And as he wiped the sword on a patch of grass, I recognised the smoke-like pattern of the steel and the two blood-red stones embedded in the hilt, and saw that it was my own blade that had spilt his blood, that had taken his life.
From the position of the sun I reckoned our route took us once more west and south, and that reckoning was proven right when later that day we crossed the dyke. Back into Wales, as if I hadn’t already seen enough of this godforsaken country.
Bleddyn and his raiding-band did not ride with us. Where they were headed I was not sure, though I could make a guess: Scrobbesburh. Instead I was escorted by the same six horsemen who had been at Byrhtwald’s killing.
‘Are you taking me to Eadric?’ I asked them some time later, when that place was long behind us.
‘Eadric?’ snorted the bald-headed one, whose name I had learnt was Dyfnwal. From the way he had assumed charge I guessed he must be their leader. ‘If he wants you, he’ll have to come and fetch you. And when he does he’d better bring with him a cart full of silver. He’s a fool if he thinks he’s getting you for nothing.’
This raised a snigger amongst the others.
‘Where are we going, then?’
But Dyfnwal had grown tired of my questions, and the only answer I got was the customary nudge between the shoulder-blades: the sign to shut up and keep moving. I was confused, since from what I had heard Eadric and the Welsh were firmly aligned, their alliance founded upon a common cause and cemented with mutual oaths. Perhaps their ties were looser than any of us had suspected. Certainly the way that these men spoke of Eadric suggested they had little liking for him.
Nor did Dyfnwal provide any more answers over the hours that followed. They did at least give me a small amount of bread and ale. In truth it did little to sate my hunger but it was better than nothing at all, and I accepted what was offered without complaint.
We marched on for the better part of two days, across valleys and over thickly wooded hills, never seeing another soul. They had not returned my shoes, which were probably on the feet of some other man by now. My ankles were nettle-stung, my bare soles swollen, in places cut and beginning to bleed, so that with every step came a fresh jolt of pain. I was beginning to wonder how much further we had to travel when I realised that I recognised the shape of these gently sloping hills, that I knew where we were.
And then as we crested one of those hills, in the distance I saw the place they were taking me to: a powerful stronghold ringed with high ramparts, along the top of which ran a sturdy stockade. The river lay on one side and it was girded on its other three flanks by a wide moat. As we grew closer I saw heads mounted on spears above the gatehouse: heads of what from their short hair and clean-shaven faces could only be Frenchmen. Nailed to the timbers were the tattered, blood-stained remains of the serpent flag that had once belonged to the brothers Maredudd and Ithel. Not so long ago they had dreamed of assaulting this fort, the ancient home of the men who had stolen their birthright, of claiming it for themselves and seeing that banner soar proudly in this valley. But no longer. And now I had returned, not at the head of an army but as a prisoner.
To Mathrafal.
Twenty-two
They led me through a wide yard ringed with wattle and cob huts to an empty storehouse close by what I guessed from the smoke and the pungent smell of fish were the kitchens. There they left me, though not before manacling my wrists and shackling my ankles by means of a gyve and chain to an iron rung set into the stonework so that I could not escape.
By now Robert and the others would be somewhere up in the high hills, I reckoned, with several days’ hard going ahead of them before they reached Eoferwic, unless they’d heard that the Northumbrians were marching and had decided to make for elsewhere. They must have thought me dead, and I supposed I might as well have been, since it would not be long before Eadric came for me and I was delivered to the?theling.
Nor were Robert and the others the only people who came to mind over the dark days that followed. With not a little guilt I thought of Leofrun back in Earnford, and dreamt of holding her, of lying with her in our chamber upon our feather-filled mattress. I pictured her face in my mind: her soft pinkish cheeks that dimpled when she laughed, her ears that she thought too big, her auburn hair that tumbled in great waves across her shoulders when she unbound it from her braids. Already at only seventeen summers old she was as good and gentle a woman as I had ever known, devoted to me from the moment I had laid eyes upon her and purchased her freedom from the slave-seller who had previously owned her, and taken her away with me to Earnford.
Earnford, my home. It wasn’t just the manor itself that I’d grown fond of but the folk who lived there too: wise Father Erchembald, who together with Leofrun had taught me the little English I knew;?dda, who despite his initial distrust of me had grown to become one of my staunchest allies and closest friends among the English. With each day that went by it looked ever more unlikely that I would see either of them again.
My biggest regret was that I would not live to hold my child in my arms. Often over the past few months I had wondered what he or she might look like, how much of myself I would recognise in that face. Were it a boy, I would have looked forward to watching him grow up, until he was old enough that I might begin to train him in the skills of swordcraft, the art of horsemanship and the pleasures of the hunt. Indeed, were it a girl, I might well have done much the same, except that Leofrun would never have allowed me to teach her the sword. Instead I’d have found someone teach her how to use the bow, and enjoyed watching her practise at the butts until she was as good a shot as any man.
These delights I would never know. All my hopes, my ambitions and my desires — everything I had striven for — had come to naught.
Once in a while my captors would bring me something to eat and drink. Sometimes it would be a bowl of half-warm beans mixed with some kind of smoked fish, but on the whole I considered myself lucky to receive anything more than a miserly half-cup of ale and a scrap of mouldy bread. A pair of guards would release my hands so I could eat, and they would stand over me as I did so, waiting until I’d finished before snapping the manacles back around my wrists and leaving me alone once more. Occasionally I was asleep when they came, whereupon they would kick me hard in the ribs or spit in my face to rouse me, and when they found me awake they would often taunt me by passing the dishes beneath my nose repeatedly, torturing me with the smell and the promise of food until, after what seemed like hours, they would at last unchain my hands. Such were the games that they played.
By night I bedded down upon piles of damp straw and huddled beneath the rough linen blanket they had given me. Clearly they had no wish for me to perish through cold any more than they wanted me to starve, although at the same time they weren’t going to make it comfortable for me either. The only time they freed me from my chains was when I needed to relieve myself, when they took me to the privy across the yard. Even then they kept me closely guarded, with an escort of two or sometimes three guards. Once I managed to evade them, making it as far as the stables before a pair of well-set men wrestled me to the ground. And in truth there was nowhere I could have gone. Most of the time the gates were kept closed and, so far as I could see, there was no other way in or out of the fort. Perhaps they were being over-cautious, since they did not take me to the privy after that. Instead they made me relieve myself in my small prison, so that when I lay down to sleep it was with the stench of my own piss and shit around me.
Days slipped by, each one the same, so that I quickly lost count of them. Weeks must have passed since I’d first arrived, I thought, although how many I could no longer say. I wondered if the enemy had begun their siege of Scrobbesburh, whether Fitz Osbern still held out in the castle, whether the Danish fleet had yet arrived upon these shores. From time to time I prayed, hoping that God had not forsaken me altogether, that He would still hear me and bring me some hope. In all that time, however, I never received an answer.