‘How many men do we have of fighting age?’ I said to no one in particular.
‘No more than a score,’?dda replied. ‘But they have no weapons or shields-’
‘Then we will find them some.’
‘From where?’ Galfrid challenged me. ‘And anyway, do you think they will want to fight, after everything they have seen?’
‘If they wish to take vengeance and see justice delivered upon the men who did this, yes.’ If they felt anything like I did, they would be only too eager for blood.
I glanced around the circle, at R?dwulf and D?gric and Odgar, at men from other manors and other hundreds whose names I did not know: Frenchmen and Englishmen alike. None of them made a sound, which I took for a sign that they were in agreement. Either that, or else there was no one willing to speak against me.
?dda nodded solemnly as he gazed into the writhing, twisting flames. I wondered what was running through his mind: whether he could feel any relish at all in the prospect of the fighting to come, or whether it was something he would merely endure. Despite what had happened in his past I hoped he might find some enthusiasm within himself, could summon the battle-fury when it mattered. Often in the fray that was all that kept one going, all that kept one from succumbing to the fear that was always threatening to invade one’s mind. For once that had taken hold it did not let go, and when that happened a moment was all it took for a foeman to take advantage. Death came quickly when a man’s wits deserted him.
I tried to shut such thoughts from my head. I couldn’t afford to lose any more good friends that way. Yet neither could I promise that any or all of them would make it through. In my heart lurked a certain guilt that I would be leading these men, some of them scarcely more than boys, to their graves, as I had led so many before them. But what other choice was there?
‘The king is marching,’ I said, addressing them all. ‘If we are to reclaim the lands that belong to us, he will need every man he can find. Are you with me?’
The priest translated my words for those who did not speak French. One by one they gave their assent, perhaps strengthened by my resolve. A few hesitated, and perhaps their minds were upon the struggles to come, but eventually they too agreed.
Even Galfrid gave his support, though I sensed a certain reluctance in his voice, which I put down to a lack of experience. It did not surprise me. Often the men who spoke the loudest turned out to be those who had the most to prove, their words a mere veil with which they attempted to disguise their shortcomings.
I knew, for not so long ago that had been me.
Twenty-five
We didn’t have long to wait before our first prey presented itself. The sun was not long up, although we had been travelling for the better part of an hour that morning; there was dampness in the air and dew upon the grass. Summer was passing into autumn and all about the leaves were beginning to turn from green to gold, in some places already falling.
Falling, just as shortly the foemen before us would be. I counted four of them, riding from the north and the west. All were mounted upon sturdy ponies and all bore long spears with points that shone beneath the low sun. They came across the pastures and the fields, scattering sheep and tearing up the earth, sending clods of dirt and shredded vegetable leaves flying as they descended upon the small cluster of some five crumbling cottages that stood on the low ground by the water-meadows.
At once the cry was raised amongst the inhabitants, who abandoned their tools and their animals, taking flight in all directions as they made for whatever cover they could find. One long cob and straw house, larger than the rest, stood beside the pig-pens, and the Welshmen made for this first. Outside geese honked a belated warning to their owners, scurrying away with outstretched wings. Two of the enemy burst into the cottage, dragging out a screaming woman by the hair and shoving her to the ground, while the others pulled a large chest they had found into the yard, where one of them proceeded to hack at it with an axe that had been slung across his back.
All this we saw happen from the edge of a copse on the other side of the stream from the houses. The sun was behind us, and perhaps that was why the enemy had failed to notice us approaching, for a party of some four dozen ought to have been enough to frighten them off.
‘Wait here,’ I said to Father Erchembald, in whose care I had placed the women and the children, then to the menfolk: ‘With me. Stay quiet; don’t say a word unless you have to.’
We moved slowly so as not to attract attention, making for the rickety-looking bridge that crossed the stream, keeping low to the ground where the long grass would conceal us. The last thing I wanted was to charge upon the enemy only to watch them take to their ponies and escape before we had the chance to kill them. Fortune had seen our paths cross this day, at this hour, but I was determined to make the most of that fortune and ensure that these Devil-sons did not live to return here.
Wisely none of the villagers had dared offer a fight, and so the Welshmen went from house to house, searching for anything of worth that they could find, even breaking into the shabby, moss-covered building that passed for a church, ignoring the protestations of the priest, whom they carried out and cast into a dung-heap piled against a barn. There they left him, though only after kicking him in the side to see that he did not get up.
It was while they were all inside the church that we took our chance. I gave the signal to?dda and to Galfrid, who were a little behind me, and they passed it on to the rest of the men. As one we rose and dashed across the bridge, which rattled beneath the rush of feet. One group I sent to capture the Welshmen’s ponies, which they had left untethered close by the pig-pens. Those who had weapons I took in the direction of the church, breaking into a run across the damp grass and vaulting the low dry stone wall that marked the bounds of the churchyard. Half of them, led by Galfrid, went around the other side of the building while I and six others took up position beside the doorway so that when the enemy came out we could cut them down from both sides.
After that everything happened so quickly that it was almost a blur. Within a few heartbeats the first of the Welshmen emerged, a broad grin upon his face as he dropped a silver candlestick into a sack, and he looked up just in time to see my sword-edge smash into his face and to feel it bite through his skull. Seeing this, the others rushed out with weapons drawn, but we outnumbered them by four to one, and they stood no chance. Despite being dressed for war, they had not come here expecting much of a fight, while we were hungry for blood, hungry for the kill. We tore into them, stabbing and hacking and thrusting, filling the morning with our fury, with their cries and their spilt guts, and when all was done we stripped their limp and battered corpses and flung them into the stream, letting the waters run red so that they carried the evidence of our work here downstream as a warning.
Only when it was clear that we meant them no harm did the villagers approach once more. We returned to them the goods the Welshmen had taken and lifted the priest, a lean, ancient man with a shock of snowy hair, out of the dung-heap where he lay, dazed and somewhat shaken.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, still eyeing us nervously in spite of our kindness.
‘Friends,’ I answered simply, though he did not look reassured by that. I supposed he had a right to be nervous, for he had just witnessed four armed warriors slain in quick and brutal fashion on the doorstep of his church and their lifeblood shed over consecrated ground. He had no way of knowing that having dispatched them we wouldn’t now turn on him and his people too, and finish what the Welshmen had begun. Only when the rest of our party arrived and he saw that we too had a priest with us was he finally convinced that we did not mean to kill him.