by Ken Hagan
Each woman walks out warily over the water, an arm forward to touch the shoulder of the woman in front; a way of keeping the gap between her and her neighbour. As they pass over the first few cages of willow, the women tip-toe in a cautious tread. A fish-trap on its own can’t be relied on to support two bodies at once. It might sink under their weight and break the chain of the pontoon. Each ‘water-walker’ has to wait for the woman in front to move on before putting her foot forward from one trap to the next.
Once at mid-river, the pace of the line picks up. The women begin to step lithely and hasten to the far shore. At mid-river, the downstream current strains the pontoon on it ropes, for nine ells of river run beneath their feet. But fear of a plunge into the depths is not what spurs them on. They have something in mind of more concern than safety — and of greater risk to their intent. Their mop-head torches flare wildly, and will soon burn through to the wooden shafts of their broomsticks. If the women of Rath are to carry out their task, they must do it soon, while the torches burn.
The first ‘water-walkers’, who led the way across, have reached the far bank; Shaynat hops on the shore and clambers up the willow bank, then Beyveen and Derdriu, followed briskly by others in line. Old and young alike have skirts cut short around the hips — the work of unwieldy shears — leaving barely enough length to cover their modesty. Woollen shawls, a precaution against burns, fly loose like capes from their necks. Women are crossing the river with flaming mop-heads held above their heads. If their shoulders were left uncovered, melting tar, spitting hot from the torches, would scorch their bare skin.
*
At breakneck speed — a furious assault — Finn’s rabble runs to crush our defence of the ford. Two waves of fighting men — one wave upstream against us — the other against Gil-Phatric on the stones.
*
Gil-Phatric’s front line of twenty clansmen is a scant offering to the jaws of the foe. The men of Osri, surrounded by Ostmen, outnumbered five to one, fall prey to butting stave and jabbing spear. Once downed, they are clubbed to death like seals on winter ice, or spear-spiked where they fall, like fish in the water. Not a single warrior from their front line is left standing on the ford.
Gil-Phatric alone untouched, sword-flashing amidst the rout, pays blood for blood, hacking down two men, then a third — poor barter for the slaughter of twenty men.
*
Around Gil-Phatric’s tall figure a second line of clansmen forms and Dunchad’s son calls on God’s name. He advances through the water, rallies and rails. Against the odds, his clansmen counter-attack. The men of Osri step over the fallen bodies of kin and foe. With Gil-Phatric at their head, they regain the stepping-stones; but their triumph is short-lived.
As Gil-Phatric’s men step up to command the stones, one clansman snags his battle-skirt on a broken spear-shaft rooted in a victim’s neck. Wrong-footed, the man totters headlong across his chieftain’s path. His clumsy, faltering fall drags three clansmen down, halts their advance, throws his kin back down off the stones.
The upset leaves Gil-Phatric a lone warrior, forward, exposed, separated from his men.
Barely four steps away from the young chieftain of Osri, Ragni’s spear plunges into the unlucky clansman whose battle-skirt snagged on a broken shaft. The spear-head jams in the man’s lower ribs. Ragni twists and gouges until his iron is freed. The spear-head loosens from the wound and draws with it a gush of the man’s innards on the stones. Ragni spear-spikes a second clansman, who founders in the water; spear-spikes a third at his feet; leaps over three men’s bodies.
At the stones, the oarsman of the Hrafentyr, wild for blood, turns to face Gil-Phatric.
*
At breakneck speed — a furious assault — Finn’s rabble runs to crush our defence of the ford. Two waves of fighting men — one wave against Gil-Phatric on the stones — the other, under Finn, upstream against us.
*
Finn has run twelve paces ahead of his men. Not looking back, he is unaware of the turmoil behind him. But we, who face him in defence, see it all. In an over-zealous rush to launch their assault from the rear, spearmen at the tail of the Ostmen’s charge, running too close, too tight, have clashed into others ahead less fleet of foot. No longer in a surge, but in tumbling disorder, they come almost to a halt, their rush to isle after Finn and their assault on us blocked by their own men.
The sure-footed among them side-step some who have tumbled in the ford — and resume a hesitant advance behind Finn. Not so, the bulk of spearmen in their wake. The natural urge that men have to avoid crush and panic — and the quick-wittedness of fighting men in battle to find their way forward, to find a line of least resistance — sends them careering downstream. If they can no longer wreak havoc against us, they will soon find flesh and bone elsewhere to blunt their spears.
And now a further enticement beckons them downstream. They can’t have failed to notice it: Ragni, at the stepping-stones, has almost broken through against Gil-Phatric.
If Finn but knew it, before an ounce of our blood is spilled, he has lost men at his back; and lost, with them, the swift thrust of his assault. Here, upstream, instead of the entire rabble of Ostmen he had started with, running at us, what remains is less than half their number: a thin line of spearmen, bedraggled, wet and bewildered, and many still on their knees in the water.
*
Finn, a wolf’s leap away from his quarry, his eyes set on me, sees none of the turmoil behind him.
Tioc Cahaun, not lacking in honour or valour, believes it his duty as chieftain to bear the brunt of Finn’s charge. Forward he stands across my path, buckler high, to intercept. He is shouldered aside. Finn lunges into me.
‘A gift from dead Dugfus!’ Finn yells through barred teeth. ‘Take this, you fecking bastard!’
Finn hammers his body into mine. The crushing impact throws me off balance, dulls the upward swing of my arm, un-hands me of the axe. To confuse Finn and avoid the spear I feint to the right, as if to retrieve my axe from the shallows. But in rolling left without looking, I end up on top of a man’s body — young Hrut Thrandtson — in the murky stream.
Above my head in a glare of sun, a mesh of wood-axe, hayfork, cudgel, axe and blade meet the first lumbering assault of Ostmen’s spears.
Like an upturned cockroach, unable to find my legs, I scurry away wildly on my back, keeping Finn in my sights — a blurred shadow above me. I flap and squirm like a startled eel. Finn follows me in the water. His spear is up. He aims at my head — waiting his moment — as a man does in sport to spike a fish from the stream.
Behind Finn, into my vision comes Dantzk. Sword-wielding two-handed, the burly jib-man opens his shoulders, arms raised, to bring down the broadside of his sword on the back of Finn’s head.
Too slow, if he means to save me!
‘Do it, Dantzk!’ I yell, but my voice is a gargled gulp in the water.
Finn will take a broadside to the skull, he will surely die; — but before that, on my head too the death-blow must fall: a shuddering spear-iron from Finn to my head or heart.
*
At breakneck speed — a furious assault — Finn’s rabble runs to crush our defence of the ford. Two waves of fighting men — one wave upstream — the other against the young chieftain of Osri.
At the stones, Ragni — wild for blood — has turned to face Gil-Phatric.
Dunchad’s son has wounds to head, to upper arms, to chest and legs. He is wearied — near the end of his strength — but the reach of his sword-arm is still to be reckoned with.
Three spearmen jab and retreat, baiting their man. First one Ostman, then another jabs and retreats, hoping to lure Gil-Phatric into an ill-advised attack, to an overreaching lunge, a sweep or cut that misses the mark. Fearful and skittish against the target they are baiting — bodies fallen around the young chieftain are the measure of their caution — they test him at spear’s length like timid huntsmen test a wounded stag.
Ragni leaps forward to join
the sport.
Suddenly from nowhere, a slight figure appears in the bloodied waters of the ford. Light of foot, no iron or wood in hand, the grey shape glides shadowy over the water, skips over bodies of the fallen. A woman! The shallows yield to her, the dead and wounded are her stepping-stones.
The figure is a woman, though she is dressed in a boy-herder’s tunic, too big for her, of scruffy grey wool. Leasha, Tioc’s daughter — wife-to-be of Gil-Phatric, future queen of Osri — has come to her warrior-monk in the heat of battle. She hurls her body in the air, arms and flapping sleeves outspread, like a grey heron in flight, into the unguarded gap between Gil-Phatric and Ragni.
The heron descends, her short flight ends on Ragni’s spear. Leasha slumps face-up in the water at the oarsman’s feet. Her heart’s blood pumps in torrents from a pierced breast. Her death-leap has blocked Ragni’s path in the water to Gil-Phatric.
The oarsman from the Hrafentyr scans skyward, a look of astonishment on his face, as if to sight on the wing another heron that will enter the fray against him. He sees the second bird too late. Shaynat’s tiercel, wings sleek to body, red-tail blazing, plummets down like a stone from the sky. The hawk dives to his prey. He lands, talons hooked on Ragni’s head, and gouges the oarsman’s eyes. Ragni drops his spear into the murky river, where Leasha floats in blood-red shallows. Hands on head, he is sightless, powerless against the tiercel’s plucking beak and talon. Shaynat’s bird clasps his prey until the oarsman’s body sinks under water, and then he unfolds his wings and flies away. The three spearmen, who had taunted Gil-Phatric, drop their spears in panic and take to their heels.
They are joined by a dozen others in flight — others who have witnessed the heron and the hawk.
The young chieftain of Osri makes a sign of the cross. With his sword he summons his third and last line of clansmen from the isle. He has seen Ostmen breaking off from upstream, like a dam bursting on a river; spearmen, escaping havoc and disorder, from the tail of Finn’s assault on us.
The Ostmen will not be denied a share of victory and spoils. They are seized by a hunger for easy pickings across the river; and by a battle-lust for women left abandoned, bereft and defenceless, whom, they believe, they will find waiting for them on the isle. They will break through where Ragni failed. Only a score or so naked Erse-men stand in their way.
Downriver the spearmen run in their rush against Gil-Phatric.
*
Dantzk, sword-wielding two-handed, opens shoulders, arms raised, to smash his blade down on Finn’s head. Finn will take a broadside on the skull, he will surely die; but before that, on my head too the death-blow must fall: a shuddering spear-iron from Finn to head or heart.
*
Finn sees Dantzk’s shadow on the sunlit water. He turns; shifts, shimmies and defends. He turns the spear-shaft cross-wise above his head, and blocks the blow from Dantzk.
Dantzk’s broadside batters the spear-shaft in two.
Shadows over my head block the sun. Finn slips in among the shadows — darkness into darkness. The shadows on the river are Finn’s spearmen. They have re-grouped. Finn’s spearmen are upon us.
The ironsmith from the Rath, with Tioc at his side, the wood-axe men, the gillies, cudgel-boys, and hayfork men; and Baldr, Fjak and Halp, with Kru and Dantzk thrust body and weapon against the second rabble onslaught. Gripped by battle frenzy, a blind fury to slog it out, to fight and live and see others die, they slam and slash and hack and hew.
In blind fury too — nothing to lose, for a moment ago I was as good as dead — I retrieve my axe from the waters and add it to the fight.
Water in the ford churns into the air, sends spirals of red mist spraying above our heads.
Reed-ford will be their end — or ours.
*
We yield ground in the river.
We hear Glun’s hounds — their howling closer, closer — above clash of iron and wood and water. The sound emboldens the spearmen. Discouragement deadens our feet. We yield more to the Ostmen.
Our cudgel-boys, brave lads, keep standing — I feared they might have been ‘easy meat’ for want of height and power — but they are tall enough for the task.
Hayforks are better for tossing hay than flesh. They were used once, lost in victims’ bodies; their unarmed bearers, greybeards of the Rath, now a torn mash of ribs and wrinkles in the water.
Dantzk down.
Tioc with a head wound. Ironsmith and gillies have pulled their chieftain ashore.
Gillies returns to the fray; a wily lot, they have resorted to spear-stabbing, they hold the spears short-shafted to conserve their waning power, a ploy of little worth, but for defence and retreat.
Hrut missing.
No wood-axes — or none that I can see — left above water.
Baldr’s unbearded cheeks are slashed red, his pigtail, like a ship’s rope twisted short, flips madly on the nape of his neck. No slouch in combat, he grunts and groans at each stroke, peevishly punishing the pagan foe, but only in defence of his life, always holding back from the final killing thrust, as though the victim at his mercy is undeserving of death at his hands.
Kru battles on, my sturdy mute friend; axe-wielding, his shadow lengthens beside mine in the sun.
Solidly shoulder to shoulder, but with each defence and parry, retreating to the bank, Fjak, Halp and the ironsmith — manful, unflinching, cunning, and quick — fighting in the water, but thinking of their feet on the shore.
We have yielded the river to the Ostmen.
*
Fires spotted on the far shore! At last! Our women are over the pontoon. The first to dry shore waited until all were across. They have gathered on the opposite bank of the ford! Flames reflected across the river on shadowy waters under the willows! Torches, fiery broom-heads held aloft.
The women of the isle are in the water.
*
Bare to the waist, their tar-dripped woollen shawls cast aside, the women of the Rath follow Shaynat’s loose-breasted body into the foe, burning besoms held forward, attacking the rabble from behind. They thrust their flaming mop-head torches into the backs of Finn’s spearmen, forcing them to turn away from us and face the tarry flames.
‘Go for hair and beards!’ shouts Shaynat.
Beyveen torches a man’s beard. He drops his spear. His knees buckle. He yells in agony. She smears the tarry flames over his face and hair. The burning man’s unguarded back is turned to Fjak — easy meat for slaughter, and Fjak thrusts his sword through the spearman’s chine.
Widow Derdriu, flesh-rippling, full-bosomed, heavy-thighed, swipes her besom flames to and fro, scathing a path through the bewildered spearmen. And as they gape at her ample, white nakedness, clots and sparks of hot wool-wad from her swathing torch fly into their tortured faces.
Halp’s laughter in my ears. ‘What a pretty sight she is for sore eyes!’
‘Hands off, Halp,’ Dantzk shouts gleefully. ‘That’s my Derdriu!’
‘Witches!’ an Ostman yells.
‘Witches with broom-sticks!’ yells another.
‘Fire-wenches from hell!’ cries a third.
Finn thunders at his men. ‘Stand your ground!’
He launches a fierce run at Shaynat who has led the fiery assault. He misses the target of her heart hidden beneath her loose matronly breasts. His sword-thrust draws a spurt of blood from her shoulder. Shaynat, wounded, drops her torch and falls to her knees in the water. Her torch fizzles out.
‘Look at her, you cowards!’ yells Finn. ‘She is only a fecking woman!’
Beyveen saves her mother from Finn’s second sword-thrust. With besom-head at arm’s length, she holds the burning torch to Finn’s black jowls. Finn’s thick beard, soaked by river-water, fails at first to catch fire, but his cheek sizzles, his brow sizzles, his ear melts under the flame.
Sparks of hot wool-wad cling to Finn’s beard, singeing it raw to the skin. Dripping tar has scorched his left ear to a frazzle, but Einar’s midshipman is untamed. In o
ne swipe of the sword, he severs Beyveen’s broom-head from its stick. The besom-head tumbles like a flaming skull in the river.
Beyveen stands stunned in the water. She brandishes the snapped end of her broom-stick — a paltry defence — it won’t save her or her mother.
Finn will slash them to death.
‘Hell’s teeth!’ The oath escapes my parched lips.
I quickly weigh axe-handle and axe-head; carry my battle-axe at the run.
We break into a jolting run, Kru and I together, bearing axes, my mute shadow and I splashing over men’s corpses in the water. Hopeless — we are too far off to reach Beyveen and her mother.
One crewman, pig-tailed, sturdy and lithe, gets to them before us.
Baldr’s sword-point is raised in defence between Beyveen and Finn. He threatens Finn, but only to defend. The midshipman sneers at Pigtail, sneers at his unbearded face, lifts his sword-hand to strike; thinks better of it and takes to his heels.
‘You won’t escape me, Finn.’ I yell after him. ‘I will follow you to hell.’
I don’t know if Finn has heard my worthless threat, but he pauses in flight and turns towards me. Suddenly aware that his beard is on fire, the midshipman wipes his sword clean, and on his cheek he dabs a smear of blood — Shaynat’s blood — to smother the flame. He beats a hasty retreat to the gravel-beds and through the reeds. Kru would have gone after Finn, but I hold back my mute friend, frantically urging him by word and sign to leave Finn in flight, and see to our wounded in the water.
Finn flees from the ford. He flees for his life. Once past the reeds — where scores of stave-men and spearmen join him in flight — he disappears downstream into the shadows of the river-willows.
Finn has abandoned his rabble to their fate. His spearmen have hurled themselves in the shallows to douse flames of tar on their beards and hair. The ironsmith and I spear-spike their writhing shapes. Using Ostmen’s spears recovered from the water, we cull them at will like a glut of salmon in the river.
Chapter 49
Gil-Phatric Mac Dunchad, victor of reed-ford, stands at mid-stream — under his feet the stepping-stones of an-Uir — where he stood against the Ostmen. The stones are below water, hidden by brackish waves swept in by the tide. The sea is in at the full, but where Gil-Phatric stands, the depth of the river, lower than is customary at the tide-head, reaches only to his shoulders. A hawk circles overhead and screeches at the water-meadows, as if to draw his attention, but the young chieftain ignores the bird’s call. Beside him floats the body of Leasha, his lost bride, her head awry in death, supported by his hand. Thick strands of her untied hair, lapping against him in the current, have wrapped around his naked chest. Leasha’s long tresses, more darkly red now, when wet, cling to him in the stained water, and take the shape of his body like a breast-plate of burnished bronze.