‘Do you think we’re going to tell you?’ Eudo countered. He was the tallest among us, but even when he drew himself to his full height he still did not match the Dane.
The three dogs were still growling, despite their masters’ hands on their necks trying to calm them, as if somehow they could see our lies for what they were and knew that we were dangerous. One of the huscarls had managed to attach a leash to the collar of the largest, but the animal was too strong, straining at the rope, and the man could barely hold him back.
‘Skallagrim! Gunni! Alfketil!’ the Dane called to the three men in charge of the dogs, including the one with the leash, then pointed to the animals and said something in his own tongue. He turned back to Eudo. ‘If you want to see the hostages then yes, you’ll tell me what you want with them, and why it needs ten of you.’ He glanced at Runstan. ‘And what about you, Englishman?’ he asked, clearly recognising him by his dress and his features to be different from the rest of us. ‘Are you with these Flemings?’
The Englishman began to open his mouth, and suddenly a cold feeling overcame me as I thought he was about to give us away, when Pons, who was standing not far behind, clouted him about the back of the head, sending him sprawling upon the dirt.
‘Keep your mouth shut, slave,’ he said. ‘Remember your place.’
That was quick thinking, I thought. It took me but a moment to recover my voice.
‘He belongs to me,’ I told the Dane. ‘He speaks only with my permission.’
Pons had obviously hit Runstan harder than I’d realised, for he was crying out in pain, shouting insults at us, calling us sons of whores and even worse. I nodded to Pons, who kicked him in the gut, and that discouraged him from saying anything further.
Still, the Dane seemed convinced by our story. Shouting now to make himself heard over the dogs’ barking, which I reckoned loud enough to wake the dead from their graves, he began: ‘Tell me what your business is with—’
He didn’t get the chance to finish, for at that moment the man holding the leash found himself dragged to the ground by the beast on the other end. Suddenly free, the animal hurled itself at one of Wace’s knights, who was not expecting it and fell backwards.
‘Harduin!’ Wace shouted, drawing his sword and rushing to his retainer’s aid even as the other two dogs broke free of their masters’ grips and charged, their teeth bared. One made for Wace himself, but he had enough time before it was upon him to raise his sword, plunging the tip of his blade into its breast as it leapt up at his chest. The other sank its teeth into Serlo’s ankle, and he swore violently as blood streamed from the wound, soaking into the hem of his trews.
The three huscarls who had been in charge of the hounds came forward, seeking at the same time to restrain them and to stop us from killing them. Most of the others were laughing, enjoying the spectacle as if it were some game, and among them was their captain.
Our ruse wouldn’t hold for long, and so this seemed to me as good an opportunity as any we would get.
Roaring through gritted teeth, I pulled my blade free of its scabbard and, with all the might I could muster, heaved it towards the chest of the big man, who all of a sudden was no longer laughing as he saw the sharpened steel glinting wickedly in the light of his men’s torches. He ducked just in time, and my strike only succeeded in glancing off his upper arm, failing to penetrate the chain links of his hauberk.
‘Kill them,’ I shouted. ‘Kill them!’
I had thought somehow we might manage to get in and out of this stronghold without having to fight. A hollow hope that seemed in hindsight, since a fight was exactly what we had found.