Ralph Delchard laughed in surprise and warmed even more to the man. He despised the whole notion of celibacy and was delighted to find that the Church of All Souls’ was served by a flesh-and-blood priest with the promptings common to normal human beings. Vows of chastity left a person with the bloodless pallor of a Brother Simon or the porcine sheen of a Canon Hubert Oslac the Priest, by contrast, had a ruddy complexion and a twinkle in his eye, both of which Ralph ascribed to the presence of a woman in his bed at nights. Gervase Bret took even more interest in the news because it mirrored his own intent. It was love of Alys that had made him abandon his novitiate at Eltham Abbey and it was the prospect of marriage to her that gave his life such joy and direction. Gervase was touched by Oslac’s readiness to confide in them.
“You are a bold man,” he said. “Archbishop Lanfranc has attacked
clerical marriage.”
“Archbishop Lanfranc is a monk.”
“He frowns upon relations with the fairer sex.”
“The Archbishop of Canterbury is a great man who serves a great king,” said Oslac, “and he has made substantial improvements to the Church since he was appointed. I am more than willing to accept his rulings on almost everything else but I will not divorce my wife because of his frown. My own father was a married priest and I inherited this benefice from him. I am hopeful that my son will take over here from me in due course.”
“Your son?” said Ralph. “You have children?” “Four.”
“No wonder Sister Gunnhild dislikes you!” said Gervase.
They shared a communal laugh. It was time to leave Maldon and ride back to Champeney Hall but the two commissioners were glad that they had taken the trouble to meet Oslac the Priest. His help was invaluable. Their host had showered them with information about the town and its personalities while Gilbert Champeney dealt only in gossip and anecdote. Oslac’s comments were at once more interesting and reliable. He lived at the very heart of the community in every sense and was thus more intimately acquainted with its nuances of behaviour. They liked him and resolved to call on him again before they finally departed from Maldon.
Ralph had been toying with the idea of asking about the origin of Humphrey’s nickname but the nature of Guy FitzCorbucion’s mutilation had somehow deprived him of that urge. A question that would in any case be improper to a priest had now become severely distaste-ful as well so Ralph mastered his curiosity. Instead, it was Gervase who sought elucidation.
“Do you know a man called Tovild?” he asked.
“I know three or four by that name,” replied Oslac. “This one is unusual.”
“Then you are asking about Tovild the Haunted.” Gervase was pleased. “You know him?”
“Of course. We all know Tovild the Haunted.” “Who is he?”
“As harmless an old man as you could wish to meet.”
“But where did he get his name?” asked Ralph. “Put Gervase out of his misery, I beg you, or I will have no respite from his ceaseless prattle about this Tovild the Haunted. Who is this fellow?”
“And what is it that haunts him?” said Gervase. Oslac gazed in the direction of Northey Island. “The Battle of Maldon.”
Dusk encouraged him to move more freely about the island. Wistan had now got through the best part of a second day without detection and it bred even more confidence in him. He was learning to think like a fugitive and to see the folly of trusting in a single hiding place. He needed a variety of cover so that he could shift easily from one burrow to another, then on again to a third or fourth, when they finally came for him. Therefore, Wistan chose a series of locations where thick undergrowth or favourable contours could be used for concealment, and he practised scurrying between them at full pelt. The playful exercise cheered him. Time passed and drained even more colour out of the cloudless sky.
Two problems vexed him. The first was the possible use of animals to track him down. Like all Norman barons, Hamo FitzCorbucion was immensely fond of hunting and he kept a pack of hounds to help him pursue deer and wild boar. Those dogs could just as easily be turned on a human quarry and Wistan could never kill fifty baying dogs with a knife and a desire for revenge. A tree would give him a degree of safety if he climbed high enough, but the hounds might sniff him out and he would be trapped. His only salvation lay in the River Blackwater and it was to the muddy coastline that he now turned his interest. Water did not bear scent. Hiding places in the shallows or among the reeds would even defeat the delicate nostrils of hunting dogs.
Wistan’s second problem was more serious. A fugitive could not himself be in pursuit of a prey. His lust for vengeance boiled inside him but it would not be satisfied as long as he stayed on Northey Island. Guy FitzCorbucion was dead but Hamo was the head of the family and Wistan had to execute him for his own father’s sake. Jocelyn, too, deserved to die because he bore a reviled name and because he stood by and watched Algar being humiliated by Guy. In his swirling rage, Wistan even wanted to destroy Matilda as well so that the entire FitzCorbucion family were obliterated from Blackwater Hall.
But how was he to do it? He could hardly expect Hamo or Jocelyn to come obligingly onto the island with no soldiers at their back. When they hunted him, they would do so in force and Wistan would be
lucky to see-let alone to get within striking distance-of the two men whose deaths he had sworn to bring about. If the ravens of Blackwater would not come on their own to him, then he would have to go to them. He had no idea how he could possibly do this without taking unnecessary risks, but a vague plan began to form and it so filled his mind with its daring that it made him unwary. He strolled towards the margin of the water as unguardedly as if he owned the whole island.
The noise of the spear awoke him at once and he flung himself on
his stomach in the reeds. Had he been seen? The soldier was clearly heading in his direction. Wistan cursed himself for being so careless. Two days of freedom had been thrown away in a second’s inat-tention. His knife jumped into his hand but it would be no match for the spear that had been hurled with force into a fallen log. The sound still reverberated in his ears. That same spear could impale him to the ground if he lay there motionless. He had to escape somehow. Pulling his knees forward, he raised himself slowly and peered over the swaying tops of the reeds. It was difficult to see anything in the twilight but he knew the soldier was still there. He could hear the clash of a sword on a shield and a guttural battle cry. Was the man summoning the rest of the hunting party? When would they unleash their attack?
Wistan was about to take to his heels when he noticed something that stilled his fears. The man was old. He moved slowly. What he put his sword into his belt and tried to pull the spear from the log, he could not at first dislodge the weapon. It took him a couple of minutes of tugging and twisting before the head of the spear consented to part company with the timber and, in doing so, it threw him right off balance. Wistan saw something else. The soldier was not, as he had imagined, in the mailed hauberk of a Norman knight. He wore a long woollen coat, belted at the waist and reaching to mid-thigh. His legs were encased in tight trousers and his shoes were made of leather. The Norman helm that Wistan thought he had seen was, in fact, a conical helmet of iron with a thick nasal. Spear and sword were heavy implements of war and the long oval shield was embossed with a simple design at its centre. Wistan was utterly baffled.
The old man charged on unsteady limbs towards an invisible enemy
and jabbed at the air with his spear. His war cry had been replaced by some kind of chant but the boy was too far away to pick out any of the words. Wistan’s main concern was that he had not given himself away. He was safe. This strange creature who fought a nonexistent battle in the fading light on Northey Island had not come in search of him, and he was certainly not a member of the FitzCorbucion retinue. He was not a Norman knight at all. What Wistan was looking at was a Viking warrior in full battle dress.