Eventually we caught sight of the banner we had been looking for: the twin of the one I held. It flew high, not far from the king’s pavilion, which meant that Robert Malet was held in high regard.
Of the king himself there was no sign; the flaps had been drawn across the entrance to his tent and there were two of his retainers posted outside, preventing anyone from entering. No doubt that meant he was in council with one or another of his barons. I’d never faced him in person, though I had often seen him from a distance: at his court in Westmynstre at Pentecost last year; and of course on the field at H?stinges.
We made our way to the black and gold, beneath which six tents had been set up around a fire. Robert was indeed there, along with his men, who at first glance I guessed numbered around twenty, as well as his manservant: the thin one with the boil on his neck, who had been with him when we had first met.
Robert saw us approach, and he came over to greet us as we all dismounted. Again I noted he was clad all in black: an affectation that I hoped did not hinder his ability to fight, which was the reason we were here, after all.
‘Your business at Wiltune went well?’ he asked me after we had embraced.
‘Well enough, lord,’ I replied. For a moment I thought that he was about to enquire further, but he did not. How much did he know, I wondered, about the business with Eadgyth and Harold’s body?
He introduced us to his men, and in particular to a burly, broad-shouldered man whose name he gave as Ansculf. He was the captain of Robert’s household knights, and was evidently a man of few words, for he did little more than grunt when he saw us. He smelt of cattle dung and I noticed that he was missing two of the fingers from his shield hand, as well as part of his ear on his other side. But so far as I could tell he seemed experienced; there was a certain confidence about him that I recognised, for it was the kind that came only when a man had seen many hardships, many battles, and weathered all that could be thrown at him.
We left our horses with those of the rest of Robert’s men, driving thick stakes into the earth between the tents and the stream and tying them to those. There was grass enough for the packhorses, but I made sure that mounds of grain were laid out for the destriers, and they stood around those, eating contentedly.
Robert’s men were roasting what looked like a haunch of deer over the fire when we came back. It was a big slab of meat and the fire was yet small, but then one of them arrived with a bundle of sticks and began to build it up, and soon I could feel the warmth upon my face.
‘What news is there from Eoferwic?’ I asked Robert.
‘Not much,’ he said grimly. ‘The castle still holds, so far as we know, but the rebels continue to press at its gates.’
‘Any word on the enemy’s numbers?’ Wace put in.
Robert shrugged. ‘Four, five thousand. Maybe even more. No one knows for sure. More are joining them every day, or so we hear. Men from all over the north: English, Scots, even some Danes as well.’
‘Danes?’ I repeated. I remembered what Malet had told me, about the invasion he believed was to come this summer. Was it possible they had arrived already, and we hadn’t heard about it? ‘You mean King Sweyn is with them?’
‘Not him,’ Robert said. ‘Not yet, at least. These ones are adventurers, swords-for-hire, though there are certainly enough of them. We hear that half a dozen ships’ crews have gathered beneath Eadgar’s banner, some of them from as far afield as Orkaneya and Haltland.’
The Danes were fearsome fighters, wherever they came from. And even a mere six ships could mean anything between two and three hundred men.
‘All the northern lords have allied with him, as far as we’ve heard,’ Robert went on. ‘Gospatric of Bebbanburh, his cousin Waltheof Sigurdsson, and many more besides. The old families are uniting under Eadgar’s banner, all of them proclaiming him king.’
Another usurper, I thought. As if the English had already forgotten the end that had befallen Harold. But this was not a thing to be taken lightly; since H?stinges we had not faced a host of this size. Until now the risings we had encountered had all been local ones, and easily put down, the enemy weak and disorganised.
This was different. As I looked at Robert, I saw the unease in his eyes. He was thinking about his father, about whether we could save him. But I was uneasy for a different reason, for I had seen how well defended Eoferwic was, surrounded by its high walls and easily supplied both by land and by ship. Even if we laid counter-siege on one side of the river, the city as a whole could not be cut off. And so the only way we could break the English siege and save Malet was if we forced the enemy to do battle with us: for our host, led by King Guillaume, to face that of Eadgar, until only one remained.