And still the ancient way went on, stretching seemingly without end into the west. Such tremendous builders the Romans must have been, I thought, for their works to remain standing after so many centuries. And yet, as the chaplain had pointed out, even they were made to suffer God’s wrath; even they had left this island in the end.
It was evening when we finally left the road, at a place ?lfwold called Searobyrg. Whatever his reason for meeting this nun, he was clearly anxious about it, for he kept looking at the position of the sun between the clouds, then back at us, telling us to keep up the pace, even though we’d been making good progress that day. That he was feeling the burden of our company was obvious, though probably like us he was simply eager for our journey to come to its end. It had been eleven days since Malet had sent us from Eoferwic, and apart from those two nights we had spent in Lundene, we had been travelling all that time. Of course it was nothing compared to the kinds of marches we had endured on campaign, but an army travels slowly, rarely more than fifteen miles from sunrise to sunset, whereas on some days we must have covered more than thirty miles. It was not a pace that could be sustained for long, especially for one unused to long periods in the saddle, as I suspected the priest was.
As the Roman road turned away to the south, then, we headed west, into the setting sun. The cart-track we followed was rutted and ill travelled, and it took us some time to make our way through the woods; by the time we emerged again the sun had gone completely. Amidst streaks of purple cloud the evening star shone brightly, and beneath it, rising out of the gloom in the depths of the valley, was a church, built of stone with three towers rising to the sky. Around it, a cluster of buildings formed a square cloister. One had smoke rising from it, and that was surely a kitchen; nearby stood a long two-storeyed hall which might have been a dormitory.
Wiltune. And so at long last we had arrived.
There was no wind, almost no sound at all. I gazed down upon the church’s towers, silhouetted against the fiery skies with the mist settling around their lower courses, and as I did so, something of the serenity of the sight touched me. It was a feeling I had known before, brought up from the very depths of my memory, more intimate than anything else in the world. The feeling that I was in the presence of God himself.
Only then did I realise how many years had passed since I’d last set foot in a monastery. Now I was to go there once more, except that this time I was no longer a boy, but rather a man who had knowingly fled that path, who had rejected the ideals of poverty, chastity and obedience which had been laid out before him.
A shiver ran through me. Yet I had served God with heart and mind in everything that I had done since I’d left. Why did I still feel guilty?
‘Tancred,’ ?lfwold called sharply. He was some way down the track, and I realised I had stopped, the other knights behind me, waiting.
‘Come on,’ I said to them as I followed the chaplain down the muddy hillside. My cross weighed heavy around my neck, the silver cold as it pressed against my chest.
I inhaled again, letting the earthy scent of the evening air fill my lungs as I tried to rid my mind of such thoughts. We were here with the priest, I reminded myself: here to make sure he delivered Malet’s message, whatever that was. Until we returned to Lundene, I could not afford to be thinking about anything else.
I gritted my teeth, concentrating on the track before me. All that could be heard was the faint kew-wick of an owl somewhere off to our right. In the distance, beyond the convent, fires were being lit, for I could see their smoke rising into the steadily darkening heavens.
The nunnery itself was ringed by a wide ditch and low wattle-work fence, both of which ran all the way down to the river to the south. The entrance was defended by a stout gatehouse of dressed stone, of the kind I might have expected to see at the manor of a lord, not at a house of God. From beneath its archway shone a single feeble light; a number of figures, all in dark vestments, were closing over two great oak doors.
‘Onbidath!’ ?lfwold called to them, waving his hand above his head as he pulled ahead of us. ‘Onbidath!’
The gates stopped and a woman’s voice replied in English. I glanced at Eudo, in case he had managed to make anything out, but he only shrugged.
‘Ic bringe ?rendgewrit sumre nunf?mnan,’ the chaplain said as he stopped his horse on the cobbles before them.
‘He says he brings a message for one of the nuns,’ Eudo murmured.
I rode forward, motioning for him to follow. Three nuns stood in the gateway, each dressed in a brown habit. The one ?lfwold was speaking to was holding a lantern, and the light flickered across her lined face. She was shaking her head, gesturing up towards the east, where the sky was turning an inky blue.
‘Tomorgen,’ the nun said. Then she saw us riding up behind him, and drew back inside the half-closed gates. She was a round woman, and short, with a gaze like a falcon’s, watchful and sharp.
‘Ic wille hire cwethan nu,’ the chaplain said, in a stern tone.