‘Forgive me,’ he says.
He turns. She watches him go. He must see how selfish he’s being. Any moment now he’ll realise what he’s doing and change his mind.
But he doesn’t. Not so much as a glance over his shoulder as, his pack slung over his shoulder, he trudges down the slope, through the rain, which is growing heavier, until the path turns and he disappears behind the hedge and she can no longer see him.
*
‘Did he say where he was going?’ Beorn asks.
‘No. He didn’t tell me anything.’
‘He was going east?’
She nods.
‘Back towards the old road,’ he mutters. ‘He should have gone west instead, made for the high hills. The Normans will find him. He’ll get himself killed.’
‘There’s no chance, I suppose, of catching up with him?’ Guthred asks.
‘If he has almost an hour’s start on us, he could be anywhere by now,’ Merewyn points out.
Beorn says, ‘You should have woken us straight away, girl. You should have woken me.’
‘So that you could have done what?’ she asks. ‘Dragged him back here? His mind was made up.’
‘Did he even say why?’ the priest asks her.
She shakes her head. She can’t bring herself to repeat what Oslac said, certainly not in front of Beorn.
The warrior says, ‘We’re better off without him. I never trusted him anyway.’
*
And so they are four.
They saddle up and ride on, through the mist that hangs in the dales and the cloud that clings to the hilltops. Somewhere far off a cow lows forlornly. Flocks of sheep are untended in their garths. A shepherd’s hut but no shepherd. The ash in his fireplace is as cold as the earth; he must have left some time ago. They take what they can, which isn’t much: a small bundle of kindling and three loaves, each the size of Tova’s fist and rock-hard. Going mouldy, but they can cut those parts off. The rest they leave: the tally stick, the whittling blade, the necklace of jet beads, the water pail standing outside the door.
They travel cautiously. Beorn no longer rides on ahead to scout out the way. Instead he stays close, and Tova is glad that he does. Up here on the hills, under the wide, white sky, Tova feels more exposed than ever. She can see for miles whichever way she turns, which means that they too can be seen by anyone with keen enough eyes who cares to look.
More than once that afternoon they spy horsemen in the distance, or think they do; in the darkling day the slightest flicker of movement or glint of light could be a person or people. Maybe they’re friendly, but they have no way of knowing and Tova would rather not wait to find out. They seek cover in woods and in ditches by the roadside, leading their horses quickly into the trees where they won’t be seen, before crouching low amid the thorn bushes. There they wait, watching, hardly daring even to breathe, until they can be sure that whoever it is has moved on, before finally they emerge with twigs in their hair, with scratches on their faces and their hands, with holes in their sleeves where the brambles have taken hold.
*
More hoofprints, these ones not so recent. The edges are blurred, washed away by the rain. Half a mile further on, the remains of a campfire, set a short way back from the path. Wooden plates and cups. A knife. Half-eaten bread amid the leaves. Blankets soaked by the rain strewn on the ground. A carved wooden horse – a child’s toy, perhaps – lying forlornly on the ground.
And that’s not all. Hardly fifty paces beyond that, at a fork in the path, four figures strung up from the thick branches of an oak, hanging by their necks. Ashen-faced. Stiff. Eyes closed, mouths open: even in death they still gasp for air. Barefooted, their shoes missing. A woman, two girls and a man. A whole family, Tova thinks. The girls even younger than her. Their clothes are rough, travelling garb, frayed at the hems.
‘They must have been important,’ Merewyn says.
Guthred asks, ‘What makes you say that?’
‘They could have just killed them; instead they chose to make an example of them.’
‘Why would they do that? Who’s going to see them?’
‘Well, we did.’
‘But how many others are going to be travelling this way?’
‘They didn’t kill them as a warning,’ Beorn says as he examines the bodies. ‘They killed them one by one. Hanged the first to put fear into the others’ hearts. Then the second, then the third. Him last of all.’
‘How do you know?’ Tova asks.
‘I’ve seen it done before.’
He doesn’t look at her as he speaks. She would ask when and where, and what does he mean when he says he’s seen it before, but she isn’t sure she wants to know the answers.
‘Maybe they knew something,’ he goes on. ‘Or the Normans thought they did, and wanted to get it out of them.’
Guthred makes the sign of the cross. ‘I think we should go.’
*