Exactly as Godric had told us, the rebels had fortified the place in preparation for a siege, strengthening the gatehouse and throwing up a stockade around the monastery. Instead of shutting themselves away inside those defences, however, men and women were flocking in their scores and hundreds away from the stronghold, herding their children and carrying the smaller ones in their arms, even as others drove swine and sheep from the pens and the fields towards the woods and the marsh. Others followed, with wagons and pack animals, but they were so laden with goods that they were in danger of being left behind. On first sight of our approaching army they abandoned their goods, instead taking flight as fast as their legs could carry them. No sooner had they done so than the plunder began, as groups of riders split off from the main part of the army, raiding those same wagons and spilling the contents of the packs on to the ground in search of silver and gold and anything else that might be valuable. They would be lucky to discover much of value among the possessions of mere peasants, however. The monastery was where the greater riches were to found.
Or so I thought at first. We soon learnt that when Morcar’s order had reached his men in Elyg, they had taken it not just as the sign to attack Hereward and his band, but also as an invitation to begin looting, perhaps thinking that anything they didn’t quickly lay claim to would shortly be seized by us Normans. Breaking into the abbey’s treasure house, they had filled sacks with coin and gilded candlesticks and anything else they could lay their hands upon, before crossing the cloister to the church where the service of prime was then in progress. There they had drawn weapons and driven the monks out, seized jewel-inlaid crosses, torn down tapestries bearing images of the Passion, stripped altars of their expensive cloths and even stolen the strongbox containing the monies that had been given as alms.
This news was brought to us by one of the king’s messengers, who in turn had heard it from Elyg’s abbot, an Englishman named Thurstan, who, together with the rest of the monks, had met the king at a small village named Wiceford a few miles from the monastery, having had no choice but to leave Elyg to the ravages of Morcar’s hearth-troops. On hearing that our army was approaching, he had come seeking his liege-lord’s protection, as well as his forgiveness for having harboured his enemies for so long, a circumstance which he claimed had been imposed upon them against their will.
‘What of Hereward?’ I asked the messenger. He was built like a bear, and was almost as hairy as one, too.
‘Gone,’ he said.
‘Gone?’
He nodded grimly. ‘The king is less than pleased. From the sounds of it, Morcar’s men were less interested in risking their lives than they were in claiming booty. There was some fighting in and around the cloister, but it seems Hereward and his band had received forewarning that they’d been betrayed and had already started to make preparations to quit Elyg. They were ready when Morcar’s hearth-troops came for them, and managed to overpower them and break their way out.’
‘They escaped?’ I asked.
‘Not all of them. Morcar’s men killed a good few, and even managed to wound Hereward before his companions could pull him from the fray. So the abbot says, anyway.’
Somehow I’d known this would happen. Not only had Morcar failed to keep to the strategy he’d agreed with us, but he had also allowed Hereward to slip through his fingers.
Wace shook his head in disbelief. ‘After everything, who would have thought that the feared Hereward lacked the stomach for a fight? That he would turn out to be such a coward?’
‘He’s no coward,’ I assured him. Wace would have known that if he had crossed paths with him as we had. I turned to the bear-man. ‘Where did they go?’
‘Out into the marshes to the north of here, by way of the secret paths.’
‘And Abbot Thurstan saw all this happen?’
‘With his own eyes. He is a broken man. Three of the monks under his protection were killed in the confusion as they tried to flee. He blames himself for their deaths.’
So he should, I thought, for nothing good ever came to those who threw in their lot with King Guillaume’s enemies. But that, at this moment, was not what was most important.
‘We need to get after them,’ I said to the others. ‘We can’t let Hereward get away.’
‘What does it matter?’ Wace asked. ‘If he’s gone, the Isle is ours.’
He was right, I supposed. And yet as long as Hereward remained out there, it seemed to me that our task remained unfinished. I’d been readying ourselves for one last battle, expecting either that he would make a stand within Elyg’s walls, defying us to the end, or else that we would arrive to find the struggle between him and Morcar’s forces still ongoing. In a strange sort of way, I was disappointed. I’d wanted the chance to free my sword-arm once more, to make Hereward pay for all the injury he and his band of followers had caused, and for the humiliation he had inflicted upon me. Instead, after everything, the rebels had crumbled like a house whose timbers were rotten, shearing into so many splinters.
Of all those splinters, though, the most dangerous was Hereward. He had raised a rebellion against us once already, and would surely do it again if given the chance, if not this year then when the next campaigning season came around in the spring. That was why we couldn’t let him get away.
And I hadn’t forgotten, either, the promise I’d made: a promise given to a dying man, a man of God, though I hadn’t even learnt his name; a promise that so far remained unfulfilled. Anyone who knew me well would attest that I never made such oaths lightly. Whether I liked it or not, I was bound to that promise, and unless I made good on it and brought Hereward to justice, I would have perjured myself before God.