He rose from his stool and made another attempt to grab at the parchment, but I was too quick for him, and he succeeded only in getting a fingertip to it.
‘No more of these games,’ he said. ‘Give that back to me now.’
‘Or what?’ I challenged him.
In the brief time I’d known Atselin, I had never seen him roused to anger. Always he had maintained a serene expression, as if he had seen all there was to see in the world and there was no longer anything that surprised or vexed him, but there was fire in his eyes then, and in his cheeks, too, which were burning red.
‘I will offer you some advice, Tancred. You do not wish to get on the wrong side of me.’ He spoke though gritted teeth. ‘You do not want me as your enemy.’
I’d heard words to that effect before, although not from his lips. I gave a snort of disdain. ‘Am I supposed to take that as a threat?’
‘It is a warning. Heed it or ignore it, as you wish.’
‘Do you think I’m frightened of you?’ I asked. ‘You, with your quill and your rolls? What are you going to do? Drown me in ink, perhaps, or else bore me to death by reciting your records?’
Atselin’s eyes were like knives. ‘I’m not concerned whether or not you fear me. But I will tell you now that I’ve suffered enough of your insults. For too long I have tolerated your boorish manner and withstood your contempt. No longer.’ He made another attempt to seize back his precious sheet of vellum, and this time I was too surprised by his outburst to stop him. ‘Now, leave me in peace,’ he said. ‘The morning is wearing on and I have work I must attend to.’
I gave him a final glare, but he was unmoved, and so I left him to his parchments, striding away towards the paddock as the clerks in their black robes once more descended, crowding about his desk with scrolls and writs for his attention.
As I walked away, I tried to make sense of what Atselin had said. From what I recalled, we’d been assured of reward as long as our ploy worked and Morcar agreed to join our cause, but the monk had suggested otherwise. Had the king since changed his mind on the matter? If so, it seemed strange that the first any of us would learn of it was from Atselin. Unless he were lying to me, but what reason would he have for doing so?
And what did he mean by his threat, or warning, or whatever one cared to call it? I didn’t know, but resolved to keep my distance from the monk over the coming days: not because I feared him, but because I had no patience left for such distractions. Soon we would be riding into battle, and if I was to make it through alive, I wanted to be as ready as possible, to spend every moment I could honing my sword-skills and imagining what I would do when we met the enemy battle-lines. Nothing else mattered. My own fate, not to mention those of my knights and companions, depended on it.
The march to Alrehetha took the rest of that day, and all of the next, too. Though the route was probably only thirty miles, we were prevented from travelling as swiftly as we would have liked by the baggage train, which was forever drawing to a halt whenever an ox fell down lame, or a horse lost its shoe, or an axle became detached from one of its wheels and we had to move the offending haywain or wagon off the track so as not to block those that were following. But the king was determined that we would not spend more than one night separated from the rest of our host, and so any who dawdled and fell too far behind the main column for no good reason were visited by his household guard, who spurred them to greater pace with threats of violence upon their persons.
Those were not the only reasons for our slow progress, however. Barely had we been riding an hour that second morning when we spied the smoke rising to the north and west. At first it was no more than a dark smear in the distance but then, as we came closer, it became possible to pick out individual columns of black, roiling cloud, billowing some distance beyond the woods: not just a single spire but many, in a jagged line stretching all the way to the far horizon and beyond.
Straightaway the order went out to halt while the king sent out parties of knights to scout the road ahead, to investigate those burnings and, if possible, root out those responsible for the savagery. They came back some hours later, with dire reports of entire vills that had been put to the torch, barns and storehouses sacked and all the inhabitants slain, but otherwise empty-handed, save for one band which had managed to find two souls alive and unharmed: a thin, white-faced man in his middle years, and his ancient mother, who had no teeth and seemed half-mad for she was constantly muttering to herself. He spoke of a band of wild men who had come upon them from the marshes, led by a black-haired, bow-wielding demon of incredible height, whose eyes were a window upon the depths of hell, and whose arrows were bolts crafted from its flames.