Sworn Sword by James Aitcheson

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Tell him I will be with him shortly.’
    The boy gave a cursory bow and hurried away.
    ‘Forgive me, Tancred,’ Malet said. ‘The castellan is a tiresome man, but if I ignore him, he will only grow more persistent. I trust that you are comfortable here, that you are being brought everything you require.’
    ‘I am, lord.’
    ‘Very well.’ He smiled. ‘I do not seek an answer from you now, but I hope that you will consider what I have said over the coming days. No doubt we shall speak again before long.’
    He left, and I was alone again. I thought over everything that he had said, about Lord Robert, and about the rebellion that he believed was to come. If it did, then I wanted to be able to fight, even if for nothing else than the opportunity to avenge Robert’s death. Although if Malet spoke truthfully, then there were few lords who would be willing to accept my service.
    Few lords except, naturally, for him.

Eight
    EUDO AND WACE came to see me the next morning, and never had I been more glad to see them. We did not talk of the battle or of Lord Robert, for there was little more to say, though I could see from the looks in their eyes that it was in their minds as much as it was in mine.
    I learnt from them that Rollo had not survived the journey. They had stopped briefly at dusk to let the horses rest, but when they made to leave, he had not got up.
    ‘The battle must have all but exhausted him,’ Eudo said. ‘When we saw that he wasn’t going to live, we decided it was better to end his suffering ourselves. I’m sorry.’
    Perhaps my heart was already so filled with grief that there was no room for any more, but for some reason I felt no sadness, only regret. I had been given Rollo in the weeks after the battle at Hæstinges, at the same time that I was entrusted with a conroi of my own to command. He had been with me almost as long as we had been in England, seen me through two years and more of campaigning. In all my years I had known no better mount than him; strong yet at the same time quick, steady and obedient. And now he too was gone.
    I changed the subject. ‘The vicomte came to see me yesterday. His chaplain too, a man named Ælfwold.’
    ‘The Englishman,’ Eudo said with a look of distaste.
    ‘You’ve met him, then?’ I asked.
    ‘He was the one who received us when we brought you in,’ Wace replied. ‘Malet has more than a few Englishmen in his household. He’s half-English himself, you know.’
    ‘Half-English?’ I said, disbelieving. When I had met him there’d been nothing in his appearance or his speech to suggest that he was anything but Norman.
    ‘It’s said that his mother was of noble Mercian stock, though no one seems to know for certain,’ Wace said. ‘I gather he doesn’t speak of it much.’
    I was not surprised; it was not something that many would readily admit to.
    ‘His loyalty to the king is not in question, you understand,’ Wace went on. ‘He fought alongside him at Hæstinges, and fought well at that. But his parentage means that he also has the trust of many of the English thegns.’
    ‘Which is no doubt part of the reason he was made vicomte here,’ I said. Whereas the south of the kingdom was now firmly under the control of Norman lords, much of the north was still in the hands of the same men who had held it under the usurper three years ago. As a result, whoever held Eoferwic needed to be able to treat with them. ‘How do you know so much, in any case?’ I asked.
    ‘Malet was at the king’s Easter council last year, when I was there with Lord Robert,’ Wace said. ‘All this I learnt from speaking with some of his men.’
    However he had obtained it, it was useful knowledge to have, and I was grateful, just as I was for the news that they brought from outside. It seemed that there were rumours of risings in the very south of the kingdom, stories too of certain lords who had fled back to Normandy. Among them were Hugues