Haakon Thorolfsson.
How many nights had I lain awake, thinking of the ways in which I would wreak vengeance upon the one who had murdered our lord? And now at last here he was, brazenly riding towards us. He grinned broadly, although there was no humour in his eyes. He checked his mount about fifteen paces away: close enough to be able to converse without needing to shout, but far enough that if any of us charged him he would easily be able to turn and gallop safely away. He wasn’t stupid.
‘I was wondering when you’d come,’ he said. There was a rasp to his voice that perhaps was a mark of the cold, wind-blasted lands from which he came. ‘Although I confess I’m disappointed. I thought that, between you, you might have been able to muster more of an army.’
I think we all knew there was no point in answering that, for none among us spoke. Haakon was well aware how large was the army we had brought with us, and we weren’t in the mood for playing such games.
‘Magnus Haroldson, my friend,’ he said, spreading his open palms as if in greeting. ‘It’s good to see you again after so long. Come to break your army against Jarnborg’s walls once more, have you?’
‘What do you want, Haakon?’ Magnus asked. ‘Or have you left the comfort of your hearth merely to insult us?’
‘Insult you?’ the Dane asked, and managed somehow to laugh and look affronted at the same time. ‘Why should I want to insult you? We are old allies, are we not?’
Magnus spat in his direction. ‘You stole everything from me. My brothers are dead because of you.’
‘If you thrust your hand into a wasps’ nest, then it is your own fault if you are stung. You and your brothers were foolish enough to leave your spoils unguarded, and so I took them. There is no more to it than that. I had nothing to do with their deaths. If anyone should bear the blame for that, it is these Frenchmen you call your friends. They were the ones who deprived your family of everything it had, and who drove you from England. Is that not true?’
I glanced at Magnus, but couldn’t read his expression. I understood, of course, what the Dane was trying to do, and only hoped that the Englishman understood it too, and that his hatred for Haakon outweighed his hatred for our kind.
‘Very well,’ the elder man said when it was clear that Magnus had nothing more to say. ‘You ask me what I want, and this is my answer.’ He turned his gaze towards myself, Wace and Eudo. ‘I want to know which one of you is the Breton, Tancred of Earnford.’
That surprised me, for I hadn’t expected him to have come by that information.
‘I am,’ I said curtly as I felt my sword-arm itch and imagined how, if I could only get close enough to him, I would slice my blade-edge across his steed’s neck, unhorsing him. Then, while he lay on the ground, I would drive the point down into his mailed chest, using all my strength to bury it deep. One strike was all it would take to puncture his heart. One strike, and we could end this now. But he was too watchful to allow that to happen. I only had to take a couple of paces towards him and he would turn and gallop away with ease.
He smiled with the warmth of an old friend who had not seen me in years. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you are the one I have heard so much about. The one who gave Eadgar ?theling his scar. A worthy warrior.’
I wasn’t about to confirm or to deny it for him, and so instead I said, ‘How do you know my name?’
At that Haakon gave a laugh. ‘You cannot send your spies, your knowledge-gatherers, all across Britain, and yet expect me not to hear that you’ve been seeking me out. I’ve suspected for months that you’d be coming. It was only a question of when. To tell the truth, I didn’t think it would take you this long.’
‘They told you I was paying them?’ Not only had those whoresons failed to bring me the information I wanted, but they had in turn sold what they knew about me to my enemies.
The Dane breathed a sigh. ‘It tires me to relate how it all happened, so let us not waste our breath discussing it. Suffice it to say that you are not the only one who has his spies. I’ve heard the tales of your deeds. I know who you are, Tancred, and what brings you here.’
I wondered how much he did know. Certainly I wasn’t about to let slip anything which might turn out being to his advantage. Did he think I had come because of the life he had taken, or because he had stolen my woman from me?
‘You killed our lord,’ I said, deciding that, of the two reasons, that was the one he was more likely to know about. ‘You killed Robert de Commines.’
He stared at me for long moments, that wolfish look having returned. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.