Tova can’t help but feel a little sorry for him, but it’s his own fault really. He shouldn’t have crept up on her like he did. What did he expect?
‘Let him go, Beorn,’ Merewyn calls. ‘You’ve made your point. He doesn’t mean any harm.’
Beorn gazes hard at him for a few moments longer, before finally he releases his grip on the other man’s collar, returns his knife to its sheath and steps away. ‘So your name is Oslac?’
‘Oslac, son of Osferth, son of Oswald—’
‘I don’t need to hear your whole family line. Where did you come from?’
‘Everywhere. Nowhere.’
‘I’m in no mood for riddles,’ Beorn snaps.
‘It’s not a riddle,’ Oslac says. ‘It’s the truth. I’m a traveller. A poet. A wordsmith. I wander from place to place, gathering tales to weave into songs that I sing at feasts. I used to, anyway. I don’t suppose there’ll be any more of those now. I play them on my harp. I can show you, if you want. Look, I have it with me. It’s in my pack. You’ll see that I’m telling the truth.’
‘It’s all right,’ says Merewyn, before Beorn has a chance to answer. ‘You don’t have to show us. We believe you, don’t we?’
He doesn’t look much like a poet, Tova thinks, which is to say he doesn’t look much like the ones who used to come to Heldeby. Skalpi and his first wife, ?lfswith, loved nothing more than an evening of singing and storytelling. Whenever one happened to arrive at the hall on a winter’s evening, drenched from the rain and mud-spattered from the road but bearing lyre or flute or reed pipe, they would invite him in with open arms, hustling him into the hall, where they’d lavish on him mead and the finest food that Ulf the cook knew how to make. And of course he’d savour all of it – every morsel, every gulp, every word of praise – and that was even before he’d played a note or sung a line, tested his audience with a riddle or told them anything of the places he’d been and the marvels he’d seen.
None of those men were ever as young as Oslac, though. Yes, some of them came accompanied by students, who would watch and listen and sometimes, if they were lucky, be allowed to try a few stories, a few verses of their own. But she was told that it takes many years to master the poet’s art. No youth, no matter how deft his fingerwork might be or how talented he is at crafting words, has ever seen enough of the world, its glories and its ills to be able to speak with true wisdom.
‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to find you,’ Oslac says. ‘Everywhere I went— Well, you’ve seen, haven’t you? I was beginning to think that there was no one left alive, except for me and the robbers.’
Guthred fingers the gold cross at his breast. ‘Robbers?’
Oslac nods. ‘I’ve seen them roaming the hills. Like carrion beasts, they are. They live off whatever the Normans leave behind. I’ve tried to keep well away from them, but a couple of times all I could do was hide and pray that they didn’t find me. That’s why I had to follow you for a while first. I needed to be sure.’
As if we didn’t already have enough to worry about, Tova thinks. Now we have thieves as well.
‘You thought we were robbers?’ Merewyn asks him. ‘Us?’
‘I didn’t know if there were more of you nearby. More of him,’ he says, gesturing at Beorn. ‘It’s hard to know who you can trust.’
Tova sneezes. The rain is turning to sleet. It’s going to be another harsh night.
‘Let’s go back to the barn,’ says Guthred quickly. ‘It’s dry in there, more or less. The roof leaks a little but it keeps most of the rain out. We’ll all end up catching a chill if we stand out here much longer.’
*
It isn’t long before they have the fire blazing. Tova for one is glad of its warmth. She can’t stop shivering, despite the blankets wrapped around her shoulders. She hopes that sneeze wasn’t the first of many. There’s a tickling at the back of her throat that’s been there for a while, and she’s already starting to worry. The last thing she needs right now is to fall ill. If ever there was a time for that, this isn’t it.