The Way Between the Worlds (34 page)

‘Yes.’

Parting from him wasn’t so funny. It wasn’t funny at all.

I went back to Gurdyman’s house, where I now am. I don’t know how much he knows about me and my Norman, as Hrype still insists on calling him, but when I get sad, Gurdyman is kind, and you can’t ask more than that.

I am kept busy, for Gurdyman drives me hard and there is so much to learn. Sometimes I go and visit my family and friends in Aelf Fen, and I shall be going for a longer stay soon. The bad weather is coming, and Edild will need another pair of hands to deal with the sicknesses that invariably follow.

I shall miss Gurdyman, and the twisty-turny house, and my lessons, and the excitement of living in a big, busy, bustling place like Cambridge. But I’ll be back here before too long, and in the meantime it’ll be lovely to be home again. Zarina and Haward’s baby was born back in May, and so far I’ve hardly seen him – his name’s Ailsi – so that’s something to look forward to. There are also my other niece and nephew, my sister Goda’s children, and it’s high time I got to know them better. And my parents will be happy to see me, for I’m sure they miss me.

I know that it doesn’t matter where I am, because, as soon as he can, Rollo will find me. I just wish I knew when that might be.

Maybe I’ll have to ask the runes.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles records as follows for the year 1091:

When the king William was out of England, the king Malcolm travelled from Scotland here into England and raided across a great part of it. Then when King William heard of this in Normandy, he came back to England and immediately ordered his army to be called out, both the ship-army and land-army; but before he came to Scotland, four days before Michaelmas, almost all the ship-army wretchedly perished.

And in 1092:

In this year the king William travelled north to Carlisle with a very great army, and restored the town and raised the castle, and set the castle with his men, and sent very many peasants there with women and with livestock to live there to till the land.