‘Were any of Robert’s knights among them? Did they come bearing the black-and-gold banner?’
‘I think I’d have noticed if they had,’ he said. ‘Why would Robert’s men be wanting you, anyway? The last I heard, you were with him fighting the rebels in the Fens.’
‘I was,’ I said, and gave a weary sigh as I hesitated, trying to work out how I was to explain everything that had happened.
He eyed Eithne and Godric. ‘Who are they? You’re not bringing in waifs and orphans, are you? The harvest was barely large enough to fill our storehouses. We’ll struggle to keep ourselves fed through the winter as it is without another two hungry young mouths eating our bread and guzzling our ale.’
‘Peace, Galfrid,’ I assured him. ‘I’ll give you all my news in time, just as soon as we’ve stabled our horses and had something to eat. We’ve been on the road for ten days and we’re famished.’
‘Tancred!’
I turned to find Erchembald, the priest, hustling towards us, raising the hem of his robe so that it didn’t trail in the mud. He was stoutly built but not fat, with hair that was greying at the temples and a youthful face that belied his years, of which he reckoned he had nearly forty behind him. I slid down from the saddle and embraced him.
‘God be praised that you’re here at last, and unharmed too,’ he said. ‘We feared some ill fate might have befallen you, or was about to. Did Galfrid tell you—?’
‘He did,’ I said.
‘What does it all mean?’ he asked, his brow furrowed. ‘What business did those knights have with you, and what’s happened to you? You look like someone dragged you backwards through a briar patch. Where have you been?’
I felt the weight of their questioning gazes resting upon me, and realised that this could not wait. They deserved answers, and I was the only one who could give them.
I took a deep breath, and then slowly, starting from the very beginning, I told them everything.
Eighteen
I BEGAN WITH the king’s siege of the Isle and our assault upon Elyg. At the same time we trudged up the slope towards the new hall, which had been built in the place of the one the Welsh had torched. Somehow it felt safer to talk about everything there than in the open, and besides my throat was parched and I felt as if I hadn’t eaten a proper meal in a month. We had spent the last few days on the road eating nothing but hard bread and stale cheese, and my stomach had been paining me since dawn at the thought of the hot food that would greet our arrival. While stable-hands came to see to our mounts and Galfrid sent to the kitchens for ale and sausage and some of that day’s bread, I related how we had come to meet first Godric and then, after our victory over the rebels, Eithne as well, followed by the story of Guibert’s killing and our flight from Heia. Once in a while Serlo or Pons or Godric would add something that had slipped my mind, but their interruptions aside, everyone was content to listen while I spoke.
After I’d finished, silence lingered. Neither the priest nor the steward seemed to know quite what to say. They sat at the round table that stood in the middle of the chamber, while I paced up and down the length of the hall, from the door to the dais and back again. My legs were aching from our travels, but at the same time my mind was burning with a thousand thoughts, and I could not keep still. So much in Earnford seemed to have changed in the few months I’d been away, or perhaps it was I who had changed. I had become an outlaw, a stranger in my own hall. This place that for so long had been my home was now a place of danger.
‘What will happen now?’ Erchembald asked after some time. ‘What does this mean for you, and for us?’
‘Robert wants to bring me to justice. That’s why those men came the other day, and that’s why they’ll be back for me before too long.’
‘Because you killed a man?’ Galfrid asked, and gave a grunt that I took for a sign of his disbelief. ‘You slay a dozen, twenty, a hundred and the poets praise you, but you slay one more and for that Robert wants your head?’
‘This is hardly the same thing,’ Erchembald pointed out.
He was right, too. ‘I killed a fellow Frenchman, and in my lord’s own hall. A man who was guilty of nothing, whose only crime was that he was drunk and not in possession of his wits.’
‘You said that he attacked you,’ Galfrid said. ‘Doesn’t that count for anything?’
So I had thought, too. Clearly I was wrong.
‘I have enemies,’ I said bitterly. ‘Enemies who, for different reasons, wish to see me brought low, who would poison the bond between myself and Lord Robert, who would take joy in my suffering.’
‘What reasons?’ Father Erchembald asked.
‘Jealousy,’ I answered. ‘Spite. Because of things I’ve done in the past.’
‘And Robert didn’t defend you?’
‘He tried.’ I saw that now, at least. ‘By allowing me to walk away from there, he did what little he could.’