A few strands of straw from the mattress had become stuck to my tunic, and I brushed them off as I rose and made my way towards the door, stepping lightly between the sleeping forms of the rest of my party, trying not to rouse them.
Out in the yard all was quiet save for a few chickens scratching at the dirt, but I noticed that the door to the stables lay open, which suggested ?dda was already about. I had seen him the previous night, although the last light was fast fading when he returned, having spent the day taking one of the palfreys to be reshod, which meant a journey of ten miles each way to the nearest manor with a farrier. One of my closest friends among the English, he was a quiet man, who kept largely to his own company, and I was pleased to see he hadn’t changed since I’d last seen him, except in one respect.
‘I have a wife, lord,’ he’d said.
‘A wife?’ I asked, overjoyed though at the same time more than a little surprised. We’d been gone a matter of months, after all. ‘Who is she? When did this happen?’
‘I first met her at the market in Leomynstre, about a week after you left for the Fens. Sannan, her name is. A tanner’s daughter, and a widow at twenty-three.’
‘Twenty-three?’ I repeated.
He gave a boyish grin, and there was a glint in his one remaining eye, which was a rare thing from someone who was usually so sombre. ?dda had long ago lost count of how many summers he had seen, although to judge by his weathered appearance I reckoned he was probably a good ten years older than myself.
‘She met my eye, and I met hers, and for both of us it was love in that moment,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known a creature so beautiful. I saw her again the next week and the one after that, and then the one after that I went to her father with the bride-price and we were wed two days later.’
I was glad for him. Men, women and children alike often feared him on account of his disfigured face, partly the result of an enemy spear that had put out one of his eyes as a youth, leaving only an ugly black scar, and partly due to the burns he’d received in an incident he’d never wished to discuss, which had left the skin across one cheek white and raw and painful to look at, though undoubtedly not as painful as it was to bear. ?dda Aneage, he was sometimes called, which meant ?dda the One-eyed, though people were careful not to speak that byname in his presence lest he became roused to anger. He was, at heart, a gentle soul, as any who knew him well would confirm, and it pleased me that he had found someone who could see past his appearance to the person within.
‘Do you want to meet her, lord?’ he asked. ‘Her mother was Welsh, but her father is English, and she speaks both tongues. She’ll be glad to meet you at last. I’ve told her all about you.’
He’d led me to his small cottage next to the sheepfolds, where Sannan was building up the fire with twigs and broken branches gathered from the woods. Truly ?dda had been blessed, for she was a fine girl, red-haired and slender, who blushed as she smiled and who was at every moment attentive to her man. Though it does me ill to admit it, I was a little jealous of him. They invited me to stay and sup with them, there being just enough food to make a meal for three, and I accepted. We filled our bellies with boiled mutton, beans and fresh-baked bread, and though the fare was simple, I was content to be there and to enjoy their company.
All this I would miss.
Now, though it was barely first light, the stableman was already at work, placing feedbags on the doors to each of the stalls.
‘Lord,’ he said with some surprise when he saw me. ‘You’re risen early.’
‘For the first time in weeks I find myself with a comfortable mattress to lie down on and I can’t even sleep the whole night through,’ I said ruefully.
?dda did not join me in a smile. The mischievousness he’d shown yesterday was gone, and his usual sombreness had returned. Last night it had been possible to pretend that all was well, but now the day had come when I would leave Earnford behind, and we both knew it.
‘I took a stone from the hind hoof of the girl’s palfrey,’ he said. ‘He’ll need to rest that foot for a day or two, but she can take one of the others.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t mean to pry but I was wondering, lord. That girl, Eithne. Is she your—?’
‘No,’ I said, laughing, before he could finish that thought. ‘Too quarrelsome for my liking. But she’s going to help me find the one who is.’
He nodded. ‘The rest of the horses are groomed and fed. They’ll carry you as far as you need to go to.’
‘I’m going to leave Fyrheard,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if I can take him where we’re going, and I couldn’t bear to sell him to another master. But I don’t want whoever happens to be lord here after me to have him either.’