Knights of the Hawk c-3

by James Aitcheson

  He shook his head, but it could not be denied. These were words he needed to hear.

  ‘You can’t,’ I went on. ‘Not now. That battle is over. England belongs to King Guillaume. But you can win back your honour and your pride. And I will help you do it.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why would you help me?’

  ‘Because Guillaume is my king no longer,’ I said. ‘Like you, I’m an outlaw, an exile, lordless and landless. All I have left are oaths, and the loyalty of those with me. I’ve spent long enough fighting wars on the behalf of others, risking my life for precious little reward. But no more.’

  ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

  ‘Isn’t it enough that we share an enemy?’

  ‘If we’re to fight alongside one another, I want to know who’s guarding my flank.’

  That was only fair, I thought. He had been honest with me regarding who he was, and now I would be honest with him in return.

  ‘Snorri was right,’ I admitted. ‘My name isn’t Goscelin. I’m no Fleming, nor am I a simple traveller.’

  ‘Then who-?’

  ‘Listen and I’ll tell you. My name is Tancred.’ I paused for a moment to see if that meant anything to him, but it looked as though I was to be disappointed. ‘I’m the man who won the gates at Eoferwic, who fought Eadgar on the bridge and almost killed him. I’m the one who gave him his scar. I was the one who led the attack upon Beferlic, who fired the ships and helped destroy his storehouses. If it weren’t for me, the ætheling you hate so much would be master of England by now.’

  He had fallen quiet by then, his lips pursed, and I took that as a sign that my words had had their desired effect. I’d been relying on the supposition that even if news of the rebellion on the Isle hadn’t yet reached his ears, he’d at least have heard the tales of how Eadgar and his allies were routed in those great battles. And it seemed I was right.

  ‘If there’s anyone who can help you do this, it’s me,’ I said. ‘That’s why you should trust me.’

  Twenty-one

  Fortunately Magnus seemed to be convinced by my reasoning, which was just as well, since I doubted my coin would extend to hiring for myself an army sufficient for this task, as well as a guide who knew the islands and the sea-routes of the Suthreyjar, and not to mention a ship as well. God’s favour was clearly shining upon me, and I accepted with no little thanks these gifts He’d sent my way, welcome as they were after everything I’d endured in recent weeks.

  Thus while Nihtegesa was being repaired and caulked ready for our voyage in the days that followed, Magnus rode out in person to solicit the support of those of his followers who dwelt outside the city.

  ‘Most of them left when it was clear I no longer had the means to pay them,’ he told me. ‘It would have been fruitless to try to prevent them going, so I released them from their oaths. Some have taken service with other lords; a few have found themselves Irish wives and a corner of land on which to settle. Still, if I seek them out and tell them what I have in mind, I hope that a few at least will be willing to rejoin me.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘I can but try.’

  His faith was well placed. Almost a week after we had first made port in Dyflin, the first of Magnus’s old retainers came to the city and presented himself at his hall. A thickset Englishman in his middle years, he was dressed in mail and armed with spear and sword, as well as a long-handled axe that he carried slung across his back. His top lip was adorned with a thick moustache, and his tangled beard was flecked with breadcrumbs. His name was Ælfhelm and he was, I soon learnt, one of the longest-serving and most trusted retainers of the usurper’s family. He had been left to defend Lundene when Harold had marched to meet King Guillaume, and so had been spared a bloody end at Hæstinges.

  On first seeing myself and my knights, and recognising us for the Normans we were, he reached straightaway for his sword-hilt. I believe he would have tried to face all three of us at once had Magnus not blocked his path, explained who we were and why we were here.

  Ælfhelm spat on the floor. ‘Why should I ally myself with these whoresons?’

  ‘Because I wish it,’ Magnus answered.

  ‘It was men like these who slew your father and his brothers. Have you forgotten that?’

  ‘They’re friends,’ Magnus insisted, and though that seemed to me a little overstating matters, given that we had met only a few days previously, I didn’t argue. In any case, it seemed to put an end to the debate. The bearded one’s mouth twisted into a scowl and he kept glancing suspiciously at us as Magnus led him into the hall and the two of them exchanged what tidings they had. We would have to keep a close watch over him, I reckoned.

  Nor was he the only one we would have to be wary of. In all, twenty-six of Magnus’s huscarls responded to his summons, each one accompanied by a manservant or stable-boy, and a couple with their lovers and mistresses. They were men of all sizes and appearances, some of an age roughly with myself, while others were older even than Ælfhelm, although he seemed to be chief among them. All, however, regardless of age, possessed the same hard eyes, stiff bearing and sour temper that spoke to me of battles fought and lost, of feuds unsettled, of thoughts of vengeance rarely uttered but ever-present, of untold bitterness against the circumstances that had brought each one of them to these shores. These were the men alongside whom I would have to fight if I wanted to reclaim Oswynn.

  In my time I had been forced to make cause with some unlikely allies in pursuit of common ends, but these were without a doubt the unlikeliest of all. In another place and another time, they would have had no more hesitation in cutting us down than we would them. As it was, only Magnus stood between us and a grim fate. I supposed since he was their lord and, in their eyes, their king, they were oath-bound to accept his wishes, but even bearing that in mind did not make me feel any safer. I was not alone, either.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Serlo confessed to me when the five of us were alone later that day, having ventured down to the market to provision ourselves for the voyage north.

  ‘Neither do I, lord,’ said Pons. ‘How soon will it be before they turn on us?’

  ‘They won’t,’ I said firmly, more to convince myself than because I truly believed it. ‘I have Magnus’s word. He’s someone who understands honour, and the value of keeping one’s oaths.’

  ‘Like his father kept to his oaths, you mean?’ Pons asked, and there was an obvious barb to his tone. He was referring, of course, to the pledge of fealty Harold had made to Duke Guillaume, and his promise to support the latter’s claim to the English crown: a promise Harold later broke when he seized the crown for himself.

  I didn’t offer an answer to that, for I knew there was none that would satisfy him.

  Pons sighed in exasperation, and shook his head in disbelief. ‘You can’t rely on the word of an Englishman.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Godric protested.

  ‘Except for the whelp here, of course,’ he added. ‘But he’s not like them.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘And what about men like Ædda, and all the folk at Earnford?’

  ‘You know what Pons means, lord,’ said Serlo. ‘The moment we’re out on the sea, they’ll cast us over the side, if they don’t come for us sooner. In the night, perhaps, while we’re sleeping. They’ll kill us and then they’ll have their way with the girl.’

  ‘Then make sure your sword is always at hand,’ I said. ‘And stay together. They’re less likely to try anything if we keep close.’

  We continued in silence. I found a merchant selling the tufted cloaks that Snorri had praised so highly, and handed over a clutch of silver in exchange for five of his finest. Winter was fast approaching; almost everywhere the branches were bare, having finally cast off the robes they had clung to since summer, the robes that once had been full of brightness but which the turning of the seasons had made drab. Each dawn when we awoke was colder than the last. Across the cit
y the thatch upon the houses and the workshops was covered with frost, and that morning we had stepped outside to find all the puddles in the street hard with ice. It was a good thing that Nihtegesa was, by then, seaworthy again, the rot having been discovered to be less severe than at first we’d feared.

  ‘I’m told she’s still letting in some water, but all ships leak to a greater or lesser extent,’ Magnus had told me. ‘So long as we make sure to bail her now and then, she’ll do fine. Were we travelling to Ysland or anywhere across the open sea, I’d want her in better condition, but she’ll suffice for where we want to go.’

  Even so, he had insisted upon waiting another day or two in case any more of his retainers showed themselves. Had the decision been mine, I would have set out straightaway rather than delay for the sake of a couple more swords and risk the wind changing in the meantime. Since they were his men and it was his ship, however, I’d had little choice but to defer to him.

  ‘This whole expedition is folly, lord,’ Pons muttered after we had been walking a while longer. ‘Coming here to Dyflin is one thing, but now you want us to venture in winter across the northern seas, and all in pursuit of a woman.’ He nodded towards a slim, freckled Irish girl of perhaps sixteen summers who was helping her mother, herself far from unattractive, carry rolls of cloth. ‘There are women here, lord!’

  ‘Oswynn isn’t just any woman,’ I said. ‘She’s my woman.’

  ‘Truthfully, lord, what chance do you think you have of claiming her back, assuming that she still lives, or that this Haakon hasn’t sold her to one of his pirate friends?’

  ‘She was alive and in his company when Eithne met them a few months ago.’

  ‘And happy, lord?’

  I stared at him. ‘What?’

  Serlo frowned and placed a hand on his sword-brother’s shoulder. ‘Pons,’ he said warningly.

  But Pons wasn’t about to listen. ‘Did Eithne ever tell you whether she seemed happy in his company?’

  I glanced at the girl, who hadn’t understood what we were saying, although she couldn’t have failed to hear her name, spoken in harsh tones. Her cheeks had turned pale. She sensed something was amiss, even if she couldn’t be sure what.

  ‘Ask her,’ said Pons. ‘Ask her now.’

  ‘No,’ I said, doing my best to restrain my anger. ‘I’m not going to ask her. I don’t need to.’

  Why? Because I was afraid of what the answer might be? Afraid to learn that all this effort to which I’d gone was, in fact, for naught? Afraid to find myself bereft of any cause to fight for?

  ‘What is it, lord?’ Eithne asked me in English.

  ‘Nothing,’ I muttered. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘You’ve said yourself that it’s been nearly three years since you were last with her, lord,’ Pons said. ‘Even if we do find her, and even if you manage to bury your sword-point in Haakon’s throat, that doesn’t mean she’ll necessarily thank you for it.’

  I stopped in the middle of the street. ‘She will. I know it. And besides, what else is there for me? For us. Tell me that.’

  Pons didn’t answer straightaway. Men and women shouted at us in tongues I didn’t understand, berating us for getting in their way as they tried to roll barrels and drive oxen up the way, but I paid them no heed. If Pons did not support me in this, then I needed to know. My mind was already made up, for I was going with Magnus to whatever fate awaited me in the north. But I had no place on this expedition for men who would not give their all in this cause.

  ‘Well?’ I demanded.

  ‘I don’t know, lord,’ Pons said eventually.

  ‘Serlo?’

  He took a deep breath, and his hesitation betrayed his uncertainty. He glanced sidelong at Pons before turning back to me. ‘I’m with you, lord, as always. But that doesn’t mean I’m altogether happy about it.’

  Pons nodded in agreement. I supposed that was the best I could hope for. That they had followed me this far, without so much as a murmur of dissent until this moment, was testament to their loyalty, and a reminder of how much I owed them.

  ‘What about you, Godric?’ I asked. ‘You, at least, could return to England, if you’d rather not come with me.’

  ‘Where would I go? Back to my uncle?’ He shook his head. ‘There’s nothing for me there, lord. Not any more.’

  It hadn’t been two months since we’d first met, but already he seemed a different person. He was his own man now, subject to no one. That he nevertheless chose to stand by me, though he was bound by no oath to do so, earned my respect.

  I turned to Eithne, and briefly wondered what she might say if I asked her the question Pons had wanted me to. I tried to drive such thoughts from my mind.

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ she retorted, when I asked her whether she was still willing to come with me.

  ‘I can give you money enough for passage back home, if that’s what you want. There’ll be ships that can take you, I’m sure.’

  ‘You place too much faith in other men,’ she said in that mocking manner I had grown used to. ‘How far do you think I would get, travelling alone, without anyone for protection? At least with you I am safe.’

  That made sense, I supposed. If these last few weeks had taught her anything, it was that she could trust us. Why put herself at risk by striking out on her own? No doubt that was why she had stayed with us this long; she’d had plenty of opportunity along the way to flee if she’d wanted to.

  We were all agreed, then. Breton, Normans, English and Irish would travel together into the north, albeit some more reluctantly than others.

  Unspeaking, we ventured on past the rows of stalls where cloth merchants, fishmongers, wine-traders, candlemakers, wood-sellers and spicers plied their trade, until we came upon an open square close by the thing-mount, where rows upon rows of men, women and children of both sexes and all colours of hair and skin sat upon the muddy ground, bound together with ropes and chains, their heads bowed and faces leaden, huddled inside clothes that seemed either too large or too small and were dirty and frayed at the hems; all being watched over by men armed with clubs and staves.

  The great slave-market for which Dyflin was renowned. Beside me, Eithne shrank back. At first I wondered if she’d spotted her former master, Ravn, somewhere among that throng, but there had to be hundreds of slaves, owners, traders and guards, variously crying and shouting and negotiating and cursing, and so I reckoned she was merely nervous.

  ‘You’re with me, so you’re safe,’ I told her. ‘Isn’t that what you said?’

  ‘Let’s leave,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  I was about to, for her sake, when my gaze fell upon three dark-skinned young women, one short and the other two tall, all of them wide-eyed and trembling, being led away by a fierce-looking man whose arms were covered in silver rings and who was shouting at them in Danish. I’d glimpsed Moorish women before, but not often and not for long. They were a strange sight to me, and I confess that I could not take my eyes off those girls, spellbound as I was with a mixture of curiosity and admiration, for although they looked thin and ill fed, they were nevertheless creatures of wonder.

  ‘Lord,’ said Serlo in a warning tone, jolting me from my thoughts. He was gesturing down the street whence we had come, where I saw now a group of four men clad in hauberks and chausses, with swords on their belts. To begin with I didn’t know why he was drawing my attention to these in particular, when so many walked the streets of this city armed and mailed, but as they stopped by the stall of one of the cloth-sellers and turned to speak with him, I saw the distinctive close-cropped hair at the backs and sides of their heads.

  We were too far away to make out their features, but I knew at a glance they were Normans, and knights, too. But why were they here, in Dyflin of all places?

  Only one reason came to mind. They had to be Robert’s men. Who else?

  I’d thought that leaving England behind and going into exile would be enough to satisfy them. Obviously I was wrong. So determine
d were they that I should face trial for my crime that they had taken ship across the sea in order to haul me back to England. Now they were here, barely fifty paces away, if that.

  ‘This way,’ I said to the others, my heart pounding all of a sudden. ‘Quickly, but not too quickly.’

  I’d realised that if we could see them, then they would just as easily be able to see us. I didn’t want to linger, but at the same time knew that we would only draw attention upon ourselves if we ran. Without looking back, I slipped through the market crowds, towards an alley where the smoke of a blacksmith’s forge billowed white and thick.

  ‘Do you think they saw us?’ Godric asked when we had all gathered, coughing and with eyes stinging, on the other side of that cloud, safely out of sight of the marketplace.

  ‘I hope not,’ I replied.

  We pressed on in the direction of Magnus’s house, which was only a short distance away, close to the city’s southern gates. From time to time I risked a glance behind us, but didn’t want to attract suspicion. Fortunately there were many different ways one could take through the streets, and, having spent now a little more than a week in this city, I was beginning to learn them. From time to time I risked a glance over my shoulder to see if they were behind us, until eventually I had to concede that they weren’t following.

  ‘They’re determined, aren’t they?’ Pons remarked.

  It didn’t make sense. Why pursue us here, all this way? For that matter, how did they even know where we were headed? I’d held that piece of information back from Ædda and Galfrid and Father Erchembald for this very reason. Neither had I told Eudo and Wace, at least not so far as I could recall. Where were they now? Had they gone with Robert on the king’s planned expedition to Flanders?

  And then I remembered. I’d let it slip to Robert, on the very day that we had buried his father, in his solar at Heia.

  I’d been a fool. An accursed fool. At every turn I’d given my enemies the means to ensnare me and bring about my downfall. First Atselin, and now Robert himself, difficult though it was to think of him as such. But I could hardly count him as a friend any longer.