‘When?’
‘Not for some time,’ Robert said. ‘Barely had we arrived when the word came that the enemy were gathering their host beyond the dyke. I have spoken privately with Fitz Osbern and he has given his approval to the match, although as yet no formal arrangements have been made. As long as the Welsh continue to threaten the kingdom, I suppose talk of marriage will have to wait.’
I did not know what to say to that, or even what to feel. The thought that she was to be wed was like a weight upon my heart, and that surprised me. I hadn’t so much as seen her in over a year, nor at the time had she given any clue as to the depth of her own feelings. And I remembered all too well the instant when her lips had left mine and she had twisted away from my embrace: as if she were somehow ashamed. In the months that followed I’d often dwelt upon that moment, and the more I did so, the easier it had been to put her out of my mind.
‘What about you?’ Robert said, breaking me out of my thoughts. ‘You must have considered taking a wife, fathering sons to continue your line.’
‘I have Leofrun.’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ he said. ‘We all have needs, and there is no shame in fulfilling them. However much you enjoy her company, though, she’s hardly of noble stock.’
‘She is my woman.’ For some reason I felt defensive, even though there was truth in what he said. Even if the child Leofrun carried turned out to be a boy, he would not necessarily be able to inherit, being bastard-born.
Robert shrugged as if indifferent. ‘It’s none of my business, I’m certain.’
‘I’m married to my sword,’ I said. ‘For now that’s enough for me.’
Except that it wasn’t. Even as the words left my lips I realised how false they were. As much as I cared for Leofrun, a part of my heart still yearned for another, a woman who had been dead for a year and more. And then there was Beatrice, who ever since I’d first met her had frustrated and intrigued me in equal measure. The nearer we grew to Scrobbesburh, the nearer I was to her, and the more anxious I became. For this would be the first time our paths had crossed since that kiss, when so much had changed.
Six
WE REACHED SCROBBESBURH at dusk. The castle was the first thing we saw, the whitewashed timbers of its tower and palisade gleaming in the late sun and dazzling us even from several miles away. The Saverna curved around in a great circle here, almost turning back on itself, and the castle stood at the neck of the loop that it made, overlooking the river and the wharves which ran along its banks. I saw merchant ships, their crews busy unloading whatever goods they had brought upstream, from Wirecestre and Glowecestre and places more distant than that: from Normandy and Dyflin and even Denmark, I didn’t wonder.
The western skies were burning orange, fading to a pinkish hue where feathery wisps of cloud drifted slowly overhead. On the almost-island which lay inside the river-loop were encamped the first men who would make up our host. The banks of the Saverna were thick with willows and other trees, but through the gaps between them I glimpsed clusters of tents arrayed around glowing campfires. Smoke wafted across the river on what little breeze there was, and with it came the smell of roasting meat. Men laughed; some sang, though from so far away I could not make out their words, and in any case it was not a tune that I recognised.
‘Look,’ said Robert. He was pointing to the centre of the camp, where a banner stood suspended between two sturdy poles outside a long pavilion. In the evening glare it was difficult to make out the symbol upon it, but I squinted and then it became clear: the wolf, white as snow, on a field the colour of blood.
Fitz Osbern’s device. He had already arrived, then, and presumably that meant Beatrice had too.
‘I see it, lord.’ I tried to keep the tension from entering my voice, but I could not keep my fingers from tightening around the reins.
This was only the second time I had visited Scrobbesburh since first I’d come to the Marches. Little had changed so far as I could see, except that where before the only approach to the town from the south had been across a narrow ford, now the fast-flowing waters were spanned by the five arches of a newly built bridge. Around it stood storehouses and wattle and thatch hovels where craftsmen worked and tried to sell their wares to passing travellers. Familiar smells wafted towards me: cattle dung and piss that meant a tanner’s place was near.