The Splintered Kingdom

Twelve

The enemy were later leaving Caerswys than I had expected; it had already been light for some while when we first received word that they had been spotted filing out from the fort’s gatehouse. The skies were grey and a steady drizzle had been falling since before daybreak, dampening the men’s spirits with every hour that passed and also, I imagined, frustrating Maredudd’s archers, who needed to keep their bowstrings dry or else the sinews would stretch and be useless. I could only hope that, huddled low amidst the gorse bushes and the heather, they had found some shelter from the damp.

In any case it was too late now to do anything about that, as through the trees and the bracken I glimpsed the first few Welshmen, albeit still several hundred paces off. Their spearpoints bobbed as they climbed the track that led up the hill towards us, and though they had no way of knowing it, towards their deaths. I’d been right insofar as they were heading north, although already it seemed to me that they numbered more than the one hundred our scouts had told me yesterday. Indeed I would have said they had half that many again, though any exact count was impossible; they did not ride or march in ordered lines but rather in groups of as few as five men or as many as twenty. Not all of them were warriors either, for among them I spied more than a few women: soldiers’ wives and other camp-followers; gatherers of wood, tenders of stew-pots, stitchers of wounds and menders of cloth.

‘Remember who’s beside you in the charge,’ I said to my conroi and the rest of the knights around me. ‘Stay close and watch your flanks; don’t break from the line.’

Of course they knew all of this already, but battle does strange things to one’s mind. Many times I had seen men whom I usually considered clear-headed become blinded by rage, by the bloodlust, by dreams of glory. Forgetting themselves and where they were, they would ride gladly to their deaths, only realising their folly when it was already too late. I had no wish to see any of my men succumb to that fate — friends and sword-brothers whom I had grown to know so well — and so I gave them this reminder, regardless of whether or not they thought they needed it.

Already the enemy vanguard was approaching the place where Maredudd lay waiting. My grip upon the reins tightened as I waited for him to give the signal to his archers to let their arrows fly. Surely it would not be long now. It didn’t help that the enemy were not all in one column, as I had been hoping, but rather strung out along the track, since that made them harder targets. Nihtfeax pawed restlessly at the ground and I patted his neck to keep him calm. Like men, horses grow anxious before a fight; whether they can feel the apprehension in the air or sense when danger is near, I have never been able to tell, but at the very least they know when they are about to be called upon, and so it was then.

He wasn’t the only one who was anxious. I was too, partly because this would be the first time I had led so many men in the charge and partly because somewhere lost amidst the darkness of the woods to my rear was Berengar. I would have preferred to have him where I could see him, but I didn’t trust him enough to put him and his comrades in my conroi or even in the first line, and so he lurked in the ranks, no doubt stirring up sentiment against me, for he seemed to me the kind of man who would do that, even in these moments before the charge. My blood rose as I pictured his hard-eyed scowl: about the only expression I had seen him show in the short while I had known him. Still, I couldn’t let my anger get the better of me; all I could do was trust that he and his comrades would do their part, as he had promised. Until victory was assured I couldn’t afford to waste time on petty distractions such as him, no matter how much he tried my patience.

I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply, letting the moist smell of the earth and the leaves fill my nose, imagining what I would do when we met the Welsh lines, rehearsing in my mind each swing of my sword. Behind me Pons swore, too loudly for my liking, and I shot him a glance over my shoulder as he wiped glistening white droppings from his mailed arm. Above our heads, a colony of jackdaws cawed as they squabbled; the last thing I wanted to do was startle them and cause them to fly up, since there could be no clearer sign to the enemy that something was wrong, and our plans, so carefully set in place, would be scattered to the winds.

‘Quiet,’ I told him.

He spat on the ground, and then glanced up, face screwed into a look of disgust as he searched the rustling branches for the offending creature. ‘Bloody birds,’ he said.

‘They can shit on you all day long for all that I care. Now shut up.’

It would not be long now. The stragglers in the enemy train were making their way up the track, these ones on foot rather than mounted, the men carrying packs while the women bore their shields, carrying them by their long guige straps across their backs.

‘Any man who so much as lays a finger on any of those women will know my sword-edge,’ I said, making sure that the message was passed on down the line.

Eudo was beside me. ‘So that you can have them first, you mean?’ he asked with a smirk.

‘So that they can go and tell their countrymen of the slaughter we wrought here,’ I replied.

It was partly true, but it was not the main reason, which was that I wanted to make sure that I had discipline. We were here for a purpose, and I was confident that allowing men to slake their lusts at every opportunity was not a part of what Fitz Osbern had in mind. Nor could we take any captives with us, since they would only slow us down.

Besides, I knew all too well what could happen when men were given rein to do as they would. If all those who had gone looting and drinking at Dunholm had held themselves back, perhaps they would have been ready when the Northumbrians had come. Were that the case, we would surely have won that victory and so many good men would not now lie dead, their corpses left to rot in a wild and distant land. It was pointless to wonder about what might have been, since what was done could not be changed, but I was determined not to allow the same thing to happen again. And so if I said that no women were to be touched, then that was how it would be, and any who dared ignore me would face my wrath.

I turned my attention back towards the road, where, having now climbed to the top of the ridge, the enemy vanguard had drawn to a halt. I froze, thinking for a moment that they had seen something and our plan was discovered, until I realised that they were only waiting for the rest to catch up. In so doing they could not know that they were making themselves easy targets for Maredudd’s archers.

Even as that thought entered my head, it happened. A flash of movement amidst the gorse beyond the road, and suddenly a cluster of dark lines shot silently up into the grey skies, followed by another and another and yet more still. They sailed high, their silver heads glinting dully in the dim light, before arcing down, plunging back towards the earth. Men and women called to one another in warning, but it was in vain. One man dropped as he took a shaft in his chest; another yelled as one ran through his shoulder; behind him a horse screamed and reared up, hooves raised high as it tossed its rider to the dirt.

And so it had begun.

I held up a hand to stall my knights, who were glancing at me, ready for the signal. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

I spied the dark forms of Maredudd’s archers standing in a line a hundred paces to the other side of the enemy, who were in sudden disarray. Another volley was let loose, and another, as fast as the men could draw the shafts from their arrow-bags. So spread out were their targets, however, that most of them fell harmlessly on to the path or amongst the heather. It was enough to startle the ponies, some of which were bolting, one trailing a man who had not managed to free his foot from the stirrup. His cries were in vain as the animal galloped back down the way that they had come, and several times his head bounced off the ground before he struck a rock, and then he was still.

‘Ysgwydeu!’ one of the enemy shouted, amidst the cries of panic. I could not tell whether or not he was their leader, since from this distance they all looked the same, but the call was taken up by some of the other men, who were at last starting to rally: ‘Ysgwydeu! Ysgwydeu!’

Almost as one their women ran to their menfolk’s sides, unlooping the long straps from around their shoulders and passing them the shields before just as quickly rushing back to lead their animals out of arrow-shot. Steel continued to spit down from the sky, but the enemy did not think to form a line, to raise the shield-wall and protect their faces. Instead, driven to rage by the deaths of their comrades, they charged headlong upon Maredudd’s men, crashing through the heather and the gorse, not keeping to their ranks but simply running as fast as their legs could manage. They roared with one voice, shouting out in their tongue as they brandished their weapons high: their spears and their knives and their axes.

This was the moment I had been waiting for: the moment for which I had been longing for so many months. I gripped the brases of my tall kite shield in my left hand, wrapping my fingers around the lance-haft in my right. My heart leapt in my chest, and I could feel the blood surging through my veins, growing hotter and hotter-

A war-horn bellowed out, deep-throated and baleful like the call of some monstrous beast: the signal from Maredudd.

‘Now,’ I yelled, not just for my own knights to hear but for every other conroi that was with me too. ‘For St Ouen and Normandy, for Fitz Osbern and King Guillaume!’

The jackdaws flapped and screeched at the suddenness of the sound, rising in their dozens from the branches as all around me the answering cry came: ‘For King Guillaume!’

Raising my hawk pennon high, I spurred Nihtfeax forward, controlling him with my legs alone as we burst out from the trees on to the heath, my sword-brothers by my flanks, hooves pounding the soft ground, and it seemed that the earth itself trembled under the weight of our charge as more than a hundred horsemen rode knee to knee, and now I couched my lance under my arm, ready for the moment when we would meet the enemy. Behind me I heard Ithel raise a battle-cry in Welsh: a cry that was echoed by his spearmen who were following, but their voices were soon lost amidst the thunder of the blood in my ears.

Less than two hundred paces before us were the enemy, chasing down Maredudd’s now-fleeing archers. So lost were they in thoughts of avenging their fallen comrades that they failed to notice us bearing down upon them. Made clumsy by the shields on their arms and the weapons in their hands, they stumbled over some of the lower bushes, sprawling as they met the hidden ditches and pits that we had dug last night and covered over with branches and long grass. All the while they grew ever more spread out; Maredudd was waving to his men, sending them in all directions, and the enemy did not know which ones to chase.

Those of the womenfolk who had seen what was happening screamed warnings from further down the road, but their husbands and their brothers did not seem to hear, or else if they did, they did not heed them. Not, at least, until it was too late.

The ground disappeared beneath us as I pushed Nihtfeax into a gallop. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some of the knights at the end of the line falling a little behind and I yelled at them to keep formation. Not that I had time to see whether in fact they’d listened, since then we were upon the enemy. Some of them had awoken to the danger from their rear and were turning, but they were too few and too dispersed to make much of a stand against us. I glimpsed my first foe standing before me, eyes wide as he saw a hundred mailed horsemen and more bearing down upon him. Struck dumb with fear, he knew not whether to fight or whether to flee, and in the end he did neither. I drove my lance into his shoulder, knocking him to the ground where his body was crushed under the weight of so many hooves.

Within an instant he was forgotten; already I was moving on, keeping up the momentum of the charge. One man, seeing his death before him, hurled his spear towards me; I ducked low and it sailed past my head. Sscreaming his final words, he ran at us with knife in hand. But if he thought he might take one of us with him, he was wrong, as the point of my lance found his chest, striking ribs and puncturing his heart. Blood spurted forth, spattering my chausses, and as he toppled backwards I left the weapon lodged in his torso as I drew my sword instead.

‘No mercy!’ I shouted.

We were among the enemy now and panic was spreading through them. To my left Wace and his men battered down upon shields, burying their blades in the flesh of their foes, while to my right a tide of men and horses and naked steel rolled across the heath, sweeping all before it, engulfing the enemy and driving them down. Shouts of panic filled the air, as they saw themselves trapped between us on the one hand and, on the other, Maredudd’s archers, who were rallying once more and picking off any who tried to flee. Corpses littered the field of battle, lying in the ditches or else scattered amidst the undergrowth: some with feathered shafts protruding from their backs and sides; others with bright gashes across the backs of their skulls, their tunics torn, their faces marked with crimson streaks.

‘On,’ I said. ‘On! On!’

My shield and sword felt light in my hands; my mail no longer weighed upon my shoulders. Each breath brought a fresh surge of vigour to my limbs, and my blade-edge sang with the song of battle, ringing out with each strike, with each foeman it sent to his death. Around me the world itself seemed to slow: I could sense every swing of their weapons, every movement of their shields even before they happened, and all of a sudden I was laughing with the ease of it all, laughing with the joy of the fight and the delight of the kill. Victory was at hand; I could almost grasp it, and with that knowledge in mind I spurred Nihtfeax onwards, no longer caring about keeping formation. All that concerned me now was finding the next man who would meet his end upon my sword-point. The enemy fell before me, and for the first time in a long while I felt free. The battle-calm was upon me, and I was lost to the will of my blade, bringing it down again and again and again as I clove a path through my foes, swinging and parrying and thrusting, falling into a rhythm so familiar it had become instinctive, sending them to hell.

All too soon it was over. One last strike of my blade, tearing through the throat of a flaxen-haired youth, and I found myself alone with no one else to kill. Sweat rolled off my brow and I wiped it from my eyes while the bloodlust faded and I recovered my breath and glanced about. All the rest of the enemy had turned to flight, most of them turning back down the hill, following their womenfolk who were already halfway back towards the fort. A few tried to escape across the heath, evidently hoping to lose their pursuers amidst the clumps of gorse, although their attempts were in vain for they were soon ridden down, their broken and bloodied bodies trampled into the dirt. They had been routed, and now the field of battle belonged to us.

‘For Normandy,’ I called out, raising my sword to the heavens. The cheer was taken up by the rest of our knights, all chanting as one with me: ‘For Normandy!’

‘Cymry!’ another shout went up, and I saw that it was Ithel, leading the cry as he rallied his foot-warriors about him, and his words were echoed by his brother’s men on the other side of the field.

We had lost few men so far as I could tell, which was to be expected given our advantage in numbers. Perhaps a dozen of Maredudd’s men had fallen, and around the same number of Ithel’s too. As I scanned about I counted at least seven mailed corpses that probably belonged to Frenchmen, which to my mind was seven too many. Next to some of them lay their horses, some dead but the rest wounded, shrieking in pain as they writhed on the ground, guts half spilling from their bellies. I marshalled my conroi to me, making sure that they were all present. None seemed to have been injured that I could see, and that was as well, since far sterner challenges awaited than this.

Pons had retrieved my lance with its hawk pennon from the chest of the man it had been buried in, and he handed it to me. Where the cloth had once been white, now its corners were stained pink.

‘A good victory, lord,’ said Serlo. There was blood on his face and spattered across his mail, but he did not seem to care. For once his serious expression had vanished, and in its place was a broad smile.

‘The first of many,’ Turold added as he sheathed his blade.

‘So long as God is willing,’ I replied, likewise grinning. All my life I had known nothing like the taste of a successful day’s fighting for putting men in good humour, and so it was then. They slapped one another on the back and embraced as if drunk, whooping with delight as they congratulated their comrades on all the foemen they had slain. Others set about looting the corpses of those who had fallen on both sides, many of them fighting amongst themselves for the most valuable things as they claimed coin-purses, corselets of leather, helmets, knife-sheaths, brooches and even shoes, until some of those bodies lay all but naked.

I ought to have intervened, since by right a large part of that loot belonged to myself as the leader of the expedition. But in truth my attention was elsewhere. Close by the road I had spotted Berengar. He was still in the saddle, which was how I was able to spot him, though for whatever reason he was some way off from where most of the fighting had taken place, surrounded by some twenty or so of his comrades and retainers. Their pennons, decorated in his colours of scarlet and blue, hung damp and still from their lances. Even though I could not make out what they were doing there, something about the way they were gathered aroused my suspicions.

‘Come with me,’ I said, gesturing to Pons, Turold and Serlo.

They glanced at each other with confused expressions but they did not question me, instead leaving their animals to the care of the rest of our conroi and following me as I strode across the heath. Men raised their fists and their swords when they caught sight of me, clamouring my name, and I acknowledged them with a wave as we passed, though as I knew well it took more than one man to win a battle: this was more their victory than mine, and it was they who deserved the cheers, not I.

Berengar had dismounted by the time we approached, and his friends had formed a ring around him, jeering loudly and calling out insults, although through the press of men and horses I couldn’t see at whom they were directed. As I got closer I heard what sounded like a woman’s voice, though her words were not ones I could understand, closely followed by the wail of an infant.

‘What’s going on here?’ I asked. So intent were Berengar’s companions on whatever was happening that they did not hear me. Shouting for them to make way, I forced myself through their midst, ignoring their curses.

‘Hey,’ one protested as I tried to push past. ‘You’re not the only one who wants to see, friend.’

I stared back into his close-set eyes, though he stood more than half a head taller than me. ‘You’d do well to show some respect,’ I said, jabbing a finger into his chest. ‘Especially when you clearly don’t know to whom you’re speaking.’

‘Listen to what he says,’ Serlo added, loudly enough so that everyone else could hear too. ‘Or don’t you recognise Lord Tancred?’

That, at least, provoked a murmur, and as the word passed around the circle, one by one their gazes turned towards us.

The one who had challenged me bowed his head, saying: ‘I’m sorry, lord, I didn’t mean-’

I wasn’t about to wait for the rest of his apology. ‘Out of my way,’ I said, barging past.

The rest were more obliging and quickly made way. Berengar stood in the middle of the circle, a knife in one hand and a bundle of frayed cloth in the crook of his other arm. At his feet, prevented from rising by two stout knights who held her shoulders, knelt one of the Welshwomen. Slight of build and fair of complexion, she could have been no more than about sixteen or seventeen in years. Her dress and hood were muddied, her sleeves torn, her auburn hair in disarray. From her lips came a stream of words I could not understand, though there was no mistaking her tone, which was one of desperation. Tears flooded her eyes, streaming down her face, and her hands were clasped together as if she were pleading with him.

Again I heard those infant’s wails, and this time I saw where they were coming from. For almost buried within the cloth held by Berengar was the fragile form of a child: one so small that it could barely have been born.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked Berengar, who had not moved. His naked blade was poised; for what purpose I could not quite make out — or rather I had some inkling, but the thought horrified me and I did not want to believe it.

‘What do you think?’ he retorted. ‘Making sure her son doesn’t live to hold a spear in the enemy’s shield-wall.’

I stared at him in disbelief. For all his foul temper, I had not imagined him the kind of man given to such cruelty.

‘We don’t slaughter children,’ I said.

‘What do you care?’

‘For the love of Christ, Berengar, he’s no more than a baby.’

‘For now, yes. But what happens when he grows up, when in years to come he decides to take up arms against us? How many Frenchmen would you let him kill?’

I didn’t deign to answer, for that would only dignify his question. ‘Give him to me,’ I said instead.

‘Why? So you can let him and his whore of a mother go free?’

I stepped towards him, aware of more than twenty pairs of eyes watching us, and aware too of the silence that had fallen around us. He backed away, bringing the edge of his knife closer to the infant’s chest. The girl screamed, struggling against the grip of the two who held her.

‘So that no one has to die who doesn’t have to,’ I said. ‘This woman and her child are not our enemies.’

‘Maybe you should do as he suggests, lord,’ said one of the two sturdy-looking men restraining the Welshwoman. His face was familiar, for I had seen him in Berengar’s company before, though I could not recall his name — if ever I had learnt it. One of his household knights, I suspected.

‘Maybe you should shut up, Frederic,’ Berengar shot back. ‘Your oath is to me. You owe nothing to this man.’

Affronted, the one called Frederic fell silent.

‘I’m tired of taking orders from him,’ Berengar went on, pointing a grimy finger in my direction. ‘He is no better than any of us; he is only our leader because he has Fitz Osbern’s favour. And yet what has he done to deserve that honour?’

I clenched my fist, trying to restrain my temper. If he had misgivings about my leadership, he should have spoken with me in private. By letting his grievances spill out into the open air, he made it clear that he sought to undermine me.

‘Tancred was at Eoferwic,’ another man called out, though I did not recognise him. ‘If it weren’t for him, we could never have taken the city.’

There was a roar of agreement, and I noticed Frederic exchanging uncertain glances with some of Berengar’s other knights.

But the man himself was not swayed. ‘So we keep hearing,’ he said with a snort. ‘But were any of you there? Did any of you actually see him fight the?theling, as he claims to have done?’

I started forward, speaking almost through gritted teeth: ‘Berengar-’

‘No,’ he said, cutting me off. ‘You will not tell me what to do any longer. These people are our enemies, and this is justice.’ For a second time he withdrew, this time turning so that his back was to me, as if trying to protect the howling child, though I knew that was not what he had in mind. He lifted his blade, the flat side gleaming dully in the grey morning light, the edge wickedly sharp.

Again the Welshwoman shrieked, and suddenly it seemed she had managed to shake off the hold of her captors, or perhaps they had decided after all to let her go. Either way it mattered little as she darted forward, almost tripping over the ragged hem of her skirt, making for Berengar, but he had seen her coming. Turning, he backhanded a slash with his knife, but he was too quick through the stroke. The steel passed inches from her face as instead the back of his hand connected with her cheek and her nose, sending her sprawling to the ground.

Before he could do anything more, however, I was upon him. While his attention was on her I rushed forward, seizing hold of his knife-arm, twisting it back so sharply that he had no choice but to drop the weapon. In the same moment I drew my own blade with my left hand and, grabbing him from behind, held it up to his neck.

‘Give the boy to his mother,’ I said. ‘Do it slowly, or else I swear my knife-edge will meet your throat.’

Dazed, the woman had managed to rise no further than her knees. Blood was running from her nostrils, mixing with her tears. Tenderly she pressed her hand to the place where she had been struck; her palm and fingers came away red.

‘Help her,’ I said to the circle of men who were looking on. ‘Someone help her.’

But they did not move, and I realised that their eyes were not upon the Welshwoman but on me, and on my blade, pressed to the neck of a fellow baron. A man who was lord and master to many of them.

I swallowed, realising what I had just done, but I could not undo it, nor could I waver. ‘Serlo, take the child from him. Turold, Pons, get the girl to her feet.’

The child’s wails rang in my ears. One becomes used to the cries of the dying, but the cries of those at the beginning of their lives are a different thing entirely. To speak truthfully, hearing them there, in that place, unsettled me in a way that I could not have imagined.

This child had been born into slaughter, into a world of hatred and bloodshed and cruelty. Even if he survived plague and famine and the sword, he would grow up hearing tales of what we had done here and elsewhere. Desiring of vengeance, he would most likely end his days in the same place they had begun. This was how it had happened before, and in the same way it would happen again, over and over through my lifetime and for centuries to come until the hour of reckoning itself.

But that was not what most shook my soul. Rather it was the realisation of how fragile were these bodies that kept our souls upon this earth; how but for good fortune an infant’s entire future could be taken away; how finely balanced was the blade-edge that separated death from life.

And there stood I, Tancred a Dinant: the bringer of both. The guardian of the weak and the killer of men. The shield and the scourge. The arbiter of fates. With one hand I gave life and hope, while with the other I took it away and in its place dealt slaughter and pain.

Sweat rolled off my brow, stinging my eyes, blurring my sight, and I blinked to try to clear it. Berengar let out a grunt, and only then did I realise how close my knife was to the vein in his neck: barely a hair’s breadth from his skin. He neither moved nor spoke as he allowed Serlo to gently lift the infant from his grasp, no doubt aware how close he was to spending an eternity in hell.

Pons and Turold helped the Welshwoman up. Spluttering, she received her child, cradling him in her arms, holding him tight to her chest as she caressed his tiny head.

‘Now go,’ I said to her, and to the rest of the men: ‘Make a path; let her through.’

This time they did as instructed, without question or hesitation. For a moment the girl stared at me, as if expecting some sort of trick.

‘Go,’ I said again, more forcefully this time, taking my hand off Berengar’s arm momentarily so that I could gesture down the hill, back towards Caerswys. Even then he knew better than to try anything; indeed he would have to be a brave man to do so, or else a stupid one, and he did not seem to me like either of those.

At last the girl seemed to understand what I was saying. Keeping her head down, not once looking back, she hurried as quickly as she could away from there, following the road. A group of three men were busy looting corpses not far off and they started forward when they saw her, but I shouted to them to let her alone, and thankfully they listened, instead returning to fight between themselves over a battered helmet that one of them had found.

Slowly I withdrew my knife from Berengar’s neck and replaced it in its sheath. No sooner had I done so than he wrested free of my grip, whirling about to face me, his eyes suffused with rage.

‘You bastard,’ he said, his hand flying to his sword-hilt. ‘You Devil-turd, you son of a whore!’

He stopped short of actually drawing his weapon, and I saw why, for Wace and Eudo as well as others were riding up, having seen what was happening. He must have realised that even if he managed to strike me down he would still have their lances to answer to, and judged that his life was worth more than that.

‘I ought to kill you now,’ he said, his voice low. His words were for me alone. ‘You’re lucky that you have your friends to protect you, but in future you’d better keep a watch out, for I’ll be waiting. Waiting until you make a mistake, and when you do, I’ll be there to make sure you know it.’

He spat on the ground at his feet, and with a final glare turned and marched away, waving without a word for his men and his comrades to follow him.

‘Don’t even think to cross me, Berengar,’ I yelled as he went. ‘Do you hear me?’

He did, of course, but he neither said anything nor even looked in my direction. His horse was brought to him by a retainer, he mounted up, and then he was riding away, and I was left standing there, my blood boiling, my anger barely subsiding. All around me there was silence, as the other barons waited for my next instruction: none wanted to be the first to speak for fear of incurring my wrath.

‘Gather your men,’ I said to them. ‘Let’s leave this place.’

That done, I turned and made for a stunted ash tree beneath which the Welsh brothers Maredudd and Ithel were embracing and congratulating each other on a well-won victory.

‘Was that wise?’ Wace asked as he fell into step beside me. ‘Threatening him in front of his own men, I mean.’

‘We’ll soon see, won’t we?’ I wanted to think no more about Berengar.

‘And for the sake of a single child too. You realise that after all that he’ll probably die of a fever next week. Either that or starvation; he looked that thin.’

‘He didn’t deserve death,’ I said. ‘And nor did she. Berengar wouldn’t have stopped at the baby.’ Admittedly that was a guess, though I could well imagine what might have happened. He would have made sure to draw it out, too. Only when he had finished with her would he finally have stuck his knife in her breast.

‘If you keep provoking him, it will simply turn others against you too. Soon you’ll find you have more enemies than you can even count.’

‘He’s hated me from the moment we met,’ I said. ‘What I want to know is why.’

‘And how are you going to find out?’

‘Have some of your knights, or else some of Eudo’s, talk to those who are closest to him and find out what they know.’

‘Why not your own men?’ he asked, frowning, and there was a hint of indignation in his tone.

‘They recognise Serlo, Turold and Pons,’ I said. ‘They’ve seen them in my company too often; they’ll be wary of them.’

Wace paused as if considering. ‘If you find out, what will you do then?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You cannot expect everyone in this world to be your friend, Tancred. Nor will this injury be healed any time soon. Whatever Berengar holds against you, you will not be able to sway him to your side. Not now.’

Wace was one of my longest-serving friends; I had always trusted his judgement. He was more level-headed than Eudo, and as long as I had known him he had always made sure to speak his mind, something that many men did not take kindly to, and which had often caused him trouble over the years, but which I respected. Even so, for all his well-meaning advice, on this occasion I could not help but feel that he was wrong. Only by knowing why Berengar held me in such contempt could I begin to understand what I might be able to do about it.

‘Will you do this for me?’ I asked.

He fixed his eyes, both the good and the crippled one, sternly upon me, and pursed his lips: a sign that his patience was being tried. ‘I think you’d do better to forget what has happened, and hope that he does the same.’ He spoke slowly, as if addressing a stubborn child.

‘That’s no answer.’

Wace sighed. ‘If you wish it, I’ll see what I can manage. But for what it’s worth, I think you should leave well alone.’

He walked away, clearly unhappy, and I sensed that there was something more to his discontent that he was not telling me, though I could not work out what.

When I look back on those times now, after so many years, I realise that I was fortunate to have such friends as him, though perhaps I did not always appreciate it at the time. Indeed Wace and Eudo were to me as brothers; the closest thing to kin that I had, and the years that we’d spent training at arms, feasting and drinking in the hall of the castle at Commines, fighting together under the same banner, were among the best I had known. Yet ever since our lord’s death it seemed that much had changed. After all, we were no longer merely sworn swords but barons in our own right; we had retainers of our own, and we had duties to them now as well as to each other. While those old bonds of companionship would continue to hold, none of us could deny that they were weaker than once they had been, and for that reason I confess to feeling a strange sort of sadness as I watched Wace striding to greet his own men.

Nor was that the only thing weighing upon my mind. Though I would not admit it to anyone, Berengar’s threats made me wary. Why that was, I wasn’t sure. Many men had sworn to kill me over the years, but usually that had been in the heat of battle, and I had been able to see them coming at me. This was different, and the more that I dwelt upon it, the more anxious I grew.

The rain began to fall more heavily. I drew my cloak closer about me and pulled my hood up over my head. And, despite myself, I shivered.