‘Where would I go? Back to my uncle?’ He shook his head. ‘There’s nothing for me there, lord. Not any more.’
It hadn’t been two months since we’d first met, but already he seemed a different person. He was his own man now, subject to no one. That he nevertheless chose to stand by me, though he was bound by no oath to do so, earned my respect.
I turned to Eithne, and briefly wondered what she might say if I asked her the question Pons had wanted me to. I tried to drive such thoughts from my mind.
‘Do I have a choice?’ she retorted, when I asked her whether she was still willing to come with me.
‘I can give you money enough for passage back home, if that’s what you want. There’ll be ships that can take you, I’m sure.’
‘You place too much faith in other men,’ she said in that mocking manner I had grown used to. ‘How far do you think I would get, travelling alone, without anyone for protection? At least with you I am safe.’
That made sense, I supposed. If these last few weeks had taught her anything, it was that she could trust us. Why put herself at risk by striking out on her own? No doubt that was why she had stayed with us this long; she’d had plenty of opportunity along the way to flee if she’d wanted to.
We were all agreed, then. Breton, Normans, English and Irish would travel together into the north, albeit some more reluctantly than others.
Unspeaking, we ventured on past the rows of stalls where cloth merchants, fishmongers, wine-traders, candlemakers, wood-sellers and spicers plied their trade, until we came upon an open square close by the thing-mount, where rows upon rows of men, women and children of both sexes and all colours of hair and skin sat upon the muddy ground, bound together with ropes and chains, their heads bowed and faces leaden, huddled inside clothes that seemed either too large or too small and were dirty and frayed at the hems; all being watched over by men armed with clubs and staves.
The great slave-market for which Dyflin was renowned. Beside me, Eithne shrank back. At first I wondered if she’d spotted her former master, Ravn, somewhere among that throng, but there had to be hundreds of slaves, owners, traders and guards, variously crying and shouting and negotiating and cursing, and so I reckoned she was merely nervous.
‘You’re with me, so you’re safe,’ I told her. ‘Isn’t that what you said?’
‘Let’s leave,’ she said. ‘Please.’
I was about to, for her sake, when my gaze fell upon three dark-skinned young women, one short and the other two tall, all of them wide-eyed and trembling, being led away by a fierce-looking man whose arms were covered in silver rings and who was shouting at them in Danish. I’d glimpsed Moorish women before, but not often and not for long. They were a strange sight to me, and I confess that I could not take my eyes off those girls, spellbound as I was with a mixture of curiosity and admiration, for although they looked thin and ill fed, they were nevertheless creatures of wonder.
‘Lord,’ said Serlo in a warning tone, jolting me from my thoughts. He was gesturing down the street whence we had come, where I saw now a group of four men clad in hauberks and chausses, with swords on their belts. To begin with I didn’t know why he was drawing my attention to these in particular, when so many walked the streets of this city armed and mailed, but as they stopped by the stall of one of the cloth-sellers and turned to speak with him, I saw the distinctive close-cropped hair at the backs and sides of their heads.
We were too far away to make out their features, but I knew at a glance they were Normans, and knights, too. But why were they here, in Dyflin of all places?
Only one reason came to mind. They had to be Robert’s men. Who else?
I’d thought that leaving England behind and going into exile would be enough to satisfy them. Obviously I was wrong. So determined were they that I should face trial for my crime that they had taken ship across the sea in order to haul me back to England. Now they were here, barely fifty paces away, if that.
‘This way,’ I said to the others, my heart pounding all of a sudden. ‘Quickly, but not too quickly.’
I’d realised that if we could see them, then they would just as easily be able to see us. I didn’t want to linger, but at the same time knew that we would only draw attention upon ourselves if we ran. Without looking back, I slipped through the market crowds, towards an alley where the smoke of a blacksmith’s forge billowed white and thick.
‘Do you think they saw us?’ Godric asked when we had all gathered, coughing and with eyes stinging, on the other side of that cloud, safely out of sight of the marketplace.