It sounded unlikely, but he was right. We followed him to where he’d been keeping watch, on a ridge overlooking the road, and we saw for ourselves. Scores of men, women and children of all ages, lords and common folk, on horse and on foot, swathed in thick winter clothes. Some with crooks in hand and dogs running at their feet were driving sheep. Others were leading oxen and carts laden with goods along the bumpy track.
I’d never seen anything like it. I had such a feeling in the pit of my stomach, a pang of dread; I knew something had to be wrong for all those people to be on the move all at once.
Straight away Wulfnoth sent the brothers to see what they could learn. They came back with the news that a great army was on the march from Eoferwic; the Normans were riding in their hundreds and thousands, with steel and fire and fury. All sensible folk were leaving their homes without delay, gathering what possessions they could and abandoning the rest to the enemy. Some of them were making for the hills, where they hoped to find protection within the great ringworks that the old ones had built in ages long gone, while others were just trying to get as far away as they could.
‘What do we do?’ asked Cuffa, while Sihtric made hand signals for Halfdan’s benefit, so that he knew what we were all talking about.
‘I don’t see that we have any choice,’ Gytha said. ‘We go north, like everyone else.’
‘No,’ Wulfnoth said. ‘We do have a choice.’
We all turned to look at him, surprised, but he was quite serious. Gytha spoke for the rest of us, I think, when she asked what he meant.
‘I mean we go south. Think about all those halls left empty. Spoils for the taking, and no one to guard them. Spoils that could be ours.’
‘If the foreigners haven’t seized them first,’ Gytha pointed out. ‘And who’s to say those folk will have left anything valuable behind, anyway?’
‘There’s always something. They can’t have taken everything. What they couldn’t carry they’ll have hidden, or buried. We just have to find it.’
‘Before the Normans do,’ Gytha muttered.
‘Better we claim it than they do, don’t you think?’
‘For all we know they could already be overrunning the countryside.’
‘Then we’ll just have to keep our eyes open and our wits about us, won’t we?’ Wulfnoth said, with that same cheeky grin that I remembered.
Gytha didn’t look sure, but the mere thought of so much easy plunder had got the others excited, I could see.
‘What do you think, Guthred?’ Wulfnoth asked. ‘You haven’t said anything.’
If I’m honest I thought Gytha was right. It seemed far too reckless for my liking; a risk we didn’t need to take. But it was clear we were going to be outvoted, and I didn’t want to dampen the others’ enthusiasm, so I agreed.
And so we rode south. While everyone else was fleeing, we ventured into what for all we knew was the very heart of the storm. It almost sounds noble, doesn’t it? If only it had been.
It wasn’t long before we came across our first deserted vill, although that’s probably too grand a word for three crumbling cottages and a cattle byre that had seen better days. It didn’t look as though we’d find much there and so we ignored it. After another hour we spied a hall in the distance, which we thought more promising, but as we got closer we saw there were still lots of panicked folk running to and fro, loading carts and wagons, while a man on horseback who I guessed was their reeve shouted orders and pointed. We kept our distance, lying low and watching for a while, but there was no telling how long we might have to wait until they left, so we decided not to waste any more time there.
We rode on, through dales that with every mile looked more and more familiar. After another hour or so, it seemed to me that I must have travelled some of these paths before. I recognised, or thought I did, the way an oak overhung the track where it dipped, and how a certain hill formed a sharp ridge against the sky, how particular trees appeared to huddle together in a hollow. That’s when I realised that of course we couldn’t be far from Rypum.
Wulfnoth, who was riding ahead of me, called back to ask what was wrong, and I became aware that I’d stopped. I said that if memory served me well, we could follow this track for another few miles, ford the river and climb the next rise, and then we would see the minster in the valley below.
‘The minster,’ he said, and began laughing. ‘Of course.’
At first I didn’t know what was so funny; I thought maybe he was having some kind of jest at my expense. He glanced at the others, and they all grinned back at him. All except Gytha, whose lips were set firm. That’s when I understood.
He meant to raid it.
I know. That should have been the moment when I paused to question what in the Lord’s name I was doing. But it wasn’t, and I didn’t. That was how far I’d fallen from God’s grace.
‘The Normans could be here by day’s end,’ Gytha said. ‘We’d do better to turn back and see if those folk have left that manor yet. There’ll be spoils enough for the taking there. More than we can carry. Why risk our skins?’