‘Tova!’
Abandoning the animals, she pelts, heart pounding, across the yard as fast as her feet will carry her, the fear that was holding her stiff now driving her on. Her ankle sinks into a puddle that’s deeper than it looks, and she stumbles, the mud sucking at her shoe. She claws at the air, trying to keep her balance, but it’s no use. She meets the yard face first: mud in her hair and on her cheeks, on her hands and sleeves and the front of her dress. She scrambles to her feet, struggling against the weight of the dirt plastering her clothes, and hurls herself through the doorway into the arms of the waiting Merewyn, nearly knocking her from her feet. The blood is pounding so hard inside her skull that she thinks her head must burst.
‘Quiet,’ Merewyn whispers. ‘Not a sound.’
Tova nods, unable to speak even if she wanted to. Merewyn pulls the door to. Darkness enfolds them.
Not a moment too soon, either. One of the men shouts out, and the laughter and talking cease.
They’ve spied the horses, she thinks.
She holds her breath as she huddles down between her lady and a pile of unsplit logs. Small ones for the hearth fire or the kitchens. Bigger ones for fencing and staving. There’s no bolt on the door and so it hangs ajar. Not by much – a finger’s breadth, maybe – but enough to let in a sliver of moonlight. In the walls are cracks where the daub has crumbled away from the wattle: some needle-fine, others large enough to poke her thumb through.
‘Five,’ Merewyn says. ‘I saw them.’
‘Did they see you?’
Merewyn doesn’t answer. Maybe she doesn’t know. Her eyes are shut tight; her breath comes quickly and lightly and her lips move silently.
She’s praying, Tova thinks. As well she might. They’re trapped. If they try to leave, they’ll surely be seen. And where would they go? Across the fields towards the woods? Their packs are with the horses; everything they own is inside them.
One of the men calls out, although whether for their benefit or to his companions, Tova isn’t sure. Whatever he’s saying, she can’t make sense of it. It isn’t English, and she doesn’t think it’s Danish, either.
Which can only mean—
A chill runs through her, deeper even than when they were up on the high hills, and the wind was battering her and screaming in her ear.
It can’t be.
Moving as quietly as she can, she edges towards the wall that faces the yard.
‘What are you doing?’
Tova peers through the cracks, trying to catch a glimpse of them. She has to know. At first she sees nothing except shadows. Then she makes out the well, and the figures next to it.
Five of them, just as her lady said.
One is still mounted; the others are on foot, standing beside their horses. Each one clad from head to knees in steel. Their byrnies and spurs glint in the moonlight as if newly polished. Slung across their backs are tall shields of a sort she has never seen before, wide at the top and tapering to a rounded point. Gold-inlaid sword hilts protrude from garnet-studded scabbards.
One of those on foot has taken off his helmet. She notices his hair, cut close on top and shaved at the back. Not like any Englishman.
And she knows.
‘Normans,’ she breathes. ‘They’re Normans.’
‘Are you sure?’
No, she isn’t. Tova has never seen one before, even though it’s more than three years since they first came to England. They’ve never come this far north.
Like everyone, though, she has heard the stories. In her imagination she has always pictured them clearly enough. Dark featured, built like bulls, with eyes as cold as the steel in their scabbards.
Just like these men.
‘We know you’re there,’ barks the helmet-less one in clumsy English, as if he can’t quite get his tongue around the words.
Through the crack she sees him stride forward. He must be their leader, she thinks: he looks like he’s used to giving orders. Long-limbed, he stands tall, his thin face in shadow.
‘Show yourselves,’ he says. ‘We won’t harm you!’
He flashes a grin at his friends. Two of them rest their hands on the pommels of their swords.
They know no honour; they are the Devil’s creatures, craving only pillage and ruin. She has heard how they have ravaged the south, how they have built towering strongholds everywhere from which to keep watch over the land. But people always said they were too frightened to venture this far, that they feared to go up against the proud people of Northumbria. Even once the rebellion was defeated, still they hadn’t come. The weeks had passed, Christmas had been and gone. Tova, like everyone else, had begun to believe they were safe.