The river was quiet, stately in its progress as it wound its way through the flat country. A fleet of ducks swam off our larboard side, watching closely with beady eyes as we overtook them. All that could be heard was the soft splash of oars against the water’s surface. How different it was from the crowded streets of the city; it was hard to believe it was just that morning that we had left. But night was nearly upon us again, and the darkening cloud hung low, threatening rain at any moment.
Beside me, Aubert pulled on the tiller as the river curved towards the west and the last light, and the Wyvern’s high prow carved a great arc through the calm water. On the right-hand bank a village came into sight, no more than a spire or two of smoke at first, but as we grew closer I was able to pick out firelight, and then a cluster of houses around a timber-and-thatch hall, a low rectangular shadow against the grey skies. I wondered who resided there: whether it was one of the few English thegns who still held land under King Guillaume, or – more likely – a new French-speaking lord.
‘Drachs,’ Aubert said to me as he pushed gently on the tiller. ‘South-east she runs from here, down to the Humbre.’
A chorus of laughter erupted from the other end of the ship, where Eudo and Wace were playing at dice with the other three from Malet’s household. They seemed like good men, from the little I had spoken to them, and I did not doubt their sword-arms, though whether they had the temperament for battle, I couldn’t yet be sure.
I’d joined them earlier, but soon found myself distracted, my mind wandering and confused. So much had happened so quickly and I needed the time to think. We had departed Eoferwic in such a rush and I still did not understand how I had come to be here, why Malet had chosen me for this task.
Up ahead, the river’s course bent sharply left: so sharply in fact that it appeared to come back almost on itself. Aubert shouted to his rowers, and those on the left-hand side shipped oars, taking a few moments to rest their arms, while those to steerboard quickened their pace. The ship surged forward, taking the bend in a wide curve, and as the river straightened out, the pace slowed and the larboard oarsmen once more resumed their stroke.
A gust rustled the reeds in the shallows and I caught a glimpse of shadows moving about on the right-hand bank. I watched, trying to make out more detail, but whatever it was, it remained hidden by the mist. A deer or some other animal, I thought.
Aubert steered us away, back towards the middle of the river where the flow was fastest. I looked to the sky, where the moon was up, its milky light shining diffusely through the low, bulbous clouds. There had been wind, but it had lessened as the day wore on and the black-and-gold sail was now furled, the mast taken down. But the Use was high after the recent rains and the current was strong, and so we had made good progress.
‘You’re from Dinant, then?’ the shipmaster asked, and I was taken by surprise, not because of the suddenness of the question, but because he’d said it in the Breton tongue. I had grown so used to speaking French in recent times that the words sounded almost foreign to my ears.
‘That’s right,’ I replied. Malet must have given him my name. ‘You’re from Brittany as well?’
Of course, just because he spoke the language did not mean he was a native – and I had not noticed any trace of an accent before now. The words felt unfamiliar as they left my tongue. Like the ocean on the turning tide: never really gone, only diminished, waiting for the moment when it would flood back once again.
‘From Aleth,’ he said. ‘Not far from you.’
I had never been there but I knew of it: a port some miles downstream from Dinant, where the river flowed out into the Narrow Sea.
‘It’s been a long time since I was there,’ he continued. ‘There or in Dinant, for that matter. Not since the time of the siege, anyway.’
At the mention of the siege I felt my chest tighten. The tale was five years old, and had been related to me long before. I’d heard how Conan, the Breton count, had refused to swear fealty to Normandy; how Duke Guillaume had invaded that summer and forced him back to the castle at Dinant; how the castle had been besieged and destruction wrought everywhere, until at last he submitted. But never before had I spoken to anyone who had seen it with his own eyes.
‘You were there?’
‘I was serving as steersman in Conan’s household. It was after the siege that I left his employ and Malet took me on.’
‘What was it like?’
‘Houses raided, half the town razed to the ground,’ Aubert said, his eyes vacant, staring off into the mist. ‘Women raped, men and children murdered in the streets. The stench of death everywhere: in the castle, in the streets. It was like nothing you have ever seen.’
‘I was at H?stinges,’ I said, suddenly provoked. ‘I have seen thousands of men lose their lives in a single day, run through with sword and spear, trampled under the weight of the charge. You think I don’t know slaughter?’
I remembered my ears filling with the screams of my comrades. I remembered seeing the whole hillside awash with blood, and whether it was the enemy’s or whether it was ours, after a whole day of fighting it no longer mattered.