I turned. ‘Yes, lord?’
He left his seat and stood facing me, his eyes on a level with my own, his expression solemn. ‘I trust that you’ll come to the right decision.’
Ten
THE ALEHOUSE WHERE Wace and Eudo were staying was little more than an arrow’s flight from the castle gates, at the top of the street known as the Kopparigat. It meant the street of the cup-makers, or so the chaplain had told me when I had asked him the way there. Their wares were not much in demand that morning, though, since the alehouse was almost empty.
In the far corner sat two young Englishmen. They spoke in half-voices, every so often glancing towards us, as if we might be listening. At the table next to ours an old man had fallen asleep, his white hair straggling across his face where his head rested beside his cup. The place was damp and windowless; the smell of vomit, sour and sharp, hung in the air.
I told both Eudo and Wace everything Malet had said to me, about the task that he had in mind, and his promise of payment if they chose to join me.
‘Did he say how much he was offering?’ Eudo asked.
‘It’ll be more than we could make staying here, however much it is,’ Wace answered sourly as he scratched at his scar, at his disfigured eye. ‘Speak to any lord in Eoferwic and you’ll see how little Lord Robert’s name is worth. They spit at the mere mention of him; they accuse us of being deserters, oath-breakers.’
Malet had been right, then. I remembered seeing Gilbert de Gand among those speaking with him just the other day. I wondered how much he was responsible for blackening Robert’s name, even though he himself had not been at Dunholm.
‘I thought they’d be desperate to take on every man they could,’ I said. ‘Especially with the enemy marching.’
‘Obviously they feel secure enough already,’ Eudo muttered.
On the other side of the common room, a serving-girl refilled the cups of the two young Englishmen, whose expressions lightened straightaway. She was short but well endowed, with full breasts and good hips. Her hair was covered and it was difficult to make out her face in the dim light, but it seemed that she could have been little younger than Oswynn.
Eudo called to her in English. Though both Wace and I knew a few words, he was the only one of us able to speak the tongue properly. His mother, like mine, had died when he was young, and his father had married an Englishwoman to whom it seemed Eudo had quickly taken a dislike. But his father had been eager for Eudo to get along with his new wife, and so he was made to sit through her chaplain’s lessons, and to speak English whenever she or her servants were present, much though he had hated it.
The serving-girl turned and slowly came over to us, clutching the ale-jug tightly to her chest. Why she was afraid I didn’t know. We had come armed, of course – I with my knife, the others with their swords – though it seemed to me that there were few men in Eoferwic, Norman or English, who didn’t carry a blade of some kind. None of us was wearing mail or helmet, and, besides, we threatened no one, sitting by ourselves.
Nevertheless, her hands trembled as she poured the ale, and she did not lift her head, but instead kept her eyes firmly fixed on the jug. Her face was round, her cheeks flushed red. She reminded me of some of the girls I had known as a youth in Commines, though I could remember none of them in any great detail.
She finished refilling our cups and Eudo held a silver penny out to her. She took it with a brief curtsy before hustling away.
‘I wonder,’ said Wace, after she had gone. ‘Malet must be anxious if he wants to send his wife and daughter south.’
‘And yet he can afford to spare six knights to do so,’ Eudo pointed out. ‘Including three from his own household.’
Both of them looked to me for affirmation, as if I should somehow know Malet’s mind.
‘I don’t know what he’s thinking,’ I said, although I pictured him poring over the plans for the new cathedral. He had not seemed especially concerned that there was an enemy army less than a day’s march from the city. But then I had no doubt that Malet, like many lords I had dealt with in the past, was careful about what he revealed to others. I did not imagine for an instant that he had told me everything he knew about the enemy advance. He had not even told me what the message was that he wanted sent to Wiltune, or whom it was meant for.
‘When does he want us to leave?’ Eudo asked.
I sipped at the full cup before me, enjoying the bitter taste of the ale. ‘Tomorrow, before noon,’ I said. ‘But he wants answers from us by this evening.’
Eudo glanced at Wace. ‘What else is there for us here in Eoferwic?’