‘Go with them, nephew,’ Morcar said, interrupting him before he could continue. ‘You will be safe. Upon my own life I swear it.’
The flatness of his tone gave the lie to his reassuring words. Somewhat hesitantly the boy stepped forward, and not for the first time I felt something close to sympathy for him. He was but a playing-piece in a game he was too young yet to understand, although he knew well enough the penalty if he happened to find himself on the losing side.
‘I also present to your king a gift that I hope he might take pleasure in,’ Morcar said, smiling, and he gestured to his hearth-troops, who brought forward two women.
I say they were women, but really they were no more than girls, both in the early flush of womanhood and probably around as many in years as Godric. So alike were they that they had to be twins. They were slim, delicately featured and obviously unmarried too, for their hair, wavy and chestnut-brown, was not braided and covered but instead hung long and loose to their waists. Were it not for the tears in their eyes, they might have been great beauties. Both were shaking, and not just, I suspected, because it was cold and their dresses were thin.
‘Their names are Acha and Tuce,’ Morcar said. ‘I forget which is which, but I’m sure they will tell you, if you care to ask.’
Robert gestured for Hamo’s men to down their bows and seize both Godric and the twins, which was probably wise, before one or more of them decided to make a bid for freedom and lose us in the mist.
‘Bind them,’ he said, and then to Morcar: ‘Why should King Guillaume take any interest in these girls?’
‘Why do you think? For the same reason as any other man would.’
‘In all the years of his marriage he has never taken another woman to his bed. I thought you might have known that.’
‘So he says. You know as well as I that, kings or not, we all have needs, and these are the prettiest of all my slave-girls. But if he doesn’t want them, perhaps he will let you have them, Robert Malet.’
If my lord was surprised that Morcar knew his name, he did well not to show it. ‘Have you any other gifts for us, or is our business here finished?’
‘I have nothing more to say.’
‘Very well. With any luck our paths will cross again soon.’
‘I look forward to it, and to meeting King Guillaume in person.’ Morcar grinned again, and I caught another gleaming flash of his teeth. He had a look in his eyes, at the same time both rapacious and sly, that put me in mind of a wolf. If I didn’t trust him before, I trusted him less then. ‘I fervently pray, too, that your father recovers soon from whatever ailment it is that troubles him.’
Robert opened his mouth but no sound came out. Before he could find the words with which to reply, Morcar had turned on his heels and marched away, beyond the marker stone into the darkness. As he did so his hearth-troops closed ranks about him, protecting his rear and flanks and keeping a close watch upon us, until the mist closed around them and I lost sight of their torches in the gloom.
‘He seems to know a lot,’ Eudo remarked after they’d gone. ‘Do you think he has spies in our camp?’
‘I doubt it,’ Robert said. ‘Even if there are, it’s unlikely that they would be able to get near enough to the king to find out anything of much worth. He keeps close counsel, as you know.’
‘What about Brother Atselin?’ I asked. ‘He’s a weasel, if I ever saw one.’
‘The clerk, you mean?’
‘He’s part of the royal household, and has the king’s ear,’ I pointed out. ‘I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him, lord.’
Robert looked sternly at me. ‘There are many men you don’t trust. That doesn’t make them all traitors. No, I don’t believe there’s any spy in our midst. All Morcar’s looking to do is sow doubt in our minds and that of the king. To turn us against one another, to make us hunt for enemies where there are none, to foment further dissent in our ranks and so strengthen his own position.’
There was sense in that, I supposed. I only hoped he was right.
‘Come on,’ Robert said as he turned in the direction of the inlet where the willows grew, where Baudri and the others were waiting with the boats to take us back to Brandune. ‘Let’s leave this place.’
Eight