The dean swallowed. ‘One was tall, about the same height as him –’ he pointed at Eudo ‘– while the other was short. I remember the tall one’s eyes, of the kind that you imagine could see right into a man’s soul, with an ugly scar above one of them—’
‘He had a scar?’ I interrupted. That was what I had been waiting to hear. ‘Which eye was it?’
‘Which eye?’ There was a note of despair in the dean’s voice. He hesitated for a moment, and then said, ‘The right one, as you would look at him.’
‘To him it would be his left, then,’ I murmured.
‘How is this important?’ asked Eudo.
‘It’s important because the man who attacked me, that night we arrived in Lundene, had a scar above his eye. His left eye.’
‘There could be hundreds of men with a mark like that,’ Wace pointed out. ‘How can you be sure it’s the same one?’
‘This man,’ I said to the dean. ‘He was unshaven, with a large chin?’
He looked at me in surprise. ‘That’s right,’ he replied.
‘It was him,’ I said, turning to Eudo and Wace. ‘Which means those men were serving ?lfwold all along.’
To have hired them he must have been planning this for some time, I realised. Since before we set off from Eoferwic, at least, and perhaps longer ago than that: since before we’d even met him. Which meant that all this time he had been deceiving us. At last I was beginning to see how everything fitted together. My fingers tightened around my sword-hilt. Not only had the priest lied to me, but his own hired swords had tried to kill me.
I cursed aloud, filling the chamber with my anger. The dean withdrew towards the far wall, his face even paler than before. He was trembling now, his breath coming in stutters, and I wondered if he thought we meant to kill him now that we had our answers.
‘P-please,’ said Wulfwin. ‘I have t-told you all that I know. By God and all his saints I swear it.’
‘It’s all right,’ Wace told him. ‘Our quarrel is not with you.’
Indeed I knew that for all the dean’s squirming, he was not at fault. He was merely unlucky to have been caught up in this business.
‘You were deceived,’ Eudo said. ‘Those weren’t Malet’s knights who came to take Harold’s body away, but sell-swords. And the instructions you received came not from the vicomte but from ?lfwold himself. He is a traitor; we’re trying to stop him.’
‘A traitor?’ A little colour was returning to the dean’s cheeks, but he nevertheless kept his distance. ‘Who, then, are you?’
‘We’ve been sent by Malet from Eoferwic,’ I said, though even as I did so I was aware of how feeble it sounded. ‘We are knights of his household.’
Wulfwin glanced about at each of us. ‘How do I know that you’re speaking the truth?’
‘You don’t,’ I said, no longer caring to keep the ire from my voice. The longer we delayed, the less chance we had of catching ?lfwold. ‘Now tell us: where did they go from here?’
‘I don’t know,’ the dean wailed. ‘I swear I’ve told you everything.’
‘Did they leave by road?’ Wace said.
Wulfwin shook his head. ‘B-by river. We had the coffin carried down to the village, where it was loaded on to a barge they had hired for the purpose. They sailed downstream, but they didn’t say where they were bound.’
‘Where does the river lead?’ I asked.
‘It flows into the Temes, a short way east of Lundene.’
‘And they left this morning?’
The dean nodded hesitantly, as if afraid he might give the wrong answer. ‘It was still dark, an hour or so before first light.’
‘Which means they have only half a day’s start on us,’ Eudo muttered. ‘If we ride hard, we might catch them before they reach the Temes.’
‘If that’s where they’re headed,’ Wace said, his expression grim.
‘I don’t see what choice we have,’ I said. We had but a few hours until night fell, after which time it would be all but impossible to track them. I turned to the dean, still cowering in the corner. ‘We will need your fastest horses.’
‘Of c-course,’ Wulfwin said. ‘Whatever you need.’
I glanced first at Wace, then at Eudo, and saw the resolve in their eyes. Both knew, as did I, that this was our last chance. More than the battle for Eoferwic, more than anything that we had done since H?stinges itself, this was what mattered. For if we failed to catch ?lfwold, if we couldn’t recover Harold’s body—
I drove such doubts from my head; now was not the time for them. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.
Thirty-eight