On our way I told them of everything that had happened since I had left, from our expedition across the dyke to the battle at Mechain, our retreat and then our desertion from Scrobbesburh, my capture by Bleddyn and how I had managed to get away. There were parts that I left out: some of it seemed so long ago that it was already fading from my memory, but there was plenty, too, that I was less proud of and which they did not need to hear about, my quarrel with Berengar being one of those things. How petty did all that seem now, after everything that had happened?
When we were nearing Earnford I made the rest wait while ?dda and I rode ahead on two of the palfreys that, along with one of my stallions, he’d managed to save from the stables. The sight of the burnt houses and the smell of decay was no easier to bear than it had been the day before, but we skirted around the worst of it and I tried to keep my gaze fixed on the summit of the Read Dun ahead of us, and on the path that led there. Crows scattered from our path, cawing in chorus as they circled above us, their obsidian beads of eyes watching us.
‘I don’t like this,’ said ?dda, making the sign of the cross upon his breast as we began to climb the hill. ‘This is an evil place, lord. Why have we come here?’
‘You know why,’ I replied. ‘We aren’t leaving until we have what we came for.’
Despite the Englishman’s mutterings, I spoke no more until we had climbed the steep stony paths that led through the trees to the ridge above, and from there along the ridge to the summit where the stones kept lookout over the valley. It took me a little while searching in the long grass, but eventually I found the smallest one, slid my palm into the gap beneath its flat underside, and with the Englishman’s help lifted it and rolled it to one aside.
The enemy had not found my hoard, I was relieved to see. All was exactly as I had left it.
?dda made a sound of astonishment when he saw it. He knew I sometimes came here, but perhaps he had not quite guessed how much silver and gold I had managed to amass over the last few months.
‘How much of this do you mean to take with us?’ he asked.
‘All of it,’ I answered. ‘We won’t be coming back here.’
We lifted out the saddlebags filled with coin, the pagan arm-rings with the strange inscriptions – which I donned straightaway – and the two gilded brooches. I had no idea exactly how much it was all worth, but I reckoned there was sufficient for a dozen strong warhorses, with enough left over to buy spears and shields for every man, woman and child in our party. Of the three seaxes I gave one to the Englishman, kept one for myself and placed the third with the silver, thinking to give it to one of the other men later. Odgar, perhaps: he was the youngest and the strongest of them, and would be a useful man to have beside me in a fight.
That left the sword, the last of three I had once owned, and now my only one. It had been given me by Lord Robert’s father, Guillaume Malet, when I had entered his service for a few months the year before. Though he had released me from my oath after the unpleasant business with his traitorous chaplain, he had never asked me to return the blade. In some ways I would rather he had, for in my eyes the steel was imbued with the memory of that time, with all the betrayal and deceit that had surrounded it. For that reason I’d never much liked using it and thus it had lain resting in the ground for all these months. That I had not sold it had proven a blessing. Perhaps I’d known there would be a time when it would be needed again.
I buckled the sword-belt around my waist as I looked down upon the valley and upon Earnford, at the same time praying silently that it was not for the last time. But even as we began the slow journey back down the hillside, a cold sensation came over me, as if I knew it would be. As if my words to ?dda had been somehow prophetic, though I had not meant them in that way. In my mind I’d been speaking about the hoard and the hiding place upon the hill, but perhaps there was a greater truth contained within them: a truth I did not want to admit but which deep down I knew.
The truth that we would not be coming back to Earnford at all.
Twenty-four
WE STRUCK OUT across that burnt and wasted land, staying off the main tracks as much as possible, while also keeping a look out for any raiding-bands that might be roaming. Spires of smoke rose on the horizon where the torch had been taken to other manors, and we took care to avoid them in case some of the enemy still lurked. Even from a distance it was clear they had not spared a single house, animal or soul. All about wheatfields lay blackened, the pastures devoid of any sign of movement. Where I might have expected to hear the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle and oxen, there was only an unearthly stillness.
‘Crungon walo wide,’ ?dda muttered as we skirted the edge of one such manor. ‘Cwoman woldagas, swylt eall fornom secgrofra wera.’
Something about those words was familiar. ‘Far and wide men were slaughtered,’ I said, trying to remember. ‘Days of pestilence came, and death took all the brave men away.’
Surprised, he shot me a glance. ‘You know it, lord?’