Sworn Sword (14 page)

‘I ask only for this one thing,’ Malet said. ‘Do this for me and you may consider yourself free of any further obligation. Should you decline, on the other hand, I will merely seek repayment by some other means.’

I considered. I had little money left to me, save for what I might gain from selling my mail and the silver cross I carried, neither of which I wanted to part with. My coin-pouch I would never see again, for I had placed it in Oswynn’s hands when I had left her in Dunholm. But I sensed that it was not silver that Malet was concerned with, even if I had enough to pay him. More likely what he meant was that he would demand a longer term of service from me – a year, perhaps, or more – and that I was not ready to give. It seemed, then, that I had no other choice.

‘What of my comrades, Wace and Eudo?’ I said. ‘I owe them a debt too.’

‘They were the two who brought you here?’ But Malet was voicing his thoughts rather than asking me the question, and he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Their loyalty to you is clear. And I believe I have met Wace de Douvres before, at the king’s council last Easter. He seemed a thoroughly capable man, and Robert spoke well of him, too.’

He sat for a moment, as if considering, then he looked at me. ‘If they are willing to accompany you, then I would gladly have them serve me. I will make sure that they are rewarded well for their troubles. But I must have their answers, and yours, by dusk. I intend for you to leave tomorrow, by noon at the latest.’

I nodded. So I had but a few hours to make my choice; a few hours to speak with the others and then return. I rose from my stool and made towards the door.

‘Tancred,’ Malet said as I placed my hand upon the handle.

I turned. ‘Yes, lord?’

He left his seat and stood facing me, his eyes on a level with my own, his expression solemn. ‘I trust that you’ll come to the right decision.’

Ten

THE ALEHOUSE WHERE
Wace and Eudo were staying was little more than an arrow’s flight from the castle gates, at the top of the street known as the Kopparigat. It meant the street of the cup-makers, or so the chaplain had told me when I had asked him the way there. Their wares were not much in demand that morning, though, since the alehouse was almost empty.

In the far corner sat two young Englishmen. They spoke in half-voices, every so often glancing towards us, as if we might be listening. At the table next to ours an old man had fallen asleep, his white hair straggling across his face where his head rested beside his cup. The place was damp and windowless; the smell of vomit, sour and sharp, hung in the air.

I told both Eudo and Wace everything Malet had said to me, about the task that he had in mind, and his promise of payment if they chose to join me.

‘Did he say how much he was offering?’ Eudo asked.

‘It’ll be more than we could make staying here, however much it is,’ Wace answered sourly as he scratched at his scar, at his disfigured eye. ‘Speak to any lord in Eoferwic and you’ll see how little Lord Robert’s name is worth. They spit at the mere mention of him; they accuse us of being deserters, oath-breakers.’

Malet had been right, then. I remembered seeing Gilbert de Gand among those speaking with him just the other day. I wondered how much he was responsible for blackening Robert’s name, even though he himself had not been at Dunholm.

‘I thought they’d be desperate to take on every man they could,’ I said. ‘Especially with the enemy marching.’

‘Obviously they feel secure enough already,’ Eudo muttered.

On the other side of the common room, a serving-girl refilled the cups of the two young Englishmen, whose expressions lightened straightaway. She was short but well endowed, with full breasts and good hips. Her hair was covered and it was difficult to make out her face in the dim light, but it seemed that she could have been little younger than Oswynn.

Eudo called to her in English. Though both Wace and I knew a few words, he was the only one of us able to speak the tongue properly. His mother, like mine, had died when he was young, and his father had married an Englishwoman to whom it seemed Eudo had quickly taken a dislike. But his father had been eager for Eudo to get along with his new wife, and so he was made to sit through her chaplain’s lessons, and to speak English whenever she or her servants were present, much though he had hated it.

The serving-girl turned and slowly came over to us, clutching the ale-jug tightly to her chest. Why she was afraid I didn’t know. We had come armed, of course – I with my knife, the others with their swords – though it seemed to me that there were few men in Eoferwic, Norman or English, who didn’t carry a blade of some kind. None of us was wearing mail or helmet, and, besides, we threatened no one, sitting by ourselves.

Nevertheless, her hands trembled as she poured the ale, and she did not lift her head, but instead kept her eyes firmly fixed on the jug. Her face was round, her cheeks flushed red. She reminded me of some of the girls I had known as a youth in Commines, though I could remember none of them in any great detail.

She finished refilling our cups and Eudo held a silver penny out to her. She took it with a brief curtsy before hustling away.

‘I wonder,’ said Wace, after she had gone. ‘Malet must be anxious if he wants to send his wife and daughter south.’

‘And yet he can afford to spare six knights to do so,’ Eudo pointed out. ‘Including three from his own household.’

Both of them looked to me for affirmation, as if I should somehow know Malet’s mind.

‘I don’t know what he’s thinking,’ I said, although I pictured him
poring over the plans for the new cathedral. He had not seemed especially concerned that there was an enemy army less than a day’s march from the city. But then I had no doubt that Malet, like many lords I had dealt with in the past, was careful about what he revealed to others. I did not imagine for an instant that he had told me everything he knew about the enemy advance. He had not even told me what the message was that he wanted sent to Wiltune, or whom it was meant for.

‘When does he want us to leave?’ Eudo asked.

I sipped at the full cup before me, enjoying the bitter taste of the ale. ‘Tomorrow, before noon,’ I said. ‘But he wants answers from us by this evening.’

Eudo glanced at Wace. ‘What else is there for us here in Eoferwic?’

‘Little enough,’ said Wace, with a shrug. ‘We could stay, wait for the rebels to come, and hope that some lord accepts our service. But I won’t risk my life without being paid for it, that’s for sure—’

Sunlight burst in as the door was flung open. An Englishman in his middle years stood there, red-faced and panting for breath, hair hanging across his face, shouting something I could not understand. The two young men in the corner got to their feet, while the one with the white hair woke with a start, sending his cup to the floor. The tavern-keeper called to the serving-girl, who hurried towards the back of the room.

I rose, too quickly as it turned out, and winced as I felt a twinge in my calf. Beside me, Eudo raised his hands in a calming gesture as he said something to them in their own tongue.

‘What is it?’ I asked him.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

From outside came the sound of French voices shouting to one another, followed by a rush of feet, the pounding of hooves.

And then I heard it, faintly at first, as though it were yet some way off, but growing steadily louder: a single word, chanted over and over.

Ut. Ut. Ut. Ut
.

I glanced at the others; they met my eyes, and I saw that they
had heard it also. I reached to my knife-hilt at the same time as I saw Eudo touch the pommel of his sword.

‘Come on,’ said Wace. He was closest to the door, and I followed him, with Eudo behind me. The Englishman who was standing there made no attempt to stop us, but when he saw that we were coming towards him, he ran back out into the street.

The Kopparigat was thronged with townsmen and their wives, most of whom were rushing down the hill, herding their children and their animals before them. A dog began to bark, and its call was taken up by another some way further down the road. In the distance, the wail of an infant pierced the air.

Whatever the reason for the disturbance, I knew it could not be good. Had the rebels arrived already; was the city under siege? But if so, why would their own kinsmen be running?

‘This way,’ Wace said, starting into a run towards the top of the hill, where the Kopparigat met the city’s main street. I followed, my calf stabbing with pain, as if with every step there were half a dozen arrows driving into it, but I ignored it, pressing on through the rush of bodies, into the biting wind. A boy no higher than my waist ran into my good leg and fell backwards on to the street. He burst into tears and his mother gave a shout as she ran to pick him up. There were mud stains upon her skirts; the hood of her cloak had fallen from her head and her hair was in disarray. She glanced up at me, and I glimpsed the fright in her eyes before she took off again down the hill.

The chanting grew louder as we reached the top of the Kopparigat. To the right the road ran down towards the river, but it was from the left, the direction of the market and the minster, that the noise was coming. Some way ahead rode mailed men on horseback, their mounts’ hooves spraying up droplets of mud on either side. Pennons flew from upright lances, pennons in red and blue and white and green, and I thought, though I could not be sure, that amongst them I glimpsed one in black and gold: Malet’s colours.

There came a shout from behind, and I turned just in time to see half a dozen Englishmen with weapons drawn, advancing upon us from out of the crowd. They were young, perhaps five years
younger than us, but all were sturdily built. Each of them carried a knife so long that it was almost a sword: what they in their tongue would call a
seax
.

‘Wace!’ I called, as I drew my knife from its sheath. ‘Eudo!’

They turned and drew their swords, as the Englishmen came at us. None of them wore mail, nor any armour of any kind, but then neither did we, and they were six against our three.

‘Stay close,’ Wace said, holding his sword out before him.

Two of them rushed at me: one tall and lean; the other short, with arms like a blacksmith’s. The short one came at me first, slashing wildly with his seax. I parried the blow: steel scraped against steel, but there was great strength in those arms, and suddenly I was being forced back. In the corner of my eye I saw the tall man rushing forwards, and I knew I had to do something before he reached me too.

I raised my knee into the short one’s groin. He doubled over, shouting out in agony, and I smashed my hilt down over the back of his head. He collapsed, and then I was turning as the other ran at me, his blade flashing in the sunlight, half blinding me with its brightness. He thrust towards my chest and I tried to duck to one side, but the street was slick with mud and for a moment I lost my footing. I recovered just in time, raising my blade to meet his.

Sweat rolled off my brow, stinging my eyes, and for a moment I was blind as he thrust again. This time, though, he had gone too far through the stroke, and as he struggled to bring his seax back, I saw my chance. I lunged forward, hoping to drive my knife deep into the Englishman’s belly, but only managed to strike his side. It was enough. The blade tore through his tunic, piercing the skin, and he roared in anguish. His hands flew to the wound, his seax falling from his grasp.

The rest of his friends had fled, all but the one I had knocked out, and another who lay on the ground between Eudo and Wace, writhing and yelling, clutching at his arm. I turned back to face the Englishman, raising my knife before me as I stepped towards him. His face, so full of anger only moments before, now held only fear
as he stared at my blade, and then suddenly he turned and ran, down towards the river.

He disappeared into the crowd’s midst, and I glanced at Wace and Eudo, who had already put away their swords. Neither looked as though he had been hurt.

Eudo gestured at the short one I had struck over the head, who lay on his side, unmoving. ‘Is he dead?’

I kicked him in the side. He did not move, but then I saw his chest rising and falling. ‘He’ll wake before long,’ I said.

We started off up the street. The knights I had seen earlier had disappeared, but as we approached the marketplace and turned to the right, up towards the minster, their pennons came into sight again, quivering in the breeze. There were at least fifty of them, perhaps as many as seventy, with more riding to join them even as we approached. And facing them on the other side of the marketplace, with the minster church behind them, was a horde of Englishmen, so many that I could not count them, all shouting out with one voice.

There were men young and old, some with spears and seaxes, while others had only spades or pitchforks, and I saw more than one axe-blade, of the kind that could fell a horse with a single blow. A few were carrying round shields, and they were crashing their weapons against them in an unearthly din, like the battle-thunder I had heard at Hæstinges and at Dunholm, but somehow even wilder. For they were not beating all at once or even at the same speed, but, it seemed, simply trying to make as great a sound as possible.

‘
Ut!
’ they roared. ‘
Ut!
’

At first I thought this was the rebels’ army, come to take the city, but these did not look like men trained to war. There was not one mail hauberk between them, and only a few helmets. If they had a leader, I could not see him. These were not warriors, I realised, but the townsmen of Eoferwic, come together to stand against us.

Already some of the horses on our side were shaking their heads, fidgeting where they stood, but their riders kept them steady. I looked amidst the pennons for the black and gold I had spotted before, but I must have been mistaken, for I could not see Malet
there. Instead, at the head of the conroi, flying from the end of one of the lances, I saw the red fox upon a yellow field that was the emblem of Gilbert de Gand. Even at such a distance and with his helmet on, I knew from his long chin and gaunt appearance that it was him. He rode up and down in front of the men, shouting at them to keep their lines: a deep-throated roar that belied his slight frame.