‘Still?’ I asked. ‘They haven’t given up?’
‘The king is convinced he’s out there somewhere, hiding, plotting. Several bodies were pulled from the marsh in the week or so after the battle, we’re told, one of which was supposedly about the same size and build as Hereward, but his flesh was too bloated and his skin was peeling away, so no one could tell for sure. Most people seem to think he’s fled England altogether. In the meantime the king’s keeping up the search, and will probably do so all winter.’
King Guillaume was well known for his bullheadedness, as we had seen for ourselves during the campaign in the fenlands. If he had decided that Hereward remained alive and a threat, then he would do everything he could to hunt him down, even if that meant scorching the Fens to draw him out, in the same way that he’d ravaged the north during his campaign last winter.
News wasn’t the only thing they’d brought from England, either. ‘We have something else for you,’ Eudo said.
Beckoning me to follow him, he made his way to the hatch that led to the hold space beneath the steering platform, from which, with my help, he hauled out a small chest about half as long as a man was high, with iron handles mounted on either end.
‘What’s this?’ I asked. ‘A gift?’
He didn’t answer, but untied the leather thong that was attached to his belt and held out the key that had been hanging from it. Not quite sure what to expect, I took it from him, eyeing him suspiciously, then knelt down, placed it in the lock, twisted until I felt it click, then lifted open the lid—
To find my packs, just as I had left them at Heia, as well as a sword in its scabbard, wrapped in a bundle of white cloth. And not just any sword. Its hilt was decorated with a single turquoise stone, set into the centre of the disc pommel.
A turquoise stone that I recognised at once.
‘We both reckoned that if you were to go back to face Robert, it would be better if you didn’t arrive looking like a flea-ridden beggar, but had your blade and all your other belongings,’ Eudo said with a grin.
I was too surprised and overjoyed even to think, let alone find the words to thank him. Laughing in delight, I lifted the scabbard, still shrouded in its cloth, out from the chest, laying it on the deck beside me, and drew the blade from the sheath. The steel had been recently polished so that, even in the small light of that dull day, it gleamed like silver.
‘Open out the cloth,’ Wace said, having come to join us.
‘What?’ I asked. ‘Why?’
‘Unfurl it, and you’ll see.’
Carefully I unwound the thick bolt of linen from around the scabbard, wondering if perhaps there was something else wrapped inside, although I couldn’t think what. It only took me a moment to realise what I was holding, as I glimpsed first a wing and then the head with its short, curved beak, the bird emblazoned in black upon a white field, in flight with talons extended as if stooping for the kill. The hawk of Earnford – and of Commines, too, for it had also been the symbol of our former lord. When the time had come for me to choose a banner of my own, I’d adopted the device as a mark of respect, thinking that I would thereby serve his memory in the same way that I had served the man himself.
‘I almost forgot,’ I heard Eudo call, as he disappeared back into the hold space. ‘There’s one more thing.’
He emerged a moment later holding a shield, which like my banner bore the symbol of the hawk, although rather more crudely depicted, since whereas I’d entrusted the task of making the banner to the women of Earnford, I’d insisted on painting all my shields myself, and had spent long hours working under the sun and by the light of the hearth-fire daubing white and black on to the hide that faced the limewood boards until they appeared how I wanted them, or close enough to the image I held in my head as to satisfy me. Some laughed when they saw my efforts, reckoning that my hawks looked more like magpies or moorhens, but I didn’t care.