She supposes that Beorn, better than anyone, knows how to survive. That’s what he does. It’s what he’s good at.
Tova slides deeper under the folded wall hanging that serves her as a blanket, like a badger burrowing down into the earth, where she can hide, safe and snug, until winter has passed. The floor is hard, and she shifts, trying to find a more comfortable position, but there is none, and so she concentrates instead on staying as still as she can, curled as tightly as possible, her knees drawn up in front of her chest, her arms folded and her gloved hands tucked into her armpits, but nothing she does seems to work.
Outside the wind keens, rising to a screech before stuttering and breaking down into a weary moan. A death song. A lament for the fallen. No light now save the glow of the fire, which has dwindled to almost nothing.
Keep it burning, she thinks. Don’t let it go out.
Her limbs are stiff and protest as she tries to move, but she wills herself to get up, bracing herself as she sheds her portion of the hanging. She gets to her feet slowly. This is what it must be like to be old, she thinks.
‘What are you doing?’ Merewyn mumbles sleepily.
‘Trying to keep the fire going, that’s all.’
From the corner where the wood is stacked she retrieves some of the smaller twigs, which she lays on top of the glowing embers, and more that she’ll keep for later, along with a few larger pieces. She doesn’t want to build it up too much or too quickly, or they’ll burn through everything they have before the night is done.
Her lady’s eyelids are drooping again, but she jolts awake as Tova slips back under the covers next to her.
‘It’s all right,’ Tova says. ‘You should sleep. I’ll be here. I’ll stay awake.’
‘No,’ her lady says. ‘It’s your turn.’
‘You need it more than I do.’
Merewyn sighs. ‘I’m so tired.’ Her voice is muffled as she buries her face in Tova’s shoulder.
‘Me too. I hardly remember when I last slept. Properly slept, I mean. In a bed, not curled in a cold corner of some damp hovel, miles from anywhere, with one eye open all the time.’
How she longs to lie down and surrender herself, to let sleep enfold her. Every inch of her body that isn’t numb with cold is numb from all this journeying, all this running, all this fighting, all this fleeing from one place to the next and then the next. Her arms and shoulders are aching and her neck is barely strong enough to keep her head up. Each time she closes her eyes for even an instant, she feels her lids tugging down, down, down, like they’re made of lead. Each time it’s a struggle to lift them again.
No.
She mustn’t succumb.
Tomorrow. All she has to do is stay awake through this night, until tomorrow. Beorn will come back, and there’ll be others with him. They’ll bring food and blankets and warm clothes, and all will be well. They’ll leave here and they’ll find a safe place where they can weather the storm until the Normans have turned back south, as eventually they must. If they keep on burning, keep on slaughtering, it won’t be long before there’s nothing left. Nothing more to raze to the ground. No one else to kill or drive from their homes.
And then what? Yes, they could go back and try to rebuild, like she told Beorn. But if everything they used to know is gone, lost for ever to the enemy and to the flames, is there any point?
A land of ash and bone. That’s all there’ll be. No halls or houses. No clothes save for the ones they’re wearing. No pigs or goats or cattle. Not a horse between them. No silver or gold. Nothing.
‘So we’ll leave,’ she murmurs. ‘We won’t go back.’
Merewyn stirs. ‘What’s that?’ she says sleepily.
Tova hesitates. She swallows, not quite willing to believe what she’s about to suggest.
Don’t fight the waves, she thinks. Ride them. Wasn’t that what he said? To survive, sometimes you have to change.
‘Let’s not go back to Heldeby,’ she says. ‘Let’s keep on going north towards the lands of the Scots. We can take the book – what’s left of it anyway – to the monks at Lindisfarena. And then, after that, we could leave England altogether. Find a ship, go across the sea. To Yrland, maybe, or the land of the Danes. Some place where we can make new lives for ourselves.’
She has heard of folk fleeing all the way to Miklagard, where the eastern emperor rules, to seek sanctuary there, but they needn’t go that far. It could be anywhere, as long as the Normans can’t come at them. That’s all that matters.
To leave England altogether . . .
The thought terrifies her even as it thrills her. They couldn’t, could they? Tova has only ever seen the sea once; she has no idea what it would be like to take to the water, or how they’d even go about finding a shipmaster who could take them, or how long it would take them to reach these places. A week? A month? Longer?
‘What do you think?’ she asks. ‘Merewyn?’