‘Oh, he did, he did,’ Ottar said quickly, as if eager to move the talk on to safer ground. ‘Our emperor knows we won’t betray him. We’re his personal guard, and we swear our oath of loyalty directly to him.’
‘And, naturally, your loyalty is handsomely rewarded?’
‘You’ve heard the talk, no doubt,’ Ottar said.
‘The talk?’
Ottar shifted on the bench, and his wide leather belt creaked as his great bulk strained against it. ‘It’s said among the locals that when an emperor dies, the Varangians are permitted to visit the imperial treasury and take away what gold and gems they can carry in their two hands.’ He gazed down at his own hands, lying palm uppermost and huge on his knees. ‘They call it palace-pillaging, but only because they’re jealous.’ He gave Rollo a wide smile. ‘It’s true, we do have that unique privilege, and it’s not pillage because the emperor himself permits it.’ Again, he glanced at his hands. ‘You’ll have observed, my friend, that most of us are built to a generous scale, and our hands hold a lot. As Bersi here was just saying, we acquire riches, right enough.’
‘So, what of the Harald I was asking about?’ Rollo said. ‘Do any of you know a man who fits the description?’
The guards muttered among themselves for a while, and Rollo heard various Haralds being discussed, most of them dismissed as unlikely because they came from a different place, or were the wrong age. Finally, Ottar turned to him and said, ‘I’ll ask around among some of the men who aren’t here just now. Maybe someone will be able to help.’
‘Thank you,’ Rollo replied, adding politely, ‘I hope you won’t go to too much trouble.’
‘Ah, it’ll be no trouble,’ Ottar assured him. ‘We always enjoy contact with our homes.’ He leaned closer to Rollo, lowering one eyelid in a suggestive wink. ‘And you did say your friend was pretty. Perhaps she’ll reward you with a kiss if you can return home with word of her great-uncle.’
On cue, the others chimed in with other likely rewards, many of them verging on the obscene. Smiling, Rollo stood up and, promising he’d come back, slipped away.
Ribald joking and laughter with gate guards was all very well, he thought as he closed the guardroom door behind him. But if he was going to find a way to the emperor’s ear, he needed to speak to someone higher up the chain of command. Emerging on to the wide yard that spread out inside the encircling walls, he turned away from the gates and headed for the imposing entrance to what appeared to be the main building.
He felt a momentary apprehension. He ought to be used to operating alone; it was the only way that a man doing his job could operate. At times, however, his vulnerability threatened to undermine him. Here he was, a stranger and an outsider, hundreds of miles from anyone he knew or loved, with nobody to speak for him or watch his back. Yet he was proposing to demand access to whatever charmed inner circle ruled here, with no greater explanation for the outlandish request than that he had been travelling in the lands of the enemy and had information which the emperor might like to hear.
For a split second, his step faltered. What would his own king do, he wondered wildly, faced with such an impudent and presumptuous visitor? He felt his heart hammering in his chest, making the sweat break out on his skin. And it seemed to him that a quiet voice inside his head said, There is danger here.
He stopped dead. For the space of a heartbeat, he was paralysed by fear.
But then the moment of weakness passed. As he walked on, released from whatever enchantment had held him and confident once more, he realized that it was the thought of King William’s reaction that had reassured him. William, he reflected with a secret grin, lapped up information like a thirsty hound laps water. As long as the intelligence was accurate, and something the king did not already know, then the source was unimportant.
Rollo’s information was without doubt accurate: he had gathered it himself. As to whether it would come as news to Alexius Comnenus, well, only time would tell.
He had reached the long flight of stone steps leading up to the main building’s door. His confidence and his belief in himself restored, he leapt up them two at a time and went inside.
SEVEN
The hammering at the door came just as I’d finally managed to get back to sleep. Or so I thought as I struggled to wake up, although it was fully light, so I must have slept for longer than I’d imagined.
Edild was fully dressed and already hurrying to open the door. We are quite used to such urgent summons, and I did not think anything of it, merely getting up and going into the small still room to wash my hands and face, put on my overgown, braid my hair and arrange a clean white coif over it.
I had got as far as washing and putting on my gown when I realized who had come banging on Edild’s door. Forcing myself to ignore my reaction, I hurried the rest of my preparations and went back into the main room.
‘… found some four or five miles north of here, stuck under a bridge,’ Jack Chevestrier was saying. He was standing on the doorstep – one look at his filthy, mud-caked boots explained his reluctance to come into the house – and he broke off to give me a quick smile. Then, resuming, he said, ‘The full moon and the strong wind combined to make an exceptionally high tide, and the sea has flooded in up several of the fenland rivers, including the Ouse.’ For a town dweller, he knew the local geography pretty well. ‘The man who came to report the discovery of the body -’ body? – ‘reports that there was wreckage floating around it, so it’s possible some vessel foundered, and both its planking and one of its crew or passengers ended up together. The man who found it said-’
I stopped listening. I shuddered. It wasn’t that I was cold; it was the thought of some poor soul having been out on that wild, ferocious sea last night, and suffering the terror of his ship breaking up beneath him. Falling into the relentless waters, being swept, helpless, up a river swollen out of recognition. Fighting to breathe; to keep his nose and mouth above the torrent. Giving up, drowning, his poor body hurled against a bridge …
Edild gave me quite a hard nudge. ‘Lord Gilbert has sent for us,’ she hissed. Had Jack said so? If so, I’d missed it.
‘What about our patients?’ I asked. ‘Shouldn’t one of us stay here?’ I was still feeling very strange, and, oddly, frightened; as if the fierce sea would leap up to drown me the moment I put my head outside the door.
‘They will just have to wait. It is an order, Lassair, from the lord of our manor. We do not refuse,’ Edild said firmly. Then, since I must have gone on looking stupid, she leaned close to me and said quietly, ‘The flooding is extensive. No doubt Lord Gilbert fears there will be more bodies and many wounded. People swept into the water in the dark are all too likely to be hit by floating objects.’
There was nothing more to say. I picked up my satchel, slung the strap over my shoulder and followed Jack and my aunt out of the door.
Outside, conditions were dire. Not as bad as my fearful imaginings had suggested – no huge wave rose up to engulf us – but nevertheless, it was hard going. The furious, howling gale that had screamed all through the night had lessened, although it still produced occasional spiteful blasts that almost knocked us off our feet. Reaching the track, we turned left in the direction of Lakehall, the sodden ground tacky beneath our feet so that every step was an effort. Glancing over to the right, I was shocked to see that the waters had encroached at least two-thirds of the way across the low-lying land between the fen and the village. Thank God our homes lay on higher ground. It was, I reflected as we struggled along, probably why the wise ancestors had sited the settlement there in the first place. This wasn’t the first time the region had flooded, and it wouldn’t be the last.