Knights of the Hawk

Eighteen

I began with the king’s siege of the Isle and our assault upon Elyg. At the same time we trudged up the slope towards the new hall, which had been built in the place of the one the Welsh had torched. Somehow it felt safer to talk about everything there than in the open, and besides my throat was parched and I felt as if I hadn’t eaten a proper meal in a month. We had spent the last few days on the road eating nothing but hard bread and stale cheese, and my stomach had been paining me since dawn at the thought of the hot food that would greet our arrival. While stable-hands came to see to our mounts and Galfrid sent to the kitchens for ale and sausage and some of that day’s bread, I related how we had come to meet first Godric and then, after our victory over the rebels, Eithne as well, followed by the story of Guibert’s killing and our flight from Heia. Once in a while Serlo or Pons or Godric would add something that had slipped my mind, but their interruptions aside, everyone was content to listen while I spoke.

After I’d finished, silence lingered. Neither the priest nor the steward seemed to know quite what to say. They sat at the round table that stood in the middle of the chamber, while I paced up and down the length of the hall, from the door to the dais and back again. My legs were aching from our travels, but at the same time my mind was burning with a thousand thoughts, and I could not keep still. So much in Earnford seemed to have changed in the few months I’d been away, or perhaps it was I who had changed. I had become an outlaw, a stranger in my own hall. This place that for so long had been my home was now a place of danger.

‘What will happen now?’ Erchembald asked after some time. ‘What does this mean for you, and for us?’

‘Robert wants to bring me to justice. That’s why those men came the other day, and that’s why they’ll be back for me before too long.’

‘Because you killed a man?’ Galfrid asked, and gave a grunt that I took for a sign of his disbelief. ‘You slay a dozen, twenty, a hundred and the poets praise you, but you slay one more and for that Robert wants your head?’

‘This is hardly the same thing,’ Erchembald pointed out.

He was right, too. ‘I killed a fellow Frenchman, and in my lord’s own hall. A man who was guilty of nothing, whose only crime was that he was drunk and not in possession of his wits.’

‘You said that he attacked you,’ Galfrid said. ‘Doesn’t that count for anything?’

So I had thought, too. Clearly I was wrong.

‘I have enemies,’ I said bitterly. ‘Enemies who, for different reasons, wish to see me brought low, who would poison the bond between myself and Lord Robert, who would take joy in my suffering.’

‘What reasons?’ Father Erchembald asked.

‘Jealousy,’ I answered. ‘Spite. Because of things I’ve done in the past.’

‘And Robert didn’t defend you?’

‘He tried.’ I saw that now, at least. ‘By allowing me to walk away from there, he did what little he could.’

‘Anything more, and he might have started a revolt,’ Serlo added.

‘I can see that,’ Galfrid said. ‘What I don’t understand is why he would let you go, only to change his mind days later?’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe Elise and some of the other barons who were there that night prevailed upon him to do so. I don’t know.’

I was guessing, admittedly, but what other explanation could there be? Obviously Wace and Eudo’s attempts to assuage his anger had been in vain.

That was when another thought crept into my mind. Robert had only just inherited his father’s barony, and all the responsibilities that came with it. His new vassals were looking for him to assert himself and to set an example that would prove he was every bit as strong a lord as the elder Malet had been. If he lost their confidence now, he might rue it for years to come. If men became disaffected and wavered in their loyalty, then the elaborate web of oaths and alliances that his father had carefully woven over so many years could quickly collapse. The legacy that he had tried to leave to his son would be ruined before Robert had the opportunity to build upon it.

And suddenly I understood. If he surrendered me to my fate, then he still had a good chance of winning back the respect he needed. So long as his reputation was maintained, he didn’t care what happened to me.

I felt sick. After all that we had undergone together, after all the trials we had endured in recent years, after all the occasions on which I’d saved his life and pulled him from the fray, after all the leagues I’d travelled in his service, venturing the length and breadth of the kingdom, after all the times I’d accepted tasks on his behalf that he was too craven to undertake himself, how could he turn his back on me? Did none of that count for anything? Were it not for me, he would be dead several times over by now. How could he contemplate giving me up to my enemies?

‘Tancred?’ the priest asked, and I realised he’d been speaking without my being aware of what he was saying. ‘What do we do now?’

‘I can’t stay here,’ I said. ‘That much is certain. They’ll come for me again sooner rather than later, and when they do I need to be far away from here. If Robert’s men catch up with me, I’ll have no choice but to go with them and stand trial, and suffer the penalty, whatever that might be.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Erchembald said. ‘Perhaps all Robert desires is to be reconciled.’

I cast him a wry glance. He was a good friend and meant well, I knew, but he was fooling himself if he truly believed that. If I went back to Heia, there could be only one outcome.

‘If they find me guilty, which they will,’ I said, ‘the very least I can expect is that I’ll be condemned to exile, in which case I’ll find myself in the same situation as I am now. But what if it’s decided that banishment isn’t sufficient penalty?’

‘Your life will not be forfeit,’ the priest said. ‘You can be sure of that much. The law does not allow it.’

‘If I surrender myself to the mercy of my enemies, there’s no telling what might happen. Even if they allow me to keep my head, they might still demand my sword-hand, and that’s if they’re feeling generous. So you see that I have no choice. I have to go.’

‘Where?’ the priest asked.

That part I’d worked out. Indeed my mind had almost been made up even before I became embroiled in this storm, before what happened with Guibert, before that fateful night had even begun. Now that I had nowhere else to go, no lord to obey, no oath to discharge, no wars to fight, I was free to do as I wished, to go in pursuit of my own desires, my own ambitions. To venture across the sea.

‘It’s better if you don’t know,’ I said. ‘That way if Robert’s men come asking, you can profess ignorance. Pretend I was never here.’

Erchembald was shaking his head. ‘There must be a way of settling this. A way that satisfies everyone concerned.’

He had always, as long as I’d known him, provided a voice of reason, and many were the times I’d relied on his counsel in the past. But he was hoping beyond hope for a way to untie this knot that I found myself entangled in.

‘If you have some idea in mind, I’ll gladly hear it,’ I said. ‘Otherwise it’s better if I don’t linger here any longer than I have to. Those men could return tomorrow, or even tonight for all any of us know.’

‘You have our protection here for as long as you need it,’ Galfrid said. ‘No one from beyond the manor need know that you’re here.’

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I’d rather face exile than be reduced to cowering in my own hall.’

‘Stay this night, at least,’ Erchembald urged.

I was about to refuse, to tell him that all we needed were fresh horses and provisions for the journey and we would be on our way again before dusk, when I glanced at the road-weary faces of Serlo and Pons, Eithne and Godric. They had followed me this far, across marsh and moor, hills and hollows, and were prepared to follow me even into exile, beyond King Guillaume’s realm entirely, across the grey and stormy seas to parts unknown. They needed food and rest, as I did. I owed them that much, and if I could not grant it then I was a poor lord indeed.

‘One night,’ I agreed. ‘But tomorrow, we go.’

‘I’ll post Odgar, Ceawlin and a couple of the other lads on watch along each of the tracks leading to the manor,’ Galfrid said. ‘If they spot anyone coming, they’ll come running straightaway to give us warning.’

I smiled in thanks, at the same time wishing that there was some way I could repay the loyalty and kindness they had shown me. For all too soon I would be forced to leave this place behind me, and I had no way of knowing when or even if I would return.

Galfrid was as good as his word, and better. I didn’t think anyone would try to come by dark, when the paths through the woods could prove treacherous to those who didn’t know them well, but he sent those lads nevertheless, and bade a handful of the older ones sleep that night in the hall as added protection for us. He armed them with spears and knives so that if it came to a fight they could defend themselves, though thankfully it never came to that. This business was entirely of my own making, this quarrel with Robert mine and mine alone. While I was grateful to have others on my side, I didn’t want to see anyone else killed or hurt because of it.

Sleep did not come easily that night, and when it did come it was broken by swirling, confused dreams, in which I found myself travelling through places both familiar and strange, from Commines in distant Flanders to the fastness on the promontory at Dunholm, where my first lord had met his end, across barren wildernesses, through forests so dense that the sun’s light could not penetrate them, on high mountain paths and ancient roads that stretched as far as I could see in either direction. Everywhere I saw the faces of sword-brothers long dead, whose names I couldn’t remember, but who at one time had been good friends of mine. By the roadside stood men unknown to me, with scarred cheeks, broken noses and blood-encrusted hollows where their eyes had once been. They shouted at me, accusing me of being the one who had sent them to their graves, and tried to crowd around me, to drag me from my horse. Wildly I struck out with my blade, hoping to dispatch them back to the earth where they belonged, but the moment its edge found flesh they began to flee, running faster than I could pursue them, in every direction, through twisting alleyways and streets thick with mud, between collapsing houses and writhing towers of flame. And then I heard a woman’s voice calling my name.

Oswynn.

I glanced about, searching for her face, but could not find her whichever direction I looked in. And then I turned once more and saw his face. The face of the man I had been seeking: the Danish jarl, Haakon Thorolfsson, with his wiry, greying hair trailing down his back, riding a white horse whose eyes burnt bright orange and whose nostrils spouted clouds of smoke, like the dragon that decorated his banner.

He saw me then, but no words came from his lips. Instead he began to laugh: a great thunderous sound that seemed to echo through the very ground and which caused flaming brands to topple from the nearest building, showering me with sparks, blinding me with their light, and my cloak and tunic and hair were suddenly ablaze, and my mount was rearing up and I was thrashing around, trying at one and the same time to tear the clothes from my back and to put out the flames before they consumed me too-

And that was when I awoke, breathless, my brow running with sweat, the linen bedsheets and woollen blanket that covered them wound about me, the chamber spinning. I blinked, trying to clear the image of the blaze from my mind. The hall was dark, although I could see a glimmer of grey light breaking in through the crack under the door, while from outside came the chirruping of thrushes, heralding the dawn.

A few strands of straw from the mattress had become stuck to my tunic, and I brushed them off as I rose and made my way towards the door, stepping lightly between the sleeping forms of the rest of my party, trying not to rouse them.

Out in the yard all was quiet save for a few chickens scratching at the dirt, but I noticed that the door to the stables lay open, which suggested Ædda was already about. I had seen him the previous night, although the last light was fast fading when he returned, having spent the day taking one of the palfreys to be reshod, which meant a journey of ten miles each way to the nearest manor with a farrier. One of my closest friends among the English, he was a quiet man, who kept largely to his own company, and I was pleased to see he hadn’t changed since I’d last seen him, except in one respect.

‘I have a wife, lord,’ he’d said.

‘A wife?’ I asked, overjoyed though at the same time more than a little surprised. We’d been gone a matter of months, after all. ‘Who is she? When did this happen?’

‘I first met her at the market in Leomynstre, about a week after you left for the Fens. Sannan, her name is. A tanner’s daughter, and a widow at twenty-three.’

‘Twenty-three?’ I repeated.

He gave a boyish grin, and there was a glint in his one remaining eye, which was a rare thing from someone who was usually so sombre. Ædda had long ago lost count of how many summers he had seen, although to judge by his weathered appearance I reckoned he was probably a good ten years older than myself.

‘She met my eye, and I met hers, and for both of us it was love in that moment,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known a creature so beautiful. I saw her again the next week and the one after that, and then the one after that I went to her father with the bride-price and we were wed two days later.’

I was glad for him. Men, women and children alike often feared him on account of his disfigured face, partly the result of an enemy spear that had put out one of his eyes as a youth, leaving only an ugly black scar, and partly due to the burns he’d received in an incident he’d never wished to discuss, which had left the skin across one cheek white and raw and painful to look at, though undoubtedly not as painful as it was to bear. Ædda Aneage, he was sometimes called, which meant Ædda the One-eyed, though people were careful not to speak that byname in his presence lest he became roused to anger. He was, at heart, a gentle soul, as any who knew him well would confirm, and it pleased me that he had found someone who could see past his appearance to the person within.

‘Do you want to meet her, lord?’ he asked. ‘Her mother was Welsh, but her father is English, and she speaks both tongues. She’ll be glad to meet you at last. I’ve told her all about you.’

He’d led me to his small cottage next to the sheepfolds, where Sannan was building up the fire with twigs and broken branches gathered from the woods. Truly Ædda had been blessed, for she was a fine girl, red-haired and slender, who blushed as she smiled and who was at every moment attentive to her man. Though it does me ill to admit it, I was a little jealous of him. They invited me to stay and sup with them, there being just enough food to make a meal for three, and I accepted. We filled our bellies with boiled mutton, beans and fresh-baked bread, and though the fare was simple, I was content to be there and to enjoy their company.

All this I would miss.

Now, though it was barely first light, the stableman was already at work, placing feedbags on the doors to each of the stalls.

‘Lord,’ he said with some surprise when he saw me. ‘You’re risen early.’

‘For the first time in weeks I find myself with a comfortable mattress to lie down on and I can’t even sleep the whole night through,’ I said ruefully.

Ædda did not join me in a smile. The mischievousness he’d shown yesterday was gone, and his usual sombreness had returned. Last night it had been possible to pretend that all was well, but now the day had come when I would leave Earnford behind, and we both knew it.

‘I took a stone from the hind hoof of the girl’s palfrey,’ he said. ‘He’ll need to rest that foot for a day or two, but she can take one of the others.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t mean to pry but I was wondering, lord. That girl, Eithne. Is she your-?’

‘No,’ I said, laughing, before he could finish that thought. ‘Too quarrelsome for my liking. But she’s going to help me find the one who is.’

He nodded. ‘The rest of the horses are groomed and fed. They’ll carry you as far as you need to go to.’

‘I’m going to leave Fyrheard,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if I can take him where we’re going, and I couldn’t bear to sell him to another master. But I don’t want whoever happens to be lord here after me to have him either.’

‘I’ll see that he’s well taken care of, lord, and the other destriers too. I have a friend at Clune who owes me a favour. He’ll gladly keep them for you, make sure they’re well exercised and given the finest grazing, at least until you return. I’ll make sure to visit them when I can, too.’

I gave him my thanks. The Englishman went to fetch a bundle of hay from the lean-to that served as a storehouse.

‘Has there been any sign of the Welsh while we’ve been away?’ I asked when he came back.

‘None. It’s been quiet. There was only one raid, if you could call it that. Two lads tried to steal a pig from the pens the night of the feast of St Oda, but the animal squealed and woke half the manor. Galfrid caught them, but they were so young that he took pity on them and sent them away.’

I didn’t bother asking when St Oda’s feast was. The English had so many saints, some of them barely known outside of the shire they hailed from, that it was a wonder they could remember even half of them.

At least there hadn’t been any further attacks, and that was some relief. Probably the Welsh were still licking their wounds after their defeat at King Guillaume’s hands last autumn, which had sent them fleeing back to the hovels that passed for halls in their land.

‘Has there been any news of Bleddyn?’

The King of Gwynedd and Powys, Bleddyn had held me captive for several weeks last year, and even tried to sell me to some of the English rebels. His was yet another name on the list of men who had wronged me, and whom I’d sworn to kill, although as yet I hadn’t succeeded in delivering on any of those promises.

‘Nothing,’ said Ædda. ‘As I said, it’s been quiet.’

‘With any luck things will stay that way a while longer.’

‘I hope so, lord.’

We embraced. ‘I wish you well,’ I said. ‘Both you and Sannan.’

‘And the same to you, lord. God willing, we’ll see you again before long.’

‘You will,’ I said. ‘I know it.’

And I wished I believed it.

One final thing remained for me to do before we left. As the first of the sun’s rays gleamed through the woods to the east, I ventured down towards the half-built church. In its yard, amidst the fallen leaves, I found what I had come for. There was no stone cross, no grave-marker to show it, but I knew by the way the ground rose and dipped and the way that the grass grew thickly that this was the place.

Kneeling down on the dewy ground, I closed my eyes, bringing back to mind Leofrun’s face and all the happy times we had enjoyed together. It was probably true that I had never cared for her quite as deeply as she cared for me, although whether she ever realised that, I wasn’t sure. I had known few women as warm in heart or as generous in spirit as she. Now I was leaving Earnford behind to go in search of another. I only hoped that, if we met again in the heavenly kingdom, she would understand. After giving a prayer for the safekeeping of her soul and that of Baderon, our son — the son I’d never known, who had died almost before he had lived, and was buried beside her — I breathed a long sigh, reluctantly raised myself and made back in the direction of the hall. Day was upon us and we couldn’t tarry here any longer.

We set off not long after that, as soon as the horses were ready and our saddle-packs had been crammed with provisions for the days ahead. In a chest hidden in the hollow space beneath the timber floor of my new hall were six leather corselets, one reinforced with iron studs, that I’d taken from a Welsh chief and members of his household guard during one of our raids across the dyke a few months earlier. They were made for shoulders broader than my own, but they were in good condition and so we took them with us, thinking that if nothing else we might be able to sell them. There were also several knives and a rusted seax that I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d kept. We took the best of the weapons, since one never knew when a blade might shear. It would be useful to have spares, and so we buckled the sheaths upon our waists. I even gave one of the knives to Eithne, hoping that didn’t prove to be a mistake and that I didn’t end up with the blade buried in my back the next time I let my guard slip. That didn’t seem likely; the longer she spent in our company, the more comfortable she seemed to grow. This was my way of repaying her trust.

Lastly, buried at the very bottom of the chest, there was a small pouch of coins that I’d forgotten about. There wasn’t much there, but I knew that every slightest shaving of silver would prove useful in the days and weeks and months ahead, or however long it would take me to find this Haakon, and to be reunited with Oswynn, and so I took it too, hanging it by a leather cord around my neck, under my tunic. To that meagre hoard Galfrid offered me a purse containing gold and a few precious stones that had come from selling fleeces and fish to traders at market over the past few months.

‘I only wish there was more,’ he said as he bade me take it.

‘I can’t accept this,’ I said. ‘What if the winter is harsh, like last year? What if the harvest isn’t enough, and you need to buy more grain?’

‘We have all that we need. That’s what’s left. Your entitlement as lord.’

‘And I want you to take this, too,’ said Father Erchembald, who along with Ædda had also risen early to bid us farewell. He unfastened a silver chain from around his neck, from which hung a gold-worked and garnet-studded cross.

‘Father-’

He took my hand, pressed the cross into my palm and closed my fingers around it. ‘You have been a good lord to us, and a good friend too. A better defender of this manor and these people I could not have asked for. This is the smallest token of my gratitude. God be with you always, Tancred. I only pray that you will be safe on your travels, wherever they take you.’

‘I will,’ I assured him. ‘I promise. As long as we have our swords by our sides, no harm will come to us.’

I tried to sound confident, but the truth was that the thought of venturing beyond the sea to lands unknown filled me with not a little trepidation. Some of that uncertainty must have been betrayed in my manner, for the priest gave me a look that suggested he didn’t entirely believe me.

‘I hope that you’re right,’ he said. ‘But, please, take care all the same.’

They had been steadfast allies through all the recent tumults, and a part of me wished they could come with me, but I knew very well that they couldn’t. Their place was here, at Earnford. Asking them to follow me into exile as outlaws was something I could never ask them to do. Besides, they had already given me so much: more, indeed, than Robert had in the past year, in spite of all his promises. Merely by harbouring me they were making themselves complicit in my crimes and thus putting themselves in danger. Words could not express my gratitude.

Having made our farewells, armed ourselves, gathered what other provisions we might need for the days ahead, saddled the palfreys and the rounceys that would carry our packs, and been offered trinkets and various good luck charms by the alewives and their menfolk, at last we set out along the winding tracks, leaving Earnford behind us for what, for all I knew, could be for ever. In time, perhaps, the rift between Robert and myself would be healed and I would find myself back here once again. But despite my best attempts to convince myself otherwise, I couldn’t shake the feeling deep inside that I would never again so much as look out over that valley, or tread its soil.

I’d reasoned that anyone pursuing us would be coming on Earl Roger’s orders from Scrobbesburh to the north, and so with that in mind we struck out in the other direction, making first for Hereford, where we were given directions to Glowecestre, the town on the Saverna in which the king had celebrated Christmas and held his court a couple of years previously. There we sold our horses, and managed to secure a good price for them, too, though not without some negotiation on my part, before buying passage on a wide-bellied Norman trader, which was bound for Cadum, where its captain planned to sell fleeces in exchange for stone for building. He wasn’t planning to make port elsewhere, but at the sight of our silver quickly changed his mind, agreeing to take us to Brycgstowe, where I reckoned we were more likely to find a ship that would take us where we wanted to go.

News had only just reached those towns of the king’s victory over the rebels, and so I doubted we would find any trouble there, but even so I was wary of attracting too much attention to ourselves. Thus we took care to disguise our appearance as far as possible, carrying rough staves hewn from fallen branches and smearing our faces and covering our cloaks and trews with dust and mud, while those of us who had beards allowed them to grow. That way, if we did by some coincidence cross paths with anyone who might otherwise have recognised the faces of Tancred the Breton and his companions, they would see instead only five dishevelled, road-worn travellers. Or so, at least, I hoped. Thankfully no one challenged us during the five days it took us to reach Brycgstowe, by which time I reckoned we were probably safe. The city was a busy port, and wealthy too, second in all of England probably only to Lundene: a place where merchants from all corners of Christendom and beyond came to sell their wares, where slavers sometimes held their markets, where wealthy pilgrims sought passage to holy places in far-off lands, all of them accompanied by bands of men for protection, so that a group of armed travellers such as us was far from unusual.

We jostled our way along the quayside, past snorting oxen laden with packs and horses pulling carts, around groups of dockhands vying for the attention of captains, who wanted only the strongest lads to help them unload their cargo. I tried asking some of them where I might find a ship bound for Dyflin, but failed to get much of an answer from them, until one of the younger ones pointed a short way downriver to where a broad-beamed ship some twenty benches or so long had been drawn up above the tideline on the mudflats to the west of the city’s ramparts.

‘That’s Hrithdyr,’ he said. ‘Her master is a Dane, from Haltland or Orkaneya or somewhere like that. I don’t know his name but I’ve heard from some of the others who’ve worked her that this is his last voyage before winter, that he’ll be sailing back north before long. If you’re wanting passage across the sea to Yrland, he’s the one to ask.’

‘Are there any others?’

‘Not so far as I know, lord. One sailed that way two days ago, and there might be another in a week’s time.’

That was useful knowledge to have, for it gave me some idea of the position I’d be bargaining from. I thanked him and signalled to the others to follow me.

‘You won’t find him there,’ he called as we were about to walk away.

I stopped and turned. ‘Where, then?’

He gave a shrug, but I saw in his eyes that he knew. The lad wasn’t stupid. He’d realised that if we had money for passage across the sea, then we must have coin enough to spare a penny or two for his help.

I drew one from my purse and held it up. His eyes gleamed and he reached for it, but I closed my fist and snatched it away before he got so much as a fingertip to it.

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘Most of the ship captains stay in the town at a tavern called the Two Boars. That where he’s most likely to be at this hour.’

‘Show me to this tavern and the coin will be yours,’ I said. ‘Not before.’

He scowled but gave in, leading us through a series of narrow, rutted alleys until we stood beneath a sign on which had been crudely daubed a pair of tusked, four-legged animals that could, I supposed, if one squinted hard and for long enough, be taken for boars. I tossed him the coin I’d promised and he caught it deftly before scurrying away.

Inside, men sat at tables, drinking, playing at dice and at tæfl, a game not unlike chess, played on a squared board, of which I had been taught the rudiments but which I’d never been able to master. A woman with a brace of keys dangling from her belt, whom I took for the innkeeper’s wife, came to greet us, and I asked her where I might find the captain of Hrithdyr. She pointed towards one of the tæfl-players, a bearded, corpulent man in his middle years who was sitting close by the blazing hearth-fire, his brow glistening with sweat, his small eyes peering out from under heavy brows as he contemplated his next move. He and his opponent, a thin-faced greybeard, both glanced up as we approached.

‘What do you want?’ snarled the fat one in English. ‘Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a game?’

‘I’m looking for a ship to take us across the sea to Dyflin,’ I replied, unperturbed. ‘I hear that’s where you’re bound.’

‘Who wants to know?’

It was probably unwise to give him my real name, and so instead I gave him one I’d used before on occasion. ‘Goscelin,’ I said. ‘Goscelin of Saint-Omer, in Flanders.’

I extended a hand, but he did not take it. ‘I know where Saint-Omer is,’ he said curtly. ‘A few years ago I happened to meet a travelling monk who came from there. Talkative, he was, always babbling about some saint or another. He was called Goscelin, too, as it happens. He would have been around your size, though I don’t remember his face. You’re not him, are you?’

‘Do I look to you like a man of the cloister?’

He grunted, and I took that for an answer. ‘If you’re from Flanders, why are you wanting to go to Dyflin?’

‘My business is my own. I have silver enough to pay for the passage, and that’s all you need to know.’

The greybeard made to rise from his stool, saying, ‘If you’re going to spend the next hour-’

‘Sit down, Wulfric,’ said the Dane. ‘This won’t take long.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ the one called Wulfric grumbled. ‘You’ve won anyway.’ He took an enamelled ring from his finger and laid it down on the table. ‘There, as wagered. Perhaps next spring when you come, I’ll have the chance to win it back from you.’

‘Perhaps.’ The Dane grinned in a manner that put me in mind of a wolf while the old man shuffled off, then, when we were alone, he said to me: ‘What makes you think I want any passengers? Maybe I do well enough from my trade that I have no need for your money. Have you considered that?’

On my belt was a purse containing a clutch of gold coins that bore a strange curly script I couldn’t decipher, which had been part of Galfrid’s gift to us. I untied the knot, tossed it on to the table so he could hear the clink of metal within, and gestured for him to open it, which he did, loosening the drawstring and allowing the tiny discs to spill out into his palm. He examined them closely, holding them to the light and testing each one with his teeth.

‘Five of you?’ he asked, his eyes flicking to each of us in turn before settling on Eithne. A smirk came to his lips. ‘The girl as well?’

‘That’s right.’

He looked her up and down, and I saw hunger of a sort in his expression. ‘She’d fetch a fine price, I reckon. Does she belong to you?’

‘She’s not for sale, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘What is she then? Your wife?’

‘A fellow traveller.’

If the Dane was at all insulted by my terse manner, he didn’t show it. He shook his head. ‘I don’t have space aboard for that many. Three of you, easily, possibly four. But not five.’

Tæfl wasn’t the only game he knew how to play. I supposed I should have expected as much. I removed the smaller and thinner of the two arm-rings that I wore, and placed it in front of him.

‘Do you have space now?’

He fingered it, his sweaty brow furrowing while he contemplated whether or not to accept, and I stood watching, waiting, thinking that this was already a steep price to pay, and wondering how much more I could afford. Thankfully that was a decision I didn’t have to make.

‘We sail in two days, on the morning flood tide,’ he said.

‘Two days?’ I repeated. The sooner we could leave these shores, the better, and I’d been hoping to find a ship that could take us almost straightaway.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘In a hurry to leave, are you?’

I knew that to protest would be pointless, and might only further arouse his suspicions, of which I was sure he already had a few, and so instead I kept my mouth shut.

‘It makes no difference to me who you are or what it is you’re running from. But I’ll tell you this: we won’t wait for you. If you’re not there by the time we’re ready to cast off, you can swim to Yrland for all I care. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘You can keep your gold until we’re out on the water,’ he said. ‘So that you don’t have to worry about me sailing away with it. I’ve been called many things in my life, but a thief isn’t one of them. I have a reputation to maintain, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.’

I knew only too well the value of reputation, marred though mine was in those days. He passed the gold and the arm-ring back to me, we clasped hands, and it was agreed. We were going to Dyflin.