‘Then take us with you.’
‘No,’ Merewyn says hurriedly as she joins them, limping on her injured ankle. ‘We just have to get to Eadmer’s manor. He’ll know what to do. We’ll be safe there. My brother,’ she adds for Beorn’s benefit.
‘And where does your brother live?’ he asks her.
‘Not far from Catrice. An hour’s ride upstream from where the old road crosses the River Swalwe.’
He shakes his head. ‘You’ll want to stay away from the old road. The Normans will be watching it. They’re heading north as well. Unless your brother has a small army guarding his gates, chances are that by the time you get there they’ll already have taken his hall, burned it to the ground. You won’t find safety there, I promise you.’
Merewyn stares at him with wide eyes. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that, if he has any sense, he’ll have left as soon as he heard the news.’
‘Then where are we supposed to go?’
‘Up into the high hills, or deep into the woods where the enemy won’t be able to come at you.’
‘In the middle of winter? What are we to do about food or shelter?’
‘Then go back to wherever’s home for you and hope that the Normans haven’t been there already. Hope that they don’t come, and if they do, hide.’
Tova blurts, ‘We can’t go back home.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because . . .’
She stops herself before she can go on, glancing at her lady, who has turned pale. What can she say? If he were to learn the reason they’re out here on their own, he’s hardly likely to help them.
But Beorn has found something more deserving of his attention. He crouches down beside the corpse of the bearded Norman, removes his helmet, turns it over in his hands as he inspects it, then tries it on his own head before casting it aside.
‘Look,’ he says as he stands. ‘It’s a long way to Hagustaldesham. A long, long way. I go much faster on my own.’
‘How far?’ Tova asks.
‘A hundred miles, maybe more. A week’s travel at your pace, probably.’
A hundred miles? She can’t even imagine how far that is. Last spring, when the roads were still safe to travel, she went with Merewyn to the market by the sea at Skardaborg, which was two days’ ride. In all her life she’s never been further from home than that. Hagustaldesham, by comparison, seems a world away.
She asks, ‘Is it safe there?’
‘No safer than anywhere else. But there are warriors gathering there. All that’s left of the ?theling’s army.’
‘So let us come with you,’ she says.
‘It’s dangerous. The Normans are scouring this land, razing and killing as they go. They’re everywhere. If they catch up with us, I can’t promise that I’ll be able to protect you again.’
‘We understand. Don’t we?’
She turns to Merewyn, who looks unsure. She’s thinking about Eadmer, Tova guesses. She has never met her lady’s brother, but she knows that they’re close; they were always writing letters to one another. Until the war came, and the letters stopped.
‘You don’t want to come with me,’ Beorn says. ‘You really don’t.’
Tova says, ‘So you’re going to leave us to our fates, then.’
He glares at her, but there’s a troubled look in his wolf eyes.
‘We’re not afraid,’ she says. ‘And we won’t slow you down, either.’
The truth is that she is afraid. But she’s not about to let him see that.
‘All right,’ he says after a while. ‘Wait here. I’ll go and fetch your horses. If you want to make yourselves useful, you can gather up my arrows. Those that aren’t broken, anyway. Good ones are hard to find.’
He sets off again down the track. Tova watches him go. She still can’t quite believe that what he says is true. That the Normans are coming. Here, to Northumbria. For so long there were rumours, but no one believed that it would ever happen.
And now it has.
Merewyn clutches at her sleeve. ‘Now. This is our chance. Come on.’
‘What?’ Tova asks. ‘Run?’
Her lady is still hobbling, Tova notices. How far, and how fast, does she expect she can go on that ankle?
‘Anywhere. It doesn’t matter. Before he comes back. Quickly.’
‘But he can help us. He’ll take us to Hagustaldesham.’
‘I don’t want to go to Hagustaldesham.’
Neither does Tova, not really, but that’s where he’s going, and she doesn’t have any better ideas. They’ve seen with their own eyes what he can do. She doesn’t know much about the ways of war, except for what she’s overheard in the feasting hall and what she’s glimpsed of ?lfric and Orm and sometimes Skalpi sparring in the training yard. But none of them ever moved like he does. None were ever as light on their feet or as quick to strike. They never made it look as easy.
‘Don’t you think we’ll be safer if we stay with him?’ she asks.