Knights of the Hawk (60 page)

‘And after you’ve taken her home?’ Wace asked. ‘What then?’

I could only shrug in answer. In truth I was in no mood to think about such things, although of course I would have to decide before long. A man cannot spend his life forever dwelling on the past, wondering about what might have come to pass that didn’t, and wishing things were different. Sooner or later he must turn his mind to what lies ahead.

Wyvern
’s crew, directed by Aubert, were loading supplies for the voyage back to England. The island folk had bestowed food and fleeces and other gifts upon us, which at the time I’d taken for tokens of their gratitude for ridding them of the Danes. Later, though, I’d wondered whether in fact they meant it as tribute, fearing that if they did not placate us, we would soon turn our attentions to their steadings and their homes, and raid them just as we had raided Haakon’s hall. However those offerings were meant, we’d accepted them with gratitude, adding them to what we had managed to recover of the jarl’s treasure hoard. For rather than immediately killing those who had surrendered to us, we had given them the chance first to show us where their lord had buried the chests containing all the silver and the gold that he had reaped on his expeditions. Only after they’d done so did we condemn them to the ends they deserved. Afterwards we shared the booty out as fairly as we could, so that both crews were rewarded and every man in our party, whether English or French, received a portion. Once divided out between so many coin-purses, it looked like a paltry amount for a warlord of Haakon’s repute to have amassed, and I suspected he had other hoards that his men hadn’t known about or else, if they had, simply hadn’t told us of, both here on this island and elsewhere. Nonetheless, it was hard-earned recompense for the men who had toiled so tirelessly in our cause with oar and sail, spear and sword, risking everything. But naturally there were many whom we could not reward: those who had lost their lives to Danish steel, far from any port they could call home. All we could do was honour them, as we had honoured Oswynn, and give Aubert money that he could pass on to their families.

‘Robert won’t be best pleased when he learns you took his ship without his permission,’ I said to Wace and Eudo. Nor that
Wyvern
would be returning with fifteen fewer men than it had set out with, and a number of the rest still recovering from various small wounds taken in the battle.

‘It’ll be some weeks before we arrive back at Heia,’ Eudo said. ‘We still have to visit Robert’s barons in Normandy and bring them the tidings of his father’s death, assuming that they haven’t yet heard. The Christmas feast might have already passed by the time we see home again. Between now and then, we’ll have plenty of time to think how we’re going to explain it all.’

‘He can have our share of the plunder, if that’ll help soothe his temper,’ Wace added. ‘There’s always more silver to be made. Besides, we didn’t come here for riches, but for something greater than that, and we found it. That’s all that matters.’

As usual he spoke good sense. Still, I didn’t envy them facing Robert, for he would surely hear the tale of their exploits before long. Even if they were able to swear
Wyvern
’s crew to silence, someone was bound to let slip at some point. What Robert would do then, I could only guess. The two of them had taken a great risk on my behalf, and I lacked the words to thank them as they deserved. Better, more loyal friends than they I’d never known.

‘Wherever you end up going, take care,’ Eudo said as we embraced, to which Wace, when it was his turn, added:

‘God be with you, Tancred.’

‘And with you,’ I said solemnly. ‘Both of you.’

As sword-brothers, we three had grown up together in our lord’s household, had fought alongside one another on occasions without number, and it was a strange feeling to part company without knowing exactly when I would next see them. That fate would bring us together again, and that our paths would cross sometime, I had no doubt. When that happened, I would make sure to repay the debt I owed them. But even so it seemed a turning point not just in my life, but in all of our lives.

Thus it was with heavy heart that, later that day, I took one of Haakon’s horses and rode to the cliff-top at the island’s southernmost point. There, with the wind gusting in my face, I watched
Wyvern
as she put out to sea. Her long, narrow hull rode the swell as her oarsmen bent their backs to the waves, her proud dragon-prow cutting through the blue-grey waters. Not once did I take my eyes off her, but kept waving in the hope that Eudo and Wace would see me, and it seemed that they did, for after a while I spotted two figures waving back. Smaller and smaller and smaller the ship grew, until she was no more than a faint speck on the horizon and then not even that. The wide sea beyond the fjord glittered beneath the afternoon sunshine, and amidst all those shards of sunlight I soon lost sight of her.

I was alone.

Even long after she had vanished from sight, I remained there. While my mare wandered, I stood by the cliff-edge and stared down the length of the fjord towards the sea, searching for I knew not what, listening to the waves crash and froth against the rocks below, feeling hollow inside.

How long I spent standing there, lost in my thoughts, with the cold winter wind tugging at my cloak, I don’t know. By the time I heard the hoofbeats approaching from behind, cloud had come across the sky, veiling the sun, and a soft drizzle was beginning to fall.

‘Lord!’

I glanced over my shoulder. It was Godric.

‘We were starting to get worried,’ he said as he checked his horse, dismounted and came to me by the cliff’s edge. ‘No one knew where to find you.’

‘Well, you’ve found me now.’

The words came out more sourly than I meant them, although if Godric noticed, he didn’t seem to take any offence. Sighing, I gazed out across the waters once more, doing my best to ignore the Englishman, hoping that if I paid him no attention he would simply leave me be.

‘Are you all right, lord?’ he asked, clearly sensing the disquiet raging within me.

‘I’m thinking,’ I replied.

‘About what?’

I hesitated, unsure whether to trust with my innermost thoughts someone who only a few weeks ago had been a stranger to me. ‘About whether I’ll see Earnford, or so much as set foot on English shores, ever again.’

Godric did not answer straightaway, and I wondered if his mind was on the estate at Corbei that his uncle had granted him, which the king had seized along with the lands and properties of all Morcar’s followers.

‘You will, lord,’ he said after a short while. ‘I know it. We all will, someday.’

He smiled gently, but the firmness of his tone told me that he was not simply trying to lift my spirits, but that he truly believed it. I wished I had his confidence. Still, perhaps he was right. Perhaps in time I would find myself feasting in my own hall once more, with my friends around me, music filling the air and ale and wine flowing, and all would be well with the world.

I smiled in return as I tousled Godric’s hair. He tried to squirm away, protesting, and I chuckled. He had done more in my service than I could ever have expected of him. Of course he had much to learn still, but he was eager and showed promise both as a swordsman and as a rider. In years to come he would make a good warrior, I thought. And I would be proud not just to teach him but also to count him as a friend.

For the truth was that I was not alone, nor would I ever be. Not as long as I had men like Godric, like Serlo and like Pons. They had followed me to the ends of Britain, and I had no doubt that they would follow me still, to the farthest parts of Christendom and even beyond.

The sun broke through a crack between the clouds, and I felt its slight warmth penetrate the chill that, until then, had held me in its grip: a chill that had first descended as I’d held Oswynn, dying, in my arms, and which had not left me since. And as that warmth touched my skin, so something stirred within me. To call it a thrill did not seem right, for my heart was still too full of grief to allow that. Still, as I looked out over the wide, shining waters, it struck me that beyond them existed a whole world I hadn’t yet seen. A world beyond England, beyond Normandy and France. Lands I’d seen in my dreams, of which I had heard tales, but which I had never glimpsed with my own eyes. And, for the first time in my life, I had both the means and the opportunity to see that world.

‘Come on,’ I said to Godric as I turned away from the cliff’s edge and marched towards my horse, which was grazing contentedly close by. ‘It’s time we left this place.’

‘Where are we going?’ he called after me.

‘Wherever the winds take us!” I shouted above the gusts as I mounted up and coaxed the mare into a canter back in the direction of our camp.

For I had a ship. I had silver. I had men who were loyal to me. What else did I need?

If experience had taught me one thing, it was that the sword-path is never a straight road, but rather ever-changing, encompassing many twists and turns. All a man can do is follow it and see where it leads. I had followed mine, and this was where it had taken me. But my journey was not over yet. Whatever fate awaited me, I was still to find it.

The sword-path beckoned, and so, for good or for ill, I would keep on following it. Wherever the promise of glory and riches took me, that was where I would go. To live. To fight. To strive. To forge a reputation that would live on long after I had departed this earth.

That was who I was, and who I would continue to be.

I, Tancred.

Historical Note

FEW PEOPLE TODAY
have heard of Eadgar Ætheling, Wild Eadric and the other leaders who instigated the series of rebellions during the years immediately following the Normans’ arrival in England. One name that continues to resonate, however, is that of the outlaw Hereward, later known by the epithet ‘the Wake’, whose stand in the Fens against the invaders has become the stuff of legend.

Much mystery surrounds Hereward, who first appears in the historical record in late 1070, when his sack of the monastery at Peterborough is mentioned in the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for that year. Of his life and deeds, there is little that is reliably known. The Chronicle’s only other reference to him is in the following year, when it records his courageous escape from Ely, together with ‘all who could flee away with him’, even as the rebellion around him was crumbling. As David Roffe suggests in his entry on Hereward in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(OUP, 2004), the brevity of this mention might imply that, at the time this passage was composed, the tale of Hereward and his exploits was so well known that no further explanation was needed.

Due to the lack of information given in contemporary accounts about Hereward and the Ely rising, we are largely reliant on later, twelfth-century sources, including the
Liber Eliensis
(
Book of Ely
), the
Gesta Herewardi
(
Deeds of Hereward
), and Geoffrey Gaimar’s
L’estoire des Engleis
(
The History of the English People
). All three appear to have been influenced to a greater or lesser extent by a now-lost chanson cycle about the life of Hereward. Their versions of events incorporate a significant dose of romance, and draw heavily on contemporary heroic tropes and literary devices, and, furthermore, contradict each other on several crucial aspects, all of which means it is difficult to reconstruct a coherent narrative of Hereward’s life and the siege of Ely. In writing
Knights of the Hawk
, I have been selective in my use of these sources, borrowing certain elements while at the same time choosing to reject others.

What seems likely is that Hereward was not in overall command of the rebellion, or at least if he was, only for a short while. While his role in Ely’s defence was obviously significant enough that his name was remembered in legend, he was certainly not the highest-ranking individual present, and it seems more likely that if the rebels looked to anyone for leadership, it would have been Earl Morcar. However, given that we do not know whether the rebels all shared the same cause, or were ever anything more than a loose coalition, it might be that no single person was in charge.

Regarding the events of the siege and the reasons for the rebellion’s eventual downfall, the sources disagree. It is possibly significant that the historian Orderic Vitalis, also writing in the early twelfth century but whose account of these early years of the Norman Conquest is generally considered reliable, does not mention Hereward at all in his short summation of the siege of Ely. Instead he records only that ‘crafty messengers’ proposed ‘treacherous terms’ to Morcar, in order to deceive him with false promises into surrendering to the king. Around the mention of these anonymous messengers, I have woven the fictional tale of Tancred’s capture of Godric, and his use as a go-between and hostage in the exchanges of information between King William (Guillaume) and Earl Morcar.

The exact details of how, in the end, the Normans managed to capture the Isle, however, are unclear. The
Gesta Herewardi
implies, somewhat implausibly, that the Normans’ capture of the Isle occurred without much bloodshed at all, after Abbot Thurstan of Ely submitted to the king and invited him to come in secret to the Isle. But it says nothing of the means by which King William was able to cross the marshes that for so long had stood in his way. Earlier, it mentions a causeway that he’d ordered built, across which the Normans had attacked unsuccessfully, the structure having collapsed under the weight of men and horses, resulting in a great loss of life. This story is corroborated by the
Liber Eliensis.
However, in contrast to the
Gesta
’s assertion that William arrived in secret, the
Liber
has a much more dramatic tale, telling of a final assault across a pontoon bridge, although whether this followed the same route as the first causeway is not clear. Having traversed the marshes, the
Liber
further relates that the king and his army faced a battle against a large rebel army comprising 3,000 men, who had fortified the Isle’s shore. Since it seems unlikely that the Normans faced no resistance at all in their crossing of the marsh, I have preferred this version of events to that provided by the
Gesta
. However, the details of this struggle are extremely sketchy, and so I have elaborated in order to harmonise it with Orderic’s story of Morcar’s submission to King William.