‘Stay back,’ I said.
But he was not listening. Screeching like some beast from the caverns of Hell, he charged.
Whether he hoped to catch me off guard and off balance, whether he planned to take us both over, I do not know, and never will. I recovered my wits just in time, waiting until he was almost upon me before dancing to one side, lifting my sword, turning and thrusting the blade out. A moment sooner and he would have seen what I was doing; a moment later and I would have been pitched, with him, on to the rocks below.
My sword flashed silver in the night, striking only air, but ?lfwold was coming so fast that it did not matter. He flew past me, past the point of my blade, and in a single moment his expression turned from rage to fear when he saw the cliff-edge before him and found that he could not stop.
His cloak billowed all about him as, screaming, he tumbled forward, disappearing from sight. Dropping my sword, I rushed to the edge, gazing down towards the rocks. The priest lay on his back, unmoving, his arms and legs spread wide.
‘?lfwold,’ I called, but he did not reply.
His eyes were open, the whites glistening in what little light there was, but he did not see me. His mouth hung agape, his chest was still and he was no longer breathing. His forehead was spattered with blood, his hair matted where his skull had cracked.
The chaplain was dead.
Epilogue
THE SUN SHONE brightly upon Eoferwic. It was still early but the morning was warm, as Malet and I rode through a city blossoming with colour.
Hardly three weeks had passed since the battle, yet already traders were returning, farmers driving their livestock to market once more. Butchers’ and fishmongers’ stalls lined the streets, which were thronged with English and French alike. Everywhere the trees were in leaf, while in the fields the first green shoots were bursting above the soil. The scent of moist earth drifted on the breeze. After the long winter we had endured, it seemed that spring had at last arrived.
‘It was on a morning like this, some fifteen years ago, that I first saw this city,’ said Malet. ‘I find it remarkable how little it has changed, despite all the troubles of recent times.’
We were alone. I had left Eudo and Wace at the alehouse where we were staying; neither were up when the summons had arrived for me from the vicomte. Exactly why he had called for me he had not yet said.
‘My mother had died not long before,’ he went on. ‘I’d come to England to take up the estates she’d held here. It was only a few months later that I took a young priest into my household as my chaplain.’
‘?lfwold,’ I said.
Malet’s face was grim. ‘I still find it hard to believe that he was capable of such deceit.’
With that I could only agree. We had told Malet everything when we returned to his hall the night before: everything from our arrival at Waltham and our meeting with Dean Wulfwin, to the fight upon the shore, the ship waiting out on the Temes, my struggle with ?lfwold by the cliff’s edge, and his eventual death. Through all of it Malet had hardly spoken as he sat, pensive and still.
We’d brought Harold’s coffin with us, which had proven no easy task. First we’d had to find a cart to carry it, and of course there’d been the matter of how to raise it from the barge, but with the help of some local folk and generous offerings of silver we had managed. It had taken us many days after that to return to Eoferwic; far longer than it should. But we hadn’t wanted to bring too much attention upon ourselves and so had tried to keep to country tracks, staying away from the old road as much as we could.
‘Where will you bury Harold now?’ I asked. ‘Will you return his body to Waltham?’
Before us a man was driving a flock of geese through the mud. We plodded behind them until he came to a pen at the side of the street and, aided by some of the other townsmen, herded them through its gate, out of our way.
‘Not Waltham, no,’ said Malet. ‘After this, I know I cannot rely on Wulfwin to keep such a secret safe.’
‘Where, then?’
He glared at me, as if in warning, but I held his gaze and he soon turned away. ‘I will find somewhere fitting,’ he answered quietly. ‘By the sea, perhaps, so that in death he may still watch over the shores he tried in life to protect.’
I wondered what he meant by that, whether he was speaking in jest. But he was not smiling and there was no humour in his eyes. He had told me as much as he was prepared to, and it was clear I would get nothing more from him.
For a while we rode on in silence. Pedlars approached us, trying to sell rolls of cloth, wooden pots and all manner of trinkets, but when they saw that we were ignoring them they quickly moved on.