‘Are you sure this is the way?’ Tova asks when Beorn leads them down a trail so brant and rough that she thinks it must have been trodden by goats, not people.
‘I’m sure,’ he replies.
When at last they come to the bottom of the slope and find the river too deep and fast-flowing to ford, with no sign of the bridge he said they’d find, however, his mood changes. A cloud comes across his face as he looks first upstream and then down.
He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t curse.
Instead he squats down on his haunches and presses his clenched fists to his brow. His eyes are closed tight. He looks in pain.
‘Are you all right?’ Merewyn asks.
He says, ‘I’m trying to think.’
‘We could go back the way we came,’ Guthred suggests. ‘We probably took the wrong path, that’s all.’
‘No, we didn’t. We took the right path. I remember the bridge. It was here.’
Even if it was, it isn’t any more. Maybe it fell down and washed away. Maybe it was destroyed by the Normans. Or maybe . . .
She doesn’t want to say what she’s thinking, but she has to. ‘We’re lost, aren’t we?’
He rises, gazing down the valley towards the east. ‘Follow me,’ he says.
*
They’ve been this way before.
For the last hour she’s thought that each hill, each ridge, each clump of trees and outcrop of rock had a familiar look about it. Now she’s sure of it. They’ve doubled back on themselves. They might as well have followed Guthred’s suggestion.
How many hours have they wasted? It’s long past noon already; they can’t have much of the day left.
At every fork in the track Beorn halts. He gazes up at the sky, but the sun remains hidden. He looks to see which way the trees are bent, and on which side of their trunks the lichen is growing. He seems so hesitant suddenly, for no reason that she can work out. So uncertain of himself.
Was Oslac right to go his own way? Tova can’t help but wonder. She hopes he’s all right, wherever he is.
‘If we can find the old road again, then we’ll know where we are, won’t we?’ Merewyn asks the next time they stop. ‘I don’t see why we can’t just follow that north.’
‘I’ve told you why,’ Beorn says. ‘King Wilelm and his army are using that road.’
‘Then what do we do? We can’t keep going round in circles.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’
He whirls about and advances upon her. Anger flashes across his face. His eyes are wide and bloodshot. Merewyn takes a step back, then another. Tova clasps her lady’s hand. Her skin is cold. Tova holds her breath as he comes towards them, teeth bared.
He stops. He realises what he’s doing and stops mid-movement. He blinks once, twice. At once all the fury appears to drain out of him. He breathes deeply. His eyes are moist and red around the rims. Has he always looked so exhausted, and she has just never noticed before?
‘I’m sorry,’ he says quietly as he turns away.
How much sleep has he had? Not enough, obviously. But it isn’t just that. His weariness, she senses, runs deeper than that.
She glances at Merewyn. Her lady’s face is pale, and she’s still shaking.
*
It’s getting colder. Tova can feel it in her fingers, even inside her gloves. The rain is turning to sleet. Softly but steadily it falls, with no sign of relenting. The skies are dark and growing darker.
Beorn keeps saying there’ll be worse to come. In that, at least, she believes him.
She’s catching something, she’s sure of it. There’s a roughness at the back of her throat, which she would scratch if only she knew how to reach it. Instead all she can do is swallow, much good that does. For a few moments she has some relief, but then she feels it again, still there, still dry, still tickling.
Stay strong, she tells herself. It can’t be much further. Five days they’ve been travelling now. Five days since they left Heldeby. They must be close, surely.
*
The cart lies on its side in the middle of the droveway, between high earthen banks. The grey skies are barely visible through the criss-cross of overhanging tree limbs. On the ground in front of it the unmoving forms of two oxen, still yoked, their tongues lolling out of their mouths.
Beorn tells them to wait while he approaches, axe in hand. He looks all around. If someone wanted to ambush them, this would be the place to do it. He lifts the oilskin sheet that lies in a heap on the ground to see if there’s anything underneath it, then rounds the cart slowly, making two full circuits.
He beckons them forward. ‘There’s nothing. It’s empty.’