I hesitated, but, with those eyes so like my Granny Cordeilla’s burning into mine, I could only tell the truth. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry that nobody thought to inform you before, but that isn’t why I’m here.’ I drew a breath. ‘I wanted to ask you if you ever heard word from Harald. Do you know where he is?’
Sihtric watched me. ‘Harald fled,’ he said. ‘Didn’t want to stay here, once the fight was lost.’
‘I know,’ I said gently. ‘I’m not judging him. I just want to know if he ever sent you any communication, any message, that might reveal where he went.’ Sihtric didn’t answer. In desperation, I said urgently, ‘He didn’t go to Spain, did he?’ I prayed he wouldn’t say yes.
Perhaps prayers said right outside a monastery stand a better chance of being heard and answered; I don’t know. But, with a smile, Sihtric said, ‘Spain? No, no, Harald didn’t go to Spain.’ He chuckled, as if to say, why on earth would anyone wish to go there?
‘Where, then?’ I whispered, hardly daring to breathe.
‘He was a fighter, child,’ Sihtric said kindly. ‘It was the only thing he was good at, and, even then, Sagar was a better shot and Sigbehrt a far better warrior. Where would a warrior go, d’you imagine?’
I didn’t know. I shook my head.
But Jack knew. ‘He’d make his way to where warriors of his race and size were known to be welcomed,’ he said softly. ‘Like so many of his Saxon comrades, he’d have gone south.’
‘South, aye, south,’ Sihtric agreed, shifting his gaze to Jack and nodding his approval. ‘He went to serve the emperor in Miklagard, as one of his Varangian Guard. As far as I know, he’s still there.’
As the initial shock began to wear off, I said, ‘How do you know? How could he possibly have told you?’
Sihtric looked at me, my Granny Cordeilla’s smile brightening his face. ‘Many of our race travel to Miklagard,’ he said. ‘It is not so unusual a voyage.’ He was speaking more easily now, and I had the sense that he was enjoying this rare chance to converse with someone other than his fellow monks. ‘Many come back again, since, unlike Harald and the Varangians, they go not to make a new life but to trade. Harald sent word to me via one such trader returning to these shores. It was -’ he screwed up his face in concentration – ‘perhaps ten or a dozen years after he disappeared? I cannot recall exactly, for time passes slowly in this place and one year is very much like another.’
‘What did the message say?’ I asked, trying to speak calmly.
‘He wished me to know that he was married,’ Sihtric replied with a gentle smile. ‘Crusty old bachelor that he was, he had fallen in love with the daughter of a Frankish merchant, and she, it appeared, reciprocated the sentiment. Her name was Gabriela de Valery, and, according to Harald, she was tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, very beautiful and utterly perfect.’ The smile widened into a reminiscent grin. ‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘there was never anyone like Harald for building up a tale, and we always took everything he said with a pinch of salt.’
Harald had married! And this Sihtric, this sibling who had shut himself away from the world, had known, yet my beloved Granny Cordeilla hadn’t.
‘Why did he tell you when he didn’t tell Cordeilla?’ I demanded, the pain and hurt I was feeling on her behalf making me angry. In my distress, I felt her presence acutely. I could see her, a vague, misty shape on the edge of my vision. She was fuming. ‘She was his last surviving sister, and she loved him!’ I yelled.
Sihtric looked at me, compassion in his face. ‘I cannot say for sure,’ he said, ‘although I can guess. Harald thought, I imagine, that Cordeilla hated him. He believed she could not forgive him for not having brought the bodies of Sagar and Sigbehrt back to Aelf Fen. I would guess that, in addition, he thought she would rather one of the other two had been spared instead of him. Perhaps he was right.’ He sighed, his dark eyes softening. ‘When we were children, it was always Cordeilla and Harald who picked the most frequent and violent fights with each other.’
‘That might suggest that they were the closest and the most alike,’ Jack said quietly. ‘It is often the way, that the siblings who most resemble each other find so much more to disagree about.’
‘You are right,’ Sihtric said, turning to him with a smile. His eyes seemed to stare out over our heads, as if he were focusing on the distant past. ‘How long ago it all seems. And now, you say, Cordeilla is dead, and I am the only one left.’
‘Harald may still be alive!’ I protested. For some reason, I very much wanted to believe it was true.
Sihtric returned his attention to me. ‘Perhaps so, child,’ he said kindly. ‘But he was a fighter, and that is a dangerous profession. He would be an old man by now, nearly as old as me.’ He sighed. ‘I cannot hold out much hope that he still walks this earth.’ He nodded, already turning to retreat back inside his monastery. ‘I shall pray for him too,’ he added, stepping inside and beginning to close the gate, ‘and for all my brothers and sisters, gone before me to the paradise that we hope awaits us. Farewell, child.’
And, very firmly and finally, the gate was shut. There was the sound of heavy bolts being shot across. The monks of St Botolph’s, it seemed, had finished with us.
Jack did not speak as we rode away. I was grateful. My mind was in turmoil, and I needed time to sort out my emotions. Harald had gone to Miklagard! He had married, made his home and lived the remainder of his life in that impossibly distant city. Oh, why had none of us known? Why, in God’s name, had the only member of the family Harald had seen fit to inform been a monk who didn’t communicate with the rest of us from one year’s end to the next?
Poor Granny Cordeilla! How hurt she would have been, that he had sent no word to her. She would have-
I’m all right, child. I could hear her, inside my head. Sihtric spoke wisely; Harald and I did fight more than the others, and we were two of a kind.
‘I’m sorry he never contacted you,’ I whispered very quietly.
Don’t you fret, she replied robustly. Typical Harald, to send his information to the one sibling who didn’t talk to any of the others! Two of a kind we might have been, but that doesn’t mean I liked him much.
It was so typical of Granny Cordeilla that I had to laugh.
The day was warm, and we stopped at a ford to water the horses. I felt like singing: relief that our Harald had gone to Miklagard, not Spain, and therefore couldn’t possibly be Lady Rosaria’s father-in-law, was bubbling up into happiness. I flung myself down on the grass beside Jack, leant back against his tree and accepted a drink from his water bag.
He seemed preoccupied, barely responding to my remarks. After quite a long silence, he said, ‘Lassair, I’ve been thinking.’
‘Oh?’
He got to his feet, then held out his hand to me and helped me up. ‘Yes. I-’
I heard the whistle. I saw the glint of sunshine on a bright blade. I knew what it was: part of me had been expecting it. Instinctively I flung my arms round Jack’s neck and, using my full weight, dragged him down so that we fell in a heap on the ground.
The knife plunged deep into the trunk of the tree, precisely where our heads had just been.
He had fallen on top of me, and I could hardly breathe. He rolled off me, already up in a crouch, eyes everywhere as he sought for the thrower of the knife. With a shout he was on his feet, sprinting across the grass and plunging through the stream.
‘Be careful!’ I screamed. ‘He’ll have other weapons!’
I don’t think Jack heard. Moving with unbelievable speed, he thrust his way into a thicket on the far bank, and a cry of pain rent the air.
I raced after him, down the slope, across the stream, up the bank on the far side. I launched myself into the thicket, my small blade in my hand, tripped over an outstretched pair of legs and landed on a supine body.