‘All these quarrels can be settled in a single stroke, if you only show a little contrition,’ Eudo said. ‘If you return willingly, do the penance that the Church requires and recompense him for the money he paid out on your behalf, then all those barons can be satisfied that justice has been done in the proper manner. There’s no reason then why Robert shouldn’t accept your submission and restore you to your lands.’
‘Is that what he told you, or just what you believe?’ I asked, and I took the silence that greeted my question to mean that he had made no such assurances. ‘Anyway, if it were as simple as that, don’t you think I would have done it already?’
‘You killed a man,’ Wace said. ‘There is no disputing it. Many witnessed it happen. This matter will not be forgotten easily. Not unless you at least demonstrate some humility, so that people see you feel remorse for what you did.’
I rounded on him. ‘Don’t think for a moment that I don’t regret what happened that night.’ Guibert had been a boor, but he hadn’t deserved to die, not by anyone’s estimation. The knowledge of what I’d done had hung like a shadow over me ever since.
But remorse would not bring him back. Nor did I think that mere gestures would heal these wounds, though they might well restore Earnford to me. For I was tired. Tired of the obligations with which I’d long been burdened. Tired of risking my life time after time under the banner of a lord who could not provide, in the name of a king who was as cold-hearted as he was capricious, for a country that, a few good men and women aside, hated us and whose people would slaughter us in their beds if they had half a chance.
‘Even if I had the silver to pay him,’ I said, ‘I’m not about to prostrate myself before him and beg for the restitution of what by right is already mine.’
‘You have no right to that land,’ Eudo pointed out. ‘Not any more. Robert expelled you from his service, or have you forgotten that?’
‘You should count yourself lucky,’ Wace said. ‘If Guibert had been better liked while he lived, there might have been even more of an outcry. There’d be no hope of you returning in that case, and we wouldn’t have wasted the last two weeks pursuing you all this way across the sea.’
‘Why did you, anyway?’ I asked. ‘I thought Robert was leaving for Flanders, and both of you with him.’
‘He was,’ Eudo said. ‘But when the Flemish count heard rumour that King Guillaume was planning a foray against him, he quickly offered a truce. In return for peace, he agreed not to go raiding.’
‘You mean the expedition never went ahead?’
Fate can at times be cruel, and never had it felt crueller than at that moment, as I thought back to my quarrel with Robert, in his solar at Heia all those weeks ago. A quarrel over nothing, as it now turned out.
If only I could have known. For if we had not argued so bitterly that day, then perhaps I wouldn’t have been in such a foul mood that evening. Perhaps I wouldn’t have let my temper get the better of me, and Guibert’s blood wouldn’t be on my hands, and none of this would have happened.
But then I wouldn’t have learnt about Haakon, or discovered the truth about what had happened at Dunholm. Was that knowledge worth the price I’d paid? Had it been worth Guibert’s life?
‘What brought you here to Yrland, then?’ I asked, trying to shake such thoughts from my mind.
‘Robert sent us across the Narrow Sea,’ Eudo said. ‘He wanted us to bear news of Malet’s death to his vassals in Normandy. But we decided to do otherwise.’
‘You seized his ship?’
‘Not exactly. When we told Aubert what we had in mind, he was only too willing to help. As soon as we were out of sight of land, we changed course.’
‘Aubert?’ I asked. ‘He’s here?’
‘Aye,’ I heard the shipmaster call, no doubt having heard his name. I looked up to see him waving from Wyvern’s deck, a broad grin upon his face. ‘You’ve been making trouble, or so your friends have been telling me.’
I’d last seen him over two years ago, but he hadn’t changed much in that time, save for being a little greyer around the temples than I remembered, not to mention a little fuller in the stomach, too. He also hailed from Brittany, although, like me, it was some time since he’d been back to the place of his birth.
‘Robert told us you had it in your head to go to Dyflin, though he didn’t know why,’ Wace said. ‘We reckoned that was where we would most likely find you.’
‘And we nearly did,’ Eudo added. ‘But then you left that night.’
‘How did you know we’d be travelling north?’
‘The winds told us,’ Aubert said by way of explanation. ‘We followed where they took us.’
‘That’s our tale, anyway,’ Wace said. ‘Now maybe you’ll tell us yours.’
I was in no mood to recount everything, not again, but I could hardly not tell them, and so I repeated exactly what Eithne had told me about Oswynn and Haakon, and how she’d helped set me on their trail.
‘We both wondered where she’d appeared from,’ Wace said, meaning the girl. ‘You never said anything, though, so I reckoned it was better not to ask.’