With that in mind we rode hard, or as hard as we could, given both the state of the roads, which were clogged with mud after the recent rains, and the poor directions offered by other travellers and field labourers whom we passed. From Gipeswic we sought out the old Roman way that led to Lundene, where the talk was of the king’s victory over the rebels at Elyg and the fleet he was said to be assembling for the expedition to Flanders. We stayed the night in an inn outside the walls, so as to avoid the murage and pavage that all travellers entering the city were now required to pay. Even so, I had to argue at length with the innkeeper before he would finally agree upon a sensible price. Probably he took us for bandits or outlaws, which I supposed was fair considering our unkempt, dirt-stained clothes, our unshaven chins and the weapons we carried, and that was why at first he demanded so much, but eventually I was able to secure us beds for the night. At least the place was in slightly better repair than the inn at Gipeswic, with solid timber walls that kept out the cold and a roof that didn’t leak, which meant that when we left the next morning we were a little more rested.
From Lundene we made west along the valley of the Temes as far as Oxeneford, after which we struck out along winding paths in the direction of the market town of Wirecestre, where we crossed the wide Saverna River and obtained directions to Leomynstre from a travelling monk who knew the country well. Day after day we woke at dawn and travelled until dusk, spending the nights in alehouses, in the guest houses of monasteries where they would take us, and, when there was no other shelter to be found, in abandoned cattle barns. And so it was that, on the tenth day after we had first set out from that draughty alehouse in Gipeswic, on the edge of the grey German Sea, we found ourselves, tired and cold and sodden and hungry, riding the familiar tracks that would bring us home, at last, to Earnford.
We rode through a land wrought in bronze and gold. The woodland paths were thick with leaves that rustled beneath our mounts’ hooves, while beneath us through the swaying boughs I could make out the river sparkling silver in the afternoon sun, showing us the way. The skies were clear, the day bright, and I hoped that was a happy portent, though of course I didn’t believe in such things.
Before long we were able to spy the turning wheel of the mill, which marked the eastern edge of my lands. Sheep grazed contentedly by the riverbanks, and a broad-shouldered man who could only be Nothmund the miller was busily hauling sacks of grain down from the back of a cart and in through the wide doors. So far there was no sign of anything amiss.
We kicked on down the slope and across the ford by the rickety wooden bridge that, with all the rebuilding elsewhere, no one had found the time to repair, towards the mill and towards Nothmund. At the sound of our hoofbeats he stopped in his tracks, letting the sack he was carrying fall to the ground as he regarded us warily, and it was only right that he did so, for it wasn’t often that mounted men came to Earnford.
‘Lord!’ he exclaimed when we grew closer and he saw who we were, and there was both relief and joy in his voice. He shouted into the mill-house, in his own tongue: ‘Gode, get out here, woman!’
His plump wife appeared at the doorway, the sleeves of her dress rolled up to her elbows, her round face creased in indignation, but her expression changed the moment that her gaze settled upon me.
‘Is it you, lord?’ she asked, as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. ‘Is it really you?’
‘It’s me, Gode,’ I said, and managed a smile, though it wasn’t nearly as broad as the grin upon Nothmund’s face.
‘It’s been too long, lord,’ he said as he reached up to clasp first my hand, then those of Serlo and Pons. He glanced in the direction of Godric and Eithne, who rode behind us, but if he was curious at all about them, he said nothing. Indeed he couldn’t stop smiling. ‘We thought you would be coming, but we didn’t know when exactly it would be.’
At once I tensed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, we didn’t know for certain, but we reckoned you must be on your way here when they said—’
‘Who?’ I asked. ‘Who said?’
‘They did, lord,’ he replied. ‘The ones who came a few days ago, asking for you. When Galfrid told them that you had been gone these past three months, they said to keep a lookout for you, and that they would return soon.’
It was as I’d feared. News had travelled before us. Robert’s messengers must have overtaken us on the road, or else taken a different route across the kingdom.
‘Did they say what they wanted?’ I asked, though I could readily guess.
‘If they did, lord, we never heard it,’ Gode put in. ‘Fierce men, they were, and unpleasant, too, lacking in all manners or Christian grace. Lord knows they put the fear into poor Galfrid.’
I could think of only one reason those men might have come looking for me, and that was to drag me back to Heia.
‘They didn’t say when they would be back?’ I asked.
Nothmund shook his head. ‘They asked Galfrid if they might stay here until you returned from campaign, but he refused and eventually they were forced to go away.’
That suggested they weren’t any of Robert’s men, for if they had been then they wouldn’t have needed even to ask. Perhaps he had sent word to the local shire-reeve or else to Roger de Montgommeri, the newly appointed Earl of Scrobbesburh, and he in turn had sent his own oathmen to pay me a visit. That would explain how they had been able to arrive before us. A lone messenger could make the journey across the kingdom far more quickly than a tired and bedraggled band of five, especially if he could change steeds and obtain provisions at friendly castles and manors along the way.
‘Who were they, lord?’ Gode asked. ‘Were they friends of yours, do you suppose?’