‘This way,’ I told Eudo as I went in, heading for the stairs. The sound of my footsteps echoed off the stonework, though at the same time I could make out voices, raised but nevertheless indistinct.
I began to climb, with Eudo close behind me. The voices grew louder as we ascended. There were two of them: one clearly belonging to the chaplain, for I recognised his gruff tone even though I could not make out his words; the other that of a woman. She sounded agitated, distressed even. It was then that I realised their voices were more than just raised. They were shouting at one another.
I exchanged a look with Eudo, and we hurried on up the stairs, into a wide room with low beams and a sloping roof. Its length was taken up by an oak table, while upon the floor lay richly embroidered rugs in threads of many colours. A private dining-chamber, I guessed, or else a place for receiving and entertaining guests.
There was a door at the far end, and the voices were coming from within. The floorboards creaked gently as we rounded the table towards it, and I hoped that we were not making too much noise, though above their shouting I doubted they’d be able to hear. I let Eudo in front – he was the only one who could understand what they were saying – and he crept up to the door, I behind him, taking care to step upon the rugs so as to muffle our footsteps. He pressed his ear against the door, although in truth he hardly needed to. Even from where I stood I was able to make out distinct words, even if I did not understand what they meant.
‘Eadgyth—’ I heard the chaplain say, in what sounded like a soothing tone. He was cut off.
‘He is min wer!’ Eadgyth said.
‘“He is my husband,”’ Eudo whispered, as a frown crossed his face.
‘What?’ I said, too loudly, and he waved me quiet. That wasn’t what I had been expecting. He is my husband. Eadgyth’s husband had been Harold, but what did the usurper have to do with this?
‘Hit is ma thonne twegra geara f?ce,’ she shouted. ‘For hwon w?re he swa langsum?’
‘Two years,’ Eudo murmured. ‘Something about it being more than two years. The rest I’m not sure.’
It was more than two years since the invasion, I thought. Was that what she meant?
‘Thu bist nithing,’ she screamed, over what sounded like protests from ?lfwold. ‘Thu and thin hlaford!’
Nithing. That word, at least, was familiar. Had not the priest himself used it of us not so long ago?
‘What is she saying now?’ I asked Eudo.
He shook his head as he drew away from the door. On the other side I began to hear footsteps. ‘Quickly,’ he hissed. ‘Let’s go.’
I turned and made for the stairs, but in doing so forgot about the table behind me. I crashed into it, and it shuddered loudly against the floorboards. I stumbled forward, cursing my stupidity. Before I could recover, the door flew open.
?lfwold stood there. ‘Tancred,’ he said. ‘Eudo.’ He looked confused for a moment, before his face turned to anger. ‘I told you to stay behind.’
I was paying him little heed, however, for behind him was standing the oath-breaker’s wife herself: a woman somewhere in her middle years, although she was not unattractive for that. Slight of build, her complexion was milky-pale, her neck long and graceful as a swan’s. It was not hard to understand what one even such as Harold Godwineson might have seen in her. But her eyes were brimming with tears, her cheeks wet and glistening in the candlelight, and despite myself I felt a sudden stab of sympathy for her. What had the priest said that had driven her to such sadness?
Then I saw that she clutched to her breast a sheet of parchment that curled at the edges, as if holding on to the memory of the scroll it had once been. The same parchment that I had found and read in the priest’s room last night; it had to be. Was that what had distressed her?
‘Why are you here?’ ?lfwold demanded. ‘Were you listening?’
I hesitated, trying to think of some reason I could give, but nothing came to mind. The silence grew, and I felt I had to say something, anything at all just to break it, when anxious shouts rose from the floor below. I looked down the stairs and met the aged eyes of the nun Burginda. She was pointing up at us, and beside her stood Cynehild, the abbess, her gaze fixed unflinchingly upon us.
‘You,’ she called up to us. She raised the skirts of her habit and climbed the steps, the hem just trailing upon the stone. Burginda followed close behind her. ‘You’re not allowed in here. These chambers are for the sisters of the convent alone.’
‘My lady—’ I began to protest, though in truth I could think of nothing to say. For I could hardly tell her why we were really here, and what good would it do in any case?
She reached the top and glanced about the room. ‘?lfwold,’ she said, in French still, no doubt so that we too could be party to what she had to say. ‘You know that men aren’t allowed in the nuns’ dormitory.’