‘The Danes?’ Merewyn asks. ‘I thought they were your allies against the Normans.’
‘They were. But then they made a pact with King Wilelm. He bribed them with gold and agreed that they could raid for supplies along the coast, if they broke off their alliance with us and returned back across the sea in the spring.’
Guthred shakes his head in disbelief. ‘So the Danes are doing the Normans’ work for them?’
‘That’s right.’
Oslac frowns. ‘If not the coast, then where?’
‘Well,’ says Beorn, ‘you could flee into the high hills to the west, where the Normans won’t come at you, as many have already done. There’s precious little up there to live on, though, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be up there when the snows come.’
‘Lindisfarena,’ Guthred says abruptly.
‘What?’
‘We should go to Lindisfarena. The monks there will take us in. They’ll shelter us. The Danes won’t be roaming that far north, surely?’
‘The Holy Isle?’ Oslac asks. ‘But that’s easily a hundred miles from here.’
‘All the more reason to go. We’ll be safe from the Normans there, won’t we? And from the Danes, too.’
‘I’m not going all the way to Lindisfarena,’ Beorn says. ‘I’m going to Hagustaldesham.’
‘Whatever we do, we should stay together,’ Tova puts in, her voice small. No one has asked for her opinion, she realises, but she feels she has as much right to speak as anyone. ‘Especially if Oslac’s right and there are robbers around. We’ll be much safer together, won’t we?’
Beorn glares warningly at her. Wondering why he ever agreed to let them join him, probably. He never wanted to take the two of them under his protection in the first place. Now she’s offering his help to strangers.
‘She’s right,’ Merewyn says, and it isn’t often that Tova has heard those words from her lips. ‘There’s no sense in us going our separate ways.’
‘You’d let me come with you?’ Guthred asks hopefully.
‘Why not?’ Tova asks.
Beorn says, ‘Girl—’
‘You agreed to help us. Why not them as well?’
He doesn’t answer, but fixes her with a stern look.
Guthred’s head is bowed as he plays with the cross at his breast. ‘For so long I haven’t had a friend or ally worth the name. No one except Whitefoot to talk to and share my fears with. I was losing my wits. The last thing I want is to be alone again. I’d greatly appreciate the company, if you’d let me join you.’
‘Of course,’ says Tova quickly, before Beorn can say otherwise.
Merewyn turns to Oslac. ‘What about you?’
The poet sighs. ‘If you ask me, I think that making for Hagustaldesham is a mistake. On the other hand, if what you say about the Danes is right, then I don’t know where else we can go. Whatever we do and wherever we go, it’s going to be dangerous. So if Hagustaldesham is where you’re going, and if you’ll accept me, then yes. I’ll come with you.’
It’s settled, then. Five of them against the might of King Wilelm’s army.
Tova’s eyes meet Beorn’s. He stares at her without speaking, just shaking his head, before at last he turns and stalks away.
*
The flames have begun to dim and the pot has been scraped out so many times it’s a wonder there isn’t a hole in the bottom. Beans and parsnips and bread don’t make much of a meal, but for now it’s enough. She sits with her legs crossed, leaning against Merewyn, her head resting upon her lady’s shoulder, her eyelids drooping. Another long day, and there’ll be more like this ahead of them.
Beorn sits inside the entrance to the barn, checking the fletchings on his arrows. From the other side of the fire floats the soft sound of strings being plucked: Oslac on his harp. The same careful passage, over and over: first hurrying and then drawn out. Not mournful, exactly, but somehow wistful. Every time the notes climb the scale, she wills them to reach the top and find some sort of perfection, but they never do. Just as they approach the summit, they waver, once, twice, before despondently tumbling back down again. Never content; instead always struggling, striving for purity that never arrives.
The song isn’t one Tova recognises, but it reminds her of those she’d sometimes hear at night coming from Skalpi’s chamber. Sometimes when his old injuries pained him or he found himself in one of his darker moods, he’d have ?lfswith sing the old laments: songs that were in every way the opposite of the bawdy airs those poets who visited used to perform in the hall. Tova never liked them then and she likes them even less now. She closes her eyes, trying to shut out the sound, but then he begins to sing, in a voice more sweet and true than she could have imagined a man ever possessing.
A once-bright hall with hearth aglow
Cast into shadow by the foe.
Voices of men made silent by sword;
Spear wives cry sorrows for their lords.
That passed away. This also may.
The exile on the whale road toils;
Back bending, cursing, dreaming of native soils,