Hawk Quest

To the North
XV

Shearwater drifted fog-bound on the tidal swill. Someone was screeching. It was Snorri. He was capering around the edge of the hold, stamping his feet and shaking his fist. ‘Christ,’ Vallon groaned. He made his way aft, stumbling as if the ship were rolling in a swell.

‘What the devil’s wrong with you?’

‘’Tis the girl, cap’n. We have to get her off.’

‘Calm down. We’ll put her ashore at the first opportunity.’

‘No, no. She’s jinxed. There’ll be no getting away while she’s on board.’

Vallon glanced into the hold. The girl sat cocooned in a sleeping sack with Wayland on one side, the dog on the other. It would be a brave man who tried to come between them.

‘What do you expect me to do? Throw her overboard?’

Snorri grasped Vallon’s sleeve. ‘She can paddle back on me punt.’

‘Send her back to the Normans? Are you mad?’

‘Cap’n, I swear we’re doomed if we don’t get rid of her.’

‘We’re doomed if you don’t get this ship under way.’ With great effort, Vallon made his tone conciliatory. ‘You’re the sailing master. We’re relying on you.’ He gave Snorri’s shoulder a squeeze and lowered his voice. ‘Have no fear. I’ll deal with the girl.’

Snorri regarded him with watery hope. ‘Ye promise? She’s a cunning little mother.’

Vallon turned his head. ‘Wayland, on deck.’

Wayland climbed up and made to walk past. Vallon checked him. ‘The rest of you, over here. We’re going to get the ship under sail.’

Raul looked up dully. ‘There ain’t no wind.’

‘I know that, you blockhead. We need to be ready when it comes.’

Raul manhandled himself upright. Hero and Richard clambered to their feet like wounded insects.

‘You think you have no strength left,’ Vallon told them. ‘But I guarantee you won’t feel weary when the Normans grapple with us.’ He stepped back. ‘Master Snorri, set the mast if you please.’

Snorri gave a high-pitched giggle. ‘There ain’t enough hands.’

‘What! How many do you need?’

‘Six to pull her upright, four to hold her steady, two to lever her into the old woman. Never saw it done with less than eight and that was in harbour with the hands pulling on shore.’

Vallon stared at the mast — a pine trunk forty feet long with a base as thick as a man’s waist. It had taken a dozen men to lift it aboard and slide its lower end into the hold. Now they had to raise it through seventy degrees with half that number — including a man with only one arm and two youths as feeble as noviciates after a week’s fast.

‘Raul has the strength of three. We’ll lift it somehow.’

‘Cap’n, if she slips, she’ll smash my ship and then where will we be?’

Hero stepped forward. ‘We could keep the mast centred by lashing two rails lengthways across the hold.’ He pointed at the yard and its spare stowed along the port side. ‘Those look long enough.’

‘At last, someone who uses his head.’ Vallon turned to the rest of the crew. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’

Raul twiddled his hat in his hands. ‘Captain, not being funny, but none of us have sat down to food since yesterday.’

‘All right. Change into dry clothes and snatch a meal.’

Vallon was as stupefied by toil as the rest of them. He plopped down onto a thwart, palping the torn muscles in his side. His palms were blistered and split, his fingers swollen and the tips corpse-white. When he kicked off his wet breeches, he saw that the skin on his inner thighs had been rubbed raw. He sponged himself with clean water. Clothed afresh, he felt a little better.

‘Sir, take this,’ Richard said, offering him bread and mutton and a cup of ale.

He ate only a few mouthfuls before impatience got the better of him. ‘Drogo will be halfway to Lynn by now. Let’s get to work.’

‘See the old woman,’ Snorri said, pointing at a coffin-size block of oak spanning the four centre frames. ‘The socket in the middle takes the mast foot. The block on top of her, we call that ’un the mast fish. She closes round the mast front and sides. Takes the strain when the ship’s under sail. Knock a wedge into the groove at the back and that mast ain’t goin’ nowheres.’

‘Got that?’ said Vallon.

First they inched the mast forward to align its foot with the socket in the keelson. Even that dull task showed Vallon what weight and forces they were dealing with. Snorri adjusted the mast fish and greased the foot to ease entry. ‘Need a man down here to guide her in.’

Vallon glanced around. ‘Wayland, that’ll be your job.’

Raul nudged the falconer. ‘I saw a man lose his mitts doing that.’

‘Damn your flapping tongue.’

Snorri placed a silver coin in the socket.

‘What’s that for?’ asked Wayland.

‘To pay the ferryman if I’m drownded.’

Raul sneaked a glance at Vallon and flipped down a coin of his own.

They lashed the yards each side of the mast, using thwarts at each end of the hold as anchor points. At Hero’s suggestion, they tied a crosspiece between the yards to prevent the mast from being pulled too far forward.

Snorri uncoiled the anchor line one-handed. ‘Need a man with knotcraft to tie this to the mast head.’

Raul shinned up the sloping mast and tied the line about five feet below the top. ‘You sure that’s fast?’ Snorri called.

‘Make a noose for your head and we’ll see.’

Snorri walked forward paying out the line. ‘Now we rig the gin.’

This was a stout pole fifteen feet long with a forked top. Snorri passed the free end of the line over the fork, then Wayland and Raul lifted it vertical and dropped its base into a socket forward of the hold. The line from the mast now slanted up over the fork, then down to the hands mustered on the foredeck. Snorri stood to one side and coordinated their efforts. ‘Take up slack.’

Vallon pulled in line.

‘Tighter. The line’s sappy. Brace.’

Vallon pulled until he could feel the inertia of the mast.

‘All together now — heave!’

Vallon threw himself back on his heels. The hemp thrummed and water flew off it, but the mast didn’t budge.

Snorri, half a-squat, exhorted them. ‘Pull will ye. Pull can’t ye. Make it a long pull. Make it a strong pull. What d’ye call that? I’ve seen kiddies haul harder. Pull for your lives, damn ye. Break yer backs. Pop yer lungs!’

This time they raised the mast a few inches, but the weight was too much to bear and it sagged back.

They stood blowing like horses, shaking their hands.

‘We need more leverage,’ Vallon gasped. His eye fell on one of the oars. He stumbled forward.

‘Don’t ye go breaking that,’ Snorri cried. ‘There’s timber in the hold.’

Vallon found an eight-foot balk of oak and took up position behind the mast, holding the beam like a harpoon. Once more the crew wrapped their hands around the line and hauled away. The mast rose a few inches — enough for him to slip the beam into the gap. Reaching as high as he could, he hung all his weight from the lever. The veins in his neck stood out. A string of snot dangled from his nose.

‘Now she comes,’ Snorri cried.

With a resentful creaking, the mast shifted a few degrees towards the upright. The beam slipped and Vallon tripped, but when he looked up, the mast was still suspended. ‘Keep it there,’ he panted, and staggered back to join the rest of the crew.

The lever had made the critical difference. Slowly the mast swung upright, the work becoming easier with every degree gained. Snorri regulated progress. ‘Just a little ways more. Titty bit further. Whoa!’

At close to plumb, the mast felt almost weightless. Snorri gathered the free end of the line from each man in turn and lashed it around the stem. ‘Now we fit the foot.’

With some barging and levering from Raul and Wayland, the mast seemed to find its own way into the keelson, sinking home with a judder.

Snorri and Raul lashed the mast fish tight around the base. When they’d driven in the wedge, Snorri straightened, examined the mast from all angles, and then looked at Vallon. ‘Job’s a good ’un.’

The crew sank down groaning.

‘Time for sitting about later,’ said Vallon. ‘We still have to rig her.’

In fact only Snorri and Raul had the know-how. After helping to hoist the yard and watching the skein of shrouds and stays begin to take shape, Vallon went into the bow to check the tide. The fog still held them in stale suspension. Dew dropped like rain from the cordage. The clothes he’d put on dry a short time ago bristled with moisture.

He sensed someone behind him. Hero, with eyes cast down, offered him a cup of ale. Vallon drained it and wiped his mouth. ‘What time do you make it?’

‘I’ve lost track. I don’t even know which way we’re facing. Thank God Drogo’s as blind as us.’

‘I’m not so sure. Listen to the racket the birds are making out to sea. I suspect the fog’s only lying along the coast and the Normans are waiting for us to stick our noses out.’

‘Then let’s pray that the fog lasts till nightfall.’

Vallon was struck by a memory. ‘Do animals have the power of thought?’

Hero blinked at such an odd question. ‘Aristotle states that man is the only rational animal. Why do you ask?’

Vallon stared into the fog. ‘I shared quarters once with a rat that showed human cunning. Every evening, after I’d put my platter down, that rat would come for the crumbs. Always at the same time, from the same hole, following the same path. To hide itself, the rat crept along with a scrap of cloth on its back. Wouldn’t you say that showed it had the power of reasoning?’

Hero pondered. ‘Because the rat couldn’t see you, it assumed that you couldn’t see it. In fact, its cleverness was a form of stupidity, because you could have killed it any time.’ He shifted his stance. ‘Sir, the quarters you refer to — was that the prison you mentioned?’

Vallon nodded. ‘I’ll tell you about it later.’

Snorri gave a shout. Vallon swung round and clapped a hand to his face. The breeze had died almost immediately, but its caress lingered on his cheek. ‘Was that a favourable wind?’

‘Aye, south-westerly.’

‘Are we ready to sail?’

Snorri glowered at Raul. ‘There’s a heap of fettling to do, but we’ll limp along.’

Everyone waited with faces uplifted. Vallon opened and closed his hands on his thighs. He caught Raul looking at him and forced himself to stay still.

Another breath puckered the sea. The sail gave a flaccid flap before sagging.

‘I wish it was dark,’ said Hero.

‘Psst!’

Wayland was jabbing ahead at a point off larboard.

Vallon crossed towards him as softly as foot could fall and craned forward. All he could hear was the distant lamentation of gulls, but he didn’t doubt Wayland’s warning. The youth had ears like a fox. At last the faint rhythm of men rowing was borne on to his senses. One moment the boat sounded so close that he could hear voices, the next it had faded away.

He glanced round. Raul was spanning his crossbow. Vallon put his head close to Wayland’s. ‘Where are they?’

Wayland pointed.

Vallon squinted in concentration. He heard the splash of a fluffed oar and saw a flicker of foam. A ship floated into smudged focus not more than a hundred yards away. It was heading shoreward with its sail furled and its crew bent over their oars. There was a moment when they passed so close that any of them glancing to their right would have spotted Shearwater. But no one looked and a few moments later the ship ghosted away.

‘Get your bow,’ he told Wayland. ‘There’ll be more of them.’

‘Here comes the wind,’ Raul said, facing astern.

Shearwater dipped. The sail filled and the mast groaned. Wayland was fitting a bowstring. The old one must have slackened in the sodden atmosphere. Shearwater got under way, trailing a gurgling wake. The fog drifted past like slow rain. Gaps opened in the murk and Vallon’s eyes darted in expectation of more Norman ships. Ahead of them the fog thinned and brightened to a rosy pink. A slant of late evening sunlight threw Shearwater’s shadow on to the screen, and then, as though a door had swung open, they were in the clear.

It was sunset, the sea molten between gleaming black mudflats.

‘Hell fire!’

In the channel dead ahead, not more than quarter of a mile off, a fishing boat freighted to the gunwales with Normans lay idle in the small waves. Some of the soldiers lounged at their oars. Others were raising the sail. A soldier spotted Shearwater and shouted.

‘There are more coming out of Lynn,’ Wayland called.

Vallon saw sails breaking the horizon miles to the south. ‘Forget them for now.’

Their predicament looked hopeless. The Normans were directly downwind, blocking the middle of the channel, mudflats on both sides. No room to outflank them. Even if they could have got to leeward, in this light breeze the Normans could row faster than Shearwater could sail. She was bearing down on the boat at no more than walking speed. Soon they’d be within crossbow range. Vallon cupped a hand to his mouth. ‘Snorri, hold your course. You hear me? Straight ahead.’

Raul sucked air through his teeth. ‘Captain, they outnumber us five to one.’

‘I know it. Thirty men in a boat half the size of ours. Look how they’re getting in each other’s way. And they won’t be feeling too lively after rowing from Lynn.’

The soldiers were tripping over each other as they scrambled to get underway. Their movements rocked the boat so violently that they threatened to swamp it. Some of them had taken up oars and were flailing the water. Others were struggling into their hauberks. The boat nosed about uncertainly.

‘They’ll have smartened up by the time we reach them,’ said Raul.

Vallon shielded his eyes. ‘I don’t see any archers.’

‘No, they’re infantry. Swords and lances.’

Shearwater heeled as the bow came round.

‘What the …!’ Vallon charged aft. ‘I told you to hold your course.’

‘I can get round,’ Snorri cried, leaning against the tiller.

‘They’ll catch us before we’ve gone a furlong.’ Vallon wrenched the tiller from him. ‘Ram them.’

‘I ain’t wrecking my ship.’

‘It’s twice the size of that cockleshell. We’ll crack it like a nut.’

Whang went Raul’s crossbow. Vallon raised his sword. ‘Do … as … I … say.’

Snorri shook his fist. ‘Ye’ll pay fer any damage.’

Vallon ran back to the bow. Raul pulled a face to show that he’d missed.

Features began to form on the faces of the enemy. An officer had set half the soldiers to rowing. In the bow, half a dozen spearmen jostled to make space for each other. The rest of the force lined the sides, banging their swords against their kite-shaped shields and chanting ‘Dex aie, Dex aie.’

Wayland in one fluent movement bent his bow and loosed. Vallon watched the arrow arc up, lost it as it descended, then heard a cry that showed it had hit its mark.

‘Fluky devil,’ said Raul, still reloading his weapon. Wayland had already strung another arrow and was aiming again.

The vessels were less than a hundred yards apart and the Normans had realised that Shearwater was on a collision course. The superiority in numbers that had seemed irresistible from afar didn’t look so overwhelming as they contemplated a ship four times their weight bearing down on them. Their war cries petered out. Some of the men in the bow jerked their heads from side to side, searching for avenues of escape.

‘Starboard stop!’ the officer shouted.

‘Too late,’ Vallon murmured as the boat began to swing to port. The strange silence that preceded battle descended. Strange because it magnified ordinary sounds — the crying of gulls, water burbling under the bow, the rustling of the sail.

‘After the spears, prepare for boarders.’

Raul snuggled his crossbow tiller into his shoulder and triggered a bolt that spun one of the soldiers on his axis.

The change of course and the lethal darts had thrown the spearmen into disorder and only four of them launched their lances. Neither their aim nor footing was sure, and the three men on Shearwater’s foredeck easily avoided the missiles.

‘Brace yourselves,’ Vallon said.

Shearwater’s stem collided with the boat, stoving in its hull just behind the bow and shearing off a few oars. Men tumbled. Stays parted with brittle pops and the mast lolled. Of the half dozen Normans who’d been prepared to board, only two made it, the others either knocked over or falling short. Wayland shot one of the boarders in mid-jump. Raul charged the other, lifted him as if he weighed no more than straw and pitched him overboard.

‘Behind you!’

Vallon whirled to see another soldier milling on to the deck, his helmet spilling off. Before Vallon could reach him, he was on his feet again. ‘To me!’ he called, and took one step forward and then stopped, spitted by a spear launched by his own side. Vallon caught him as he pitched forward, the two locked together for a moment like lovers.

‘Brave lad,’ Vallon said, and shoved the corpse away.

The collision hadn’t checked Shearwater’s momentum. Vallon glimpsed a gallery of howling faces sliding past. Another spear just missed him. One soldier in a fit of fury hurled his sword end over end.

Then the boat was behind them, already awash, its company crying out in terror of drowning.

‘Anyone hurt?’ Vallon called. ‘Hero? Richard?’

They climbed out of the hold, knuckling their mouths when they saw the two corpses. Vallon glanced round. ‘Raul, put those men over the side.’

He went to the stern and rested both hands on the post. The fishing boat had rolled on its side and the Normans were clinging to the hull. The breeze had blown away the fog and he could see the ship that had passed them heading back out to sea.

Hero was watching him in horror when he turned. Vallon ran his sword into its scabbard. ‘I sent you away because I wanted to spare you such sights.’ He stepped past and then stopped. ‘If there’s a providence that looks after rats, why shouldn’t it bestow a kindly glance on us?’

The sun’s lidded eye slid below the land. The ship in their wake had halted to pick up the survivors of the wreck. Snorri came bustling out the hold. ‘I told ye yer madness would wreck us. We’ve sprung planks. We’re shipping water. We’re like to founder.’

Vallon waved tiredly at Raul. ‘Take a look.’

Raul spat with deliberation. ‘I reckon I died without anyone telling me and now I’m working my way through hell.’

‘Hell wouldn’t have you.’

Raul grinned as if Vallon had paid him a compliment.

Shearwater sailed on with Vallon manning the rudder. He kept watch on the ships to the south. There were five of them, sailing parallel with Shearwater, making no attempt to close. They were racing to block the mouth of the Wash, where sandbanks constricted the exit. If they reached it first and formed a blockade, Shearwater would have to slip between vessels stationed no more than half a mile apart. Colour drained from the sky and the night came down. The enemy ships receded from sight as the sea darkened and stars began to prick the sky. The darkness wouldn’t last long. Soon the moon, only one day off full, would rise and light the seascape as bright as day.

Vallon looked up at Wayland, balanced on the yard thirty feet above deck. ‘Can you still see them?’

‘Yes. They’re holding the same course.’

Snorri and Raul emerged from the hold. ‘Just a little leak,’ said Raul. ‘We plugged it. The girl’s keeping an eye on it.’

Snorri took the tiller. They sailed on. A subterranean glow spread up from the east and the moon rose huge and tremulous, gold at first, paling to a marbled eggshell. The Norman ships appeared again like pale lanterns.

‘Will we beat them to the entrance?’ Vallon asked Snorri.

‘It’ll be ticklish close.’

‘You said that Shearwater can outsail any English mudskipper.’

‘Aye, but they’ve got a clear passage up the Lynn channel, while we got to steer round the Mare’s Tail.’

‘A sandbank?’

‘Girt big island more like. Three miles long and curves south.’

‘Forcing us towards the Norman fleet.’

Snorri tittered, as he did when stressed. ‘Aye. Right into their path.’

Wayland stayed aloft with instructions to keep an eye out for shoals. Raul reloaded his crossbow, standing with both feet on the arms and then, after inflating his chest, pulling up the string in one vein-popping effort. He claimed that it had a three hundred-pound draw and could shoot a bolt clear through two armoured soldiers. Vallon didn’t doubt it. In an idle moment, he’d tried to span the weapon and found that he could barely deflect the cord. Since their journey began, Raul had kept up a running debate with Wayland about who had the more deadly weapon, Raul insisting that the crossbow was more accurate and powerful, Wayland — when he could be bothered to reply — pointing out that he could loose six arrows for every dart that Raul shot.

‘Sandbank ahead,’ Wayland called.

It broached the sea like the back of a half-submerged whale. Snorri steered the ship a few points to starboard, while Raul used a tacking boom fitted to the sail’s forward leech to keep it exposed to the full draw of the wind. Shearwater’s speed hardly lessened, but now they were angling towards the enemy. The Norman ships were pulling ahead. Vallon could see the headlands on each side of the Wash’s mouth and knew that the two leading ships would reach it first. Even if Shearwater evaded their initial attack, the manoeuvres would allow the other vessels to join the action. The nearest of them wasn’t more than a mile to starboard and Shearwater still hadn’t reached the end of the Mare’s Tail.

Vallon tapped his foot without being aware of it. They still hadn’t cleared the sandbank and all but one of the Norman ships were showing their sterns. The laggard was square on to Shearwater, so close that Vallon could see figures moving along its side.

‘The leading ships are reefing sail,’ Raul shouted. ‘They’re going to lie in wait.’

Vallon watched the slow convergence. The two leading Norman ships were separating and the others were moving to fill the gap. Vallon joined Snorri. ‘Any ideas?’

‘We ain’t goin’ to smash through. Those ships are as big as Shearwater.’

‘Clear water ahead,’ Wayland cried.

‘We got one trick we can play,’ Snorri said. ‘Soon as we get round the Mare’s Tail, tack hard to port and run for a channel that’ll bring us out at the northern tip of the Wash. The Normans can’t turn into the wind. They’ll have to go round the far side of the bar.’

Shearwater slid out from the end of the sandbank. Vallon saw that Snorri’s proposed course would shave the edge of the bay.

‘We got to decide quick,’ said Snorri.

‘Do it.’

Snorri called out to Raul and leaned on the rudder. In the uncertain light the Normans didn’t spot the change of course, or perhaps they thought it was a feint. By the time they reacted and began to track across the bay, Shearwater was heading north, across the wind.

The two leading Norman ships still had the advantage of sea room. As the coast drew closer, Vallon began to think that Snorri’s gambit had forced them into a corner. Ahead was a channel between coastal mudflats and a narrow bar of sand. One of the Norman ships was shadowing them less than half a mile downwind, while its partner took a more seaward route. Like dogs coursing a rabbit. They were nearly at the entrance of the channel. Once inside they would be committed. If the Norman ship reached the other end first, inter — ception was certain.

Shearwater took the inshore passage. The Norman ship with a lead of perhaps two hundred yards kept to the other side of the bar. Vallon could hear its commander shouting instructions. On Shearwater there was silence. Wayland kept lowering his bow and brushing his sleeve across his mouth.

‘I think we’re gaining on them,’ said Hero.

Anxious minutes went by before Vallon dared to believe that he was right. They pulled level, the two ships sailing up different sides of the sandbank like shadows of each other. The Normans crowded the side, roaring a challenge.

‘Definitely gaining,’ Hero said.

The soldiers saw it, too, and their cries turned to wails of frustration. Out to sea they’d enjoyed the better of the wind, but in the lee of the coast, Shearwater was the more efficient vessel.

Yard by yard Shearwater increased her lead. When she slid out from the channel she was a bowshot ahead of her pursuer, only two bowshots from the shore. So close that Vallon could see a light in a coastal settlement.

Snorri cavorted. ‘They won’t catch us now.’

Vallon went aft, touching each man’s arm in passing. ‘Well done,’ he murmured. ‘Well done.’

Raul punched the air. ‘Fate spares the undoomed warrior.’

They headed into open sea. Vallon watched until the sails behind them were very small before turning.

‘Everyone stand down. Fill your bellies and get some rest.’ As Wayland walked past, Vallon reached out and caught him by the sleeve. ‘Not you.’

Wayland stood before him mute and defiant. His actions had been unforgivable. Vallon had hanged men for lesser offences. He had to make an example. God knows, discipline was lax enough as it was. If he let Wayland’s insubordination go unpunished, every man would take it as licence to do as he pleased. All this Vallon knew, and at the same time he recognised that he couldn’t afford to lose the falconer. He and the rest of the rabble were all Vallon had. The constraints on what punishment he could mete out made him even angrier.

‘You endangered all our lives by going back for the girl. If we weren’t so short-handed, I’d have left you to be killed.’

‘I thank you for your mercy. We both thank you.’

‘Never mind that. The girl can’t stay. A pet has no place on this ship.’

Wayland sucked in his cheeks and stared past him.

‘We’ll put her ashore when we next make land.’

‘She doesn’t have anywhere to go. Her family’s dead.’

Vallon thumped the gunwale. ‘We’re not a refuge for orphans. The girl goes.’

Wayland swallowed and lifted his gaze.

‘If you care about her, you must see that it’s for her own good. Think of the risks if she stays.’

‘She’s not afraid of the voyage. Her father was a fisherman.’

‘I’m not talking about the perils of the sea. A woman on a ship full of men is a recipe for disaster. You know how Raul behaves when he’s taken a skinful.’

‘Raul wouldn’t dare touch her.’

‘You see. You’re already contemplating the challenge.’ Vallon sank back. ‘We’ll be taking on more hands and I’m not in a position to pick and choose. Doubtless we’ll end up with some men of base character. I’ve seen the madness that infects soldiers when a woman is set loose in their company. God knows, I’ve buried enough of them.’

‘The dog will kill anyone who lays a finger on her.’

‘Is that supposed to reassure me?’

Wayland lapsed back into silence.

Vallon leaned back. ‘Then there’s Snorri.’

Wayland met his eyes. ‘What about him?’

‘Don’t pretend there isn’t bad blood between him and the girl. I care nothing for his superstitions, but we rely on his cooperation.’

Wayland gave a contemptuous smile. ‘He’ll betray us with or without the girl.’

Vallon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Explain yourself.’

‘His wits have grown soft. He talks to himself without knowing it. He plans to rob us.’

Vallon shifted on his seat. ‘Well, I’ll deal with that problem in due course.’ His voice hardened. ‘It changes nothing. The girl goes.’

Wayland looked at his feet. ‘I’m sorry.’

Vallon softened his tone. ‘I’m sure your motives were kind, and by good fortune your rashness didn’t result in our ruin. We’ll set the girl down adequately provided for. The money will come from your share of the profits. That will be your punishment and you must agree that it’s milder than you deserve.’

Wayland lifted his eyes. ‘I meant, I’m sorry I can’t remain in your service.’

‘Don’t tell me you intend to go with her.’

‘You said I could leave once you’d set sail.’

Vallon gestured in the direction of the coast. ‘The girl’s stolen your wits. That isn’t your native country. You won’t find anything there except poverty and death. You’re an outlaw with a price on your head. Someone will turn you in. Even if you get away from the coast, you have no land and no one to protect you. At best you’ll end up a bondman guiding a plough. Is that what you want?’

Wayland’s eyes flashed. ‘I’ll find a forest where we’ll live as well as any lord and lady.’

‘Rubbish. When you ran wild, you ran alone. Think what it will mean to saddle yourself with a girl. You’re only — what? — seventeen? Too young to tie yourself down.’

Wayland didn’t answer. Vallon had been speaking in a heightened whisper, aware that Snorri was straining to overhear. He beckoned Wayland closer. ‘Our relationship has been thorny. You haven’t shown me the respect that’s due. No, don’t interrupt. I speak from experience, not vanity. Every enterprise must have a leader. From the outset you’ve only submitted to my authority when it suited you. I would have let you go your own way long ago if I hadn’t seen in you some admirable qualities. You’re brave, resourceful, sharp-witted. Learn to submit to your superiors and you could have a bright future.’

Wayland kept his face down.

‘I thought you wanted to trap gyrfalcons.’

Wayland raised his head. ‘I do. That’s why I joined you.’

‘Then don’t throw the opportunity away. Only once in a lifetime can a man follow a dream.’

Wayland’s voice choked. ‘I can’t abandon her. I made a pledge.’

‘Of marriage?’

‘Not that.’

‘What then?’

The dog came pattering down the deck. Wayland cuffed it and it lay down with its eyes fixed on Vallon’s face. He crossed his arms.

‘So that’s your final word. If the girl goes, you go too.’

Wayland composed himself. ‘Yes.’

Vallon gave a slow expiring sigh and looked across the moon’s silvery track. The land was out of sight. All horizons were empty. He rubbed his forehead.

‘Bring her to me.’

‘You won’t frighten her?’

‘Just fetch her.’

When Wayland had gone, Vallon contemplated how low his stock had fallen. Only two years ago he’d commanded armies. With a wave of an arm he’d brought squadrons sweeping into action. He’d ridden into towns at the head of his troops and seen the shuttered dread of citizens who knew he wielded the power of life or death. He’d doomed deserters and cowards to the rope without a moment’s thought. Now he was reduced to negotiating with a peasant over his sweetheart.

Syth moved so softly that he didn’t hear her approach until her shadow fell over him. Taller than he’d expected, slim as a reed, with eyes like a cat’s, something fey in her aspect. He almost reached out and touched her to see if she was real.

‘So you’re the dove who’s lured my haggard away.’

She darted a glance at Wayland.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Syth.’

Vallon stared out to sea. ‘The Normans know we haven’t quit these shores for good. They’ll be hunting us up and down the coast. We daren’t put ashore for several days — long enough for you to come to your senses. In the meantime, the girl must crop her hair and wear men’s clothes. She sleeps alone and you’ll keep a chaste distance at all times. While she’s with us, she might as well earn her keep. Can she cook and sew? Does she have any other talents?’

Wayland translated Vallon’s conditions. The girl’s hands went to her hair.

‘She won’t be any trouble,’ Wayland said.

Vallon waved a hand in dismissal. ‘Go and get something to eat.’

Wayland hesitated. ‘What about you, sir?’

Vallon pulled his cloak about him. ‘Just get out of my sight.’