I stared at him, and he at me. A quizzical look came across his face as he recognised me, as if he hadn’t been expecting to find me here, but it quickly disappeared as his brows hardened into a frown. In truth I was just as surprised to see him. Although he was chief among the clerks and scribes of the royal household gathered here at Brandune, for some reason I hadn’t thought he would be known to the king himself.
‘Brother Atselin,’ the king said, ‘may I rely on you to bear witness and to write down anything of note that our English friend may say?’
The monk broke off his stare, blinking once as a raindrop struck the end of his prominent nose, and then again as another bounced off his tonsured head.
‘Of course, my king,’ he said stiffly. From somewhere within the folds of his robe he produced a wax writing-tablet, along with a stylus carved from what looked like either bone or ivory. ‘Although perhaps it would be best if we venture inside,’ he added, pointing towards the sky just as the sun disappeared behind the dark cloud. ‘Before we are all drowned.’
Hardly had he finished speaking than the deluge began, so suddenly and with such force that it seemed all the heavens were crashing down upon us. Hard drops bounced upon the yard and lashed my back, plastering my hair against my head and my tunic to my skin. Without delay, the king made for the hall, leaving his retainers to see to their horses, and the rest of us followed him.
Godric alone was reluctant to move, but Eudo and I hauled him to his feet and dragged him inside, where his fate would be decided.
The rain pummelled upon the thatch. From one dark corner of the hall came a steady drip-drip as it seeped through a hole and fell upon the floor, where it formed a pool, in which fragments of rushes floated.
‘Speak, then,’ the king said when we were once more gathered around the hearth-fire. ‘Tell me everything you know about your army.’
Godric sat with hands tied on the stool before the fire, his face lit by its flickering glow. ‘Everything?’
‘Everything,’ the king repeated, his expression hardening. ‘I want you to tell me how many men you have, how well they’re armed, how they’re divided and who commands them. How well is Elyg defended? Are there walls, a stockade and a castle mound? What is the mood within your camp?’
‘What do you wish to know first?’
‘Give me numbers. How many men of fighting age do you have?’
‘A thousand?’ Godric hazarded. ‘Possibly more than that.’
The king snorted, as well he might. ‘A thousand? You expect me to believe that?’
The real number, we suspected, was probably three times that. In the absence of any reliable information, however, it was admittedly something of a guess.
‘How should I know, lord?’ Godric said, a note of despair in his voice. ‘I haven’t counted them myself.’
From another man’s lips that might have sounded insolent, but it was the fact that he spoke with such sincerity that made me laugh. Straightaway I tried to stifle it. The noise that came out was somewhere between a cough and a choke. The king glared at me, and I glimpsed the fire that lay behind his cold demeanour.
‘Has your uncle not spoken to you of such things?’ Atselin suggested. ‘Perhaps you can recall something of what he might have mentioned about their numbers and disposition.’
‘He tells me little,’ Godric answered. There was a look in his eyes that might have been anger or hurt, and perhaps it was a mixture of the two. ‘He says I am still young, that he values my loyalty but I am not a warrior yet, that I should worry about honing my sword-skills first before troubling myself with such details. I had to beg to be allowed to lead the scouting-band last night.’ He shook his head and sniffed. ‘I failed even at that.’
Atselin narrowed his eyes. ‘How old are you?’
‘Fifteen summers this year.’
He was barely out of boyhood. Were he not my enemy I might have felt sorry for him. Eager to impress and to win respect, he was nonetheless a long way from fulfilling his ambitions. Doubtless I’d been much the same at his age, although he held one advantage over me, for he was only too aware of his shortcomings, whereas I had never been able to see them. That youthful arrogance had nearly proven my undoing on more occasions than one.