He shrugged. ‘I can but try.’
His faith was well placed. Almost a week after we had first made port in Dyflin, the first of Magnus’s old retainers came to the city and presented himself at his hall. A thickset Englishman in his middle years, he was dressed in mail and armed with spear and sword, as well as a long-handled axe that he carried slung across his back. His top lip was adorned with a thick moustache, and his tangled beard was flecked with breadcrumbs. His name was ?lfhelm and he was, I soon learnt, one of the longest-serving and most trusted retainers of the usurper’s family. He had been left to defend Lundene when Harold had marched to meet King Guillaume, and so had been spared a bloody end at H?stinges.
On first seeing myself and my knights, and recognising us for the Normans we were, he reached straightaway for his sword-hilt. I believe he would have tried to face all three of us at once had Magnus not blocked his path, explained who we were and why we were here.
?lfhelm spat on the floor. ‘Why should I ally myself with these whoresons?’
‘Because I wish it,’ Magnus answered.
‘It was men like these who slew your father and his brothers. Have you forgotten that?’
‘They’re friends,’ Magnus insisted, and though that seemed to me a little overstating matters, given that we had met only a few days previously, I didn’t argue. In any case, it seemed to put an end to the debate. The bearded one’s mouth twisted into a scowl and he kept glancing suspiciously at us as Magnus led him into the hall and the two of them exchanged what tidings they had. We would have to keep a close watch over him, I reckoned.
Nor was he the only one we would have to be wary of. In all, twenty-six of Magnus’s huscarls responded to his summons, each one accompanied by a manservant or stable-boy, and a couple with their lovers and mistresses. They were men of all sizes and appearances, some of an age roughly with myself, while others were older even than ?lfhelm, although he seemed to be chief among them. All, however, regardless of age, possessed the same hard eyes, stiff bearing and sour temper that spoke to me of battles fought and lost, of feuds unsettled, of thoughts of vengeance rarely uttered but ever-present, of untold bitterness against the circumstances that had brought each one of them to these shores. These were the men alongside whom I would have to fight if I wanted to reclaim Oswynn.
In my time I had been forced to make cause with some unlikely allies in pursuit of common ends, but these were without a doubt the unlikeliest of all. In another place and another time, they would have had no more hesitation in cutting us down than we would them. As it was, only Magnus stood between us and a grim fate. I supposed since he was their lord and, in their eyes, their king, they were oath-bound to accept his wishes, but even bearing that in mind did not make me feel any safer. I was not alone, either.
‘I don’t like this,’ Serlo confessed to me when the five of us were alone later that day, having ventured down to the market to provision ourselves for the voyage north.
‘Neither do I, lord,’ said Pons. ‘How soon will it be before they turn on us?’
‘They won’t,’ I said firmly, more to convince myself than because I truly believed it. ‘I have Magnus’s word. He’s someone who understands honour, and the value of keeping one’s oaths.’
‘Like his father kept to his oaths, you mean?’ Pons asked, and there was an obvious barb to his tone. He was referring, of course, to the pledge of fealty Harold had made to Duke Guillaume, and his promise to support the latter’s claim to the English crown: a promise Harold later broke when he seized the crown for himself.
I didn’t offer an answer to that, for I knew there was none that would satisfy him.
Pons sighed in exasperation, and shook his head in disbelief. ‘You can’t rely on the word of an Englishman.’
‘That’s not true,’ Godric protested.
‘Except for the whelp here, of course,’ he added. ‘But he’s not like them.’
‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘And what about men like ?dda, and all the folk at Earnford?’
‘You know what Pons means, lord,’ said Serlo. ‘The moment we’re out on the sea, they’ll cast us over the side, if they don’t come for us sooner. In the night, perhaps, while we’re sleeping. They’ll kill us and then they’ll have their way with the girl.’