A strand of golden hair had fallen loose from under her wimple and she tucked it back behind her ear. ‘Once,’ she said quietly. ‘It was before the invasion, four years ago. We were wed in the summer; he died before Christmas. I didn’t know him long, but the end, when it came, was nonetheless hard to bear.’
Oswynn had not been with me long when she died, either: a matter of months at most.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
She nodded and for a while did not speak, as if she were considering whether or not to accept my apology.
‘Just remember that you are not the centre of the world, Tancred a Dinant,’ she said at last, and there was a hard edge to her voice now. ‘Perhaps next time you’ll think more carefully before you open your mouth.’
Before I could say anything more, she turned on her heels and went. I watched her go, surprised by her sudden change in manner. I still couldn’t see what she, what Aubert and ?lfwold, wanted from me. I had no time to wonder then, though, for the wind was changing direction and one of the men shouted to me to bring the ship around more to steerboard. I pulled on the tiller, leaning back on my heels as I put the weight of my body into it, until the prow pointed into the sun, the full circle of which had risen above the horizon. Above us the gulls circled still, swooping, screeching.
A few others were waking now, sharing bread with each other, pouring out cups of ale to break their fast. Before long Lady Elise also rose and she and Beatrice joined ?lfwold in prayer. Beside me on the stern platform, Wace and Eudo and the rest of the knights were still asleep, as was the shipmaster himself, gently snoring.
The sun climbed higher and the day grew brighter. Aubert woke after an hour or two more and took back the tiller, though he still looked exhausted. The oarsmen took their places on their ship-chests, soon settling back into their rhythm as the shipmaster beat a languid pulse on the drum, and Wyvern soared across the calm waters.
It was mid-morning by the time Alchebarge was spotted ahead of us: first as a few wisps of grey smoke rising above the horizon, then as a long ridge dotted with trees, rising over wide flats. From our steerboard side, across bare fields and past dense thickets, a second river wound its way to meet the Use, the two joining to form a single broad expanse of blue.
‘The Trente,’ the shipmaster said to me. ‘Where the two streams meet, the Humbre begins.’
I nodded, but I was paying him little attention. Instead I was watching the ridge in the distance and the smoke blowing towards the east, and growing puzzled, for it wasn’t the kind that I would have expected to see from houses during the day, and especially not on such a cold day as this. For there were no thick clouds billowing up, as there should have been if their hearths had been freshly stoked, but rather a collection of thin, feeble threads weaving slowly about one another, as when a fire has nearly burnt itself out.
We drew nearer, leaving the Use behind us. I began to make out more clearly the houses there, dotted against the bright sky. Or rather I saw what remained of them: their blackened timbers and collapsed roof-beams, smouldering still. The stone tower and nave of the church were all that was left standing; all else along the ridge lay in ruins.
Aubert’s hand stopped beating upon the drumskin, and the splash of oars against the water ceased. Silence fell like a shadow across the ship. I saw the chaplain cross himself and murmur a prayer in Latin, and I did the same as I stared up at the twisted wreckage of what once had been Alchebarge, but was no more.
The enemy had been here before us.
Sixteen
WE APPROACHED SLOWLY, drifting on the current with only the occasional pull on the tiller from Aubert to keep us on the correct course. The shipmaster had ordered the sail furled and the mast lowered. We didn’t know whether there were any more of the enemy still watching us from the ridge, with their ships perhaps hidden amidst the reeds and mudbanks that lay beneath, in which case it was better they did not see the black and gold, since then they would know straightaway that we were not of their own fleet.
But if the enemy were there, they did not show themselves. I kept watching for any flicker of movement or a glint that might be steel, and I saw nothing.
The ridge on which Alchebarge stood loomed steeply before us. From its top it must have been possible to see for miles around, and it seemed to me that it would make for a strategic place – if one could hold it – for it commanded the two rivers, the Use and the Trente, at the place where they joined. And it ought to be easily defensible from the water, too, owing both to its steep slopes, and to the mudflats that lay at its foot: a wide expanse of reeds and long shoals, which glistened under the light of the sun.
The tide seemed to be on its way out, for though the part of the flats nearest us was still submerged, on their landward side I could see myriad pools and channels where the river was retreating. If we were to reach Alchebarge at all we would have to make our way – whether by ship or on foot – through that maze.