‘You try to speak with him,’ Eudo said, shaking his head as he passed. His expression was hard, his mouth set firm, his eyes dark in the gloom of the hall. ‘See if you can make him see sense, and hopefully he can sway the king’s mind in turn.’
‘Robert will listen to you if he listens to anyone,’ Wace added, scratching at the battle-mark below his right eye, as he often did when he was frustrated or angry. An English spearman had given him that injury at H?stinges, and ever since he had only been able to half open that eye, so that he forever seemed to be squinting, although it had done nothing to dull his sword-skills.
As the hall emptied I approached the hearth, beside which Robert crouched. A chill had entered the chamber and I wished that, like the man standing guard outside, I had thought to fetch my cloak before coming here. The floor of rammed earth had turned to mud, there were holes in the roof through which water had dripped to form wide puddles, while up in the cobwebbed rafters a mouse scuttled. Its droppings were scattered around the bedrolls where Robert’s hearth-knights would sleep tonight. For once I was glad that I had my wind-battered tent to go back to.
Robert looked up as I approached. ‘Tancred,’ he said, with some surprise. ‘I didn’t see you come in. When did you get here? You were expected back from Cantebrigia some hours ago.’
I shot him a look, not only because Atselin had said much the same thing, but also because he was the one who had foisted this escort duty upon me in the first place. The king had made Robert responsible for assembling the parties of knights who were to accompany the supply wagons, and he in turn had passed that responsibility on to me. Whether that was because he trusted me more than his other vassals, or because he thought I would value the time spent away from camp and thus meant it as a favour, I wasn’t sure.
‘We came back by a different route,’ I said, and went on to explain what had happened earlier that day, telling him how we had seen the smoke, how we had come across the burnt vill and found the priest close to death, how we had chased Hereward and his men to their boats and slain one of their number. I left out the last part of the story, about how the fear had gripped me, for even all these hours later I could not make sense of it. My instinct was to bury the memory deep inside my mind where it would not trouble me, but I could not, and still the Englishmen’s taunts rang in my ears. I wished I might have that moment over again so that I could ram my lance-head into Hereward’s throat, silence him and his companions and help bring an end to the rebels’ stand and to this godforsaken campaign.
‘Even if you had killed or captured him, it would have made little difference,’ Robert said, after I’d told of how he had escaped. ‘He is the least of the rebels’ leaders. If anyone holds command over that rabble, it is surely Morcar. He is the one who holds Hereward’s leash.’
At that I couldn’t help but laugh. The notion that anyone could hold the leash of a man such as him seemed to me absurd. But Robert was right in one sense, for Morcar was indeed a formidable figure, and one who had caused us much trouble these last five years. Before the invasion he had held the earldom of Northumbria, and he and his elder brother Earl Eadwine of Mercia had been among the first of the English to see sense and lay down their arms following our victory at H?stinges. As a reward they were received as esteemed guests at King Guillaume’s court, albeit deprived of their ranks, but a mere two summers later, hungry for greater influence, they had risen against him. Indeed, for a short while they had been successful, winning more than a thousand spears to their cause as they raided far and wide. More than half of those spears, however, were wielded by peasant farmers, who all dispersed to bring in their crops as soon as the harvest season arrived. After that their revolt quickly crumbled and once more they were forced to bend their knees before the king, seeking his pardon. Fortunately for them he was gracious enough to grant it, giving permission for both to return to their positions at court, and allowing them to keep their heads if not their landholdings.