‘Dead, all of them,’ someone called, and at once I recognised the voice, which was deep and harsh and rich in arrogance. ‘Or, at least, they will be shortly.’
Morcar strode towards us, a wide grin upon his face, which was flushed with triumph. He was dressed in a leather jerkin reinforced with iron studs, but there was not a speck of blood or dirt on him anywhere, and I wondered whether he had dared enter the fray, or so much as unsheathed his blade during the battle.
He clapped a hand upon Thurcytel’s shoulder. ‘Alas, my friend,’ he said. ‘Fortune did not favour you this day.’
‘You bastard,’ said Thurcytel, shrugging off the other man’s hand. ‘We gave you our allegiance and you betrayed us!’
‘Temper,’ Morcar said in a soothing voice, as if trying to still a querulous child.
For a moment the thegn tensed, as if ready to hurl himself at Morcar, but that moment quickly passed. The earl was accompanied by some dozen of his own spearmen, and Thurcytel must have realised that any attempt he made would not go well for him. He contented himself with spitting at the other’s feet. Morcar only smiled, clearly relishing in his success.
‘How do you know they’re dead?’ I asked him.
Morcar turned and fixed me with a stern look. ‘I recognise you. You’re Robert’s man.’
I was not to be deterred. ‘How do you know they’re dead?’
‘Because I ordered it,’ he retorted. ‘As soon I glimpsed your boats arriving upon the shore, I sent my swiftest rider to Elyg with instructions to my hearth-troops there to kill Hereward and all his followers.’
Even presuming he was telling the truth, that could have been around an hour ago at most, by my reckoning, which meant that Morcar’s messenger had probably only recently arrived.
‘And how can you be sure that all your hearth-troops won’t themselves end up killed by Hereward and his band?’
Morcar drew himself up to his full height and inspected me closely, as if I were some manure he had trodden in, but I was not about to back down. He might consider himself an earl, but we both knew it was a title acquired through treachery and only then by the king’s grace. Whatever noble blood he’d once possessed had soured in his veins long ago. The man who stood before me knew nothing of honour, and he was mistaken if he thought himself worthy of my respect.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could speak something else caught his attention. His eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond my shoulder, and then he and Thurcytel and all their retainers were bending their knees and bowing their heads. I glanced behind me and saw the king riding hard towards us, flanked as he always was by his household knights.
Hurriedly I sheathed my sword. The king paid no attention to us, though, nor indeed to our captives. He was interested only in Morcar.
‘Where were you?’ he barked without so much as a greeting. ‘Where were you?’
‘My lord,’ Morcar began. ‘I don’t—’
‘The moment we arrived upon the Isle. That’s when you were supposed to begin your attack.’
‘Have I not given you victory, my king?’ he protested. ‘Have I not given you the Isle, as I promised? Is that not enough?’
Suddenly I understood why Morcar had waited so long before committing his forces. He’d wanted to see which way the battle would turn before deciding whether to hold to his promise. Only when he could be sure of being on the winning side had he finally marched to help us.
No doubt the king realised this too, since he regarded Morcar for what seemed like an eternity. In his eyes burnt a fire more intense than I had ever seen, and I think that, were it not for the fact that several hundred of the Englishman’s sworn followers were watching, he might have struck him down there and then.
‘You have given me nothing yet,’ the king snarled as he turned away.
‘What about my nephew, lord?’ Morcar shouted to his back. ‘It was agreed that he would be returned to me.’
The king curbed his horse, no doubt startled, as were the rest of us, by such effrontery. ‘What makes you think I haven’t already ordered him killed?’
‘If you have, then our agreement is finished,’ Morcar replied, but though his words suggested defiance, his tone betrayed his lack of confidence. Having wormed his way into the king’s favour and allowed our army on to the Isle, he would be foolish indeed to risk losing everything by fighting us now, especially over such a small point.
The king smiled and raised an eyebrow in amusement. ‘It is as well, then, that young Godric lives. You entertain me, Earl Morcar, and for that I will see that your nephew is brought to you.’ He turned towards one of his household guards, a dark-featured man with a broken nose and a scar upon his lip. ‘Fetch the boy from Alrehetha.’
‘Yes, lord king,’ Scar-lip replied, and broke off from the conroi, making back towards the bridge.