'We have to show them with an iron fist that we are the masters,' Comminges said to Rolf. 'If they think for one moment that we are weak, they will be upon us like a pack of wolves.'
Rolf grunted and tightened the cinch on his chestnut's girth. Dawn had broken a hole in the slate-coloured sky, and a half moon was lingering to greet it. 'I have no doubt you are right,' he replied, thinking of the dark scowls they had received along their way.
'You should not be leaving us to ride alone.' Rolf raised his brows at de Comminges. The man had a florid complexion that was threaded with a hard drinker's broken veins. The upright stubble on his scalp, short-shaven at the back, gave him the look of a man who spent all his time in fights, most of them disreputable. But Robert de Comminges, for all his brutality and arrogance, was no mindless vandal. He had a brain when he chose to use it. 'You have your horses,' Rolf said to him, 'and I have my money. I doubt that Durham will be any safer than the villages round these parts.'
'Yes, but there are more of us.'
'And a greater native population in Durham,' Rolf pointed out. 'Do not worry about me. I can take care of myself.'
De Comminges looked sceptical. 'There are bound to be refugees from Hastings up here.' He scowled. 'You'll be dead before you're even out of the saddle.'
'The sword is a language that every man understands,' Rolf answered. 'But so is trade. Wherever one goes, so does the other.' Catching up the reins, he swung across the chestnut's back. 'I will see you in Durham town, within a seven day.'
De Comminges snorted. 'I'd wager on that boast if I ever thought I'd see the colour of your coin.'
'How much?'
De Comminges pursed his thin lips and rubbed the back of his shaven neck. 'The price of a good warhorse.'
'Agreed.' Rolf reached down from the saddle to seal their bargain with a handclasp. De Comminges had a meaty palm and solid, fleshy fingers. Even now, in the chill dank of a winter dawn, they were moist and slightly warm.
Rolf's were cold. As he rode out of the Norman camp, he pulled on his sheepskin mittens. They were proof that, despite the difficulties, trade was possible with the natives of northern England. He had bargained for the mittens in York with a shepherd's wife. While she had made her contempt of all Normans obvious, she had not scorned his silver. It was in York too that he had learned of a horse-trader who might be willing to deal with him.
The sounds from the Norman camp dwindled. Soon, when he looked over his shoulder, Rolf saw nothing but bare, black trees and the dull green and brown of a dormant winter countryside. The sky lightened to a uniform, dreary grey with a heavy border of darker cloud menacing the direction in which he and his men were heading. The road was well used, for tracks had been laid upon tracks, and picking out one particular set from the morass of trampled mud was impossible.
They came to a wayside shrine, but it was not a Christian one. The rain-weathered features of the Norse god Odin glared out at them from an oak-wood effigy. At the feet of the crude representation, there were offerings of bread and mead. One of Rolf's men made the sign of the cross and muttered a Christian charm against the evil eye. Rolf, however, fingered the hammer of Thor at his throat and, dismounting, took a chunk of bread from his saddle bag and laid it beside the other offerings. He might believe in Christ, but he believed in the power of the old gods too, and if the people here were pagans, then he was quite willing to respect their ways.
His groom looked at him askance.
'For luck,' Rolf said, and smiled.
'But, sir, it is blasphemy!'
Rolf twitched his shoulders, which were aching beneath the weight of his hauberk. 'One day the priests will come and set a cross in Odin's place. Do not tell me that there is only one door to heaven.'
'But, sir…'
Rolf held up his hand to silence the man, for he could hear the sound of a masculine voice raised in song on the track ahead of them. A moment later, a swineherd rounded the bend, driving perhaps a dozen pigs towards them. His large fawn hound saw Rolf's troop first and gave warning by darting towards the Normans, its black gums bared and savage growls rumbling from its throat. Rolf tightened his hand on the reins as the chestnut backed, coiling its haunches to shy. The swineherd saw the Normans and stopped. His eyes widened and he gripped his staff in both hands, holding it horizontally across his body.
The pigs meandered from side to side of the track, snuffling and rooting, advancing unconcernedly on the horsemen.
'Call off your dog,' Rolf said in Saxon, hoping that the man would understand. 'We come to trade, not to plunder. I seek Ulf the horse-dealer.'
The swineherd swallowed, and his eyes darted over the rank of glittering mail and casually held spears, the slung shields. His dog snarled and made a rush at Rolf's horse. The stallion reared and whinnied. The dog avoided the pawing forehooves and nipped at the chestnut's hocks.
Rolf strove to control his horse. Normally he would have slackened the rein and let the stallion kick the brute, either that or draw steel and strike it himself, but he was here to trade and he had only six men at his back.
The swineherd turned and fled back down the track. Untended, his pigs strayed hither and yon. The dog, after a final sally, abandoned the fray and raced after its master.
'For luck?' the groom muttered sarcastically under his breath, but not quietly enough, and Rolf glared at him.
'How else do you expect to be greeted?' he snapped. 'With smiles and open arms?'
'No, sir, I…'
'Have you ever herded pigs before?'
'No, sir.'
'Well here's your first opportunity.'
By the time Rolf and his men had persuaded the pigs with a combination of whistles, yells, riding whips and spear prods to turn in the direction of home, the swineherd had succeeded in rousing a welcoming party. Every able-bodied man in the village waited to greet the Normans, a motley collection of spears, pitchforks, hoes, and axes brandished on high.
The village leader was a tall, bearded man in his early thirties with hair as red as Rolf's own, but flowing to his shoulders. He wore a mail shirt with short sleeves in the old style, and a bright new helm. Held competently in his large fists was a Danish broadaxe very similar to those that held pride of position in Rolf's hall at Ulverton. The man's feet were planted wide, and his mouth was grimly set. Nor did his expression change when he saw the pigs that Rolf's men were driving before them.
'Greetings,' Rolf said. 'We come in peace. I am looking for Ulf the Horse-trader. Do any of you speak the Saxon tongue?'
There was a silence. Then the red-haired leader raised his axe. 'I speak it,' he growled. 'You are not welcome here. We have nothing to trade.'
'I will pay good silver.'
'We have no need of your tainted silver, Norman.' The man spat from the side of his mouth.
'I was told in York that Ulf has the best horseflesh in all of the north country. I have come a far distance to discover if this is true, such is his fame. If you do not want to trade then we will ride on, but I pray you, let Ulf speak for himself if he is among you.'
The villagers remained obdurately silent. The swineherd broke from their ranks to take charge of his pigs. Someone else gripped his snarling fawn hound by the collar. Rolf sighed heavily and turned the chestnut. Behind him he was aware of a rapid conversation being conducted in the Norse-English tongue of the region. His shoulder blades tingled. He imagined the curved axe blade sinking between them and dragging out his lungs on the return stroke.