This will end up being my burial shroud, she thinks.
At last she manages to drag herself and Winter, her faithful mare, to the top of the hill. Merewyn is waiting. Her fine woollen cloak, with its ermine trim and paired silver brooches, is wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Her fair hair has come loose from its braid and flies in the wind; her cheeks are flushed pink, and her face is drawn in a stern look.
‘Keep up,’ she tells Tova. ‘We can’t stop. If they find us . . .’
She doesn’t finish. She doesn’t have to.
And the fact that Tova’s here, helping Merewyn: will that make her just as guilty in their eyes? Maybe they’ll show her mercy. As for her lady, though, she’s less sure. Not after what she’s done.
Tova knows, even without being told. She has seen the spots of blood on Merewyn’s sleeve, at the wrist where she’s tried to conceal them underneath her bracelet. Small and dark, they could be easily mistaken for spatters of dirt, like those now decorating her skirt after a day’s hard riding across the moors.
But they aren’t dirt. They were there at the beginning.
She remembers hearing Cene’s barking, although it seemed somehow distant. She remembers Merewyn’s hand on her shoulder, jolting her from her dreams.
They needed to go, she said. Straight away.
Tova didn’t understand, not at first, but then in the lantern light and through blurry eyes she saw those crimson spots. And straight away she knew.
The desperation in her lady’s hushed voice. The whiteness of her face. The quickness with which her eyes darted about the room, as if she expected to be discovered at any moment. How Tova’s own heart wouldn’t stop thumping as she tugged on clothes and at the same time shoved what she needed into her pack. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t question. Instead she kept her fears bound up as tightly as she could while she concentrated on doing what she needed to do, as quickly and as quietly as possible. And so under cover of night she and her lady slipped away from the hall, from the manor. From Heldeby. From home. By the time the first sliver of sun crept above the eastern hills, they were already long gone.
It was only a few hours ago, and yet it feels like an age. She has no idea how many miles they’ve travelled, but she doesn’t think it’s very far. Which is why Tova thinks that sooner or later, ?lfric will find them. Him and Ketil and whatever band of men they’ve managed to gather. They’ll have dogs with them to sniff out the trail; they’ll have swift horses beneath them—
‘Come on,’ Merewyn says. ‘Just a little farther, before dark.’
‘Wait,’ Tova says.
‘We can’t stop. You know we can’t. If we’re to have any hope of losing them, we have to keep going.’
‘Going where? Do you even know where we are?’
Tova doesn’t know this land, and she’s beginning to doubt that her lady does too. They’ve been keeping off the main tracks and droveways, staying well away from any manor or vill, since two young women travelling on a harsh winter’s day like this and in such uncertain times as these, are highly conspicuous and easily remembered. What they don’t want is to meet anyone who can say later that, yes, they did indeed spy a lady and her maid upon the road, and strange it seemed for them to be out by themselves, and that they came through not an hour ago, and they were riding in that direction, and that if you go after them quickly you should catch them before the day is out.
She has been trusting Merewyn. Trusting that she knows what she is doing and knows her way. But now Tova sees her hesitation. And she realises the truth.
They’re lost.
Lost and chilled to the bone and starving too. Tova is no stranger to hunger: she remembers that year after the dry summer when the barley wilted in the fields, when they had to boil roots they’d dug up in the woods so that they could make what grain they had stretch through the cold months. But it’s not just a question of food. They have no tent, nor kindling for a fire, nor so much as a winter blanket between them on which to bed down. Already it’s growing late; the river mist is starting to settle over the meadows below. The first stars are appearing. Clear skies. A frosty night to come.
‘The old road is this way,’ Merewyn says, but she’s only repeating what she has already said several times, and the words have grown stale. ‘If we can find it, we can reach my brother’s manor. We’ll be safe there, I promise. He’ll take us in, he’ll protect us.’
‘And what if they’ve sent word ahead? Don’t you think that if ?lfric has any sense, he’ll guess that’s where we might go? What if they’re already waiting for us when we arrive? How is Eadmer going to protect us then?’
Merewyn is silent for a while as if contemplating, but there’s nothing to contemplate. Tova knows she’s right.
Her lady asks, ‘What would you have us do, then?’