Or had Vitalis been strangled by the pirates? Geoffrey had witnessed Fingar dispatching one of his own men, so they were certainly killers. Had they suspected early on that a passenger had damaged their ship, and taken instant revenge against Vitalis? Perhaps they had wanted to see what Vitalis had managed to bring ashore: he was a man of wealth, after all. A sailor seemed the most likely culprit.
And what about the odd business of Paisnel? If Philippa was a liar, should Geoffrey discount her tale about Juhel throwing him overboard? However, the details suggested there was some truth in her tale; her story explained the disappearance of Paisnel’s bag and accounted for Juhel’s inexplicable dampness afterwards.
Geoffrey found he could answer none of his questions with certainty, but he did not intend to remain with his suspects much longer anyway. He had decided to leave everyone, including Roger and the squires, before reaching the abbey, then travel alone to Dover. He did not want to accept a loan laden with inconvenient conditions, and Bale and Ulfrith were liabilities. He would do better with just his cowardly dog for company.
But he was no longer a bachelor with unlimited freedom. He was a married man with estates, and he was fond of his sister. He did not know his wife well enough for love, but he liked her. So where
did
his duty lie? Should he return to them and accept the yoke of lord of the manor? Should he leave England, so there could be no question of his having associated with Saxon rebels? Or should he ride to King Henry and warn him that there were men who intended to have his crown? But he looked at Magnus’s thin, eager face and Harold’s fat, smiling one, and he knew he could not sentence these inept dreamers to death. To take his mind off his questions and quandaries, he turned his attention to the discussion among his companions.
‘I saw Simon in the lower hold,’ Roger was saying to Magnus. ‘But when I asked why he was holding an axe, he said Fingar had ordered him to adjust the cargo, to reset
Patrick
’s balance.’
Geoffrey was unimpressed that Roger had not questioned such an explanation: Fingar would never have entrusted such a task to passengers. He wished Roger had mentioned it sooner, because he would never have contemplated reasoning with the pirates if he had understood the magnitude of his companions’ crimes against them.
Outside, the storm abated suddenly. The rain stopped, and the wind dropped with peculiar abruptness. Geoffrey glanced out of the door again, wondering whether it was his imagination or if he had heard voices carried on the remaining breeze.
‘I thought you had brought the Usurper’s men with you when you burst in with Norman knights at your heels,’ Harold was saying to Magnus, as Geoffrey turned his attention to the cave again. ‘I hid, quaking like a leaf. It might have been amusing, had you not given me such an awful fright!’
‘I hid here when I was a child,’ said Magnus. ‘After the battle, when the Bastard was looking for Saxons to slaughter. It seems an appropriate place from which to launch our glorious—’
Voices outside silenced him abruptly, and Geoffrey shot to his feet. Fingar sounded as though he might be standing on their roof as he hailed his men. They had taken advantage of the lull in the weather to resume their search.
‘He is calling his men over here, because this is the last place he saw footprints,’ said Magnus, cocking his head. ‘I know a little Irish, you see – I learned it when I was exiled there.’
At that moment, Delilah laid an egg, and her delighted clucks were answered by a peevish yap from the dog. No one needed to know Irish to understand Fingar’s next statement.
‘Hah! Now we have them!’
Silently, Geoffrey drew his sword and waited, Roger next to him similarly alert. Through the crack in the door they could see the sailors milling outside, and Geoffrey reviewed their options. He and Roger could not fight inside the shelter: there was no room to wield their weapons. But almost all Fingar’s men had gathered, and he and Roger were unlikely to defeat them all, even with Bale and Ulfrith. He dismissed the Saxons and Juhel as of no consequence – Magnus, for one, had always borrowed Simon’s knife when he had needed to cut his meat, and was never armed.
The pirates were arguing. Fingar was convinced their quarry was nearby – he tapped his nose to indicate he could smell something, and Geoffrey wondered if it was garlic – but his crew were pointing deeper into the marshes. Fingar was angry, his face a dangerous red. Kale, an unkempt, ugly man who had spent most of his time onboard trimming the sail, was the most vocal. The debate became heated, and although Geoffrey understood few of the words, the gist was clear.
Kale thrust a finger towards the sky, almost screaming in frustration: the sound the captain had heard was a bird, and they should not be wasting time in an area they had already searched. Most of the crew nodded agreement. Fingar roared something in return, perhaps that birds did not sound like dogs. Kale said something in a sneering voice that made the others snigger. Fingar moved quickly, and Kale was suddenly on his knees, gasping as blood gushed between his fingers. There was a deathly silence as he toppled forward.
Fingar’s eyebrows were raised in a question: did anyone else think he could not tell the difference between a bird and a dog? Then a flock of waterfowl flapped overheard, and one uttered a low honk – a sound that could easily have passed for a bark. There were a lot of carefully impassive faces as Fingar glared at his people. Clearly, no one wanted to say that Kale had told him so, and there was a sullen silence before Fingar gestured that Donan should lead them back the way they had come. Without a word, Donan obliged, Fingar and the others trailing.
When he was sure they had gone, Roger released a pent-up sigh. ‘Thank God for geese! I shall never eat one again.’
‘We cannot leave while they are rampaging around,’ said Geoffrey. ‘It is safer to wait here.’
He expected someone to disagree, but no one did. Magnus, Harold and Juhel clearly had no intention of challenging such ferocious adversaries, and Roger was too experienced a warrior to argue with sound military advice. They settled as comfortably as they could, Geoffrey keeping watch by the door.
It was not long before the wind began to pick up again. Then came the rain, brought by dark clouds that scudded in from the west. Lightning forked once or twice, and thunder rebounded across the marshes. Again, Geoffrey watched the grass outside go from a moderate sway to a violent flap, and then to lying flat against the ground.
‘What will you do next?’ Geoffrey asked after a while. He was bored, and even conversation with the Saxons was better than nothing, although common sense told him it might be wiser to remain in ignorance. ‘Now that you two are together and your plan is underway?’
‘As soon as it is safe to leave, you will escort us to the abbey,’ said Magnus.
‘I am travelling directly to Dover,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Nowhere near the abbey.’
‘It is only a few miles out of your way,’ said Magnus, wheedlingly. ‘And no ships can put to sea as long as the weather remains wild. You can stay in the abbey until the storms subside, and then your moral duty to me will have been fulfilled into the bargain.’
‘He has a point, Geoff,’ said Roger. ‘About the weather, I mean, not the moral duty. There is no point in travelling anywhere during storms. Besides, we
should
give thanks for our deliverance.’
It galled him, but Geoffrey knew they were right. All ships would be port-bound until the wind subsided, and he had no money for an inn. An abbey, however, would provide free food and shelter. And while he was at La Batailge, he could ask about the accusations Vitalis had made.
‘Your father fought at Hastinges,’ said Roger when he did not reply. ‘You should visit the abbey and pay the monks to say a mass for his soul – and for the souls of the men he killed.’
‘It might shorten his time in Purgatory,’ agreed Harold, taking another clove of garlic from his pouch and biting it in half. He offered the other to Geoffrey, who declined. ‘Of course, the slaughter of innocent Saxons was a dreadful thing, so I am fairly certain he will be condemned to Hell.’
He spoke without rancour, and Geoffrey had the feeling that he said such things because he was expected to, rather than from a deep conviction that they were right.
‘Tell me about the abbey,’ said Geoffrey, supposing that if there was no way to avoid the place, he might as well make the best of it. He was fascinated by architecture and reluctantly conceded that the excursion might be interesting.
‘It has a big church,’ said Harold with a shrug. ‘And it is full of Norman monks.’
Juhel laughed. ‘That description applies to virtually every religious foundation in England!
How many
monks are there?’
‘Forty, perhaps,’ said Harold vaguely. ‘Or fifty. Or sixty. But there are more than twice as many lay-brothers in the kitchens, stables, alehouse, bakery and gardens. And there are others still who tend the crops and the livestock. The abbey would be nothing without its Saxon helpers.’
‘Do you know if a monk called Wardard lives there?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘I am told he also fought at Hastinges.’
Harold nodded. ‘He is the fellow who looks after my father’s shrine – the abbey church’s high altar is on the spot where he died. Why do you ask?’
‘Do not pay any heed to what Vitalis said,’ advised Roger, who saw the direction in which the conversation was going. ‘You will probably have no truth from this Brother Wardard, just as you had none from Vitalis.’
‘Yes, but I may as well see Wardard and find out for certain,’ said Geoffrey.
‘Find out what?’ said Harold. ‘Perhaps I can help.’
‘I want to know about something that happened a long time ago,’ said Geoffrey, deliberately vague. ‘It concerns my father and his conduct at the battle at Hastinges.’
‘Vitalis cursed him for being lily-livered,’ elaborated Roger, ignoring Geoffrey’s wince. ‘He said it was Godric Mappestone’s cowardice that brought about the deaths of so many soldiers – that the fight would have ended hours sooner if Godric had done what he was ordered.’
Six
‘You should not heed Vitalis’s claims,’ said Roger, seeing the matter still bothered his friend. ‘He spoke to hurt you. As soon as he learned your name, he was after blood. And because he knew he could never defeat you in a fair fight with swords, he resorted to striking at your dead father.’
Geoffrey nodded. The old man’s eyes
had
gleamed with spite the moment he had learned that Geoffrey was Godric’s son. He looked out of the crack again, watching the wind whip some large pieces of vegetation past.
‘My father was many things, but I do not think he was a coward. He fought our Welsh neighbours for years, and I never saw him flinch.’
‘Well, there you are,’ said Roger. ‘I know you, and I know your sister. Neither is a coward, and I do not believe you sprang from the loins of one.’
‘Yet he always refused to visit the abbey raised to commemorate the battle’s dead,’ said Geoffrey, thinking back to his childhood. Hastinges had been a frequent topic of conversation – all of it tales that highlighted his father’s honour, courage and daring. If Godric were to be believed, the Conqueror would have been defeated if he had not been there. Yet Geoffrey’s mother, who had also played her part, had said very little.
Geoffrey rubbed his head. Would the Conqueror have given Godric an estate if he had behaved dishonourably? Or had he not known, and the truth of Godric’s shabby conduct lay only with a few? Godric had been with the Norman army’s left flank, many of whom had been killed. Godric and Vitalis had agreed on that point: Godric
had
fought on the left.
‘Brother Wardard told me
he
became a monk to atone for the slaughter,’ said Harold helpfully. ‘He said the deaths of so many brave warriors weighed heavily on his conscience until he took the cowl. I expect your father felt the same, Sir Geoffrey.’
‘Not really,’ replied Geoffrey, recalling his father’s pride at the number of Saxons he had sent to their graves. The count of his victims had, of course, risen steadily through the years.
Geoffrey had once sarcastically remarked to one of his brothers that the Conqueror had not needed an army at Hastinges, because Godric had managed the victory single-handed. When the comment had been repeated to Godric, Geoffrey had expected retribution to be immediate and severe, but Godric had only fixed his defiant son with an unreadable expression, then marched away. It had been the last time they had discussed the battle, however, because the following week Geoffrey had been sent to Normandy to begin his knightly training.
‘Was your father proud of his conduct, then?’ pressed Harold.
‘He saw the battle as his sacred duty. He never regretted what he did.’
‘He did not visit shrines and churches, to beg forgiveness?’ asked Harold uneasily.
‘Not that I recall. But I did not see him for twenty years once I left for Normandy.’
But asking forgiveness for
anything
would have been anathema to Godric. Of course, if Vitalis was right, he would have had no need – because he had not fought at all, but had skulked in the woods, causing the battle to go on far longer than it should have done and bringing about the deaths of hundreds.
Geoffrey sighed, not sure what to think. Vitalis had certainly known Godric, because he related details that only his family shared. He had also known Geoffrey’s mother and had confessed to being more afraid of her than her husband. Geoffrey understood that perfectly: he had been wary of the formidable Herleve himself. He had often wondered why, with such parents, he had not grown into a brutal tyrant; he could only suppose that being sent away at an early age had removed him from their malign influence.
‘Well, perhaps you should ask Wardard to intercede on your father’s behalf,’ suggested Harold.
‘He
does
need prayers, sir,’ added Bale, who had spent most of his life on Godric’s manor. ‘And not only for those he killed in battle. There are also those he hanged for poaching, even though they were innocent; the families he evicted for not paying rent – they
had
paid, but he demanded the money again; the people of that Welsh village he burned for stealing his cattle, although it turned out he had taken the cows to the high byre himself—’