‘Don’t argue with me,’ I said. ‘Not now.’
I wiped away the tear rolling down her cheek and kissed her then, kissed her hard, savouring the feel of her lips pressed against mine, and with that I tore myself away from her embrace.
‘Go,’ I said. As she turned, a shiver ran through me, for I remembered only too well what had happened the last time I’d left her to the protection of others. But it would be different this time.
I rushed to Magnus, placing one arm under his shoulder and lending him my own for support, allowing him to take the weight off his injured foot. Out of the corner of my eye I saw ?lfhelm hurrying towards us, and I knew that it was the oath binding him to his lord that had made him turn back. At the same time Godric too was hesitating, as if uncertain what to do.
I waved them on. ‘Lead the women away from here,’ I shouted. ‘Get them to safety. Go!’
Fortunately the huscarl soon saw sense. After a moment’s hesitation, he turned, raising his sword and pointing it towards the gatehouse. I was relying on him, as doubtless the most experienced warrior among us, if not necessarily the best swordsman, to keep his head.
The guards at the entrance, seeing how we had possession of the place of slaughter, had already fled, leaving the gates open. All we had to do was reach them. One step at a time, I helped Magnus across the yard, through the mud and the puddles, around the bodies of the slain. The usurper’s son wasn’t heavy, but he wasn’t light either, and I soon felt the strain on my back and shoulders.
‘Thank you, Tancred,’ he said through clenched teeth when we were rounding the pig-pens and halfway to the gatehouse.
‘Don’t thank me until this is over,’ I replied curtly. ‘We haven’t survived this yet.’
Close by the gate, Eithne was marshalling the slaves, yelling at them to follow Godric and ?lfhelm and Oswynn. As well as women and girls, there were a few men and boys, I saw now, all recognisable by their short-shaven hair and all armed, some with spears and axes taken from Danes they had killed, but most with fish knives and meat cleavers, hayforks and iron pokers, implements that in the right hands were as good as any weapon.
‘Lord!’ Eithne shouted when she saw me. Quick-thinking as ever, she ran to the horses that we’d tethered not far from the gate. The sight of the flames, the smell of the smoke and the clash of steel had spooked them, but she clearly had a way with the animals, for by the time we’d reached her she’d managed to soothe one so that it would let Magnus mount it. Together we helped him into the saddle. He winced as he placed his injured foot in the stirrup.
Teeth gritted against the pain, he clasped my hand in thanks. ‘I’ll live,’ he said. ‘So long as I can hold a sword, I’ll fight.’
Eithne and I turned our attention to the other horses, doing what we could to calm them before mounting up and slicing through the ropes tying them to the post. Then the three of us kicked on, cantering through the smoke, beneath the gate-arch and on down the track, riding hard to catch up with the rest of our party.
The wind buffeted my cheeks and stunted trees flashed past on either side. The mist was clearing; from here I could see through the trees, all the way down the slope towards the bay. Between the bare branches I glimpsed Nihtegesa and Wyvern drawn up on the shore, with hundreds of footprints streaking away from them across the sand, leading towards drier land.
Where battle had been joined. Already on both sides the ordered lines of the shield-wall had broken and men were running among one another, hacking and thrusting and laying their enemies low, filling the morning with howls of agony and cries of rage, with the clatter of steel upon limewood and the screams of horses. Across the bloodstained field lay crumpled bodies in their dozens, with their weapons and their pennons lying beside them. And then, in the middle of the fray, I caught sight of Haakon’s banner, the black dragon with the burning eyes and the axe in its claws. It was all but surrounded, with both Eudo’s tusked boar and Wace’s rising sun harrying it, although from such a distance I couldn’t pick out either the Dane or my friends amidst so many mail-clad warriors.
‘For Robert!’ I yelled. Those on foot ahead of me heard our hoofbeats and my cries and made way. I kept looking for Oswynn and ?lfhelm and Godric, but I didn’t see them, and I could only suppose they were somewhere further ahead. ‘For Robert de Commines!’