Tova asks, ‘What happened to you? Where did you come from?’
He stands, catching his breath for a moment. ‘I don’t know where to start. This whole day . . . After I left you, I walked for a couple of hours and then ran into a Norman raiding band. They took me captive. I thought they’d kill me there and then, but they didn’t. They were searching for some rebels on their way to Hagustaldesham. One of the Frenchmen spoke our tongue; he asked me if I knew anything about them. I said I didn’t, but I think he could tell I was hiding something. He said that unless I told them, they’d kill me, and they’d do it slowly so that before long I would be begging them to let me die. They made me tell. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. Please, understand. I was frightened for my life. I said there was a band of four – two men and two women – heading in that direction across the hills. I thought they would let me go after that, but they took me with them so that I could lead them to you. This one who spoke English, he said that if it turned out I was trying to trick them they would kill me anyway. They’d slice open my belly and leave me as food for the—’
‘Lies.’
Tova looks up. She knows that voice. She would know it anywhere.
‘Beorn!’
He doesn’t look at her. Instead he makes straight for Oslac, who retreats, but not quickly enough.
Beorn hurls his fist towards the poet’s face, striking him on the jaw. Oslac reels back, shouting out in protest and in pain.
‘What are you doing?’ Merewyn shrieks.
But Beorn’s eyes are fixed on Oslac. ‘You led them to us.’
The poet turns to run, but he’s barely taken two steps when he slips. He flounders and falls, landing on his back.
‘They made him,’ Tova says, grabbing at the warrior’s arm. ‘Didn’t you just hear what he said? He didn’t have a choice.’
Beorn shakes her off as he advances and spits at Oslac. The poet turns his head, and it lands upon his cheek.
‘They didn’t make him do anything,’ Beorn says sharply, and then to Oslac: ‘Who are you really?’
Merewyn says, ‘Beorn, this is nonsense.’
‘Shut up. Shut up, both of you, and let me speak. Answer me, wretch. Tell me why it is that our friend the priest is now dead.’
‘He’s dead?’ Tova echoes.
Merewyn gasps. ‘No.’
Beorn swallows. His voice quakes ever so slightly as he says, ‘He is. I tried to stop them. I did my best, but there were too many of them. They ran him through in front of my eyes, and I couldn’t do anything, and now he’s dead, and it’s all because of him.’
He draws his seax and points it at Oslac, who flinches back.
‘It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,’ the poet blurts. ‘He wasn’t meant to die!’
‘How was it supposed to happen, then?’
Oslac is silent.
‘Speak,’ Beorn says. He kicks the younger man hard in the side.
The poet puts out a hand to defend himself, to no avail, and cries out.
‘How much did they offer you?’
‘What’s he talking about, Oslac?’ asks Tova.
The poet doesn’t lift his eyes, but keeps watching the point of the seax, as if expecting the killing thrust to come at any point. Out of the collar of his tunic hangs the gold chain she spotted him fingering the other day. There’s something attached to it, she sees.
‘What’s this?’ Beorn reaches down and snatches at it, tearing it from the poet’s neck before he can raise a hand. He examines it closely. ‘They gave you this, didn’t they?’
Oslac says nothing. Beorn tosses it to Tova. She isn’t expecting it, but somehow she manages to catch it in clumsy, unfeeling fingers.
A thin disc of gold is suspended from the chain. Like a coin, only larger: if she put the tip of her forefinger to that of her thumb, it would just about fit through the hole. Embossed upon its face, she can make out in the moonlight, is a depiction of a rider at full gallop, with a sword in one hand and a pointed shield in the other. Writing around the edge.
‘Look at the other side,’ Beorn says.
She turns it over. Stretched across the middle of the disc is an animal. She squints, trying to work out what she’s looking at. A long tail that doubles back on itself. Four legs, claws. A mane.
A lion, she thinks. The lion of Normandy. But why would he have—?
Oh.
Her cheeks flush hot. Angry that he has managed to trick them. Angry at him. Angry at herself for not seeing it.
‘Oslac?’ she asks uncertainly as she gives the chain to her lady to look at. ‘Is it true?’
His voice, when he speaks, is cold. ‘It’s true.’
‘You led the Normans to us?’
He nods.
‘You deceived us,’ Merewyn says. ‘We trusted you!’
Beorn stands over him, stopping him from getting up. ‘Who are you really?’
‘Who am I?’ he asks. ‘I should be asking you that question.’
Tova frowns. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ask him. Ask him what his real name is.’