CHAPTER 30Brand — he of the amazing eyebrows and appalling table manners — was now Abbot of Peterborough. And he had closed the gates against us.
We had set out early in the morning, Hereward and I, with a stream of his higher-ranked followers: Leofric the Black — now the Deacon; a stockier, hairier Wynter than I remembered; and two identical youths who were apparently his cousins and who answered to the unlikely names of Outi and Duti.
Behind the monastery gates, the monks jostled each other and chattered as excitedly as their less religious brethren. From the town, the wealthy “Golden Borough” itself, a sizeable crowd of observers had followed us at a safe distance, and now stood around us, gawping.
“It must be Hereward! Look at the size of his following — and every one English!”
“Wh
