‘Don’t underestimate the enemy, either. The Welsh are more cunning than I think even Fitz Osbern realises, and with Wild Eadric and the English rebels on their side as well, they will be more confident than ever.’
If he thought I didn’t already know this, he was mistaken, but I listened patiently regardless. There was a certain anxiety in his demeanour that I rarely saw, although it was impossible to know whether he was nervous for my sake or because he was mindful of the challenges facing him also. Whichever it was, it sent a chill through me. Only then did I realise the immensity of the responsibility I was about to shoulder.
‘God be with you, Tancred,’ Robert said.
‘And with you, lord.’
We bade each other farewell and he returned to where Earl Hugues was mustering his forces across the river, leaving me a conroi of his knights and Wace and Eudo too. The three of us had not ridden together in so long, and my mood lightened, though only briefly, as from the other direction I glimpsed the stout figure of Berengar with more than a dozen men beneath a banner decorated in horizontal stripes of scarlet and sky blue. He stopped his snorting destrier in front of me, though he did not deign to dismount.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, more out of surprise than anything else.
‘Rest assured I haven’t come out of choice, if that’s what you mean,’ Berengar replied sourly. ‘Fitz Osbern in his wisdom has decided I should accompany you on this reckless enterprise, though God only knows why he thinks I’d wish to take orders from the likes of you.’
To say that his abruptness didn’t rankle would have been a lie, but if we were to fight alongside one another then somehow his quarrel with me, whatever it was, had to be settled. ‘Berengar, if I’ve offended you—’
He cut me off. ‘Don’t waste your breath trying to win me over, either. I’ll do my part, have no fears about that. But let me warn you from the beginning that you’ll get no favours from me.’
Before I could say anything in reply, he gave a signal to his men and then rode off in the direction of a group of lords who were gathering by the banks of the river where they had planted their pennons.
‘What was that about?’ asked Wace as he and Eudo joined me.
I shrugged; he had about as much notion as I did. ‘You tell me.’
‘You always were quick to make enemies,’ Eudo said with a grin. ‘What did you do this time?’
When first we had met as boys, Eudo had not much liked me either, although that was due to the bloodied nose I had given him, and the wound to his pride.
‘If only I knew,’ I muttered, casting a glance towards the river, where Berengar was laughing at a joke told by one of his knights, in better spirits all of a sudden. Whatever the cause of his ill humour, it seemed it was reserved for me alone. Already in spite of myself I was taking a dislike to his pudgy face and his ridiculous beard.
I changed the subject, not wishing to dwell on it any longer. ‘Are these the last of the men who’ll be joining us?’ I asked, nodding towards the conroi that had recently arrived.
‘As far as I know,’ Eudo said.
I called for Snocca to bring me my helmet with its newly attached strips of scarlet cloth – the tail that signified that I was the leader of this expedition – and then vaulted up into Nihtfeax’s saddle. After waving to Pons, who promptly gave the two sharp blasts upon the horn that were the signal for the rest of our host to rally, I beckoned to Eudo and Wace to join me as I rode to the head of the column. The new day was already upon us, the bright disc of the sun breaking over the clustered rooftops of Scrobbesburh, and as it did so a thrill stirred within me: a thrill that I had not felt in many months.
For the black hawk was flying proudly in the breeze, its wings spread wide, its talons outstretched as if stooping upon its prey, and Tancred a Dinant was at last riding to war.