The Splintered Kingdom

Twenty

My heart sank. Robert would take me even further away from Earnford and the Marches that were my home. From Leofrun and my firstborn child, who all too soon would be entering this world. I would not be there when it happened.

‘Eoferwic?’ I asked.

‘There’s nowhere better,’ Robert said. ‘It lies far enough from the Marches and from the Danes to be in any danger, and it’s where my father is too.’

‘What about the?theling?’ I countered. ‘If the news coming out of the north is right, he’ll be marching sooner rather than later. When he does, his mind will be set on Eoferwic.’

‘Don’t forget he was ousted from there once before, and his entire army routed too. If he has any sense in him — if he’s learnt anything — he won’t want to suffer the same reversal twice. He has spent the months since then trying to convince the Northumbrian nobles to give him their support again. Now that he has it, he won’t want to squander it.’

‘Unless his overweening pride demands that he achieves what he failed to last year,’ I said. ‘He is that kind of man: determined and ambitious.’

Robert shrugged. ‘He can try as much as he likes but he will not succeed. He won’t take the city a second time. Its walls have been rebuilt, and with two castles now defending the riverbanks, any fleet or land army would be foolish to attempt an assault.’

I wasn’t convinced of that. I had lived long enough to know it was ever dangerous to underestimate an opponent, especially when it came to ambition and resourcefulness: two qualities I knew Eadgar did not lack.

‘You can’t assume that the?theling will abandon his journey simply because the road is difficult,’ I said. ‘He might be young but he is arrogant. He’d rather take the riskier route if the prize on offer is great enough. You haven’t met him, but I have, and I know.’

Indeed Eoferwic was a jewel to be prized: the greatest and most prosperous of all the towns in the north of the kingdom, second only to Lundene in the whole of England. With that in mind, it seemed to me unlikely that Eadgar would be deterred by the fact of the ditches having been dug a little deeper and the ramparts built another few feet higher. He had come close to succeeding before, and now that the king’s forces were spread even more thinly, the time was ripe for him to try again.

‘If you have somewhere better in mind, name it now,’ Robert said, clearly growing frustrated.

His tone took me aback, but I had nothing more to add or any other refuges to suggest. And so Eoferwic it would be. As a place where Beatrice might safely weather the storm to come, it was certainly no worse than Scrobbesburh. When last I was there the second castle was still being completed, under the eye of Guillaume fitz Osbern, no less. That was over a year ago: not since Wace, Eudo and I had given our oaths to Robert in the weeks following the great battle had I walked its streets. Only a month or so before that, we had been escorting his sister and their mother from Eoferwic to the safety of Lundene. Thus it was ironic that for the same reason, our paths now led us back there.

It is strange how sometimes we find our lives unfolding in circles, each step taking us not forward but merely around and around, until at last we end up where we began.

Eoferwic was where I had first sworn my allegiance to the Malet house and the banner of the black and gold. It was where this reputation I had unwittingly won for myself had been forged. If God were a poet and my life a song, then Eoferwic would be the refrain.

That night I slept better than I had done in some while. The wind was changing direction, turning to the east, and the air felt cooler, less stifling than it had been of late. I was long due some proper rest after days on campaign, bedding down on stony ground that dug into my back and my side. Indeed the first time I woke was when the tent-flap was pulled aside and I heard Robert’s voice telling me to wake.

Bleary-eyed, my mind still clouded with sleep, I raised myself from the blankets and crawled out. He and his conroi were already waiting. One of his knights carried the familiar black-and-gold banner, furled around the staff so as to attract less attention, while another carried a torch that hurt my eyes to look at.

‘I’m going to meet Beatrice,’ Robert said. ‘Join us by the town’s northern gates as soon as you can.’

He left some of his manservants to help us; I sent them to fetch our destriers and rounceys. Our saddlebags were already packed, and we had filled our wineskins the night before in readiness. While Snocca and Cnebba loaded them on to the sumpter ponies that we shared, the rest of us set about striking camp. The quicker we could be gone, the less attention we would draw. And the fewer people knew we were leaving, the fewer questions there would be.

We were tying our bedrolls to the ponies’ harnesses when Pons gave a shout. I turned quickly, thinking that something was wrong. Swearing violently, he dragged his foot out from one of the latrine pits; in the dark they weren’t easy to spot and he must have lost his footing. His shoe and the hem of his trews were soaked in piss.

‘Quiet!’ I told him as I buckled my sword-belt on to my waist. The last thing I wanted was too much noise. ‘Be more careful.’

He glared at me but thankfully after that he kept his curses quiet, muttering under his breath.

Mailed and mounted, we rode out. There was neither honour nor pride to be had in running from a battle, and even though I knew it was for the right reasons, still the thought made me feel uneasy, as if somehow I were a traitor to my countrymen. I tried to put it from my mind. My allegiance was to my lord and his kin, and to their protection; nothing else ought to matter.

By then a few men, probably woken by Pons’s curses, had emerged from their tents. They called to us, asking who we were and what we were doing about so early.

‘Ignore them,’ I muttered. ‘Don’t say a word to anyone.’

From the amount of baggage we carried they would soon realise that we weren’t headed out on any scouting expedition, and it was but a short leap from there for them to guess we were deserting. Even so, I preferred to let them work that out for themselves. By the time word got around the camp and made its way to Fitz Osbern that the son of Malet and his followers had gone, I hoped the town would be many miles behind us.

Robert was waiting for us at the town’s north gates when we reached them. Beatrice was with him, huddled in her cloak so that she seemed somehow smaller, her face pale in the moonlight. She would not meet my eyes. Her brother gave a nod to the sentries posted at the gate; I wondered how much he had paid them to let us through at this hour, and to hold their tongues too. The gates swung open with a great grinding noise, loud enough to wake the whole town. I winced at the sound as I took up position at the rear of the column alongside Pons and Serlo. In silence we filed through the gates under the watchful eyes of the sentries. Open country lay before us, the hills and woods lit dimly by the cloud-veiled moon. There was no sign yet of the approaching dawn.

Eudo and Wace weren’t to be found among Robert’s retinue. They and their knights had left the afternoon before, Robert having sent them back to his manor at Heia to help defend it against the Danes in case they landed in Suthfolc. Since the battle both had tried to avoid me whenever possible — as if they, like the Wolf and so many others, held me responsible for the deaths of their men — and at the very least I should have liked to wish them well before they went.

We had ridden perhaps a hundred paces along the track out of Scrobbesburh when behind us I heard the sounds of hooves and a man’s voice, calling out what sounded like my name. Over the jangle of harnesses and the wind rustling the stalks in the nearby wheatfields it was hard to make out, and at first I thought myself mistaken. But as I glanced at Serlo and Pons I saw that they had heard too. We hadn’t left anyone behind so far as I could tell, and so it couldn’t be a straggler. And apart perhaps from Byrhtwald, who had already fled the town, who knew that we were leaving?

‘Tancred,’ the cry came again. ‘Tancred a Dinant!’

Wondering who this could be, I turned to see a lone horseman waiting beneath the arch of the gatehouse, silhouetted by the flickering light of the sentries’ torches. As soon as he saw that he had my attention, his shouts ended.

‘Who are you?’ I called back. ‘What business do you have with me?’

He did not answer. Instead he seemed to be conversing with the sentries, although what they were saying I had no hope of telling from such a distance. It was hard to make out his features, though if I had to describe him I would have said that he was stouter of build than most men.

‘Is that you, Berengar?’

He looked up once more. If indeed it was him and he wished to say something, he would do so to my face, not like a coward from one hundred paces. I spurred Nihtfeax into a gallop, back towards the gates. No sooner had I done so, however, than he turned tail and was gone, leaving the sentries and slipping beyond the torch-lit gatehouse into the shadows of the town.

‘Get back here, Berengar,’ I shouted. ‘Don’t run from me, you worthless Devil-turd!’

I had no way of knowing whether he had heard me or not, but I hoped that he had. This feud that he had begun was one thing I wouldn’t miss. Even so, I would have preferred to have settled things one way or another. Instead he’d had the satisfaction of watching me ride away, which he would turn to his own gain. Among his comrades he would call me a coward and worse; he would brag about how, too frightened to face him properly, I had slunk away under the cover of darkness, in so doing admitting defeat. He would spread his lies and I could do nothing to refute them. I clenched my teeth. I was no coward, as anyone who knew me would testify. In time I would return and prove it, at the same time making sure that everyone saw him truly for the cur he was. But not now.

I returned to join the others, who had not waited. Robert did not hide his fury when he saw me.

‘If word wasn’t already out about our leave-taking, it surely will be now,’ he said. ‘Whoever that was-’

‘It was Berengar,’ I said.

‘Enough of you and him,’ Robert snapped. ‘Do you think I care? Whoever that was, he knows now that you’re with us. It won’t be long before he makes the connection with myself and takes that knowledge to the castle. If Fitz Osbern hasn’t sent someone after us within the hour I’ll be surprised.’

We pushed our horses hard until daybreak, trying to put as much distance between us and the town while the blanket of night still wrapped itself around us. All too soon, though, the eastern skies were growing light and then suddenly the new day was upon us. I kept glancing over my shoulder to see if there was anyone behind us on the road, perhaps a glint of steel helmets and spearpoints in the early light. There never was, however, and so as the sun began to climb we dismounted from our destriers, our beasts of war, leaving them in the care of the grooms and stable-hands who travelled with us, and exchanged them for our rounceys, which were our riding horses, less fleet of foot but more suited for enduring the long miles that lay ahead of us.

Rather than taking the better-known tracks by way of Deorbi and Snotingeham and thus skirting the southernmost of the high peaks, we headed north. It would be the shortest route, Robert told us, a little more than one hundred miles according to his reckoning. I could not dispute that but I knew that it would take us across the most unforgiving of country, over wet and windswept fells, through steep and stony vales and high and desolate passes: hard going for even the toughest of men and animals. To tell the truth I was not looking forward to it, and neither were most of Robert’s men. The pall of the battle in Mechain still hung over us; even after a day’s rest in Scrobbesburh we were all still saddle-sore from the march into Wales and the forced retreat.

The sun climbed higher; the day grew warmer. As midday approached and there was still no sign of any message from Fitz Osbern, slowly we began to relax our pace. If Robert was relieved, he did not show it, but among the rest of the men spirits seemed to be lifting, for the first time in several days. We paused for a while by a brook to fill our wineskins and give our animals drink, and to give our backs and arses a rest for the first time since we had woken.

At one time there appeared a faint cloud of dust as might be kicked up by passing hooves, about a mile to our rear. They were too far off for any of us to make out any figures, but whoever it was always seemed to keep their distance, never growing any closer, and so it seemed unlikely that they were riders sent to pursue us. More probably that dust-cloud belonged to mere travellers, although these were dangerous times to be upon the roads. Indeed that day we had come across very few of the kind of folk one might usually expect to find: cowherds and gosherds driving their animals to market; monks on their way from one convent to another; or merchants and pedlars such as Byrhtwald. I wondered where he was by now, and when and if I would next see him.

Not much later we found ourselves riding through dense woods of oak and hornbeam, elm and birch. Whoever held these lands had been neglecting his responsibilities, for the track looked as though it had not been cleared in many months. In some places it was so boggy and thick with mud that no cart stood a chance of making it through; in others it was overhung by so many boughs or choked with such dense clusters of nettles that it was almost impossible to see in which direction it was supposed to lead.

‘We’ll have to find another way,’ I said. We had spent the better part of half an hour hacking with our knives at the undergrowth, taking saws and axes to fallen branches, to little avail. The path had grown steadily narrower as it delved deeper in the woods until I began to suspect that it was nothing more than a deer track.

‘We must have lost the road some time ago,’ said Robert, red-faced from exertion and frustration. We had been following one of the old Roman roads, which were usually well frequented, so that it was never hard to find someone who knew the way to wherever one was going. Except that this day they had been particularly quiet, and those we occasionally spotted in the distance took flight at the very sight of so many armed men. Thus when the road appeared to fork unexpectedly we had nothing but our own judgement to rely upon. Or rather Robert’s, since he had decided he knew better than the rest of us. And it was his pig-headedness that had brought us here.

‘I saw a manor upon the hill before we entered these woods,’ Beatrice spoke up. ‘We could ride back and ask if anyone knows the way.’

‘And while we’re there, we can give their lord some advice on how to manage his lands and keep the ways clear,’ Pons muttered.

That got a murmur of approval, and in truth Beatrice’s was as good an idea as anyone had thus far suggested. Grudgingly Robert agreed. Following our own trail of hewn nettles and horse dung, we wound our way back along the path, leading our animals in single file, until I felt I was beginning to recognise where we were. We had wasted a good hour or more, but if we could find the road again, it would not matter.

Serlo was telling some long-winded joke involving a washerwoman, a nun and an alewife, though it was hard to follow what he was saying for he was some way behind me. From the tone of his voice I guessed he was nearing the end, when suddenly Robert gave a shout from the head of the column. I craned my neck to see what was happening.

He stood by the edge of the path, holding aloft a leather bottle. ‘Did one of you drop this earlier?’

All my provisions were safely stowed in the panniers on our packhorse. I had taken care to check that the harness was securely fastened when last we stopped. There was little chance that anything could have dropped while we were riding. I glanced over my shoulder at my two knights; they both shrugged.

‘Any of you?’ Robert asked, clearly growing frustrated. ‘Ansculf? Tancred?’

We had all halted by then, but we were so strung out along the track that not all of those in the rear knew what was going on.

Handing the reins of my horse to Cnebba, who was walking ahead of me in the column, I trudged through the mud towards him. ‘Where did you see it?’

‘Lying beside that clump of bracken,’ he said as he tossed it to me, pointing to a spot about five paces off the path.

I turned the bottle over in my hands. It felt light and when I shook it I could hear the barest splash of liquid inside, whereas we had filled ours not long ago. Unless someone had been especially thirsty — clearing the path had not been easy work, after all. . yet no one wanted to claim it.

The air was still. Everyone had fallen quiet, and there was only the faint sound of wasps buzzing and birds chirping. I glanced around at the trees, searching deep into the heart of the wood, for what I did not know, but for some reason suddenly I felt cold.

‘I don’t like this,’ I said. ‘We should keep moving. We need to get out of these woods as soon as we can.’

Robert nodded and gave the order. Heart thumping, I hurried back to Cnebba.

‘What is it?’ Serlo asked as I took the reins.

‘Keep a lookout,’ I said as I kicked on. ‘Tell me if you see-’

Even before I could finish, it happened. A flash of gleaming steel, it flew from out of the trees to my flank and it flew true, burying itself in Cnebba’s chest, transfixing him where he stood in front of me. He was dead before he hit the ground. Where only a moment ago there had been silence, now the air was filled with whistling shafts, the shouts of men and the whinnying of horses. Spooked, my rouncey reared up.

‘Ride,’ I yelled, and up ahead I could hear Robert doing the same: ‘Ride, ride!’

My steed’s hooves came crashing down, and I swung up into the saddle, digging my heels in, wishing that it was even-tempered Nihtfeax beneath me instead, but one of Robert’s stable-hands had him. Another cluster of silver points shot overhead and I ducked low, trying to avoid them. Whether the others were behind me I did not know, but there was no time to check.

Up ahead, Beatrice was shrieking, desperately trying to control her palfrey. A feathered shaft protruded from the animal’s hindquarters; blood, thick and dark, was gushing down its coat. All of a sudden its legs gave way and she was pitched forward with a cry, landing in the mud amidst the ferns. The men around her clearly cared more for their own lives, however, since they did not stop, but rode and ran past her as if she were not there.

‘Beatrice!’ Robert said, pulling hard on the reins and turning, drawing to a stop. But at least four of his knights lay dead already, their corpses strewn across the path, and we would lose many more if we did not keep moving.

‘Go,’ I shouted, waving to him as I jumped down from my mount and sprinted to his sister’s side. She had fallen badly; by the looks of it she had twisted her ankle and also hurt her wrist, but somehow I had to get her away from there. Above all the noise, I began to make out the beating of weapon-hafts upon shields.

‘Take my hand,’ I said to her. ‘Take it now.’

Her eyes were filled with fear and shock, but she had enough presence of mind to do as I said. I helped her to her feet, at the same time unslinging my shield from where it hung across my back, working my arm through the straps and raising it high to fend off any shafts that might come our way. It was not much protection, especially for two people, but it would have to do.

‘Come on,’ I said as I put my arm around her waist to hurry her along.

Within a few steps I saw that it was no use. She had hurt her foot too badly and could barely walk; all she could manage was a half-hobble, half-stumble, and we were in danger of being left behind to the mercy of whoever was attacking us.

‘Beatrice!’ Robert was fighting the tide of men, though the path was not really wide enough to allow it, riding back towards us even as his knights tried to make for safety. But he was still some way off, and I couldn’t wait for him to reach us.

Hearing hooves behind me, I glanced up and saw Pons riding past. I called his name; he halted and looked down.

‘Lord?’

‘Take her and make sure she’s safe,’ I told him. Abandoning my shield, I linked my palms. ‘Quickly,’ I said to her. Still wincing in pain, she raised her unhurt foot and stepped into the foothold I had made. Despite her height she was light and it was easy to lift her up to Pons, who extended his arms and helped her clamber ungracefully on to the back of his horse behind him.

‘Hold tight to Pons and swing your leg around,’ I said, which thankfully she managed to do. No sooner was she settled, with her arms around his chest, than I slapped Pons’s horse on the rump. ‘Now go,’ I told him. ‘Ride!’

He didn’t need telling twice. Around us all was confusion. Corpses lay sprawled in the dirt; riderless horses fled in all directions, and I saw my own rouncey trying to make for the cover of the trees, crashing through the undergrowth. Panniers had come unhitched from the saddles and their contents spilt across the path: provisions wrapped in cloth, silver coins, bundles of kindling, tent-pegs and canvas. I had lost sight of Serlo and Pons and any other familiar faces; my mind was whirling and it was all I could do to keep running. The arrows had all but ceased and now from out of a ditch some way inside the trees men charged with gleaming shield-bosses and blades, roaring and swearing death upon us all.

‘To arms,’ I yelled. ‘To arms!’

Up the path I glimpsed Pons and Beatrice, with Robert alongside them and some dozen knights. Beyond them, forming a line across the path and blocking their escape, stood a wall of overlapping shield-rims with bristling spears held out. Between those men, and the ones rushing out of the woods on either side, we were trapped.

I had enough time to lift my shield from where I had cast it down and brandish my sword. And then they were upon us, whooping with delight at the impending slaughter, their eyes filled with bloodlust, and they thrust and hacked wildly with spears and knives: a flood of Welshmen, to judge by their appearance. I called to those of Robert’s men who were nearby, trying to rally them, but it was in vain. A few drew their weapons and joined me, but many more were running, not yet understanding that they had nowhere to go. Yet even had they all stood their ground, I could see that we were hopelessly outnumbered.

‘Stay close to me!’ I called to those who had drawn arms, but it was no use. They could not stand against such a tide and were falling all around me, spearpoints buried in their breasts and in their throats, their blood spilling across the path.

I heaved my sword up and into the unprotected brow of one of the enemy. It bit into his skull, penetrating the bone. The fuller was running with crimson as I tore it free and he staggered forward, collapsing across my shield. With a grunt I threw his limp corpse to one side; he slid off its face just in time for me to fend off the axe blows rained upon me by one of his companions, a towering, broad-chested man in his middle years. For all his size and reach, however, he could not block the low blow at his legs. As he pressed forward, using the weight of his body to push against my shield, I struck, thrusting my sword-point down into his shoe, through the leather and into his foot, pinning it to the ground. Howling, he bent double. As he did so I slammed the face of my shield into his head before jerking my blade free and smashing it into his mailed arm with enough force that I heard bone crack.

‘Ymauaelwch ef!’ yelled one that I took for their leader. Short of stature, he had a red moustache and wore a helmet with silver-inlaid cheek-plates and a crest of black feathers, much the same as I remembered Rhiwallon had worn in the battle at Mechain.

And then I realised. This was his brother, Bleddyn, the King of Gwynedd, who had put the Wolf to flight in the battle.

‘Ymauaelwch ef!’ he repeated, pointing at me.

Slashing, parrying, thrusting, I tried to hold them off. The enemy were so many and we so few, and growing fewer with every moment that passed. Snocca fell, his chest carved open by Welsh steel. All too quickly we found ourselves surrounded: myself and seven others, forming a close ring as we protected each other’s backs.

‘Tancred!’

Between blocking one man’s blow with my shield-boss and ducking beneath the axe swing of another, I glanced up the path where the shout had come from. It was Robert. Together with Ansculf and three other knights, he scythed a path through the enemy towards us, beating them down and trampling their corpses beneath his mount’s hooves, using the full weight of his blade to splinter their shield-rims. As more foemen rushed from the shadows of the trees to block their path, I saw that his efforts would be in vain. Even if he and his men did manage to reach me, they would soon be cut off without hope of retreat, and I couldn’t let them sacrifice themselves in that way. Not when they could still save their own skins.

‘Go,’ I called to them, my voice growing hoarse. ‘See yourselves to safety; that’s the only thing that matters!’

Above the clash of steel and the screams of the dying I wasn’t sure if he heard me. The enemy began to rally, forming ranks and presenting their spearpoints, crowding Robert. In that moment I knew that all was lost and that they would not get to me; they were only a handful of swords against countless spears.

‘Go!’ I shouted out as I wiped the sweat from my eyes. The Frenchman to my right screamed as he was skewered on a Welsh spear. The ring broken, the enemy surged forward. They were among us now, unstoppable, cutting down those who remained.

Roaring wordlessly, I summoned all the vigour left to me, heaving my blade around, striking out on all sides. If this was my time, I would face it not as a coward but with the sword-joy coursing through me.

‘Die, you bastards,’ I found myself shouting. ‘For Earnford and Lord Robert!’

Their cries and their laughter filled my ears as I lashed out, but my blade-edge found only air. Panic gripped my chest; my heart was pounding as I looked for a way through, but they had me surrounded and there was none. I glimpsed the feather-crested helmet, and for the briefest moment thought of spending my final breaths taking his life, but he was well protected by his teulu and I had no hope of reaching him.

And then without warning they were upon me. Even as I fended off one heavyset warrior, another was clutching at my sword-arm, and another still grabbing at the top edge of my shield, trying to pull me off balance. But I would not surrender, and kept on struggling, determined to take as many of them as possible with me to my grave.

A heavy blow connected with the back of my head, near the base of my skull, and suddenly the world turned hazy. My legs seemed not to support me and I staggered forward, my sword-hilt slipping from my numb fingers. I was dimly aware of men crowding about me as I struck the ground. The last thing I remembered was the wide, white grin spreading across Bleddyn’s face as he stood gazing down upon me, before my mind clouded and darkness claimed me.