed some were still in their mail, with shields lying by their sides. Most, however, seemed to be English, and from their dress I took them mostly for the villagers of Alchebarge rather than the ones who had wrought this destruction.
‘They killed even their own kinsmen,’ I said, scarce believing what I saw, before I recalled that they had done the same to Oswynn. I imagined her body lying unburied at Dunholm, just as these did here, and hoped that if we met again at the end of days she would forgive me.
Eudo spat upon the ground. ‘They’re no better than animals,’ he said.
‘Why would they do this?’ Wace asked.
‘Perhaps the villagers tried to fight them,’ Aubert suggested. ‘Or perhaps there was no reason.’
I wondered how long Oswynn had been able to fight. Before our march to Dunholm I had gifted her with a knife, and had spent many hours showing her how to use it: how to thrust and how to slice; the places to aim for; how to twist it in a man’s belly to kill him quickly. I hoped she had remembered. I hoped she had sent many Northumbrians to their deaths that night.
We walked on in silence, up towards Malet’s hall. The only parts still standing were the posts which supported the roof, and those only up to waist height. The roof-beams themselves, along with the walls, had all collapsed, and in most places there was nothing more than a thick pile of grey ash. Beneath some of the broken timbers, huddled together in the middle of the hall, lay several blackened corpses, burnt away so that only their bones and teeth were left.
‘A hall-burning,’ Radulf muttered.
I nodded grimly. ‘They would have trapped them in here before setting the torch to the whole building.’ It would have taken mere heartbeats for the flames to sweep through the thatch, and hardly much longer to spread downwards and engulf the rest of the hall. The terror those inside must have felt as the blaze surrounded them, growing ever closer, ever hotter-
‘Just as they killed Lord Robert,’ Eudo said. He glanced first at Wace, then at me, long enough that I could see the anger building within him.
I lowered my head and shut my eyes, trying to push the image of the fire, of Lord Robert from my mind. This was not the time to be thinking of such things.
‘They did the same here,’ I heard Godefroi call.
I opened my eyes; the sunlight flooded back. Godefroi was beckoning us over to what I realised must have been the stables, for under a fallen roof-beam lay a horse’s head. The hair and skin had burnt away to expose the yellow-white of the skull, its jaw set wide as it would have been at the moment of death. As we rounded the smouldering remains, I saw the charred corpses of two more animals.
‘The enemy couldn’t have been interested in plunder, or else they would have taken them,’ I said.
‘Or they might not have been able to carry them away easily,’ Wace said. ‘If they came by ship, they probably didn’t have space.’
‘But if they approached by river, why did no one in the village spot them coming?’ Eudo asked. ‘In the time it’d have taken them to cross the flats, the villagers could all have fled. Instead they held their ground and died.’
‘Unless the enemy landed somewhere further downriver and marched overland,’ I said. ‘Any retreat into the country would have been cut off, and if the tide was out at the time, the villagers would have been trapped by the marshes.’
‘That would make sense, given the punts still moored by the jetty,’ Wace said.
Aube
rt gave a cry. I turned quickly, my hand darting towards the sword-hilt at my waist, imagining hordes of Northumbrian warriors rushing upon us from the south. But there was no enemy; instead the shipmaster was kneeling beside one of the bodies, not far from the eastern end of the hall.
‘His name was Henri,’ he said as we approached. ‘He was Lord Guillaume’s steward here.’
The man’s face was crusted with blood and crossed with sword cuts, but it seemed to me that it would have been a handsome face, strong-featured and youthful too. Henri could not have been much older than I when he died. There was a gaping wound at his breast, across which lay one of his hands; his fingers, like his tunic beneath, were stained a dark red. His other arm was stretched out by his side, palm facing the sky, fingers curled as if he meant to be clutching something in them. If there had been anything there, however, then the enemy had already taken it.
‘Did you know him well?’ I asked.
Aubert got to his feet, still gazing down upon Henri’s body. ‘Hardly at all,’ he said. ‘I met him only once, a few months ago when we put in here on our way up to Eoferwic. He was a generous man, as I knew him. He arranged a feast for the whole crew.’ The shipmaster sighed. ‘Have you found anything?’
‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘The enemy left nothing.’
‘There’s the church,’ Philippe said. ‘They didn’t take the torch to that.’
I glanced up towards its stone tower and nave, overlooking the village. It was built on the highest point along the ridge, its yard marked out by a narrow ditch which ran in a continuous circuit, broken only at its eastern end. If the villagers had taken refuge anywhere, it was likely to be there, for that was the only place that seemed in any way defensible. Even so, I didn’t have much hope of finding anyone alive inside.
Indeed, as it turned out there was no one; the church was small and it did not take long for us to search. Surprisingly, the rebels’ respect for the building had extended to its property, for there was much of worth that had not been taken: a large pewter dish displaying the Crucifixion, inlaid with silver lettering; three silver candle-holders; and a small gold cross. But of any priest, or indeed of anyone at all, there was no sign. Of course, I realised, if the same rebels we had encountered last night were responsible for what had happened here in Alchebarge, then the attack was already one day old. If anyone had survived, they would have long since fled.
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