The rest of the journey was passed in an ill humour: little was said and the rain and wind did nothing to lift the mood. Nothing more was said of Eoferwic or Malet, and the fact that none of the towns we passed through had heard any news only unsettled me even more.
So it was that on the following Sunday, the twenty-second day in the month of February, and the sixth after we had left Suthferebi, we finally left the woods to the north of Lundene. The familiar Bisceopesgeat hill came into sight, its crest occupied by the stone church and attendant buildings of the convent of St ?thelburg, lit orange by the low sun. Since first coming across the Narrow Sea two-and-a-half years before, I had been to Lundene more often than I could recall; more than anywhere else in England, it felt like home.
Fields gave way to houses as we made our way up the other side of the valley towards the Bisceopesgeat itself, which was one of the seven gatehouses, built of stone and more than thirty feet high. The city was girded on its landward sides by great stone walls left by the Romans, the first people to have taken this island, so many centuries ago. I remembered how, the first time I had arrived, I had marvelled at the sight: it had seemed more of a fortress than a town. But a town it was, by far the largest in the kingdom: more than twice the size of Eoferwic and easily a rival to Cadum and Rudum, the great cities of Normandy.
The road was quiet; it was growing late and I imagined that most men would be at home with their wives, drinking ale or mead by the warmth of their hearths. Children played in the road, chasing each other between and around the backs of the houses, hardly noticing us. It was a pleasant change after Eoferwic, where Frenchmen were still greeted in the streets with hostility or, at the very least, suspicion. Of course the south of the kingdom was long accustomed to our presence, having made its surrender within a month of our victory at H?stinges. In the time since, the people in Lundene had come to understand that we were here to stay, in a way that the northerners so far had not.
The gatehouse rose tall in front of us, solid and imposing as it must have appeared for hundreds of years, although I could see from the lighter coloured stone in the upper courses where it had been repaired and added to. Behind a wooden parapet on its roof, two men stood silhouetted against the yellowing sky, facing out across the fields towards the north, spears in hands, their long hair blowing in the wind where it protruded from beneath the rims of their helmets. How many sieges, how many assaults had these walls withstood? How many others had kept watch atop the same tower?
We passed in single file beneath the shadow of its archway; hooves clattered against the paving stones, echoing in its darkened confines. There were four knights guarding the gate, pacing about, blowing warm air into their hands. When they saw that most of us were Normans, however, they let us pass, and then the low sun was on my face again.
We carried on climbing the hill until we had passed the church, whereupon the road fell away once more, straight down towards the river. The whole city sprawled out before us. Houses and workshops clustered together along the main streets, sending up coils of smoke that wound about each other in the still evening air. Beyond them the murky waters of the Temes swept in great curves across the land. A number of ships were out on the river that evening: fishing boats returning from the estuary with their day’s catch; trading vessels, wide-beamed and broad in sail; a solitary longship, fighting its way against the current. I remembered what Aubert had said back in Suthferebi, and for a heartbeat wondered if it might be Wyvern, before I saw her sail, which was blue and white rather than black and gold.
In the south-eastern quarter of the city stood the castle, more impressive still than the one at Eoferwic, while in the far distance, a mile and more upriver of the city, was the great abbey church of Westmynstre, its towers rising high above the stone-and-timber halls of the royal palace and the houses and farms of Aldwic, the old town.
‘Where from here?’ I asked the chaplain.
‘Down to W?clinga str?t,’ he replied. ‘Lord Guillaume’s house lies the other side of the Walebroc.’