* * * * *
Wilfred the Frisian rode near the head of his wagon train. Five wagons creaked slowly down the road behind the seven riders who accompanied him, pulled by oxen straining under the weight of quernstones. Ten to a wagon, making fifty in total; Rhineland quernstones, better than any in the seven kingdoms, and bound to fetch a high price in Cirencester, whose chief sources were of far inferior quality. Wilfred was trying to break into a new market, and if his stock met any delay he would miss his chance to trade at the autumn fair, and be stranded till spring. This was why he was leading the wagon train in person, rather than entrusting the mission to any of his feckless sons. But he felt confident that the whole venture would prove profitable in the end.
‘Sun’ll soon be setting,’ remarked Edmund, leader of the wagon-train guard, a tough, hard-bitten man who Wilfred found hard to distinguish from the robbers he was hired to fight off. ‘The men want to stop for the night.’
‘Do they now,’ snapped Wilfred. ‘We’ll halt when I say, and not before. This is Dunsmore Heath. I’m not risking my livelihood stopping here. We press on, and take the turn-off for Warwick.’
‘But that’ll mean riding through the night,’ Edmund objected.
‘It’s your own fault,’ Wilfred growled. ‘If you hadn’t been so hard to stir this morning…’ The previous night they had halted at an inn on the outskirts of Leicester, and Edmund’s men and the wagoners had all got as drunk as Danes. Wilfred had not been amused.
Edmund gave Wilfred a bloodshot glower. He turned towards the nearest wagon, where the wagoners Eoric and Enwulf were sitting.
‘What do you wagoners say?’ he demanded. ‘We’re not going on in the dark, are we?’
Enwulf shook his head.
‘No, master,’ he said in a thick Lindsey burr. ‘Not on this road. There be robbers about, I reckon, and I don’t know there aren’t still Welshmen around after the war this summer.’
‘Nonsense!’ Wilfred cried heartily. ‘The king of these parts beat the Welsh back to their mountains, and dealt with the robbers in this area in the spring. There’s been no sign of them since.’
‘I heard their leader escaped hanging,’ said Eoric, ‘and later he robbed a bishop.’
‘That did happen,’ admitted Wilfred unwillingly. He frowned. The whole argument had been turned on its head. ‘But there’s been no sign of him since - besides, surely if there are robbers around, it would be better to keep moving? Not that there are any,’ he added hastily.
‘Then why did you take us on?’ Edmund demanded.
‘For the Wychwood, and the Cotswolds,’ Wilfred replied truthfully. ‘And I hear things are getting pretty unsettled in Wessex.’
‘If this stretch of road is safe, we would be better off camping here,’ said one of the guards cunningly.
Wilfred shook his head.
‘If we miss the autumn market, none of you will get paid,’ he warned. ‘We couldn’t make a profit during the summer, what with the war and all. If we’re not going to starve this Yule, we must get to Cirencester as soon as we can.’
‘We’ll make up time, master,’ said Eoric from the wagon.
Wilfred could feel himself weakening. Every argument he came up with, the men twisted to their own purposes, and he found it hard to argue back. This wasn’t like him, he told himself. He was getting soft - he might as well just put his feet up and let Wilbert, his eldest, take over the business.
‘It’s almost dark now,’ said Edmund authoritatively. ‘We’d better find a place to camp.’
‘Wait a minute!’ Wilfred roared. ‘Who said we were camping?’
‘We did,’ said another guard. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
They rode on in silence across the heath. Wilfred gazed uneasily around. He was getting the feeling that all this had been planned.
‘This is because I cut your wages last year, isn’t it?’ he said suddenly. ‘When I let Wilbert lead the trip across the Peaks.’
‘We weren’t happy over the winter,’ said Edmund with a growl. ‘Most of us went hungry last Yule, never mind this one - while you and your sons drank and gorged yourselves stupid.’
Wilbert had haggled poorly with the stonecutter, and they had sustained a major loss. Mistakes were the best way to learn, Wilfred had known that since he’d been Wilbert’s age, but it had hit him hard, and he’d been unable to pay his men the full wage. Now he had to face the consequences.
‘Very well,’ he said at last, slowly, grudgingly. ‘There’s a wagoner’s pitch off the road to the right, quarter of a mile up. We’ll halt there. But if you make us late for the market, you’ll be tightening your belts again this winter.’