“Are you so disappointed?”
“I expected you to be different somehow.”
“With horns, claws and cloven feet? Three eyes, perhaps? A forked tail? No, Master Bret. I am only human.” His spear pointed the way.
“Come to my camp and we will talk.”
“I must find Inga first.”
“Inga?”
“My companion. A young woman. She was abducted.”
Olaf was aghast. “You travelled alone through this countryside with a young woman beside you?”
“She insisted on coming,” said Gervase. “She believes that a friend of hers has joined your band and she is anxious to speak with him.
One Ragnar Longfoot.”
“Yes, Ragnar is with us.”
“He knows Inga. Perhaps he will help me to search.”
“Where was she taken?”
“A mile or so back down the road.”
“How many men?”
“Seven or eight. Dressed much like you.”
“With swords or spears?”
“Swords. One of them knocked me to the ground. Inga was carried off.” He clutched at Olaf’s arm. “I must find her before anything terrible happens to her. Do you have a horse that I may borrow?”
“Twenty. With riders to match them. Come, Master Bret. We will all search for them.” He pulled Gervase along beside him. “And I think I know where we should begin.”
Inga struggled hard but the men were too strong. When they reached their camp, she was thrown to the ground, then bound hand and foot.
When one of them tried to steal a kiss, she spat in his face and he backed away. His companions hooted with laughter.
“She likes you, Halfdan!” said one.
“That ugly face of yours excites her,” said another.
Halfdan wiped the spittle from his beard and leered at her.
“She is mine first.”
He reached forward to grab her by the shoulders but Inga bit his hand. Halfdan flung her angrily to the ground and snatched at her tunic. Before he could tear it from her, however, a voice rang out across the clearing.
“No! Leave her alone.”
Halfdan was caught midway between lust and obedience.
“She is mine, Murdac,” he growled.
“She belongs to all of us,” said another.
“Yes,” said a third. “I am next.”
Murdac moved in to push Halfdan away and confront the others in his band. He was a short, stocky man with swollen features and a ruddy complexion. His hand was on his dagger as he saw the mutiny in their eyes.
“You are all fools,” he snarled.
“She is booty,” insisted Halfdan. “We share her.”
“And what will you get for your share?” said Murdac with disgust.
“Five minutes of grunting pleasure and some scratches down your face! The girl is worth far more to us than that.”
“He is trying to keep her for himself,” warned Halfdan.
“No, I am not. I am using my brain. You only see a woman here and your pizzle does the rest. I see a hostage.” He looked around at his men. “Do you know how much we might get for her? She will bring us gold.”
“Who from?”
“A certain Norman lord.”
Slow smiles spread across their faces as they realised who their leader meant. Even Halfdan was impressed but he was loath to forfeit his pleasure.
“I have a better idea, Murdac,” he said. “We share her first and then sell her off.”
“No, you ox! If we touch her, she will be worthless.”
“Why?”
“He will not pay for damaged goods.”
The men muttered among themselves before agreeing with the plan.
Inga almost swooned with relief as they drifted away. Murdac was as callous as the rest but he had at least delayed her fate. It was a small mercy.
Halfdan lingered. “Go to him at once, Murdac. Get a good price for her. I will guard her while you are gone.”
“No,” said the other. “You would ravish her before I was a hundred yards away. You will take the message, Halfdan. I will stay here to keep the prize safe.”
Halfdan protested but he knew he would have to obey.
“Will he be at his castle?” he said.
“Yes,” said Murdac. “Give him my regards.”
“You are sure he will buy her from us?”
“Very sure. She will not be the first girl who has vanished behind those walls. My lord Nigel is a man of taste.”
When she heard the name, Inga went into a faint.
CHAPTER TEN
Tanchelm of Ghent had been methodical. As he retraced the man’s footsteps through the city, Ralph Delchard came to admire both his energy and his application. Tanchelm had spoken with almost everyone of significance in York. Through the unwitting channel of Canon Hubert, he had even put indirect questions to Archbishop Thomas at the minster. The Fleming had used the disguise of innocent curiosity and the information had come flowing in.
Some of what he had learned was irrelevant to his needs and much of it was too trivial even to remember, but Tanchelm had separated the wheat from the chaff as he went along. Ralph found his own work as a commissioner fatiguing and all-consuming. It was astonishing to him that his former colleague sat on a tribunal all day yet still found time to explore the city, to meet its denizens and to garner intelligence from a wide variety of sources.
Ralph talked to many of those who had talked to Tanchelm. They all told the same story. He was an astute and personable man with an insatiable interest in everything around him. Nobody seemed to suspect for one second that his interest might have a deeper purpose.
Hours of painstaking research left Ralph weary. He amazed himself by seeking out the company of Canon Hubert in the minster precinct.
“My lord?”
“Is there somewhere we may sit down? My feet ache.”
“Step this way.”
Hubert conducted him to a stone bench and they sat down beside each other, dwarfed by the minster behind them. A fastidious man, the canon wrinkled his nose with disgust as he caught an unpleasant odour.
“Fish!” he said.
“I have been to the harbour. They were unloading their catch.”
“You smell like part of it, my lord.”
“Then sit further off if it offends you.”
“What were you doing by the river?”
“Watching the boats come in. Talking to the sailors.”
“Why?”
“My lord Tanchelm did the same thing, it seems. I was searching for someone who might have spoken to him and who remembers what he said. Even the tiniest clue may be valuable.” He saw Hubert’s pained expression. “Stop sniffing away like a dog at a rabbit hole.”
“It is such a pernicious aroma, my lord.”
“It will wear off.”
Ralph did not tell him what he had discovered at the harbour.
Tanchelm’s affable enquiries had been directed at fishermen who had sailed up the Ouse from the North Sea. He wanted to know about the movements of vessels off the coast and the state of the tides. His particular interest was in how long it would take a boat to sail around Spurn Point, up the Humber Estuary and thence into the River Ouse.
Hubert slipped into his familiar mode of condescension.
“While you were conversing with fishermen,” he said, “I was speaking with Archbishop Thomas. He sent for me.”
“To excommunicate you?”
“To ask about the murder of my lord Tanchelm.”
“It has reached the ears of an archbishop?”
“Everything of importance in this diocese reaches Thomas of Bayeux.
The Church is a fount of knowledge. No man understood that better than our late colleague, for he made extensive use of the fact. That is how his name came into the hearing of Archbishop Thomas.”
“Tanchelm?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Go on.”
“It seems that he was conducting an inquiry here.”
“At the minster?”