‘Hardly.’
I was not in the mood for explanations, but thankfully the priest did not enquire further. ‘Ten men against a thousand,’ he said. ‘You realise you do not have to do this, Tancred. There would be no shame if you were to change your mind now.’
We had become good friends over the past year, the priest and I, and it was clear he did not want me to go.
‘I made an oath to Robert upon holy relics, under the gaze of our Lord,’ I said. ‘If I break that oath then I am damned. You know this.’
He sighed. ‘God understands it is an arduous task you take upon yourself. He will not punish you for refusing it. He is merciful; He will forgive you.’
‘But I may never forgive myself if I let Robert and Beatrice and their father go to their deaths.’
Sadness filled his eyes, though he did his best not to show it by bowing his head. ‘Then do what you must.’
‘God will protect us,’ I said, and hoped that it was true. ‘We will meet again.’
Erchembald nodded and clasped my hand. Together we prayed for our safekeeping and that of the Malets, before at last he heard my confession and absolved me of my sins.
‘I wish you good luck,’ he said. ‘God be with you.’
As soon as I left him we mounted up and rode out, leaving the orange dots of the campfires behind us as we traversed that night-shrouded land.
And so we were on our way. To Beferlic, and whatever fate awaited us there.
From Eoferwic Runstan led us south, following the course of the river. Before long we came to a shallow point on the Use where the riverbed was firm and the waters not too fast-flowing. With some coaxing we led our horses across, and from there made for what I supposed was the east, riding hard through the night until we could see the first grey light of dawn rising above low wooded hills.
There we sheltered through the following day. Under the cover of a brown-gold thicket we took it in turns to rest and to keep watch. As soon as night fell we moved on again, descending from the wolds into flatter country towards the swamps that made up Heldernesse. It was a clear, moonlit night and a much colder one than of late. A thick mist soon settled over the low-lying pastures, which was fortunate, for it meant we could ride without fear of being spotted. Before long the shadows of Beferlic came into sight: a cluster of squat houses, workshops, alehouses and halls sitting on a low and narrow promontory of dry land that jutted out into the marshes, with the belfry of a church at its centre, rising towards the sky, and around it the dormitory and other buildings that comprised the monastery. Somewhere amongst all of that were Robert and his family, and Eadgar too.
On the town’s eastern flank the land fell away to the marshes and the river Hul, upon the banks of which five small ships had been drawn up. Around the three landward sides, meanwhile, a sturdy palisade had been thrown up, and a deep ditch dug in front of it into which sharpened stakes had been driven. Outside those defences, straddling the roads that led towards the gates, an array of tiny pinpricks of firelight showed where the enemy had made their camp. Often armies would disguise their true numbers by building more fires than needed on the edges of their camp, and yet even with that in mind I could not see how the garrison could be as large as Runstan had told us. Either the enemy were on the move, which seemed strange given the efforts they had made to fortify this place, or else he’d lied. And if he had, what else about his story might be false?
‘Surely this is a good thing, though,’ said Eudo. ‘We won’t have to battle our way through so many of them.’
‘I’d rather know what I’m fighting before it kills me,’ Wace muttered. Now that we saw what we faced, he was probably beginning to have further doubts about this expedition.
Possibly it was a ruse designed to lure King Guillaume and his army to assault the town, when in fact within those walls were gathered scores upon scores of men that we could not see.
Sharing Wace’s concerns, I turned to the Englishman. ‘You said there were a thousand men in Beferlic. Where are the others?’
‘Some among the Danes prefer to sleep by their ships rather than in camp,’ Runstan said. ‘They’ve taken a quarter of their force into the marshes a mile or so upstream to guard against an attack from across the hills to the north.’
Or else to catch an unwary foe in the rearguard, and crush them between their swords and the walls of Beferlic. Which meant that in the town itself and the camp surrounding its walls were probably somewhere between seven and eight hundred men.
‘From now on you’ll tell us everything,’ I said, grabbing him by the collar. ‘Do you understand?’
He nodded, but I sensed my threats were meaningless to him. He was no longer trembling, no longer afraid; he knew as we did that he was of more use to us alive than dead.
We circled around the town so as to approach it from the south. We left our horses inside what must at one time have been a barn or storehouse, albeit one long abandoned for it was in need of some repair. An ideal hiding place, since there was little reason for the enemy to venture there, though in any case it was well out of sight of both the town and the river.?dda offered to stay with the animals and wait for our return, and to judge from the anxiety in his eyes that was probably the best thing. He had served me loyally and done more for me than anyone in recent weeks. He had come this far, and I could ask no more of him.
‘If first light comes and there is no sign of us, you must get yourself away from here,’ I told him. ‘Forget about us; make sure you get back safely to Eoferwic and the others.’
He nodded solemnly. How I thought we might escape Beferlic when I didn’t even know how to get in, I wasn’t sure. With luck an answer would present itself when we needed one; that was the best we could hope for.
Nine of us there were, then, who set out across the sucking bogs. Nine, that was, not counting our guide. We moved slowly, making our way through the mist: splashing gently over narrow streams; wading across inlets of the river; picking our way through clumps of reeds and tall grass and around pools where the ground had become waterlogged following the rains; staying as low to the ground as we could; keeping our cloaks over our armour so that we would blend in more easily with the night. There would be watchmen upon the walls, and doubtless also atop the monastery’s bell-tower, which offered the best vantage of anywhere for miles around. Save for the occasional splashing and calls of waterbirds upon the river, the night was still. The slightest noise or sign of movement and the alarm would quickly be raised. Once or twice I wondered at what point Runstan would try to betray us, as he surely must. Not yet, I thought, when we still had a chance of escaping. Instead he would wait for the right opportunity, perhaps once we were a little nearer.
I followed but a few paces behind him, keeping one hand on my sword-hilt at all times. That way if he did cry out, it would be the last sound he made before my blade was buried in his back. Still, for now at least he seemed to be holding to his word, never rushing on ahead nor, so far as any of us could tell, leading us on any false paths. At the same time he didn’t take us too close to the ramparts, the shadows of which I could just make out through the marsh-mist, along with the hulls of the five enemy boats. I could see now that these were cargo vessels, built for the open sea as much as for river-going: broad of beam and with high gunwales. But there were two other ships moored upon the river about a quarter of a mile off that I had not spotted earlier. Larger and sleeker than the others, these ones had to be perhaps twenty-five or even thirty benches in length, sitting high in the water. Ships of war.
I signalled to the others behind me to stop. ‘Wait,’ I said to Runstan in hushed tones, and pointed in the direction of the ships. ‘Whose are they?’
‘The nearest is ?girulfr; it belongs to King Sweyn. The other is Northgar, King Eadgar’s own ship.’