‘Will he live?’ I asked.
The priest did not reply straightaway, and I wondered if he had heard me. He crouched down by the edge of the brook, cleaning his hands in its clear waters and rinsing out some of the cloths he had used.
‘Father?’
He splashed some water into his face and, blinking, stood up. ‘God alone has the answer to that question,’ he said, his expression solemn. ‘I have done what I can for him, but so often it is hard to tell. Some live; others die. While I can close the wound and stop the bleeding, much depends on the extent of the damage done to his innards and that I cannot help.’
Exactly what I was expecting to hear I didn’t know, but that was not it. A numbness overcame me. I knew he was only being honest, but I would have thought that a man of the Church would also try to offer some manner of consolation, some hope.
He must have seen what I was thinking, for he added quickly: ‘He is strong, I will say that much. For most men the pain is too much and they pass out straightaway, but he held on and almost saw it through. If God grants him that same strength over the days to come, then there is a good chance he will survive.’
‘And what do we do in the meantime?’
‘In the meantime the best you can do is pray,’ Erchembald said. ‘Now, I must prepare a poultice for that wound. The sutures will prevent it from bleeding further, but it will not heal well otherwise.’
‘Let me help,’ I said.
‘There is nothing you can help with, lord, except ensure that no one disturbs me. I know the villagers mean well, but I cannot have them getting in my way.’
Indeed I could see a group of men and women gathering close by the church, glancing nervously towards us. They would want to know what was happening.
‘I will make sure of it,’ I said.
‘In that case, if you will forgive me, I must go.’
He hastened back inside, leaving me to gaze into the stream. The cloths he had left to soak in the water, and I watched pink tendrils twist and coil around each other, forming eddies in the current.
I was not alone for long, as shortly I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Robert. ‘I’m sorry for the Englishman,’ he said. ‘You know him well?’
Better than most in Earnford, I liked to think. ‘He is my stableman,’ I said. ‘The ablest tracker I’ve known, and a good friend too.’
‘He will survive, Tancred. I’m sure of it.’
He meant well, but after what Father Erchembald had said his words sounded hollow to my ears. ‘You don’t know that, lord.’
‘No,’ he said after a moment’s pause, and he sighed. ‘I don’t.’
‘You saw no sign of any raiders on your way to Earnford this afternoon?’
‘None,’ he replied. ‘But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. They could well have fled when they saw us approaching.’
That was more than possible. If they were a small band, they would have been easily hidden.
‘I’ll take a dozen men out to scout the country,’ Robert said, grim-faced, as he gazed out across the fields along the edge of the woods. ‘If the enemy are close by, we’ll find them.’
That I doubted, though I did not say so. Whoever had attacked the stableman, Pons and Turold was probably long gone by now, and Robert would have little chance of catching up with them.
Yet as he began to marshal his knights and they prepared to ride out once more, I had the unsettling feeling that Byrhtwald had been right; that somewhere in that wilderness beyond the dyke the Welsh were lurking, and in numbers too. Like eagles circling high overhead, they watched, waiting for the moment when they could stoop and catch their prey unawares.
For the moment to strike again, and this time to kill.
My doubts were borne out when Robert and his men returned a few hours later. Dusk was upon us and I’d retreated to my hall, having spent much of the afternoon trying to calm the men and women of Earnford. They had seen what had happened to?dda and now feared for their own lives as well as those of their children.
Leofrun had joined me for a time to try and lift me from my darkened mood, and while I was grateful for her presence and her efforts, I was not much cheered. Now she had retired to our chambers and I was alone. I sat on a stool before the hearth-fire, drawing a whetstone up my knife-edge, not because it needed it but because I did not know what else to do. My first lord had given this blade to me when I entered his service at the age of thirteen. It had shed some of its weight since then, so many times had I sharpened it, and it was no longer as well balanced as a fighting blade ought to be, but I could never bring myself to use any other and so it had stayed by my side all these years.
I was holding the edge up to the firelight, examining it for any nicks, when the doors to the hall were flung open and Robert strode in, bringing a burst of cool air with him.
I got to my feet, sheathing the knife and setting it down on the floor. ‘Did you see anything?’
He shook his head as he untied his helmet-strap. ‘There were some pony tracks leading away from where your men said the attack took place. We followed the trail over the hills, and for a short way into the forest, but there we lost it. As soon as that happened we turned back; it was too dangerous to linger there longer than we had to, especially with the light fading.’
‘How many sets of tracks were there?’
‘Only two or three, we reckoned, with perhaps a couple more on foot, although it was hard to tell.’
?dda would have known, I thought; he would have been able to stay on their trail. The irony was not lost on me. And what if those few were merely the advance party for a larger raiding-band?
‘How does the Englishman fare?’
‘He lives,’ I replied. ‘He’s still in much pain, but no longer bleeding.’
Robert was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I hear this isn’t the first time that the Welsh have attacked in recent weeks.’
‘No, lord.’
‘I was speaking with your man Serlo, who told me the story of how you hunted down the ones who came raiding last month. Didn’t you consider that by killing them all you might only end up provoking the enemy?’
‘I didn’t kill them all,’ I protested. ‘One of them I spared.’
‘One to tell the tale. Yes, I know.’
‘What choice did I have?’ I asked, rounding on him. ‘They sent several of my people to their graves, butchered their livestock and burnt their cottages to the ground. Death was no more than they deserved.’
‘I’m only suggesting that if you had let those men live, the Welsh might not have come seeking vengeance, and the Englishman would not lie injured and perhaps dying.’
‘The Welsh are always raiding, looking for opportunities to steal and wreak their violence,’ I countered. ‘It wasn’t vengeance that brought them here today. Besides, if I’d let those who came last time live, they would only have returned in greater numbers. They are a savage people; they have no understanding of honour as we do.’
‘The sword is not the answer to every problem,’ Robert said, seemingly not listening to what I was saying. ‘Sometimes it is better to keep it sheathed and stay your hand. You would be wise to remember that.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ I said. ‘This is my manor. I am lord here.’
The blood was hot in my veins, my heart thumping in my chest as I glared at him. He might have been my liege, but even so he had no right to appear as if out of nowhere, to ask for food and drink and shelter, and then to tell me how I should run affairs on my own lands.
‘You forget yourself, Tancred,’ Robert said, and there was a note of warning in his voice. As long as I had known him I had regarded him as a man of even temper, who was patient and rarely moved to anger. But every man had his limits, beyond which his patience ran out, and I sensed that I was testing those limits now.