With his familiar tired grey mule and cart with its green and scarlet streamers, it could be no other. At the sound of his name he looked up. He did not spot me at first, but as I led Nihtfeax around the side of a pair of haywains towards him, a grin spread across his face.
‘Lord Tancred,’ he said, clasping my hand in greeting when I reached him. ‘You’ve been having many adventures, or so I hear. The Welsh haven’t managed to kill you yet, then.’
‘Not yet.’ I returned his smile. ‘And I’m hoping that they don’t for a while longer, too. What are you doing here?’
‘Buying and selling,’ he said. ‘What else do you think? There’s no better place to make money than a marketplace when there’s an army encamped not an arrow’s flight away.’
‘And no better place to hear news that you can later sell to those who’ll pay.’
‘You know me too well,’ he said. ‘To tell the truth, though, I’ve learnt little that isn’t already common knowledge. Still, I was right about Wild Eadric and the Welsh, wasn’t I?’
‘You were,’ I conceded. Not that it had helped me much.
‘I see you carry the reliquary with you,’ he said, nodding at the bronze pendant that hung around my neck. ‘I thought that was bound for the altar in your church. The priest seemed rather taken with it, as I remember.’
‘He wanted me to wear it, so that the saint would protect me in battle,’ I said. ‘Since I’m still alive, I suppose he must be looking after me.’
‘I’ll confess that’s one sale I regret making. My wife was not best pleased when I told her I’d let you buy it off me, and for less than a pound of silver at that. I should never have agreed to such a price. Clouted me around the head for that, she did.’ He rubbed his temple. ‘I had a lump right here for days afterwards.’
‘Your wife is well, then?’
‘Well enough, thank you kindly for asking. She’s a tough woman, as strong as an ox, and don’t I know it.’
‘No sign of her illness returning, I hope.’
‘Illness, lord?’ He frowned for a moment, before he seemed to remember. ‘Oh yes,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Terrible days those were, but God be praised she still lives. To tell the truth, I’ve never known her in such good health as she is now.’ He pointed to the relic-pendant. ‘And to think that she might not be with us at all, were it not for the intervention of blessed St Mathurin—’
‘Mathurin?’ I interrupted him. ‘You said this belonged to St Ignatius.’
‘St Ignatius, of course,’ he answered, red-faced all of a sudden. ‘That’s what I meant to say. The hair of St Ignatius.’
‘Toe-bone.’
‘What?’
‘It was his toe-bone, or so you told me.’
‘And so it is,’ he said, beaming as if he had just been proven right. ‘His toe-bone, indeed.’
Frustrated, I gave up. I suspected Byrhtwald was merely having a jest at my expense, but I couldn’t be sure. Sometimes it was useless trying to talk with him. For all that I liked him, I always had the sense when we spoke that I was playing some manner of game, the rules of which I did not quite understand. Worse, it was a game I always seemed to end up losing. Quick with his words and confident in his manner, Byrhtwald was the kind of man who would try to sell me the shirt off my own back if he thought he could get away with it. Even then I would probably end up convinced that I’d made a good trade.
‘The enemy are coming,’ I said. ‘They know that we are weakened, and no doubt Bleddyn will be wanting to avenge his brother’s death too. I don’t know how long it’ll be before they march, but you probably don’t want to still be here when they do. Otherwise you might find Fitz Osbern forcing a spear into your hands and putting you on the ramparts to help defend the town.’
‘Have no fear on my account,’ said Byrhtwald. ‘I promise you that Cwylmend’ – he patted the mule’s flank – ‘and I will be gone long before the enemy get here.’
‘Cwylmend?’ My understanding of the English tongue was far from perfect, but I knew enough to be able to translate that. ‘You name that wretched excuse for an animal Tormenter?’
‘Watch what you say in her company,’ he said indignantly, covering the mule’s ears with his hands as he glared at me. ‘She’s a loyal friend to me, and fierce in her own way. She doesn’t like to show it, that’s all. Last week a man tried to hit her and she savaged his right hand, bit off all his fingers and left him with only the thumb. If she wanted, I reckon she could probably have your head off.’
Ignorant of what we were saying about her, Cwylmend continued to munch upon a pile of hay. Flies buzzed around her and once in a while she would swing her tail lazily to fend them off.
‘Make sure that you don’t tell Fitz Osbern about her,’ I said. ‘If he finds out that she’s good for killing Welshmen, he’ll have her in the first rank of the shield-wall when the enemy come.’