She seemed content with that explanation, and she would have to be, for that was all the information I was prepared to give her then. I signalled to the others and we set off across the yard, past the stables, towards Haakon’s hall. Taking care not to make a sound, keeping low so as to be less easily spotted, we moved along the side of that long stone building towards the gable end where the two huscarls had been posted earlier. I led the way, creeping towards the corner of the hall, where some dozen or so empty barrels were stacked. I crouched behind them, peering through the slightest gap, and saw that of the two guards, only one remained, looking more than a little agitated as he glanced around, his long-handled axe in hand. He was probably a few years younger than me, around the same age as Magnus, round-faced and looking uncomfortable in his hauberk.
‘How do we get past him?’ ?lfhelm murmured, startling me, for I hadn’t noticed him beside me.
It was a good question. The entrance to Haakon’s hall lay in full view of most of the rest of the fortress, and I couldn’t see how we could kill him without attracting unwanted attention.
‘I have an idea,’ Magnus said. ‘Wait here.’
Before I could say anything to dissuade him, he was rising to his feet and darting back the way we had come.
‘Magnus,’ I hissed in warning, but he was already too far away to hear me. Rather than heading back towards the building where the bed-slaves were quartered, though, he disappeared instead around the far end of the hall. Silently I cursed him for not telling us what he had in mind, for leaving us here.
That was when I heard what sounded like his voice, calling out in what must have been the Danish tongue from the far side of the hall. Ducking as low as possible so as not to be seen, I watched the entrance to see what the young door-guard would do. Whatever it was Magnus had said, suddenly the Dane was turning towards the source of the noise. Again the Englishman called out, and this time it was enough to draw the guard from his position. He ventured round the corner and out of sight.
This was our chance.
‘Now,’ I said as we scrambled from our hiding place, making for the doors to the hall. I thrust them open, and burst inside, with the two Englishmen behind me, into a long, dark feasting-hall. The wreckage of the previous night’s celebrations lay everywhere: broken pitchers, abandoned ale-cups and drinking horns, rushes stained with the contents of several men’s stomachs, and, suspended on an iron spit over the still-smoking hearth, the almost bare carcass of what had once been a pig, but was now hardly more than bone, with scraps of charred meat hanging from it. A putrid stench of piss and vomit filled the room, causing the bile to rise in my throat, but somehow I managed to hold it down.
Nothing moved, save for the mice scrabbling among the rushes in search of crumbs of food, and a scrawny cat that was licking its lips as it padded the length of the long trestle table that stood on the dais. A pair of torches in sconces mounted on the walls offered the only light. Apart from us the hall was empty. Behind us I heard the door open and I tensed, my hand leaping to my sword-hilt, but it was only Magnus.
‘Is he—?’ I began.
‘Dead,’ he confirmed.
I nodded. ‘Build up that hearth-fire, and do it quickly,’ I called to the three of them as I took one of the torches from the wall and marched towards the dais end of the hall, where I saw a flight of stairs leading up. ‘Anything that you think might burn, throw it on. We don’t have long.’
Haakon’s bedchamber would most likely be on the up-floor. Hurriedly I picked my way through the remains of the feast, over ale-soaked bedrolls and puddles that might have been water but which could well have been piss, then ran up the stairs, shouting: ‘Oswynn!’
No answer came. Reaching the top, I found myself in what must have been Haakon’s bedchamber. The faint light of my torch flickered across the roof-beams and the sloping thatch above. Richly embroidered tapestries in bright hues hung upon the walls to keep out the draughts. A squared t?fl board lay on the floor, the ivory and jet playing-pieces scattered everywhere.
And then, at the far end of the chamber, I saw the bed, and curled up beneath the blankets and the furs, sobbing, a figure I knew only too well, for I would have recognised that black hair anywhere.
‘Oswynn,’ I said. ‘Oswynn!’
There was a stand for the torch at one side of the hall, and I set it down there before rushing over to her.
‘No,’ she said as I approached, shaking her head wildly and retreating further beneath the coverlets, and I wondered if she’d mistaken me for Haakon. ‘No, please.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said as I knelt down at the bedside. ‘It’s me.’
She raised her head from the pillow then and looked at me through red-rimmed eyes, a fearful look upon her face. For long moments all she did was stare at me in shock, as if I were an apparition, but then her expression began to soften as recognition took hold.
‘Tancred,’ she said, sitting up suddenly and blinking as if she couldn’t believe what she saw. ‘You came.’