I’m also slowly realising I will never again speak to Fulco the Frank, that he would never show me any more special moves or secret thrusts. Somewhere out there, his corpse is smouldering on the funeral pyre. I cannot even say my last goodbyes to his soul. Although my training with him ended a while ago, and we spoke less and less since the incident with Eadgith, I still thought of him as my tutor — and a friend. I wish our last interaction had been a more amicable one — and I wish I remembered more of it than just a blurry, drunken nightmare…
At length, I fall asleep. When I wake up, Horsa’s man is gone, replaced by another guard. The day is ending, the sky peering through the door is steel grey. At my request, the guard gives me some water, but he doesn’t know when I’ll be fed again.
Aelle is the one to bring me food, a link of sausage and a chunk of black bread. He’s grinning. His happiness annoys me.
“I talked to your Master,” he says. “I’ve learned some things… Eventually.”
“What have you done to him?”
“I told you not to worry about that, I need them for the full ransom. They might be a little worse for wear in the end — but they’ll live.”
He reaches to his belt in search of a knife. His fingers hover in the air for a second. He frowns, then shrugs.
“I’ve learned about you.” He points. “You’re of the Iutish stock, aren’t you?”
“I’m of the wealas.”
“You said the word,” he laughs.
“Only so that you could understand. Yes, I was born a Iute. Probably. What of it?”
“We have some Iutes here. Runaways from the Tanet. Maybe you’d rather talk to them, instead.”
“Runaways?”
“Those who couldn’t bear to live there anymore. You’ve never been to Tanet Island, have you?”
I shake my head. “This was supposed to be my first visit.”
“I thought so. I’ll send someone over tomorrow, to tell you all about it. Once you learn what the Iutes have to suffer, how the wealas treat us when they’re not afraid of us, maybe that will change your mind.”
“I doubt it.”
“They will never treat you as an equal. You’re just a play thing to them. A pet. Like those little furry men they have on the Londin road. A Saxon that talks almost like a Briton.”
And what am I to you? A Briton that looks almost like a Saxon?
“That man whose body lies out there, Catigern, may have been the best chance for the Iutes to improve their fate,” I say. “And you killed him.”
“The Iutes don’t need some Briton brat to save them,” he replies. “One day they, too, will understand it.”
He stands up to leave. “Make them fear you, Iute. That’s the only way to deal with their lot.”
This sounds more like an advice addressed to him than to me — and one he’s been giving himself for some time.
CHAPTER XIII
THE LAY OF WORANGON
I’m tempted to wait until tomorrow, so that I can talk to those Iute “runaways” and maybe find out something new about myself from them… But I can’t delay my escape any longer. I may not ever get another chance.
Just like last night, the guard falls asleep around midnight. I search out the knife, pick it up and saw through the ropes — the blade is so dull it takes me at least half an hour until the final thread snaps. I wait to see if whoever is keeping watch outside has heard anything. I crawl up to the sleeping guard, put a hand to his mouth, and the blade to his jugular, and slice through, making sure his vocal chords are cut first. I hold him down until all the blood leaves him and he stops thrashing under my grasp.
This is my first cold-blooded kill. Bile comes up to my throat and I struggle not to heave. This is different to the bandit I slew at Weland’s village, or the one I hacked at in the battle at the ford; there’s no rush to dull my emotions, no spur-of-the-moment decisions. I had a whole day to think this through. If I could do something to ensure the guard slept through what I was about to do next, I’d do that, but I had no choice. Does it still count as self-defence? Will God forgive me even this transgression? I mark a cross on his forehead and whisper a prayer for his soul; then, just to be sure, I pray to Wodan and Frige to take care of his spirit, even though he died asleep on his watch, and as such is worthy only of going to the frozen depths of Hel, where the damned dwell.
With trembling hands, I take the spear from his still-warm hands, return to the back of the hut and begin cutting a hole in the thatch roof. It’s wearying work. I need to make as little noise as possible, so I unravel the reed blades from the weave almost one by one. The thatch is wet and pliable, the spear blade bends the blades rather than cut through them. I don’t know how many hours pass before the hole is wide enough for me to get through without raising alarm.
The sky in the East is already greying by the time I climb out. I pull the spear after me. It’s not my Anglian blade — that one must lie on the pile of looted weapons in the middle of the camp — but I feel better having it with me than just the dull knife. I duck behind the hut and scan my surroundings. A guard stands some ten feet away, leaning on his spear. I’m curious how he hasn’t managed to notice my escape attempt yet — until I hear him snore.
I crawl away in the damp grass. The rest of the fort is asleep as well, except for the torch-bearing watchmen patrolling the outermost embankment. I pass a sacrificial pit, reeking to heavens with rotting meat, and dare not look inside. Did some of the captives end up down there? Do Aelle’s men practice human sacrifice? I wouldn’t put it past them… I can’t see any of Horsa’s men yet, but I find something else — Master Pascent and Lady Adelheid, still tied to their wooden stakes by the bonfire, guarded by another spearman. I sneak past the guard — this one doesn’t sleep, but his attention is focused on the perimeter of the fort, expecting an attack from outside. I hear the Lady moan in pain. Her clothes are torn and, as I crawl closer, I see her body is covered in bruises and small cuts, designed to cause pain without leaving scars. I find a pail of water nearby, meant for dousing the bonfire, and return to wet the Lady’s lips and wounds with a moistened rag.
An owl hoots in a nearby grove. Then again. Another replies across the glade. These are no normal owls… One of the patrols disappears from the embankment. The spearman guarding the stakes notices something’s amiss. He raises his hand and cries out in alarm. I leap out of the grass and stab him through the kidneys. He falls to his knees, gasping. The shaft of my spear breaks and the blade remains in the man’s back; I curse the poor workmanship. No decent bladesmith would allow a weapon like this to leave his workshop.
The noise alerts the watchman at the tower. He starts banging on a metal pan. Three men run across the glade, their backs bent low, as the camp around us wakes up. I cut off Lady Adelheid’s bindings, lay her on the grass, then move on to Master Pascent, before the three men reach me. One of them slices the Master’s remaining bonds with one swift cut.
“Where’s Horsa?” I ask in Iutish.
“By the gate, with the ponies,” one of the men replies. He throws Master Pascent over his shoulder; the other one does the same with Adelheid. Another moan escapes her lips. The third man hands me a weapon. I recognise it without even looking — no other weapon is balanced as well for my hand as Weland’s Anglian aesc. He hands me my seax, too.
We launch into a frantic sprint to the gate, if it can be called that: it’s only a gap in the earthen wall, blocked with a wooden bar. We pass Aelle’s stone hut just as its door opens. He’s no more than ten feet away when I run past him. He’s quiet. I can’t see his face, hidden in the shadow. In his hands, he’s holding some strange device: a three-feet-long block of heavy, solid timber, with a wooden box on top, crossed by a strip of bent steel at one end, and with a metal tongue protruding at the other. It looks like a miniature version of the war machines on top of Londin’s wall.
I glance back moments later, to see him slowly raise the device to his eye. I hear a twang of released
tension. It’s too dark to see the missile as it flies towards us. The man carrying Master Pascent cries out and falls. I stoop to examine him: a featherless bolt, thicker than a hunter’s arrow and shorter, is dug deep into his thigh, right where the veins are. The bolt’s jagged tip has torn a deep, nasty wound. It’s obvious to us both he’s going to bleed out in a matter of minutes, if not sooner, and there’s nothing that can help him.
He pushes me away, draws his seax and staggers up, facing the approaching bandits. The third of the Iutes picks up Pascent. “We have to go,” he says. “See you in Wodan’s Hall, Ulf,” he tells the wounded man, and we turn to run again.
I hear Ulf roar a battle cry, cut short by a swish of a weapon. I don’t look back. We’re almost at the gateway. There’s a battle here already, the bandits fighting off a fierce attack from outside. Their commander spots us, and orders a detachment of his warriors to stop us. With the Master and the Lady on their backs, my two remaining companions have no choice but to try to outrun them: we turn away from the gate and start climbing the earthen bank. It’s no use — four of the bandits catch up to us, with enough speed to spare to split and flank us from both sides. It’s clear they’re no ordinary bandits; only trained soldiers would perform such manoeuvres of their own initiative.
“Take her,” the man carrying Lady Adelheid tells me. “She’s light.”
He’s right — it’s as if the weight has flown out of her body along with her life. I have no trouble running with her on my back. The Iute draws a throwing axe from his belt, takes aim and lets it fly. One of the bandits spreads his arms and falls on his back, the axe stuck in his chest. The Iute charges at the other one; sparks rain as their swords clash in the darkness.
There’s only two of us left. I reach the peak of the embankment and slide down the slope, tearing my skin on the small, sharp stones that are scattered here to hinder climbing. There’s a ditch on the other side, but it’s mostly silted-up; the debris and refuse soften our fall. I glance up to see the silhouettes of the remaining two bandits. I urge my companion to lie down and hide in the shadow of the wall. It seems to be working, as the bandits move further along the bank.
Then Master Pascent wakes up. He stirs and groans in confusion. I try to silence him, but he mistakes me for an enemy and pulls away with a muffled cry. The bandits spot us. Seeing me and the Iutes stand up, ready to fight, they hesitate and call for help. Soon I hear the reinforcements climb up the earthen wall on the other side. The warriors appear over the top, spearmen first, then the archers, bows drawn and nocked; the last one to emerge is Aelle, dragging his bolt-shooting device on the ground.
A horse neighs behind us. I look over my shoulder to see Horsa, leading his Iutes to join us in making the stand, just as Aelle’s bandits rush down the embankment. The Iutes link arms and step forth to form a human wall. Horsa pulls me behind it. Arrows whizz over my head; men cry and fall; the bandits, powered by the downhill momentum, bash against the line of Iutes with a thunderclap of shields and weapons.
The Iutes hold their ground for only a brief moment, before they’re overwhelmed by the sheer number of Aelle’s men. Their sacrifice buys us just enough time to reach the horses. Next to Horsa’s pony stand two other beasts. I recognise them as our carriage pair. Horsa helps me onto one of them, and throws Lady Adelheid over the horse’s back. There’s no saddle or reins, only the tattered remnants of a draft tack.
“I don’t know how to ride a horse,” I say.
“Just hold on to something. It will follow the others.”
Master Pascent, now lucid enough to realise he’s being rescued, sits behind a Iute on the other horse. Horsa mounts his pony. I glance back: the bandits have broken through. Another salvo of arrows flies past us; we’re lucky — the archers can’t see us clearly in the darkness of the forest, and their arrows scatter among the branches, harmless. I search for Aelle and his machine. He’s still standing on top of the wall, the black weapon at his eye. He searches the trees for a target.
“Go, go!” I shout, though there’s no need: Horsa spurs his mount, and we all start into a neck-breaking gallop. I hear a bolt fly past, a different, more menacing sound than that of the arrows. Another one whizzes a few seconds later. I can’t tell if they hit anything, or anyone, I just know that I’m not hurt. I cling to the horse’s back, clutching the frail straps, and let it carry me down the wooded hill.
The horses stop in a wheat field on the outskirts of a Briton village. I don’t know how long we’ve been riding, and how far, but the morning is bright and we’ve reached the shores of the Medu River again. Judging by its breadth and the swiftness of the current we’re a few miles further upstream from when I last saw it.
My body is shaking as the battle rush recedes. I slide off the horse, and help Lady Adelheid dismount. A woman rushes to assist her and carries her towards the nearest house. Another takes care of Master Pascent. A serf girl approaches me offering her shoulder, but I dismiss her. I can still stand, leaning on the spear. I search the field: only our two horses have reached the settlement. We’ve lost Horsa and his pony somewhere along the way.
A small crowd of warriors and servants welcomes us to the village. Some I recognise from our entourage: they must have fled the battle or hidden among the dead. There are more Iutes here, the rest of Horsa’s party, and some Briton warriors whose faces I don’t know. But one group stands out the most from the crowd. Horsemen, a dozen of them, all bearing markings on their capes I have never seen before — a rampant white horse. They’re sturdy men, dark-haired and grim-faced, armed with long, thin swords and slender lances. They all wear well-fitted leather vests with sewn-in scales of metal, and their commander dons a shiny mail shirt and a steel helmet of Roman design, with thick, decorated ridge, flapping cheek guards and a broad nose guard.
“Who are they?” I ask one of the Iutes. I have not seen such cavalry anywhere, not even in Londin.
“They came from beyond the river,” he replies. “Cantish guards.”
I feel there’s more to those mysterious black-haired riders than them simply being tribal guards, but before I can ask again, a desperate neigh shatters the dawn. I turn and see a pony emerge from the forest. It’s clear something’s gone wrong. It trots wearily, limping, its head hanging low. The Iutes around me stand silent and morose. Nobody moves to help the beast; they wait for it to trundle towards us. It reaches our line and halts. Horsa’s body slides down and thuds on the damp ground.
A thick, featherless bolt juts out of his neck.
I sense fear, both in the Iutes and in the local Britons, when I ask them about Aelle’s band.
“Where did they come from? Who are they?”
They don’t know — or don’t want to tell.
“All we know is they appeared in the woods in the early spring, with the first thaws,” the village elder tells me. “There were always bandits and outlaws hiding in the deep woods, poachers mostly, so we didn’t pay much attention to them at first.”
Once in a while, the outlaws would organise themselves into small gangs to steal from houses on the outskirts of the village, or from single travellers, but there was never enough plunder around to sustain their alliances for long. These new “bandits” soon proved different. They were well organised, well-armed, interested more in creating chaos than simply robbing — and didn’t need to steal to sustain themselves, it seemed.
“They started the same as others, robbing travellers on the Pilgrim’s Way,” the elder says, “but soon they started to descend on the villages along the Medu. They dare not cross the river, fearing the Cantish riders, but here, there aren’t many who would stand against them.”
There are very few trained warriors among the villagers, fewer still are equipped well enough to fight in a regular battle.
“Dux Wortigern will send an army to take care of this,” I reassure him. “Those bandits will be dealt with in no time.”
He gives me a silent, doubtful look.
“It’s b
etter if you go from here, fast. I fear you’ve stirred the wasp’s nest with your arrival.”
We don’t need his prompting. None of us want to stay here longer than necessary. As soon as Master Pascent regains enough strength, we cross the river to the Cantish side — over a real ford, this time. Once on the other side, we pause. The Iutes resolve to lay their chieftain down here, on the hill marked with the ancient standing stones I spotted the last time we were here. We have no bodies to bury other than that of Horsa. Nobody else made it out of the forest, dead or alive. I seek Master Pascent’s permission to attend the ceremony. He hesitantly agrees, on the condition that I never tell anyone what I saw there — not even him.
The Iutes dig a shallow grave between the two standing stones. If we dig any deeper, the locals tell us, we’ll reach the countless bones of those buried in this sacred ground over the generations past. This hilltop has always been a grave, long before the Romans came, before even the Britons, before the oldest oaks in Andreda were acorns.
The landlady of the inn arrives in secret to perform the ritual, not naked this time, but dressed in a long, sombre robe dyed almost black with woad. She leads the gathered Iutes in a brooding chant. As their voices rise into the sky, Horsa’s pony is led to the pit and the priestess cuts its throat with a sickle. The Iutes come one by one to drink the blood from a bronze bowl, then the rest of it is spilled on the stones in honour of the fallen. The unfortunate animal lets out one last bray and the priestess pushes it into the grave.
Horsa’s body is laid beside his pony, wrapped in undyed linen cloth, and next to him, his seax and spear, both bent in three. I notice now that the grave pit is shaped like the hull of a boat. All three — Horsa, the pony and the sword — had arrived on the same ship, to Cantiaca, many years ago. And now all three will sail from here to Wodan’s Hall.
The Saxon Spears Page 19