They did not have a sighting of the Moorish horsemen again for some hours, but then the stream that they were following turned in a broad curve to the right, and the road followed it. This meant that if the Moors were tracking them, they were now on the inside of the curve, which would give them a chance to get ahead of Hathus’s caravan on the road. Men who had noticed the curve and understood its possibilities rode up to Hathus to ask about it. But none of them, including Hathus, wanted to say a word about the danger in Agnes’s hearing, for fear of alarming her. Understanding this, Agnes dropped back and rode beside Theodemir, who, for his own part, had understood the possible danger of the curve well enough, but had trusted Hathus to judge the matter for himself.
“You men boast of your deeds in the hall,” Agnes said, “You tell battle tales to court us. And then you expect that we will know nothing of war.”
“It is one thing to hear boasts of war in the hall,” Theodemir replied, “And quite another to face it in the field, especially for a woman.”
“You should be with us at our lying in,” she said. “There is as much of blood, as much of pain, and as much of danger there. But we keep you away, because you would fret so.”
“Would you want us there, interfering?” he asked.
“No more than they want me hearing their war talk,” she replied.
“Nor present on the battle field,” he said.
She fell silent for a while, then said quietly, “At least it might be an end for me.”
“It would not end for you if those horsemen took you,” Theodemir said. “You would be far too rich a prize for them to injure you. But it would be better if I had left you in Witteric’s care than if you fell into their hands. They would do all that he would have done to you and worse.”
“Well at least you do not waste your breath trying to comfort me,” she said.
“I have found I have no skill in comforting you, lady. And often it seems more apt to warn you.”
“Are you afraid?” she asked him.
“I am afraid for you,” he replied.
“And you would fight for me?”
“I would, lady. To my last breath.”
“Then why should I not be careless with my life, since you are willing to be so careless with yours for my sake?”
“That is the proper part for a man, lady.”
“And they all think the same?” she asked, inclining her head towards the men who rode around them. “They would all die for me?”
“For any woman, I believe, lady.”
“Do you?”
He did not answer her, and after a moment, she said, “I am more trouble than I am worth, to God and to man alike.”
“Find one man in this company to say it is so, lady,” he replied, “and I will agree. But you will not find one such man.”
“Men are fools,” she said grimly. “If you fight them, I think I shall lose count of how many have died because of me. Shall I remind you of the tally? Thor. Leif. The child Eric sacrificed to his god. The monks who stood against Eric and were cut down. Eric. Eric’s crew. The women torn from their home who will now be sold for slaves. Their children who have lost their fathers and will grow up in slavery. And perhaps also my father, my mother, my sisters, if my secret has been told in Northumbria, which I will never know. Quite a count already you see. And thirty more by nightfall, like as not. Or should I count the Moors who will die in the fight as well?”
“Good riddance to the Moors, lady,” Theodemir said with conviction. He was grateful that she had provided him the opportunity for this response, so that he did not have to at once address her terrible catalogue.
“Then I shan’t count the Moors,” she said flatly.
They rode on in silence for a few minutes, as the road began to curve in the direction where they had last seen the Moors. Agnes did not ride forward to join Hathus. The hubbub around the captain had subsided, but two of his most trusted men now rode beside him, their eyes scanning all around them. Occasionally they exchanged brief words with their captain. At one point there was some brief excitement, when one of them thought he had spotted movement among the trees on their right. But though Hathus and his two lieutenants then watched place intently, they did not see any other sign of movement.
Then Agnes spoke again, her voice soft and low. “God is pursuing me,” she said. “I cannot escape the punishment that is my due.”
“This journey is not on your account, lady,” he reminded her. “I am the king’s ambassador and we would have come this way whether I brought you with me or not.”
“But not at this hour,” she said. “I have delayed you several times. When I tried to return to my sisters. When Hathus would not journey in the heat of the day to spare me. When you travelled slowly so that I would not be jostled in the cart. Without me you would have passed here yesterday or the day before and never have been seen by those horsemen. Now many more men may die because of me. It would have been better if you had left me to Witteric’s mercy. It would be better still if your surgeon’s draft had killed me.”
“I am no wit at finding the finger of God in the affairs of men, lady,” he replied. “But it seems to me that rather than pursuing you, God is preserving you through many trials. He has even preserved your virginity by marrying you to the one man who, though you accepted him, would let you remain a virgin.”
“You offered me marriage,” she replied. “If I had accepted you, would you have let me remain a virgin if you saw hatred in my eyes?”
“Do you hate me, lady?”
“Why should you think I hate you?” she asked.
“My gaze offends you,” he said, “and I cannot learn to look at you without giving offense. I kidnapped you and nearly killed you with my surgeon’s draught. And you have shunned my company from the first time I met you.”
“That was to save you,” she replied. “Do you not understand? It is death to a man to hold me in affection.”
