A Time for Swords

by Matthew Harffy

  “You are not a bad man,” the Welshman replied. “You are a natural warrior, and too often the world needs men who run towards danger, rather than away from it.” He reached over and gripped my shoulder. “But it is who you choose to fight that decides what manner of man you are and how you are remembered.”

  I took another mouthful of ale. I was not so sure. I was a killer and did not God command us not to kill?

  Gwawrddur watched me through narrowed eyes for a time, and then, as if deciding that I had had enough, he turned to Runolf.

  “It was there you met our Norse friend, was it not?” he asked.

  I nodded. They all knew this story, but I was glad to move away from my own part in it.

  “He was one of the raiders,” I said. Hearing how the words sounded, I quickly added, “but he stood against some of his countrymen. He saved the lives of two children.”

  “And your own?”

  “Yes. I too owe him my life.”

  “What is your tale then, Runolf?” asked Gwawrddur. “Why are you here?”

  Runolf scowled. The firelight made his beard glow like iron hot from the forge.

  “I have no choice,” he growled. “I swore my eiðr, my oath, to your king. And I am a man of my word.”

  Cormac spoke up then and I groaned to hear the edge of accusation in his tone.

  “You speak of being a man of your word,” he said, “and yet you turned on your own. Where is the honour in that?”

  “Easy now, Cormac,” said Gwawrddur.

  Runolf held up a huge hand, waving away Gwawrddur’s concern. He fixed Cormac in his pale stare.

  “I did not break my oath,” he said. “And I do not make war on children. I defended them against bad men. Those men had stood beside me in raids before. They knew better than to cross me.”

  “You have children of your own?” asked Gwawrddur.

  Runolf went very quiet. His shoulders sagged and his gaze dropped to the fire. Where moments before he had seemed a giant, a man to fear, now he appeared diminished. He drained his cup of ale.

  “Once,” he said, his voice a rasping growl. “No more.” He scratched at his beard and then combed his thick fingers through his hair. As with the hair on my head, there was little reminder of the tonsure I had shaved. He squared his shoulders and with an effort of will appeared to regain his strength. “I will not stand by while the defenceless are slain.”

  For a time nobody spoke. The log I had placed on the fire shifted as it burnt, sending fresh sparks into the smoky air.

  “There is one thing I do not understand,” said Drosten, breaking the silence with his thick Pictish brogue.

  Runolf looked at him and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  “Why did your people leave you behind on Lindisfarnae?”

  Runolf shrugged his massive shoulders.

  “Who can say? Mayhap they thought me dead.”

  “Or they wanted you dead,” said Drosten, rubbing his chin.

  Runolf flashed him a dark look.

  “Perhaps soon we can ask them.” He glowered over the rim of his cup as he emptied it. There was death in that gaze. If the Norse returned, there would be little in the way of talking and asking of questions, I thought.

  “What of you, Gwawrddur?” asked Runolf, pushing his memories and anger aside. “You have asked many questions this evening. But you have spoken nothing of yourself. Why are you here?”

  The slender Welshman smiled and raised his cup to the Norseman.

  “You speak truly,” he said. “I have been content to listen to you all. A wise man once told me that a man learns much more from listening than from speaking. And so I listen and I learn.”

  “And you teach,” said Cormac.

  “Yes, I teach, as others have taught me. Or at least as well as I am able.”

  “Both Hunlaf and I are thankful for your teaching. You are a formidable swordsman, and we are blessed that you would devote your time to us.”

  Gwawrddur smiled at the compliments.

  “I have done my best to equip you with the skills needed to survive when the sword-song begins. I feel the rest is up to you both. I have helped to forge you, now it is for you to temper yourselves in the fires of battle.”

  He sipped at his ale.

  “I had not imparted sword-skill to others before. I have always been reticent to do so, but I cannot deny that I have enjoyed seeing you both improve until you each bear yourselves like men, not boys. Like warriors.” Cormac and I grinned at the rare praise from our teacher. “And yet, that is not the answer to your question of why I have come here, to this place, where few will stand against many.”

  “What is your answer then?” I asked.

  Gwawrddur pondered a moment before replying.

  “I have fought the best swordsmen from every corner of these islands. I have tested my blade and my skills against the greatest warriors I could find. Some have been in contests of skill, where the winner took silver or gold, others have stood against me with naked steel, where defeat brought death.” He looked into the flames and I wondered what memories he saw there; how many dead enemies. “I have defeated all who have stood before me,” he said, taking another sip of ale. “Every warrior wishes to test himself against others. There are no adversaries who can best me in these islands, perhaps one of these raiders from other lands can challenge me.”

  I thought about his words. There was a hollow sadness in them. Some men are born thus, never content with their lot, always striving for more. For many, they lust over power and gold. Gwawrddur sought the constant betterment of his own skills. With each opponent he defeated, rather than feel that his skills were validated, he thought that he had yet to find a worthy enemy.

  “But when,” I said, and then corrected myself, “if you find the man who can beat you in combat, you will be slain.”

  “That would seem to be the most likely outcome,” he said, with a grim thin smile. “Then we must hope that I do not meet my match too soon.”

  I shook my head, unable to understand the man’s desire to face ever-increasing odds against him. What made him seek danger in this way? But was I not in my own way doing the same? I did not voice it in such stark terms as Gwawrddur, but I too had decided to throw myself towards danger where most would flee. Perhaps we were all moonstruck in our way. Maybe the Devil had his claws in all of us, damning us to be killers. Condemning us to violent deaths.

  I was trying to weave my feelings into the cloth of words, when a loud clanging rent the quiet night. I started at the sound and for the briefest of moments, none of us moved. And then, as one, we surged up from where we lounged about the fire and rushed out into the darkness.

  Hereward was hammering the rusting piece of metal that hung from the rope outside the hall. The ringing cacophony filled the night. In the settlement and minster buildings below us, I could see small sparks of light as men and women rushed out of their homes and monks tumbled from their cells. I fancied I could hear shouts and calls in the distance, but the jarring crash of the iron bell drowned out all other sound.

  Hereward continued to pound the lump of iron and I looked to the east. The night was dark and at first I saw nothing of note. And then my eyes became accustomed to the gloom and I saw it, a flickering of distant flames. As I watched, another light flared in the darkness. Not one but at least two of the beacons had been lit.

  Hereward finally stopped hitting the bell. My ears rang and jarred as if the sound echoed within my skull.

  “Sounds carry far in the quiet of the night and your talk has made for interesting listening this night.” Hereward scanned our faces. The ruddy light from the hearth spilled out of the open door of the hall, illuminating his features. His teeth flashed in a grin. “You each have your own reasons for being here. But all that matters now is that the time has come for us to stand together. The few against the many. We have readied ourselves for this moment, and I can think of no men I would rather have at my side when the storm of steel begins
. If we stick to what we have planned these last weeks and you do what is asked of you without hesitation, I say we will prevail. We will be outnumbered, but we have something important in our favour.”

  “What?” asked Cormac.

  “This is a minster,” Hereward said. “A holy place.” Cormac looked blank. Hereward laughed, too loudly. “We have God on our side!” he bellowed.

  I met Runolf’s gaze. Both of us had been on the holy island where the bishop of Northumbria resided. God had not protected them from the fury of the Norsemen. I clenched my jaw, forcing aside the voice of doubt that threatened to smother my resolve. God might have allowed many to die that accursed day, but He had also brought us all here together. It was the Lord who had called me to stand with these warriors and, with His grace, we would be victorious.

  Forty-Three

  For a time we stood, staring out over the dark land, each lost in our thoughts of what was to come. We had been preparing for this for weeks, but it was only then, with the flash of flames in the distance, that I truly believed the Norsemen were coming and suddenly our plan and the skill and strength I had built up under Gwawrddur’s tutelage seemed inconsequential. What could the few of us and a couple of dozen ceorls hope to do against the battle-hardened raiders who swept from the Whale Road aboard their serpent-headed wave-steeds?

  I peered into the east, at the tiny flecks of light and thought of Anstan on his rocky island. Had the men gone to his hut and slain him for his temerity in lighting the beacon? Had he found the kind of death he craved or had they merely slid by on their long ships, leaving him to succumb to the rattling cough and sickness that consumed his feeble body? If they had not gone to the island, they would already be in the mouth of the Cocueda. I could picture the banks of oars rising and falling like great wings, propelling the ships and their savage crews ever nearer to Werceworthe.

  “Come on,” snapped Hereward. “We have looked long enough. Would you be standing here when the Norsemen arrive? Go and help the people up here to the hall.”

  Nobody moved. It was as if all we had prepared so carefully in the warm days of summer had been forgotten in the darkness of that night with the breath of approaching winter in the cold air.

  “You know what to do,” growled Gwawrddur. “Go!”

  Like oxen goaded with a hazel switch, we all jolted into motion and hurried to fulfil the roles that had been assigned to us.

  The first task was to get all of those who would not fight up to Werce’s Hall. And so, for what seemed an endless amount of time, we carried children and belongings up the hill. The monks and greybeards helped, as did the women. All the while, as babies cried and women shouted at their offspring, I imagined the Norsemen heaving on their long oars with the strength and ease I had witnessed from Runolf. Their sleek ships would slide quickly up the river and I kept on glancing down to the water, expecting to see a horde of armed men, all savage, leering grins and the dull-glint of deadly iron.

  But no attack came and soon enough all the people who did not have a role to play in the plans we had devised were in the hall. It was packed and already some of the monks had decided to sit outside in the scant shelter of the ruined store huts, rather than being uncomfortably squashed inside the hall with the crush of villagers. I nodded, grim-faced, at the anxious monks and tried to emulate Hereward with words of comfort and a cheerfulness I did not believe.

  I did not see Osfrith amongst them and recalled with a sinking feeling in my gut that he had been manning the beacon at the river’s mouth. Had he been found by the Norse? Was he even now being abused, tortured and murdered while the raiders laughed at his plight and ignored his pitiful screams?

  I shivered at the thought and pulled the cloak I wore more tightly about my shoulders. I had been sweating moments before as I helped the lay people and monks to climb up to the hall, and now I felt the chill of the night against my skin.

  Hereward called me over. Drosten and Runolf were with him.

  “Look,” he said, pointing into the east. I followed his gaze, but could see nothing. I did not understand. And then I saw it.

  “The beacons have gone out?”

  “Or they have been extinguished. Whatever has occurred, you must all take your places. They might attack at any moment. Go!”

  I hurried down the slope, slipping more than once on the wet grass. Leaving Runolf and Drosten with a whispered, “God be with you,” I ran on to where I would wait for the coming of the Norsemen.

  My sweat cooled on my brow and I shivered as the night drew its cold dark arms about me. I was close to the water’s edge, in a stand of alders and with a clear view down to the river. I propped my spear against one of the trees and watched as a thin mist began to form over the slow-flowing waters of the Cocueda.

  Silently, I recited the paternoster, all the while thinking of what might have happened to Anstan and Osfrith. I stood and stretched my arms and legs, bending and twisting my body. The plan relied on the element of surprise and my speed. I could feel the cold of the night seeping into my bones. If I was not careful, I would only be able to hobble stiffly from this place rather than sprint. I had been so proud of myself when Gwawrddur and Hereward had named me for this crucial role. I knew Cormac had been disappointed that it was not given to him, but Gwawrddur had confided in me.

  “You are not only the faster runner,” he said, “but you can hold your head when all about you has turned to chaos. Yours is the most important position in the plan of the first defence. You must hold your nerve and then you must act, and act fast. And,” he gripped my shoulder and gave it a squeeze, “run like the wind, as if the Devil himself is chasing you.”

  “Not just one devil,” I said, grinning at my own wit. “A whole horde of them.”

  That had been weeks ago. The days were warm then and the prospect of actually being here, hunkered down in the lee of an alder and watching for sign of the arrival of the Norse had seemed very distant. Now that the moment was upon me, I would have gladly traded places with Cormac. He would not have been as terrified. His bowels would not have turned to water and his hands would not have shaken like the leaves of the trees above in the stiffening breeze.

  But Gwawrddur was of course right. Cormac was not best suited for this role. He was possibly fast enough, but at the sight of the Norse, he might well forget himself and throw the whole plan into disarray, such was his anger. I hoped he would be able to hold his fury in check when the time came. Gwawrddur had warned us both that we should master our ire.

  “Your anger must be under your command,” he had told us. “For if you cannot control it, you will become the slave of your rage, and it makes a poor master.”

  I tried to recall the surging anger that had coursed through me on Lindisfarnae, but all I felt was creeping fear. The Norsemen, sharp steel in their hands and murder in their heathen hearts, would come upon my hiding place and sheathe their swords in my flesh, I was sure of it. I began to tremble. I loathed my own weakness, but the more I tried to convince myself that our plan would work, the more I shook. I gripped the haft of the spear and renewed my prayers. If I was to die soon, I did not want the Lord to think I had forsaken Him. I vowed that if I survived the night, I must seek out Beonna that he could hear my confession. I must not face the end without being shriven.

  The screeching call of a night bird in the distance startled me. I stopped breathing, fearful that the smoke of my breath might show my position to alert eyes in the darkness. Peering from behind the bole of the alder, I stared down at the wide, black waters of the Cocueda. The water was wreathed in wraiths of mist. The night was as silent as a barrow mound. I strained to hear any sound.

  A rising breeze caused the leaves high above to murmur a secret susurration. A quiet stealthy splash. Was that the fall of an oar blade into the water or a nocturnal fish in search of some insect flitting on the river’s surface? I leaned forward, listening for any other sign; a whispered command, the scrape of a ship’s keel against sand, the creak of
an oar against a thole.

  I heard nothing save for the pounding of my heart. I let out my breath very slowly.

  The screech of the bird echoed out again, loud and piercing like the scream of a dying man. I jumped and almost dropped the spear that was clutched in my hands like a talisman, as if the ash wood topped with a sharp leaf of iron could somehow save me from the horrors that lurked out there in the dark. I forced myself to breathe slowly. It was just one of the pale-faced owls that frequented the land and roosted in the church roof, I told myself. Or was it perhaps a man, imitating the call of an owl, signalling to his comrades that the coast was clear?

  I lifted the spear in my trembling grip and readied myself.

  A twig snapped loud and clear in the gloom. A rustling footfall, sighing through the leaf litter. No matter how hard I tried now, my breath came fast and it was all I could do not to give away my position with my panting gasps. The Norsemen were coming. Here, now, in the darkness. And I would be the first to stand before them. My blood rushed in my ears.

  Think, I told myself with an effort. Think and remain calm. This is the plan. It is right that you have heard their approach. Your sword-brothers are where they should be. You are not alone. You will lead the raiders to their doom and you will live to see the dawn. This was why Gwawrddur had chosen me over Cormac and I would not let him down.

  Another scraping step. Closer now, almost upon me. It was coming from the east and someway behind me, back towards the settlement. I could not let the attackers get behind my position. If they cut me off, I would be killed and all the planning and preparation would be for naught. Slowly, stealthily, I left the dark shadow beneath the alder and set off after the raiders who were passing close by through the woods.

  I carried the spear in my right hand, using my left to reach out before me to avoid stumbling into low branches. I took a few steps and then halted, listening. The sounds of movement stopped and the night was silent again. Had they heard me? I breathed through my mouth and listened.