Truth be told, I wasn’t sure, not entirely. What I was sure of was that if I gave up now, when we were so close, the knowledge that I had fled from this fight would forever haunt me. Never would there be a better opportunity for us to slake our thirst for vengeance, or for me to take back the woman who was taken from me, the woman whom I had yearned for above all others. That was why I had to do this, and that was why it had to be now.
‘So long as you know what it is you’re taking on,’ Wace said. ‘From the moment we’re out on the water, you’ll be on your own. We won’t be able to help you.’
‘I know,’ I replied. ‘But hopefully you won’t have to, and the next time we meet we’ll be celebrating a great victory.’
‘I only hope so,’ Wace said.
We embraced then, but they didn’t bid me farewell, nor I them, since that would have seemed too final. For all the doubts that plagued me, I still believed we would be victorious and that we would all be standing come nightfall tomorrow. Nor did I stay to watch them cast off from the shore, although that was for a different reason, since there was a chance that Haakon’s scouts might be watching, and that would only have aroused their suspicions. Instead Magnus and I and the small band we’d gathered slipped away one by one into the copse overlooking that inlet, where we intended to lie in wait the rest of that day and the night as well. But between the trunks I was just able to make out the blue-grey waters, and Wyvern’s black-and-yellow-striped sail billowing, and the flecks of white as the oars of both ships broke the surface. I watched until they were out of sight.
There was no turning back now. The next morning we would strike at the very heart of Haakon’s power, and take the fight to him. Three long years had passed, but tomorrow, I promised myself, I would have Oswynn back, and Robert de Commines would at last be avenged.
Twenty-six
WE WAITED UNTIL well after night had fallen before making our way across that still and silent land to lay our snare. The skies were clear and the stars cast a chill light upon us. Everywhere the branches, the fields and the meadows glowed white with frost. There was no wind to cut through our cloaks, for which I was glad, but nevertheless I could feel winter’s icy tendrils wrapping themselves around me, drawing the heat from my limbs.
Eventually we found the spring Tadc and Aife had told us about, although not without some difficulty, even following the directions they’d given, since it lay close to the summit of a low rise, at the heart of a dense thicket which the small light there was barely penetrated. In darkness as deep as pitch we scrambled through leaves and mulch, while branches and thorns scratched our arms and our faces. We climbed up the sharp crags, sometimes feeling our way on hands and knees, our leather soles slipping on the lichen-covered boulders, all the while listening for the trickle of water. After what seemed like hours of searching, we eventually found it burbling forth from a crevice in the rock. Surrounding it, forming a crown upon the brow of that gentle hill, stood a wide ring several dozen paces across of rough-hewn stones, most of them half as high as a man and a few even taller, which I supposed had been left by the ancient folk who were the first people ever to live in Britain, before even the Romans had come and wrought their great works.
There, taking shelter amidst the hazel and the holly, the oak and the ash, huddled in our cloaks and with our breath misting before our faces, we lay in wait for our prey, taking it in turns to keep watch. There were nine of us in all: Magnus and myself; Serlo and Pons; Godric and Eithne; ?lfhelm, and two of the huscarls under his command, neither of whom seemed to have proper names. The first was known as Sceota, which was the English word for a trout, on account of the fact that he had a reputation as a strong swimmer, while the other was called Dweorg, which meant a dwarf, even though he was a giant of a man and easily the tallest of all of us, taller even than Serlo.