We pushed our horses hard until daybreak, trying to put as much distance between us and the town while the blanket of night still wrapped itself around us. All too soon, though, the eastern skies were growing light and then suddenly the new day was upon us. I kept glancing over my shoulder to see if there was anyone behind us on the road, perhaps a glint of steel helmets and spearpoints in the early light. There never was, however, and so as the sun began to climb we dismounted from our destriers, our beasts of war, leaving them in the care of the grooms and stable-hands who travelled with us, and exchanged them for our rounceys, which were our riding horses, less fleet of foot but more suited for enduring the long miles that lay ahead of us.
Rather than taking the better-known tracks by way of Deorbi and Snotingeham and thus skirting the southernmost of the high peaks, we headed north. It would be the shortest route, Robert told us, a little more than one hundred miles according to his reckoning. I could not dispute that but I knew that it would take us across the most unforgiving of country, over wet and windswept fells, through steep and stony vales and high and desolate passes: hard going for even the toughest of men and animals. To tell the truth I was not looking forward to it, and neither were most of Robert’s men. The pall of the battle in Mechain still hung over us; even after a day’s rest in Scrobbesburh we were all still saddle-sore from the march into Wales and the forced retreat.
The sun climbed higher; the day grew warmer. As midday approached and there was still no sign of any message from Fitz Osbern, slowly we began to relax our pace. If Robert was relieved, he did not show it, but among the rest of the men spirits seemed to be lifting, for the first time in several days. We paused for a while by a brook to fill our wineskins and give our animals drink, and to give our backs and arses a rest for the first time since we had woken.
At one time there appeared a faint cloud of dust as might be kicked up by passing hooves, about a mile to our rear. They were too far off for any of us to make out any figures, but whoever it was always seemed to keep their distance, never growing any closer, and so it seemed unlikely that they were riders sent to pursue us. More probably that dust-cloud belonged to mere travellers, although these were dangerous times to be upon the roads. Indeed that day we had come across very few of the kind of folk one might usually expect to find: cowherds and gosherds driving their animals to market; monks on their way from one convent to another; or merchants and pedlars such as Byrhtwald. I wondered where he was by now, and when and if I would next see him.
Not much later we found ourselves riding through dense woods of oak and hornbeam, elm and birch. Whoever held these lands had been neglecting his responsibilities, for the track looked as though it had not been cleared in many months. In some places it was so boggy and thick with mud that no cart stood a chance of making it through; in others it was overhung by so many boughs or choked with such dense clusters of nettles that it was almost impossible to see in which direction it was supposed to lead.
‘We’ll have to find another way,’ I said. We had spent the better part of half an hour hacking with our knives at the undergrowth, taking saws and axes to fallen branches, to little avail. The path had grown steadily narrower as it delved deeper in the woods until I began to suspect that it was nothing more than a deer track.
‘We must have lost the road some time ago,’ said Robert, red-faced from exertion and frustration. We had been following one of the old Roman roads, which were usually well frequented, so that it was never hard to find someone who knew the way to wherever one was going. Except that this day they had been particularly quiet, and those we occasionally spotted in the distance took flight at the very sight of so many armed men. Thus when the road appeared to fork unexpectedly we had nothing but our own judgement to rely upon. Or rather Robert’s, since he had decided he knew better than the rest of us. And it was his pig-headedness that had brought us here.
‘I saw a manor upon the hill before we entered these woods,’ Beatrice spoke up. ‘We could ride back and ask if anyone knows the way.’
‘And while we’re there, we can give their lord some advice on how to manage his lands and keep the ways clear,’ Pons muttered.
That got a murmur of approval, and in truth Beatrice’s was as good an idea as anyone had thus far suggested. Grudgingly Robert agreed. Following our own trail of hewn nettles and horse dung, we wound our way back along the path, leading our animals in single file, until I felt I was beginning to recognise where we were. We had wasted a good hour or more, but if we could find the road again, it would not matter.
Serlo was telling some long-winded joke involving a washerwoman, a nun and an alewife, though it was hard to follow what he was saying for he was some way behind me. From the tone of his voice I guessed he was nearing the end, when suddenly Robert gave a shout from the head of the column. I craned my neck to see what was happening.
He stood by the edge of the path, holding aloft a leather bottle. ‘Did one of you drop this earlier?’
All my provisions were safely stowed in the panniers on our packhorse. I had taken care to check that the harness was securely fastened when last we stopped. There was little chance that anything could have dropped while we were riding. I glanced over my shoulder at my two knights; they both shrugged.