Knights of the Hawk by James Aitcheson

that she’s with another man now. She could be a thousand leagues away. What hope do you think you have of ever finding her?’
    He didn’t mean it unkindly, but even so his words hurt. He still believed I was mistaken. Indeed for a while I had wondered whether what had happened was merely some kind of waking dream, so unreal had it seemed at the time. But it wasn’t just that I had seen her; she had seen me too. Our eyes had met and she had just enough time to call my name before she was taken from me a second time as the enemy fled the burning town. How could I have imagined all that?
    No, I had to keep believing that she was still out there somewhere. Her captor, like Eadgar and King Sweyn, had managed to escape the slaughter that night. I could picture him as easily as if he were standing before me now: broad in the chest and with his hair, fair but greying, tied in the Danish style in a braid at his nape, mounted on a white stallion, with rings of twisted gold upon both his arms and a fiery-eyed dragon with an axe in its claws emblazoned on his shield. I didn’t know where he hailed from, or even his name, but through the winter and the spring I had paid spies to venture into the furthest reaches of Britain and bring me whatever they could learn about a Dane of that description and bearing such a device. Their help had cost me more silver than I could afford, but in my eyes it had been worth it, at the time if not in hindsight. In fact I might as well have tossed all those coins into the sea for all the good it had done me, since not one of those spies had brought me any useful information. The dragon and axe had recently been seen in Northumbria, some of them had told me, which was no help since I knew that already. Another claimed he had taken shelter at the court of the Flemish count, yet another that he had gone back across the sea with King Sweyn, and two more that he had travelled into the far north, to Ysland and the distant, frozen lands that lay beyond. Each one gave me a different name, and since none had been able to offer any more precise detail, I had sent them all away. They had gone to peddle their lies elsewhere, leaving me poorer and no wiser than before. But that did not stop me hoping.
    ‘If you want my advice, you should try to forget her,’ Eudo went on. ‘There are plenty of other women who’ll gladly help warm your bed. Women who won’t cost you as much, either.’
    He was, in his own way, trying to cheer me, not that it helped. He considered me a fool for wasting my silver on the tales of rogues and swindlers, none of whom he would trust as far the length of his sword-blade. But love makes a man desperate, and in those days my heart ruled over my head. Even though I had cared for and lain with other women since then, the truth was that I had never fully shaken her from my mind. Death had taken so many people who once were dear to me, and now that I knew that she was alive, I was determined to do everything possible to bring her back to me.
    ‘I’m going to find her,’ I said, sounding more confident than I felt. ‘I swear it.’
    ‘And how do you plan to do that?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Not yet. But somehow I will.’
    Eudo sighed and shook his head sadly, and silence fell once more. The rain began to spit down more heavily. I gazed out beyond the stern, making sure that the following boats were still behind us, and was just able to spy their shadows. Like us, Wace and the men under his command had tied scraps of cloth around their spearheads, and put on dark cloaks to cover their mail, so as to hide the telltale glint of steel. There were six of us in each boat, making eighteen in total, and I hoped that would prove enough. By anyone’s estimation it was a dangerous plan that I had in mind, but the greatest rewards often came to those who battled the greatest dangers. Anyone who lived by the sword knew that well.
    ‘There,’ said Baudri suddenly. I followed the