Tova opens her mouth, then closes it again just as quickly. There’s no need, she thinks. It’s not important.
‘No,’ he goes on, ‘Beorn didn’t live. But I think maybe he realised his time was growing short. That’s the feeling I had, seeing him. That he’d given everything and there was nothing left. When he came in out of the snow, his skin so pale and with blood all over his face and his hands, he looked like death already. Your lady, though, I’d say she looks as though she still has something to live for. Sometimes that’s all it takes. The will to keep going. That’s why I think she’ll live. She has to. For Eadmer’s sake, as well as her own. When he heard the news that she was alive—’
That name.
‘Eadmer?’ she echoes. Merewyn’s brother. The one she hasn’t heard from in months, since before the rebellion.
Lyfing nods. ‘I fought by his side at Hagustaldesham, stopped him from getting himself killed. He would have done too. He thought he’d lost everyone and everything dear to him. He often talked to me about his sister, and how they’d once been close but had grown apart, and how he thought it was his fault. He missed her more than he missed anyone. And to think that, if I hadn’t pulled him from the fray when I did, he’d never have known.’
Tova strokes Merewyn on the arm and then clasps her hand. ‘Did you hear that?’ she whispers, even though her lady doesn’t stir. ‘Eadmer’s alive. He’s alive and we’re going to see him. Everything will be all right. It will, just like you said.’
*
The other party arrives within the hour. Four more men, in the next valley when they heard the horn. The newcomers bring more supplies, though little cheer.
Eadmer isn’t among them. He would have joined the search, Lyfing explains, but he was hurt during the fighting.
‘Lost his hand,’ he says. ‘His sword hand it was too, although he could have lost much more than that. When it was agreed we’d send out people to look for you, of course he wanted to come with us, but he’s still weak, and we told him it would be better if he waited back at the camp.’
‘The camp?’ Tova asks. ‘Where’s that?’
‘A short way to the north of here. The other side of Hagustaldesham, a few miles up the valley, near where the river bends. It’s where we fled after the battle, everyone who managed to get away. It’s where we’ll find him.’
Eighth Day
They spend that night in the church, and then in the morning, as soon as Merewyn is strong enough, they leave it behind. The wind is still from the north; Lyfing thinks they might be due another heavy snowfall soon, and he doesn’t want to be trapped out in the wilds if that’s the case, and so they set out, eight men and Tova and her lady, fighting the wind and the occasional flurry.
Merewyn’s strength is returning, though slowly. Her nose is running and her forehead is hot and she says her throat is sore and her feet are unsteady, but she’s determined to stay awake. Her eyes are red and bloodshot, but she insists she’s fine and tells Tova there’s no need to keep fussing.
‘Thank you, though,’ she adds and smiles tiredly from atop the gelding loaned to her by one of Lyfing’s men. ‘For everything.’
In the distance, just beyond the hills, rise thin, grey, intertwining curls. Hagustaldesham. No one speaks of it; the men avert their eyes and concentrate on the way ahead.
They stop by a stream to let the horses drink. Tova overhears the men discussing in low voices what they should do and where they should go in the days to come, and whether it’s safe yet to send scouts back south, to see what’s left of their homes. But the feeling seems to be that it’s pointless until the thaw at least, and until they can be sure there aren’t any bands of Normans still prowling.
‘How long will that be?’ Tova asks Lyfing.
He doesn’t answer.
*
The camp is only half a day’s ride away through the snow, he tells them, but the sun is already low, touching the treetops to the west, gilding the fields with its light, when she spots the fires burning bright down by the riverbank.