The inhabitants of the house were streaming across the square, the women herding the children away. Eight of the Danish invaders came into the square — big men covered in tattoos, the one at the front carrying a large shield with the design of a hammer on it. His sword was drawn and he was pointing it at the naked man, warning him in some way. Not friendly.
The man was oblivious to him; he was tugging at something in the shadows. It was an arrow. It would not come free and, as he pulled it, the body of the wolfman came with it into the light.
‘No!’ said Aelis, and the man turned to her. She threw her hands across her face and peeked out from behind her fingers like a frightened child. He gave a rasping cry of exultation as he saw her and leaped towards the house. The big man with the shield cursed and Aelis scrambled across the room. She lost all composure, knocking over looms, falling over bales, crawling towards the opposite window. She pulled off the vellum covering it and crouched to look down into the river. It was three times her height beneath her.
She couldn’t jump, couldn’t bring herself to do it. She heard the creature make the floor below, his footsteps light and quick. She put a leg out of the window but brought it back again. The drop was too great. She stepped back inside the room and glanced around her. There was the hatch where the ladder emerged. She tried to kick the ladder away but it had been tied tight to the beams and she had nothing to cut it free with. She looked down, remembering the wolfman’s warning to cover her face. There, just visible in the weak light of the floor below, was a face looking back at her, its eyes sharp and pitiless as a bird’s. At first glance she thought that he was wearing a mask of some sort, but as he put his foot on the ladder she could see his face was a network of tiny scars, as were his neck and upper body. It was nothing like leprosy — in places the scars were neat and defined, more like a large pin had dug into him than like the ravages of disease.
He looked up and spoke to her in Latin: ‘Thing of darkness, death bringer, you will not escape me.’
‘Who are you?’
‘A man of honour,’ he said and leaped at the ladder.
And then Aelis was falling. She had done what she thought she could not and gone feet first through the window. The water hit her hard, forcing her wimple over her eyes, blinding her. She struggled for the surface, her skirts heavy and tight about her legs. She pulled off the wimple and cast it aside. The water was so cold, ice meltwater from the hills, crushing the breath from her body, but the current was not strong. The upstream bridge on the south side had partially collapsed. The Norsemen had made an abortive attempt to pile debris, bodies and whatever they could get their hands on onto the ruin to make a causeway to the city. They’d been beaten back but had succeeded in somewhat stemming the considerable force of the river. The downside was that the water was foul. Aelis clamped shut her mouth to avoid swallowing it and struck for the shore. Her country childhood served her well — she was used to swimming in rivers and lakes — though her skirts were terribly restrictive and she had to hold them above her waist and kick with her legs to make progress. Things were smashing into the water about her. A table leg went over her head, then something heavy splashed behind her. She coughed and shook, turned and saw a stream of cloth from a bale flying through the night. Her pursuer had no more arrows and was throwing all he could find. She hammered forward across the river, went under, panicked, her legs pumping wildly. Then she hit something. Solid ground was under her feet. She made one last effort and got to the bank.
She didn’t turn, just kept scrambling up, her flesh shaking on her bones with the terrible cold. She heard the voice of the thing behind her.
‘ I dag deyr thu! ’ he shouted, and then in Latin, ‘This is your death day, monster!’
4
A Necessary Sacrifice
Aelis clawed her way up the bank. She was on the south side of the river, though she couldn’t tell exactly where. That is, she knew where she was in relation to the city but not to the Norse camps. The invaders were on both sides, though she had no idea how far their control extended.
There was still a clamour at the tower on the bridge. To her alarm, she heard the invaders were retreating; the bells had changed their pattern to tell the people the Norsemen had been beaten back. The screams of the fighting were dying and the men-at-arms on the tower were shouting cat calls and insults after their enemies, goading them for running, asking where their famous Viking fury was now.
The enemy would be returning to his camp and Aelis realised that she might well be right in the middle of their retreat. Men were moving through the houses and huts. She saw the outline of someone with an axe across his shoulder, another man with a spear. They could be Danes or they could be her people, she couldn’t be sure. As soon as the bulk of the Norsemen moved to the main attack at the bridge, the Franks would come in from the forest to worry their camp. The number of invaders was so great that no victory could be gained, but they could injure a guard, steal a pig and, most of all, keep a few of the Danes from attacking the city. It was too risky to approach the dark figures, though. Who knew who they were?
Some of the houses were even still inhabited by Franks. It had been a mystery to Aelis why the Northmen had not taken the whole south bank, but her brother had explained it. The houses outside the city wall were very poor and the people many and strong from labour on the land. The Norsemen’s numbers were great, but not so great they could be profligate. They would take the houses, he said, but on their way back. They wanted slaves but had no intention of carrying them upriver if they ever got past the bridges of Paris. They’d be an encumbrance to further looting. They’d allow the Franks to feed and care for themselves until they returned, then they’d take them captive. The Vikings treated the Franks like a cook treats his hens, her brother had said.
She looked up to the weaver’s house, her body still convulsing with cold. The feathered man had gone, but then she saw another face at the window. It was the warrior with the hammer on his shield. He threw the shield into the water and, in an instant, leaped to follow it. Then another man came to the window and jumped too. They were chasing her, and there were a lot of them.
She blundered forward into the darkness of the houses, running as fast as she could. There was another splash behind her, and a shout of complaint as one of the Norsemen hit the river too close to a comrade. She had to find somewhere to hide for the night, to spy out the land and try to find some way back into Paris — or out into the friendly country beyond — before the next day. Even that wouldn’t be easy. She had lost her wimple in the river and her hair was uncovered. The Franks were tolerant people and women could even travel unchaperoned throughout their lands, but with her modesty so badly compromised, there was a chance she’d be taken for a whore for any man to use as he saw fit.
She could not approach anyone male, particularly at night, but if she could find a woman of her own people then she could explain her state of undress, borrow some sort of head covering and stay with her until morning. Then, with luck, she could get back to the city across what remained of the southern bridge. There was enough debris there to make it serviceable to anyone willing to wade and climb their way across. The few provisions the city managed to get came in that way.
A cloud took the moon and the night became very dark. She made her way left, as she knew the Norsemen were camped nearer to the westernmost bridge. She kept low and moved from shadow to shadow, knowing that she could as easily be killed by her own side as by the enemy. But she still couldn’t see who had possession of the houses and couldn’t risk going in.
Then the cloud slipped away from the moon, the river turned to a shining silver path and she saw them — four men with shields in conference, two more heaving themselves up the bank out of the river. She knew that if she stayed she would be discovered, so she ran. She heard a halloo behind her. They’d seen her.
She plunged through the dark as she had plunged through the water, legs thrashing at the ground in an effort to
go faster, falling, rising, driving on. The men were fanning out, moving through the houses. She came to the edge of a wood, which she knew stretched up to the top of the hill. She stumbled in, unable to find a track in the dark. Again, the cloud was her friend, blotting out the moon and casting the forest into blackness. She went on anyway, trying to keep silent, to keep her balance, to locate a path, to move quickly — so many contradictory things to do that she achieved none of her goals. She fell for a last time and gave up any attempt to stand. She crawled on through the tearing brambles, the nettles that stung and the stones that cut her knees. The men were crashing about in the woods behind her. She heard a shouted word she recognised. ‘ Hundr! ’ They were calling for a dog. She was exhausted but had to go on. The moon crept from behind the cloud to reveal a trail, a slick path of flattened grass. She got up and ran to the top of the hill, and over the crest, shouting out in surprise as she saw the little fire.
A man stood up from beside it. He was small, squat and dark with a broad-bladed knife in his hands.
‘ Chakhlyk? Volkodlak. Lycos? Lupus? ’ She recognised the last two words. Wolf. He came forward, the big knife raised.
She thought of that terrible dream, and of the man who had tried to protect her, who had been a wolf, and also of the thing in her visions, that had said that it loved her. The thoughts never settled to make any sense, but perhaps it was her sensitivity that let her see the connection between the stout little man in front of her and the tall wolfman who had fallen fighting for her. Whatever, she was at his mercy.
She said in Latin, ‘I am Lady Aelis of the Franks, line of Robert the Strong, sister to Count Eudes. I am pursued by Normans and will offer great reward for any that help me.’
The man gave a smile big as a tear in a sheet.
‘You?’ he said. ‘Lady, I was sent on a delegation to meet you here.’
‘By whom?’ She put her hand to her hair, trying to cover it.
There were noises from back down the hill — barking and the cries of men.
‘Prince Helgi of the Rus.’
‘Then, in honour of your prince, can you preserve me? I can’t outrun them. Can you hide me?’ said Aelis.
He stepped towards her and put the knife up to her throat.
‘I am not afraid to die,’ she said.
‘Well, I hope there won’t be any need for that,’ he said. ‘With your permission, lady?’ And then he cut off a huge hank of her hair.
5
Voices in the Dark
The battle in the church had ended. The Vikings had driven the Franks outside and slammed shut the door but now they were trapped. From within, the confessor could hear the Franks assembling in the street, hear their excited cries.
‘They’re inside! They’re inside! We have them.’
The words of the psalm came into his head unbidden, but he would not say them out loud.
‘Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.’
That was in him, to call up the god of the Old Testament, the powerful, protecting, avenging god. Instead, he thanked the Lord for his trial and prayed that the heathens might come to Christ’s peace before they died. God’s will, he thought, was all-encompassing and to complain or show weakness before life’s trials was to rail against Him. If things were so, it was because He wished them to be so.
Around him the Vikings were talking. He knew enough of their language from previous sieges and from more peaceful meetings to understand them. The confessor’s ability with languages was remarkable. Norse had come to him as easily as if he had been raised speaking it.
‘We’re stuck in here.’
The confessor could hear the Norsemen pacing around.
‘How many dead?’
‘Of us, none, I think. No one here anyway that I can see. Has anyone got a candle or some reeds?’
‘Sigfrid’s men? How did they do in the fight?’
‘Four. Well, I think it’s four, it’s difficult to tell in here.’
‘It can’t be four. Only four followed us in.’
‘I know. Doesn’t say much for the skills of the king’s warriors, does it?’
‘One of them had a decent sword, though.’
‘You can’t have that, Ofaeti. If his kin see you with it there’ll be trouble.’
‘You’re right. For them.’
Ofaeti. The confessor recognised it as a nickname. ‘Fatty’ was the nearest translation.
‘You’ll have to give it back. I can hardly see in here. Are you not wearing any trousers or shoes?’
‘I’m not, no.’
‘Thank Thor it’s dark, then. Why not?’
‘I was just about to treat one of the camp ladies to the benefit of my expertise when Crow-Arse went up the wall. I didn’t think you’d appreciate it if I stopped to get my finery on before I followed you.’
‘She stole your trousers as soon as you took your eye off her, didn’t she?’
‘You can’t trust whores nowadays,’ said Ofaeti.
Another voice spoke. ‘No wonder the Franks ran away with that dangling at them.’
Laughter.
‘I can’t believe we let ourselves end up in this mess.’ The voice had something of a chuckle in it.
‘Following that shapeshifter was bad luck, for sure.’
‘He would have taken her if we hadn’t. And look on the bright side. We’re surrounded by so many that even you will be able to hit at least one of them, Holmgeirr.’
‘I blame you for this, Ofaeti, this is your god’s doing — Tyr’s blessing, many enemies.’
The voices were light and the men laughed as they spoke. The confessor recognised it for what it was — warrior bravado, but if it was an act, he had to admit it was a convincing one.
‘Let’s face it,’ said the voice belonging to the one who had been called Holmgeirr. ‘The one to blame is that Odin-blind crow-man we followed in here. Where is he now?’
‘He followed the wolfman and the girl.’
‘Oh, terrific. Kiss goodbye to the reward then. Helgi’ll be as likely to nail us up by our nuts as give us anything now.’
‘We might still be in luck. Fastarr and the others went after him.’
‘Let’s hope they skin the bastard if they find him.’
‘Let’s hope he doesn’t skin them.’
The confessor had not heard the next voice before. It was quieter and more serious.
‘It’s too late. The Raven will have her. He said he would.’
‘Don’t say that, Astarth. That girl’s worth seventy pounds of silver to us alive. What’s he want her for? Sacrifice?’
‘Nothing so fancy; he just wants her dead.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, why? When did the servants of Odin ever need a why to want someone dead? Perhaps he’s hungry.’
‘Oh, don’t. No, don’t.’
‘Fair point, though, isn’t it?’
‘I can’t give Sigfrid a pile of gnawed bones, can I?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well. It could be anyone, couldn’t it?’
‘Now there’s a plan,’ said Ofaeti.
The men seemed to find this truly hilarious.
Jehan heard the church door creak open, a shout and then the door was slammed again.
‘Try it, you Frankish bastard, just try it,’ shouted a Norse voice. ‘Come on, see what you get!’
The voice he had heard called Holmgeirr said, ‘Look, it’s as black as Garm’s arse in here. Get a light, will you?’
The confessor continued to pray for the life of the Norsemen’s souls and the death of their bodies.
‘Never mind that. What are we going to do about this lot outside? I tell you, they’ll burn us out. We’ll have light enough then.’
‘They’ll never burn their own holy place, that’s our job. Relax. It’s built like a mountain anyway, I doubt you could burn it. The worst that can
happen is that you’ll die by the sword.’
‘Looked on like that, what am I worried about?’
‘Actually, the worst that can happen is we get caught.’
‘I ain’t getting caught.’ It was a fourth voice, low and rough.
He heard the sound of a flint being struck, some blowing and puffing and then: ‘Hang on a minute, who’s this?’
A sword was drawn.
‘A beggar.’
‘No, look at his hair — he’s a monk. I’ll tell you who this is, boys: it’s our passage out of here. It’s their crippled god. It’s the god Jehan they’re always on about.’
‘Not God,’ said Jehan in deliberately bad Norse. He decided that the less the Norsemen thought he understood of their tongue, the better for him. However, the suggestion that he was a god had forced him to deny it.
‘He’s a healer, they reckon.’
‘Doesn’t seem to have done a very good job on himself, does he?’
‘Here, god, do my arm. Your boys gave it one hell of a whack.’ The confessor guessed the arm must be broken. The Norsemen liked to make light of their wounds whenever possible. The man wouldn’t have asked unless he was in dire pain.
‘Need to set it,’ said the confessor.
‘Can you do that? Do you have the skill?’
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