Our loved ones, our children, who were all dead because of what Malger and others like him had done. The days grew colder and so did our hearts.
By day and by night we scouted around Stedehamm. Cynehelm divided us into pairs so we could take turns keeping watch and so there was always someone observing the comings and goings at the hall. Meanwhile the rest guarded our camp deep in the woods or else went out foraging for supplies or seeking information from the folk in neighbouring villages. I was paired with a man called Wihtred. I say he was a man, and he claimed to have sixteen summers behind him, but I think he was lying. Tall, he was, though, and as strong as a boar, with a boar’s temper too, always eager for a fight. I suppose Cynehelm was thinking he might learn a thing or two from me. Not that you can teach much to those who don’t want to listen.
Wihtred and I counted the guards on the gates, and we saw how often and at what times they changed watch. From that we reckoned he could have no more than ten hearth troops living on this particular manor, fewer than we’d expected, although still more than we wanted to face in a fight, especially given how inexperienced many of our own band were.
All the while we hoped for a glimpse of Malger himself so that we might know for ourselves the face of the man we’d sworn to kill. Wihtred and I thought we spied him that first morning, overseeing the repair of one of the fish weirs that the recent floodwaters had damaged. We were far away, though, so we couldn’t be sure if it was him or his steward. It wasn’t until the second afternoon that someone was able to say for sure that they had seen him, when he and his men grabbed one of the stable boys and dragged him outside the gates, where they beat and kicked him, for what offence no one could work out.
When they heard the boy’s cries, the village folk stopped what they were doing, abandoned their tools and rushed to see what was happening. They were too afraid to do anything, though, and when Malger had finished and he saw them all looking on, he shouted and waved his arms at them until they went back to work, warning them against trying to help the boy, who was left lying in the dirt. Then a man and a woman who might have been his father and mother came with a flask of something for him to drink and a blanket to wrap around his shoulders and helped him to his feet.
That was what Leofstan and Thurgils said, anyway; they were the ones who saw what had happened. When we heard this, we decided we wouldn’t wait for the right opportunity to come; we had to make something happen.
That same night Cynehelm sent two of the youngsters, Sebbe and Gamal, to get as close as they could to the hall and see if they could find any weaknesses in its defences. It was raining, a steady drizzle that would mask the sound of their footsteps and also with any luck dull their scent so the guard hounds wouldn’t wake and give them away. They wore dark cloaks and smeared their faces with dirt so they could slip unnoticed through the shadows. They got so close to the gates that they could hear the sentries murmuring to one another, they told us later. They crept all the way around the ramparts, returning to camp shivering and soaked to the skin, with their hair dripping and plastered to their skulls, with little to show for their trouble, and yet despite that they were grinning from ear to ear at the adventure of it all, having been under the very noses of the enemy.
The one thing we learned from their expedition was that we had no chance of storming the defences, even if we had the numbers. The ramparts and palisades looked in good repair. No rotten timbers that might collapse if given a solid kick. Nowhere we could place a ladder and scale the walls. And so we had to find some other way.
It wasn’t long before an idea came along. The next day Wihtred and I were out gathering kindling when we heard voices floating through the trees. At once we dropped what we were carrying and crouched behind a fallen trunk that the passing of the seasons had hollowed out. It sounded like they were speaking in English, but we couldn’t be sure, and even if they turned out to be friendly we didn’t want to be spotted. So far we’d been careful not to give ourselves away to the folk of Stedehamm itself. The last thing we wanted was for the enemy to get wind of our presence. This wasn’t like before, when we were constantly moving from place to place. Then it didn’t matter if the enemy learned of our whereabouts, since we were always long gone before they could catch up with us. Now things were different.