‘We’ll wait, lord,’ I promised.
And so we did. Even though we were all bone-weary from the battle and from the lack of sleep the previous night, we nevertheless stayed awake, hardly speaking a word, even as from outside the guardhouse the joyous cries and music of the revellers floated upon the breeze. A dog barked somewhere and mice rustled the hall’s thatch. We watched as cloud veiled the stars and we watched as the skies cleared again. We watched sparks from the brazier rise with the twisting smoke and dance around one another, flaring brightly for the briefest of instants before they vanished and became one with the blackness.
Hours more passed, until eventually, in the grey half-light that comes before dawn, Robert emerged from the hall once more. He didn’t speak, nor did he have to, for straightaway we saw in his eyes the news that we had all been expecting.
Guillaume Malet, his father, had passed away.
Fourteen
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, King Guillaume came to make arrangements with Robert for the payment of the relief that would permit him to inherit his father’s barony, as well as to give his sympathies to him, Elise and Beatrice, though such gestures seemed to me rather false-hearted after the lengths he had gone to previously to strip Malet of his honour and his dignity. But he did at least give Robert leave to accompany his father’s body on its final journey to Heia, which was the family’s chief estate in England and was where he was to be buried.
All this took place in the yard of the guardhouse at Alrehetha. Accompanying the king and his retinue were Earl Morcar, grinning like a fool now that his title had been restored to him, his nephew Godric, and the clerk Atselin, who followed his master like a shadow. Whilst the king and Robert conversed, he watched me with hard eyes, as if puzzled how it was that I was still alive. I hadn’t forgotten that he was the one who suggested we should lead the attack across the bridge. If I’d disliked him before, I despised him even more now, and was surprised that he so much as dared to show his face in my presence.
So intent was I on out-staring Atselin that at first I didn’t hear the king calling myself and Wace forward, and only awoke from my thoughts when Serlo nudged me in the ribs. Fortunately the king didn’t seem to notice. For once he was in a good humour, and I supposed he had every right to be.
‘Robert tells me that you pursued Hereward and met him in battle,’ he said, glancing between the two of us.
‘We did, lord,’ Wace said.
‘And killed him, too, or so I hear.’
‘That wasn’t our doing, my king,’ I said.
He frowned. ‘Then whose was it?’
I nodded in Godric’s direction. ‘That’s the man who slew Hereward.’
The boy reddened as all eyes fell upon him, and he cast his gaze down, as if embarrassed. But he had no reason to be. He had done what I and countless of my fellow knights could not manage.
‘Godric?’ Morcar asked, perplexed. His grin had vanished. ‘My nephew killed Hereward?’
‘I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes,’ I said. ‘Hasn’t he told you?’
‘Godric barely knows which end of a sword is the killing one, let alone how to use it,’ Morcar said, and gave his nephew a cuff around the ear. ‘Look at him. He is as timid as a pup and as wet as a fish. He could no more have killed Hereward than he could have built the abbey at Elyg with his bare hands. In any case, what was he doing with you?’
‘The Breton lies,’ Atselin put in. He turned to face the king, whose smile had vanished. ‘He seeks to take advantage of your beneficence, and in doing so to mock you, lord.’
‘It is the truth,’ I insisted.
‘So you are always saying,’ he retorted. ‘But I have it otherwise. I heard tell that it was a bowman by the name of Hamo who struck the killing blow.’
‘Hamo?’ I asked.
‘He was there also, was he not?’
‘Yes, but he wasn’t the one—’
‘And what proof do you have that this boy was?’ Atselin asked. He turned to the king. ‘Lord, why do you persist in entertaining such nonsense?’
‘Peace, Atselin.’ The king held up a hand against the monk’s protests. ‘I would know what young Godric himself has to say, if anything.’
The boy hesitated, and I saw the lump in his throat as he swallowed. It was as if nothing had changed, as if we were back in Robert’s hall at Brandune, when he had first submitted to the king’s questions.
‘Well?’
‘Yes,’ Godric said, lifting his eyes to meet his king’s, having at last discovered some courage within himself. ‘It is true.’ He took a pace forward and raised his voice for all in the yard to hear. ‘I killed Hereward. His blood is upon my sword-edge, and if anyone wishes to deny it, I will fight him in order to prove it.’