“My lord! My lord, we found her!”
Wystan followed several paces behind, carrying something carefully in both arms as I stared.
It was a chicken. Not the black hen Hild had insulted, but a small brown bird with a crooked comb and one missing tail feather, which suggested it had survived the battle through either extraordinary luck or a refusal to understand what was happening.
Wystan stopped before us, flushed and grinning. “I thought her lost.”
Godwin slowly closed his eyes.
“You went back,” I said.
The grin disappeared as the boy petted the fowl.
“Not far.”
“How far?”
Wystan looked down at the chicken, perhaps hoping she might provide a useful answer. “Far is difficult to judge in a forest.”
“Wystan.”
His shoulders sagged. “Only to the stream.”
“The stream was beyond the retreat line.”
“Aye, but she was there, I heard her.”
“You risked your life for a chicken?”
“She lays large eggs.”
Beside me, Godwin coughed into his fist, although the sound bore a familiar resemblance to laughter.
I gave him a warning look before turning back to the boy. “You crossed ground where Norman soldiers might still have been searching because the bird lays large eggs?”
“Large delicious eggs,” Wystan said.
The chicken chose that moment to foul the front of his tunic.
Godwin doubled over, his laughter carrying through the trees so loud and helpless that several people turned to stare, and though I fought it for the sake of discipline, a snort escaped.
Wystan looked wounded. “She was frightened.”
“So was half of England,” Godwin managed, wiping at his eyes, “yet England did not shite on your clothes.”
“Take the bird to Hild,” I said, before I disgraced myself by laughing outright.
Wystan walked away muttering to the chicken, who appeared perfectly satisfied with the outcome.
When the laughter faded, I let out a breath. “Three dead.”
Godwin’s expression sobered. “Aye.”
“I gave the order to abandon the camp.”
“Aye.”
“My father would not have.”
