The fair girl’s hazel eyes widened. “That is a Christian prayer!”
“Elfwyn, come away! You waste kindness on an apostate Dane!”
“Lady, your menfolk have neglected their duty by you,” Niall told her judicially. “They should have birched you twice a week and set you to mind your needle.”
She turned white and then red, choking on fury. A sharp point pricked between Niall’s shoulders and a growl from Eglaf invited leave to go through to his breastbone. The fair girl shot him a glance of appalled respect and then, her shoulders suddenly shaking, hustled her companion to the door before speech could be granted her. The spearman retired frustrated. Niall sat down again. He had had the last word, and that he would reckon an advantage seldom enjoyed by those who disputed with the red girl, but it was an ignoble triumph. She was only a scared girl facing the dreadful end of her world with pitiful courage, and he wished he had not baited her.
The sun left the doorway and sank towards the hills. No brothers stormed in for an accounting, so the girls had kept silence. Serving-lads came into the hall and set up the trestle-tables that stood against the walls, and arranged the benches for a meal. Old Hild grew busier about the fire, with a couple of young wenches to assist her. Wooden platters and bowls clattered. A man brought in a great basket of flat bread-cakes and distributed them. Savoury odours overcame the less savoury throughout the hall. Niall removed himself from under the servants’ feet to a bench further from the fire.
The high table, set up before the two great chairs, was spread with a linen cloth, and boasted a few vessels of greenish glass as well as drinking-horns mounted with silver or bronze. A lad was kindling torches set in iron brackets round the room; outside the sun had gone behind the hills, and already the lofty hall was dark but for the firelight. Then a horn bellowed, and men came in and took their places, scowling at him as they passed. A dozen or more dogs slouched to the fire, snarled at the stranger and settled to wait for the leavings. Evidently the women and children ate in their own cottages.
Leofric entered with his brothers and sister, his pregnant wife on his arm. Niall rose in ironical respect and saluted him, grinned cheerfully at Elfwyn from his great height and asked, “May I know your names?”
'Why?” Leofric asked dangerously.
“To remember them in my prayers, of course.”
Leofric gasped. The second brother, who seemed to have some trace of humour in him, chuckled aloud and took it upon himself to answer. “I am Edric, this Cynric, our sister is Judith, and my brother's lady is Elfwyn.” He steered his brother briskly up to the high table before any dispute could begin, and Niall sat down and regarded the cooking-pots.
A skinny urchin solemn with responsibility served him Lenten fare; coarse bread, pottage of peas and beans and onions, and new-caught mackerel grilled over coals. He was furnished with a spoon but no knife, an obvious precaution. If a horn spoon was not the fittest of tools for tackling fish, it would not serve to slide between anyone’s ribs. He ate with excellent appetite, having many missed meals to make up for.
The talk at the tables was subdued and troubled. Tomorrow all would set forth to join Odda, and the most hopeful could not expect to prevail against Ubba and his host, who had brought down Kingdoms. Niall frowned at his food. If it were not that their foemen were his own kin, against whom he might not lift steel on pain of damnation, he would reckon it a just and Christian act to bear a hand against Ubba’s heathen horde.
At the high table they were watching him. He caught the fair girl's eye and smiled at her. He had nothing but goodwill for her; she was pretty and kind as he liked a girl to be, not like the red vixen scowling at him, whose manners needed mending with the birch-rod her brothers so lamentably failed to use. He preferred his lasses with more flesh and less ferocity, and discretion to keep their little noses outside men’s affairs, but she would stay in one’s memory when a dozen like the other had been forgotten.
Judith was not an English name, and it puzzled him how she came to bear it. There was Judith in Holy Writ, striking off the tyrant’s head, and his lips twitched involuntarily at the likeness to his fierce spear-maiden. But the English were not given to naming their daughters from Holy Writ, even if any but their ill-schooled clergy had been familiar enough with it to do so. The most notable Judith in Christendom was of course the redoubtable Countess of Flanders whose marriages had scandalized Europe, and the connection came to his mind. Once she had been Lady of Wessex, child-wife to King Alfred’s elderly father. Ethelric of Brockhurst must once have admired her.
There was no lingering over the ale when the meal was over. The women went out into the further room, the bower. The men gathered about the high table for final orders and then dispersed. The brothers joined the women. Some men went out to their own cottages, and the others lay down to sleep in the alcoves along the sides of the hall. The boys took down the tables, threw the broken meats to the dogs, and scoured the wooden utensils with sand and water. Then they put out the torches and curled up in the rushes with the dogs.
Eglaf took his post by the door, his spear across his knees. Niall lifted a hand to him in ironical salute and stretched himself on the broad bench with his hands clasped under his head. Draughts swooped through the hall. The wind moaned in the smoke-hole like a grieving woman—-a woman bereaved and ravished and sold into bondage. The dogs mumbled their bones with little cracking noises. Even when they laid their muzzles on their paws and slept they were a guard he could not pass; he could see ears lift and eyes glint whenever he stirred. The fire died to a great heap of white ash glowing dully at its heart, and stars sparkled at him through the smoke-hole. He watched them march steadily across it for a time. Then he sighed and reached for the blanket. He tried to shut from his darkened eyeballs visions of his Raven and his dear friends dead with her. It would be one of the pains of Purgatory that he had held his faith too lightly to try very hard to convert them, so that he could never hope to meet again their kindly ghosts. A dog growled as he rolled over and buried his face in his arms. His sleeves were wet when he at last found uneasy sleep.
3
Dark night was still on them when Niall was marched out of the hall at Eglaf’s spear-point and across the open garth. A thin, penetrating drizzle was falling, and the torches held by a couple of lads hissed and spluttered. Someone half seen thrust a hunk of bread into his hand, and he stood munching it, alert for a chance to break free. Somewhere in the darkness geese were cackling and honking as if demented, swine squealed in answer, and a horse whinneyed. The flares shone greasily on a shifting pattern of helms and spear-points, or painted faces to red and black semblance of devils.
Shaggy ponies were led up, some saddled and some bearing packs. The men gathered into a company, save for Eglaf at his back. Niall, still chewing, glanced back to the lighted doorway of the hall, that held their attention. Four dark figures came forth one by one, and the torches struck fire from three helms and one bare red head. Niall caught Leofric’s voice, low and earnest.
" . . . Ready to flee into the moors. I wish I could spare men to leave with you, Judith, but Odda must have all. But I leave our people’s lives in your hands with all my trust.”
“I shall answer for them with mine, Leofric.”
He bent his head and kissed her. “God keep you, little sister."
Her voice wavered and then steadied. “God guard you, Leofric. And—and be sure I shall cherish Elfwyn for you!”
The two younger brothers kissed her, murmuring farewells too low for Niall to catch, and followed Leofric to the horses. Beyond the circle of torchlight other women had gathered, and children too; he could hear stifled crying. A baby wailed in the unfriendly dark, and the mother tried to hush it. Niall stared at the slim girl standing stiffly in the doorway’s frame, her hair a flame above her dim face, and felt an odd ache in his breast. These men were going to death, and all knew it. They would die for Wessex and Christian faith, and only God knew what would befall their help
less ones, though the Devil would have the greater hand in it.
The three brothers, booted and cloaked against the drizzle, came briskly across to the horses. Now the sky was growing grey, and dim twilight lighting the rain. They mounted. Niall was prodded to Leofric’s stirrup by the over-eager spear and tethered to the saddle-bow by a leather thong about his left wrist that left him about a yard of freedom. He glanced up at Leofric, who stared grimly ahead. A little smile twitched at his lips as he considered the red-head’s foot by his elbow. A jerk and a heave would give him an empty saddle, and though his weight would speedily founder the pony, the woods would readily cover him.
He went meekly through an open gateway and over a plank bridge that resounded to the horses’ hooves. His eyes grew accustomed to the grey light, now that the torches were left behind. The scents of beasts, dung and woodsmoke were washed from his nostrils by a cold breath from the sea, mingled, as they moved along a path by the stream, with an odour of wet earth and rotting wood. He looked ahead at the black curtain of woods hanging from the grey sky, his eyes lighting.
Leofric leaned to speak to him. “My men reckon you a burden they would be rid of, Dane.”
Niall glanced over his shoulder at Eglaf three paces behind him. “You take great pains to give Odda my hanging,” he commented.
“If you prefer it so, we can find a stout enough tree to accommodate you,” Edric said caustically from the rear.
“I prefer to be hanged by the highest authority available.”
“And what will that gain you, beyond a couple of days longer life?”
“A more comfortable departure, since Odda’s hangman is doubtless more skilful than yours,” Niall retorted, grinning over his shoulder. Edric had said a word too many. If he could not contrive to escape in the course of a two days’ journey he deserved no better than to hang. Once free he would find Ubba. Though he would not for any profit join himself to the sea-wolves in ravaging this Christian land, there would be Irish Danes in his host who would know his name and fame, his father’s kinsmen or even men who had sailed southward with him, whose aid would be his for the asking.
His damaged thigh bothered him a little, and he was still very stiff, though that would wear off during the march. The thong at his wrist caused him no bodily discomfort, and he was not a hero or a berserk to value his pride above his life. A trader learned patience and prudence, not because he did less fighting than a warrior, but because he staked his goods as well as his life and had fewer comrades at his back.
Daylight came as they moved up the valley, grey and dismal. The muddy track climbed the eastern side of the valley in a series of sharply-angled bends that mounted more and more steeply. Sometimes, looking down to his right, Niall saw the stream leaping among rocks in cream-white falls and brown pools. Mostly his attention was needed for the path, treacherous with mud and rotten leaves and slippery stones, but always the water roared in his ears. The tall trees were naked overhead, but the blackthorns were starred with white bloom, hawthorns budding in a green haze, and sheltered banks shone with gold of celandines and cream of primroses.
The fine rain weighted his hair and short beard, and as they climbed higher the wind strengthened, spattering heavy drops upon them. The rain slackened, and when at last the trees dwindled and scattered it had ceased, and the clouds were shredding. Gorse-thickets and great rusty patches of last year’s bracken, beaten flat among trailing arms of bramble, stretched between the stooping trees. Sheep-tracks wandered in and out among them up the hill, that lifted its gaunt ridges before him.
The trees were behind them, and the bushes crouched to the earth, leaning all eastward from the sharp wind. The yellow-flecked gorse was mixed with ling and bilberry. A pair of lap-wings swooped and tumbled in joyful curves of black and white, whistling to each other. They scrambled up a last steep slope, and checked to let the horses blow.
The harsh wind bit through Niall’s damp clothing and tugged at his hair. It hunted grey clouds towards the low sun, shining pale on his left hand and casting a thin radiance over the moor. South and west it lifted ridge behind sweeping ridge; grey grass, grey-black heather, grey-green gorse, grey rock and brown bracken merging into the grey clouds that trailed the fringes of their fleece over the further tops. In all that wide desolation nothing moved but wind and sunshine, and primitive fear prickled the hairs on Niall’s nape. It was a land for trolls and werwolves, not for men. He resisted the impulse to cross himself, and waited for Leofric to move on.
The English troop gathered about the leaders. There were six and twenty of them, beside the three brothers; every man of the settlement, from lads of fifteen who had never let blood to a couple of hardy grandsires grey and cunning as old wolves. Only the Thane and his brothers were fully equipped with helmet and byrnie, shield and spear, and the swords of their rank. Some had nothing but spear and leather cap. He thought of Ubba’s host, every man a warrior fully-armed, and knew a deep pity for these untrained peasants pitting their poor tools against them.
“The lowlands will be full of raiding Danes,” said Leofric abruptly. “We go by the hills.”
He started south-east under the rising sun. Deer and sheep trails meandered through the heather and rocks. He threaded along them and Niall with him, the wet herbage soaking his hose and soft rawhide shoes. He spared them a dubious glance; he would probably end this march barefoot. Clouds blew over the sun, and rain spattered briefly and fled before them. Grey wisps of mist trailed over the hills. They were keeping to the northern edge of the moors, Niall soon realized, trending up and down long swooping slopes. In the hollows gorse and bracken supplanted the heather of the higher tops, and sometimes in the gaps on his left hand he glimpsed the pale waters of the Severn Sea.
When the sun stood almost due south they halted in a gully beside a tiny stream, sheltered from the wind. Bread, hard cheese, fish and roasted eggs were produced from packs and bundles. Niall was released from Leofric’s saddle-bow, and his ankles hobbled with the thong. He grinned crookedly, sat on a rock beside the stream and watched the patterns the water made as it swirled among the brown stones of its bed. Someone ungraciously brought him food, and he ate hungrily. Some four paces away sat his faithful guardian with his spear across his knees. Niall flicked a piece of eggshell at him, and he scowled sourly.
Behind him the three leaders were talking quietly together. By now his ear was well attuned to their speech, like enough to his own Norse save for an occasional word and the unfamiliar accent. His bilingual upbringing and his foreign travels had made him quicker than most at picking up an alien speech.
Ubba’s host swarmed along the coast, raiding casually as it passed up the great estuary. Ealdorman Odda gathered his men in the eastward hills, the Quantocks, and watched the fleet’s movements, waiting for Ubba to beach his longships. Further eastward still stretched great marshes, and in the alder thickets and bogs a desperate last handful of Wessex men had taken refuge and made war on Guthrum, descending on them from the hills beyond. Niall guessed at the plan concerted between the Viking leaders, and knew that if Ubba could penetrate the marshland from the west, the beaten Kingdom’s last defenders were doomed. Only a captain of great heart could have held them so long to futile resistance, and he wondered who had risen to that task when the King was dead and his sons children.
He turned to look at the three young men. They were alike as three blades from the hands of one smith, lean wiry men of middle height crested with living flame. He liked them all. He would have accepted them aboard the Raven; he could not measure approval higher than that.
The talk had moved to a geographical discussion that meant little to him, but he gathered that much depended on whether Ubba rowed up a river called Parrett, and where he beached his longships and set up his base camp. There was mention of the Ealdorman of Somerset, Ethelnoth, who was probably the leader of the last remnant in the marshes. It was a pity, Niall reflected, that he was unlikely to live long enough to see the outcome of that vali
ant struggle—but did he wish to see it end in blood and tears and fire?
Leofric got up, and with Cynric moved to the horses to examine a pack pony that had gone lame. Edric turned and came to Niall, who carelessly brushed crumbs from his tunic and mentally estimated how far he could jump from a sitting start. Eglaf lifted his spear, but he had already marked a suitable rock beside his loot to hurl into Eglaf’s face. Edric however halted beyond reach, and Niall glanced up at him calmly and relinquished another hope.
“You are one of Ubba’s great captains?” he said sharply, as much in statement as in question.
Niall lifted his brows in mild surprise. “No.”
“The truth will serve you best, Dane. It might even save your life, if Odda can use you as a hostage.”
“I am no more to Ubba than you are. I am a peaceful trader.”
Edric snorted. “Aye, you bear yourself like a trader, your gear was a trader’s, and you are battle-scarred like one!”
Niall grinned. “A peaceful trader in the Middle Sea,” he defined it for this untravelled farmer, “is one who never attacks. He finds his bellyful of fighting in defending his own.” He shook back his mane of black curls and plaited it roughly in his neck, looking straight into the disbelieving face. At a little distance or in a poor light his eyes seemed black, but in fact they were the dark blue of a young baby’s eyes, and, like the milk-white skin he inherited from his Irish mother, accorded very ill with his great stature and bold bearing. Their candid calm appeared to disconcert Edric. He glanced down at Niall’s hobbled feet, and caught his lower lip under his teeth. Then he grunted contemptuously. “A peaceful trader of course would sail out of Waterford into the storm, instead of biding in harbour until the wind blew fair!”
“Not if he had the choice,” Niall answered, amusement suddenly smitten from his face. “I had none.”
The Price of Blood Page 4