‘Hey,’ I called, waving to catch the nuns’ attention as I rode towards them. ‘Hey!’
Even though I rode alone they were wary of me at first, and understandably so. The scabbard belted to my waist would hardly have escaped their notice, and neither would the helmet upon my head, but I dismounted and spread my arms wide to show that I meant them no harm.
The long sleeves of their habits were rolled up to their elbows and their hands and forearms were covered with blood and dirt. Most of them were young, but there was one who was older than the rest, and who had obviously not been involving in the lifting of corpses, for her hands were unbloodied. She came to greet me, introducing herself as Abbess S?thryth and asking my business.
I did not answer her question directly, but gave her my name in return. ‘What happened here?’
‘A terrible battle, lord.’
‘I can see that,’ I replied stiffly. I had never much cared for men and women of the cloister, nor had much patience around them. ‘Which side had the field?’
‘King Guillaume, of course. He came upon the Welshmen in the middle of the night while they were sleeping. A vicious ruin he wrought amongst them until they fled. I’m afraid you have arrived too late.’
I ignored that last remark. ‘What about the Welsh king, Bleddyn? Did they slay him?’
‘Unfortunately he escaped. It’s said he retreated back across the dyke, although at what point he abandoned the struggle or which way he fled no one knows.’
It was because of Bleddyn that Byrhtwald was dead and I had spent countless days chained amidst my own piss at that place they called Mathrafal. I cursed loudly. The abbess flinched at my outburst. Normally I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but this time I quickly apologised, knowing that I would get better answers from her if she were well disposed towards me.
‘And Eadric?’ I asked. ‘Did he escape too?’
‘Eadric, lord?’
‘Called by some the Wild,’ I said, thinking that perhaps she hadn’t heard of him. ‘He was a thegn under the old king; he ravaged these parts some years ago, and this summer joined his cause to the brothers Bleddyn and Rhiwallon.’
‘I know who he is,’ the abbess answered, her face flushed red with indignance. ‘Don’t suppose that because we spend most of our days within the cloister that we are entirely ignorant of the world beyond.’
I sighed, trying to hold on to what small patience I had left. ‘Then tell me where he went.’
‘He was never here,’ S?thryth said, and when she saw my confusion went on: ‘They say there was a disagreement between him and the Welsh king. The exact details are a mystery, but what is known is that afterwards he went away into the north, taking his troops with him.’
Of course. When Eadric had come to Mathrafal he had been only too happy to kill Bleddyn’s household troops in order to get to me. I ought to have guessed from that, if from nothing else, that some rift had opened between them. And I supposed it was fortunate that it had, or else King Guillaume would have faced an army perhaps half as large again, and the outcome could have been very different.
‘You say he went into the north,’ I said. ‘Where exactly did he go? Does he mean to join the ?theling?’
On that matter S?thryth was uncertain, although it seemed the most plausible explanation. I asked, too, where King Guillaume had taken his host after the battle. By then the abbess was growing tired of my questions, but I persisted until she answered. She told me that no sooner had the Welsh been routed than the king left for Eoferwic, where he planned to do battle with Eadgar and the Danes.
‘How long ago was this?’ I asked.
‘Six days ago,’ she replied. ‘My fellow sisters have been working by sun and by lantern-light since then to bury the dead.’
The wind gusted, bringing with it the reek of shit mixed with decaying flesh. S?thryth lifted a small pouch to her nostrils, no doubt trying to mask the odour with herbs and so stave off the vaporous poisons that some said were carried upon the air. Whether that was true or not I was not knowledgeable enough to be able to judge, but a dozen years and more of breathing in such battle-smells had brought little ill effect upon me. As far as I was aware, at any rate.
With that the abbess left me, having clearly had enough of indulging my questions. Perhaps she thought that by ignoring me I would grow tired and leave her and the rest of the nuns to their work; if so she was wrong. From speaking to a few of the younger nuns I learnt that the king had left behind a small contingent commanded by his half-brother, the Bishop Odo, whom he had tasked with pursuing the Welshmen to the dyke and with relieving Fitz Osbern, who despite some of the rumours we’d heard still held out in the castle at Scrobbesburh. I asked whether any word of Earl Hugues had come from Ceastre, but none had heard anything.