‘Why not?’
‘You want to know? My sister, Dunne, she was killed when she was only nine winters old. I saw it happen; I was seven at the time. We were in the yard, brushing down the horses one evening after our father and his lord’s retainers had returned from town, when something spooked them, I don’t remember what. It all happened so quickly. They bolted; she was kicked in the head and fell under their hooves. She died at once. I didn’t even hear her scream. Afterwards, my mother refused to let me near them. Said they were dangerous, vicious creatures. She blamed my father for Dunne’s death, and forbade me from having anything to do with them. I suppose that, over time, hearing all those things and always being warned away from the stables, I grew frightened of them. You probably think I’m being foolish. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Merewyn says after a moment. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘It’s all right. You didn’t know.’
‘If you want,’ Tova says, ‘I’ll ride with Merewyn and you can have Winter. She won’t harm you, I promise. She’s as docile a creature as any I’ve ever known.’
‘Thank you, but no. I know you mean well, but you won’t ever see me riding one of those things, no matter how peaceable it might be, or how friendly towards strangers you tell me it is.’
‘In that case you’d better keep up,’ Beorn says. ‘Because we won’t be waiting for you if you fall behind. Do you hear me?’
He doesn’t even wait for Oslac’s answer. Instead, as if to make his point, he turns and at once rides off.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ the poet mutters under his breath, so quietly that Tova’s sure he didn’t mean anyone else to hear.
*
All morning the rain continues to fall. Hard then soft then hard again, it drives at Tova’s side.
The going is slow, and not because of Oslac. Most of the droveways are in poor repair, and the rain has turned the tracks into muddy streams that hurry down the slopes, pooling in every dip and every hollow to form lakes that they have to work their way around. Some of the tracks are too overgrown even for Beorn and his axe, and they have to turn back and find another way. Every time they halt even for a moment, he glances about, his hand reaching up towards his bow, as if expecting the enemy to be lurking. But they’ve seen no other living person since they set out this morning. They spy sheep roaming on the hill pastures, but no one herding them; houses still standing, but no hearth smoke. Tova wonders why the Normans didn’t burn these villages like they did the ones they saw yesterday, why they didn’t slaughter the livestock.
‘Maybe they were in a hurry,’ Guthred suggests. ‘Maybe they didn’t have time.’
‘Maybe,’ Beorn agrees.
All the same, they don’t venture too close. Beorn rides on ahead, scouting out the way, returning from time to time to tell them what he’s seen and in which direction he thinks they ought to go next. Each time he disappears, making for the next ridge or tump where he can get a better view of the valley ahead, Tova grows a little more anxious. It isn’t that she doesn’t feel safe with Oslac and Guthred, she tells herself, strangers though they are, or that she doesn’t trust them. It’s just that she trusts Beorn more.
She’s noticed how he’s always moving: how he never lets himself settle for long. He always needs to have some purpose, to feel useful. Trying to make up for lost time, perhaps. Or to stave off madness. If he didn’t need to sleep or eat, she feels sure he’d never stop.
‘Who is he?’ Oslac asks the next time Beorn’s out of earshot.
They’ve stopped by a stream while the warrior goes on ahead so that the horses have a chance to drink and graze, and so that they can wolf down some bread and hard cheese. They save the bacon for later; although Tova thinks she could manage an entire pig all by herself, she knows they have to make what they have last, especially now that there are five of them rather than three. Oslac has already shared out what he had, though it wasn’t much. A few handfuls of nuts. Some shrivelled pears.
‘What do you mean, who is he?’ asks Merewyn in between mouthfuls. ‘He’s Beorn.’
‘A friend of yours, is he?’
‘A friend? I don’t know. Can you call someone a friend who you only met two days ago?’
‘Oh,’ says Guthred, looking sheepish. ‘I assumed . . . I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘Well, I assumed he’d come with you from wherever’s home for you. To tell the truth, I thought at first he was your husband.’
‘My husband?’
Oslac asks, ‘How did the two of you end up with him, then?’
‘He saved us from a Norman raiding party,’ Tova says. ‘There were five of them. He killed every single one.’