‘He’s no different from the others,’ Merewyn protests. ‘He’s a killer.’
And so are you, Tova almost says, but holds her tongue. Surely Merewyn of all people realises that blood on a person’s hands isn’t necessarily a mark of evil?
‘So what if he is?’ she asks. ‘He saved our lives.’
‘We don’t know the slightest thing about him.’
‘He’s on our side,’ Tova insists.
‘You’d have us entrust our lives to a stranger.’
‘What choice do we have?’
Merewyn bites her lip. She must see that Tova speaks sense, even if, like so many times before, she won’t admit it. ‘If you’re wrong about him . . .’
Then God help us both, Tova thinks, and she prays silently for both their sakes.
*
They sit on fleeces laid upon the damp floor, around the lantern that is their only light, listening to the rustling of mice in the thatch, eating in silence. Nuts and mouldy cheese and stale ends of bread, which Beorn has given them from his own pack. He’s elsewhere: finding more provisions, she thinks. He didn’t say where he was going or what he was doing. Wherever it is, it can’t be far, since he’s left his bow and his pack here with them.
They huddle in their cloaks, she and Merewyn, in this rough hovel with the crumbling walls, a far cry from the hall at home, with its fire and its benches and its embroidered many-coloured wall hangings that keep out the draughts. The night is cold, but Beorn has forbidden any fire. He says the smoke will draw unwanted attention, and he’s probably right. The last thing they want is for another horde of Normans to descend upon them. Or indeed the folk whose home this is. If they were to find them sitting here, Tova doesn’t think they would be pleased.
‘What if they come back?’ she asked Beorn earlier, when he brought them here. He’d chosen this place because it was hidden halfway up a hillside in the lee of some woods, an arrow’s flight with a good wind from the hall and the village, and because it offered a good view across the dale so they’d be able to spy anyone approaching.
‘They won’t come back,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because they’re probably dead already.’
‘Dead?’
‘How many families were there living in this valley, do you think? A dozen? More? There aren’t many places you can hide that many people. Not when they have all their sheep and their cattle with them as well. No, believe me, they won’t be coming back.’
Maybe he’s right, Tova thinks. But we’re still intruders here. We’ve stolen into someone else’s home. Now we’re making use of their blankets and oil and lantern. Even if it’s true that they’re dead, and so don’t have any more use for them, that doesn’t mean we can just take whatever we want. That doesn’t make it right. Does it?
Perhaps when they go, they can leave behind some token of their gratitude, although she isn’t quite sure what. They left this morning in such a hurry. Aside from their clothes and the horses, what do they have that they could offer?
She glances towards her lady, sitting opposite, her knees drawn up in front of her as she rubs at the ankle she hurt earlier. That ermine cloak, maybe, or the ivory comb she always carries with her wherever she goes, or the brooch of interlaced silver that Skalpi gave her before he went away all those months ago. She’ll never part with those things, Tova thinks, not because they’re precious in their own right. Not just because of that, anyway, but because without them how is anyone to know she’s a woman of means, of noble stock, someone worthy of respect? They’re all she has left to prove who she is. All she has left of her pride.
Not that Tova blames her. She fingers the ribbon tied around her left wrist, one of the few belongings she had time to gather before they left. The green silk glimmers softly in the firelight. She supposes Merewyn feels the same way about her cloak and comb and brooch.
Footsteps outside; a screech of iron hinges as the door swings open. Tova’s breath catches in her chest. A shadow appears in the entrance.
But it’s only Beorn. With his shoulder he nudges the door closed behind him to keep in the warmth. There’s no lock, presumably because whoever lived here reckoned they had nothing worth stealing. Under each arm he carries a roll of folded cloth that he lays down between them, next to the lantern. He opens them out, revealing a collection of smaller bundles that he unwraps to reveal a clutch of candles, some clay pots, leather flasks, wooden bowls and spoons, three drinking cups, a handful of shrivelled apples, half a dozen small loaves, bunches of parsnips and leeks, and four round cheeses wrapped and tied with string.
‘Some for tonight,’ he says. ‘The rest for the journey. There should be enough to keep us fed for a few days at least.’ He glances at Merewyn’s ankle. ‘Is it swollen? Can you walk on it?’
‘I twisted it when I fell, that’s all,’ she says as she rubs at it. ‘I’ll be fine.’