Knights of the Hawk (17 page)

‘I merely wished to congratulate you,’ he said, although there was no warmth in his voice. ‘I understand that Morcar agreed to the king’s most generous offer.’

I frowned, suspecting some manner of snide remark to follow. ‘That’s right. What of it?’

‘Nothing, save to remind you that you are fortunate that your idea was successful, that young Godric remained true to his word and that his uncle was willing to listen to what he had to say. But don’t expect that King Guillaume will grant you or your lord any special favours because of it.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘The king still remembers how you defied him by venturing out on your little raiding expedition without his approval. Your good fortune changes none of that. Don’t forget, either, that had your plan failed, it would have been on your head. He would have given up a valuable hostage for no good reason.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I said. ‘He had no intention of keeping Godric prisoner. Had I not spoken when I did, the boy’s corpse would be swinging from the highest branch overlooking the fens as a warning to his countrymen. We wouldn’t have Morcar on our side but instead would surely be marching towards almost certain defeat.’

Atselin’s quill stopped, his hand suspended above the page, but still he did not look at me. ‘You think very highly of yourself, Tancred of Earnford.’

‘You were there,’ I said, almost spitting the words. My blood ran hot, as it always did whenever I found myself trying to reason with this weasel. ‘You were there, in Robert’s hall, when the boy’s fate was decided. So tell me, monk, which part of what I’ve said isn’t true?’

I waited for long moments, but no words were forthcoming. Instead he dipped his quill in the inkwell and carried on writing as if I weren’t there.

‘Speak to me, you miserable, shit-stinking rat,’ I said, and snatched the parchment he was working on out from beneath his hand. ‘Am I or am I not telling the truth?’

At once he leant across the desk, trying with his free hand to claim the sheet back, but I held it just out of reach.

‘Give that to me,’ he said, wearing a tired expression on his face.

‘First apologise, and answer me.’

He stared at me as if I were speaking in some foreign tongue. ‘Why should I apologise to you?’

‘Why?’ I echoed. ‘You call me over only to sneer at my deeds, and then you all but accuse me of telling lies. That’s why.’

He rose from his stool and made another attempt to grab at the parchment, but I was too quick for him, and he succeeded only in getting a fingertip to it.

‘No more of these games,’ he said. ‘Give that back to me now.’

‘Or what?’ I challenged him.

In the brief time I’d known Atselin, I had never seen him roused to anger. Always he had maintained a serene expression, as if he had seen all there was to see in the world and there was no longer anything that surprised or vexed him, but there was fire in his eyes then, and in his cheeks, too, which were burning red.

‘I will offer you some advice, Tancred. You do not wish to get on the wrong side of me.’ He spoke though gritted teeth. ‘You do not want me as your enemy.’

I’d heard words to that effect before, although not from his lips. I gave a snort of disdain. ‘Am I supposed to take that as a threat?’

‘It is a warning. Heed it or ignore it, as you wish.’

‘Do you think I’m frightened of you?’ I asked. ‘You, with your quill and your rolls? What are you going to do? Drown me in ink, perhaps, or else bore me to death by reciting your records?’

Atselin’s eyes were like knives. ‘I’m not concerned whether or not you fear me. But I will tell you now that I’ve suffered enough of your insults. For too long I have tolerated your boorish manner and withstood your contempt. No longer.’ He made another attempt to seize back his precious sheet of vellum, and this time I was too surprised by his outburst to stop him. ‘Now, leave me in peace,’ he said. ‘The morning is wearing on and I have work I must attend to.’

I gave him a final glare, but he was unmoved, and so I left him to his parchments, striding away towards the paddock as the clerks in their black robes once more descended, crowding about his desk with scrolls and writs for his attention.

As I walked away, I tried to make sense of what Atselin had said. From what I recalled, we’d been assured of reward as long as our ploy worked and Morcar agreed to join our cause, but the monk had suggested otherwise. Had the king since changed his mind on the matter? If so, it seemed strange that the first any of us would learn of it was from Atselin. Unless he were lying to me, but what reason would he have for doing so?

And what did he mean by his threat, or warning, or whatever one cared to call it? I didn’t know, but resolved to keep my distance from the monk over the coming days: not because I feared him, but because I had no patience left for such distractions. Soon we would be riding into battle, and if I was to make it through alive, I wanted to be as ready as possible, to spend every moment I could honing my sword-skills and imagining what I would do when we met the enemy battle-lines. Nothing else mattered. My own fate, not to mention those of my knights and companions, depended on it.

The march to Alrehetha took the rest of that day, and all of the next, too. Though the route was probably only thirty miles, we were prevented from travelling as swiftly as we would have liked by the baggage train, which was forever drawing to a halt whenever an ox fell down lame, or a horse lost its shoe, or an axle became detached from one of its wheels and we had to move the offending haywain or wagon off the track so as not to block those that were following. But the king was determined that we would not spend more than one night separated from the rest of our host, and so any who dawdled and fell too far behind the main column for no good reason were visited by his household guard, who spurred them to greater pace with threats of violence upon their persons.

Those were not the only reasons for our slow progress, however. Barely had we been riding an hour that second morning when we spied the smoke rising to the north and west. At first it was no more than a dark smear in the distance but then, as we came closer, it became possible to pick out individual columns of black, roiling cloud, billowing some distance beyond the woods: not just a single spire but many, in a jagged line stretching all the way to the far horizon and beyond.

Straightaway the order went out to halt while the king sent out parties of knights to scout the road ahead, to investigate those burnings and, if possible, root out those responsible for the savagery. They came back some hours later, with dire reports of entire vills that had been put to the torch, barns and storehouses sacked and all the inhabitants slain, but otherwise empty-handed, save for one band which had managed to find two souls alive and unharmed: a thin, white-faced man in his middle years, and his ancient mother, who had no teeth and seemed half-mad for she was constantly muttering to herself. He spoke of a band of wild men who had come upon them from the marshes, led by a black-haired, bow-wielding demon of incredible height, whose eyes were a window upon the depths of hell, and whose arrows were bolts crafted from its flames.

‘Hereward,’ I said, after Robert had finished relating this information to us. ‘This was his doing, wasn’t it?’

‘Who else could it be?’ he said with a shrug, before riding on to seek out his other vassals and pass on the news. He was there when the two marsh-dwellers had been brought in, having been summoned by the king to offer his counsel. I wondered if that was a sign that his reputation was once more on the rise, though it went against what Atselin had told me. At the very least the king no longer seemed to regard him with the same contempt as he had but a few days ago, and I hoped that was a sign of better fortune to follow.

‘You mentioned before that there is no love between your uncle and Hereward,’ I said to Godric once we were back in the saddle. ‘Why is that?’

The king had entrusted him for now to Robert’s care and protection, and so he rode with us, having finally been relieved of his bonds. None of us thought him likely to attempt an escape, not with so many pairs of eyes watching him. Besides, even though he seemed to be a more adept horseman than he was a fighter, I doubted he would be able to outpace us.

‘Isn’t it obvious, lord?’ Godric asked.

I shrugged. Perhaps it was obvious to him, but it wasn’t to me.

‘To begin with, as you know, it was Hereward who led the rebellion. When we arrived two months ago, however, he was made to surrender his leadership and give his oath to my uncle.’

‘He was made to give his oath? How?’

‘That was what my uncle demanded, in return for his support and the men that he’d brought. At that time, Hereward and his allies had gathered a sizeable army, but they saw that if they were to fight King Guillaume then they needed Morcar.’

‘And Hereward was content simply to bend his knee and let your uncle assume the leadership?’

Godric shook his head. ‘For days he refused even to meet him or speak to his envoys. Had his been the only decision that mattered, I think he might have turned us away.’

Perhaps he was less clever than I had supposed. ‘Are you telling me he was willing to deprive himself and the rebellion of twelve hundred men?’

Had he done so, then the course of this war might have been very different. One thing was certain: we would not still be here now.

‘He dreams of glory,’ Godric explained. ‘He hates your people for stealing his lands and those of his countrymen, for despoiling the kingdom. He wants his name to pass into legend as the man who won England back for its people.’

At that I laughed so hard I almost choked, and Pons and Serlo, riding ahead of me, both shot me bemused looks over their shoulders. ‘Is this true?’

‘So his retainers say. They claim that St Æthelthryth, whose remains are buried beneath the church at Elyg, appeared to him in a dream and charged him with protecting the Isle and with destroying King Guillaume.’

‘And he believes this?’

‘He seems to. He certainly thinks highly enough of himself. Every time I see him at Elyg he is parading himself like a king. He wraps himself in fine-spun cloaks trimmed with otter fur, and everywhere he goes he is accompanied by a retinue dozens strong.’

I shook my head in disbelief, although as ridiculous as it sounded, men had been known to convince themselves of far stranger things.

‘How did Morcar manage to persuade him to swear his allegiance, then?’ I asked.

‘He didn’t, lord.’

‘Then who did?’

‘It was Hereward’s own friends who convinced him. Siward Bearn, Bishop Æthelwine, Thurcytel and all the other thegns. Together they spoke to him and made him see that my uncle would make the better leader.’

That was no small feat, especially considering that it had been Hereward who had led this rebellion from the beginning. To hand it over to someone else’s command – and, worse, to have those he’d previously considered among his staunchest supporters conspire to wrest the leadership from him – must have seemed a tremendous insult.

‘Pride,’ I murmured. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘What, lord?’

‘That’s why he continues to burn a swathe through the marsh country. He’s proud. He wants his name to be known. Now that Morcar has taken his place, he feels he has to prove himself, and this is how he does it.’

I imagined the fire raging inside his heart: a fire sparked both by the enemy besieging him, and by his own countrymen for having undermined and betrayed him. He could just as easily have sent his sworn swords out to wreak the same destruction, but instead he chose to risk his own hide and lead these raids in person: so that he could show himself to be doing something of worth, and give enemies and allies alike cause to respect and fear him.

He and I were more similar than I’d realised. We both strove for recognition for our deeds, and struggled against the weighty oaths that bound us. Both of us had at one time led whole armies into the field, yet now found ourselves in somewhat humbler circumstances, lacking the respect we craved and which for a while at least we had commanded. But pride could be a dangerous thing. It could make a man blind to reason and at the same time sow the seeds of his own destruction.

‘If what you’re saying is true, and he sees himself as the man who will drive us all back across the Narrow Sea,’ I asked, ‘why is it that we haven’t heard of him before now? Where has he been these past five years?’

Godric shrugged. ‘No one knows.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He and his retainers claim he fought both at Hæstinges as well as under Eadgar Ætheling’s banner, but no one who was there on those campaigns remembers seeing him. Some say he took ship with a band of Danes shortly after the invasion and has been raiding across the German Sea, and others that he stayed in England, where he roamed the forests, waylaying travellers on the roads and growing rich on the spoils.’

The feared Hereward was little better than a bandit, then, albeit one with pretensions to greatness. Not that that made him any less dangerous; the fires burning in the distance were testament to that. I continued to watch the silent smoke rising, its tendrils coiling around one another and turning the blue skies raven-black: his warning to us. I knew then that there would be no mercy, and that whether or not Morcar held true to his word, this was a struggle that we would be fortunate to survive.

It was near sunset by the time we finally reached Alrehetha and the newly built guardhouse that stood watch over the marshes. The ground was too soft for any castle worth the name to be erected, and so in place of a mound and tower a simple ringwork had been erected, not unlike the hill forts that the ancient folk had left behind them and which we often saw on our travels around the kingdom. A stout palisade ran the length of the circuit, atop low earthen banks, at the foot of which lay broad ditches, in some places as much as fifty feet wide, into which the fen-water had been channelled, so that any would-be attacker would first have to swim beneath a hail of arrows before beginning his assault.

Not that we expected any such attack. The enemy had nothing to gain and everything to lose by sallying from the Isle. Defending the opposite shore of the marsh, running along a ridge of higher ground, stood stout ramparts and palisades, behind which the enemy were no doubt watching and making ready to repel our assault. Between them and us lay two miles of gold-glistening fen, and so I couldn’t judge the condition of those defences or of the men who held them, but even without seeing them at close hand I knew it was a hard task that we faced. I wondered how many men the enemy had posted there, and whether they feared the battle to come, as we did, or whether they believed in the power of St Æthelthryth to lend strength to their sword-arms and, in Hereward, to give them someone who would deliver them victory.