‘Look,’ she says. ‘It’s not far back to this hall. If we try, we can probably still make it before dark.’
Merewyn wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘All right,’ she says as she pulls away, breathing deeply, trying to regain her composure. To reassert herself. ‘But we tell no one who we really are. Do you understand? No one. We’re travellers – pilgrims who have lost the road and are looking for somewhere to spend the night.’
Tova nods. As if she needed to be told. She understands they need to be careful. She only hopes that the folk are friendly, that they have food and ale to spare, and a bench by the wall or a mattress of straw set aside where guests can bed down.
And then tomorrow, she thinks, we’ll do this all over again.
*
She knows something isn’t right long before they reach the hall. Night has fallen. Only the faintest ribbon of orange above the woods to the west. The wind has eased, at least, and for that small mercy she thanks God. Her hunger has gone too; her stomach seems to have given up any hope of food. All she wants is to sit in front of the hearth fire, to dry these damp clothes of hers, to warm her ice-bitten hands and to feel the glow upon her cheeks.
Except as she gazes across the vale she sees no smoke rising from the thatch, nor from any of the field labourers’ cottages and laithes that surround it. Not a wisp anywhere. And no smoke means no fire. Yet it isn’t that long since dusk. Surely it can’t be that everyone is already in their beds.
It’s quiet. Not a bleat nor a whinny from byre or stables; no goatherd calling out as he rounds up the last of his lord’s flock, nor the sound of a child crying, nor gentle music carrying softly from the hall. Only the owls calling to one another across the valley.
‘What’s wrong now?’ Merewyn asks.
‘Listen,’ Tova says, surprising herself with her own forcefulness.
‘For what?’ Merewyn asks, her frown darkening. ‘I don’t hear anything.’
‘That’s what I mean.’
It’s as if everyone who lived here has simply disappeared: flown away on the wind to join the swallows wherever it is they go for the winter, leaving their homes and all their possessions behind them.
‘Do you think we should go on?’ Tova asks. Her feet won’t carry her much further, certainly not as far as the next nearest village or manor, wherever that might be.
Her lady doesn’t seem to hear. She glances about, suddenly anxious. But everything is still: no sign of movement anywhere.
Tova asks, ‘What?’
‘I don’t know,’ Merewyn says. ‘Stay close to me.’
There’s an unwelcome feeling in the pit of Tova’s stomach, the same as the one she had when Merewyn woke her in the night. She can’t help but feel that someone, somewhere, is watching them.
She remembers the stories the grown-ups used to tell when she was young. Stories of the shadow-walkers, creatures that stalk the night, which were said to come when the moon is new, as it is tonight, to steal away children and livestock to eat or sometimes to sacrifice to the Devil. Tova never paid much heed to those tales; it didn’t take her long to work out that they had been made up only to frighten children into behaving. The closer they get to the hall, though, past the churchyard and the empty sheepfold, the surer she becomes. Something’s out there. A shadow-walker, in one form or another.
Enough, she tells herself. You’re letting your imagination get the better of you.
She keeps a tight hold of Winter’s reins as they approach the hall, which is built in the old style, like a boat turned upside down, wider amidships than at bow and stern, the keel arching towards the sky. Like the one at home, until it burned down five years ago and Skalpi had the new one built. Nowhere near as grand, though. It seems a poorer place than Heldeby; at most a dozen families must live here. Or lived. The roof of one of the barns has collapsed in on itself, while the cob is crumbling away, exposing the wattle. Hoes and shovels have been left propped up against walls. Pails stand half-full of murky water.
They come to the yard, which is bounded on one side by the hall and on two others by squat timber-and-thatch buildings that might be storehouses or kitchens or stables. Tova thought that maybe someone might have come out to greet them, if not from the cottages then from the hall itself. But no one does.
‘Where is everyone?’ she whispers as they near the well in the middle of the yard. She feels the need to be quiet, in case whatever it is that’s watching them should also be listening. The wind has died to nothing. Silence hangs everywhere like a shroud.
‘Stay here with the horses,’ Merewyn says.
‘Where are you going?’ Tova calls after her, but Merewyn is already making her way across the yard to the hall door. Taking charge. Her skirt trails in the mud, but she’s too preoccupied to notice or care. She hammers with pale fists upon the oak, calling to whoever’s inside, asking if they’ll offer respite to two weary travellers. When there’s no answer, she shakes the handle, but it won’t budge.
Tova glances around, searching the shadows. Whatever happened here, she decides, it can’t be good. As desperate as she is for food and warmth and rest, suddenly she wants nothing more than to leave, and as soon as possible. Out here in the yard they’re too exposed. Whatever was watching them before is still out there, and she doesn’t like it.
She’s about to call out to Merewyn, to ask if they can go, when she hears the laughter.
Laughter, and voices.
She stands as still as ice, hardly daring to breathe. There are people here after all. Not just one or two, but more like four or five or six. All men by the sound of it, somewhere beyond the outbuildings that ring the yard.
Ælfric and Ketil, Tova thinks. They’ve been tracking us all day, and now they’ve found us.
Then she realises the voices are coming from the other direction: from the north and west. So it can’t be them. Then who? Some of the villagers whose home this is returning from wherever they’ve been?
They’re coming closer. She can hear them muttering to one another and sniggering, as if sharing a joke. She can make out the jangle of harnesses, faint but unmistakable. That, and the clink of mail.
Not just any men. Warriors.
She looks about for her lady. Merewyn’s nowhere in sight, but Tova doesn’t dare call out.
They need to hide, and quickly. If they’re discovered, they’ll be entirely at the mercy of these men, whoever they are.
Taking hold of the horses’ reins, she tries to lead them away from the well. Behind the hall, she thinks; they’ll be out of sight there. Winter follows without complaining, but Merewyn’s palfrey is as wilful as her owner and won’t move an inch.
Please, Tova beseeches the creature as it tosses its head and shies away. Don’t play these games with me. Not now.
The more she fights with it, the more determined it grows. It has travelled far enough already, it’s decided, and will go no further.
‘Tova!’
She glances across the yard, sees Merewyn’s face pale in the moonlight, peering out from behind the door of one of the many sheds and storehouses. Her eyes are wide, frantic, as she beckons Tova.
But the horses, she thinks.
At any moment the men will appear; she can hear them just beyond the low barn opposite the hall. She doesn’t have much time. One lets out a guffaw that splits the night like a roll of thunder. Her throat is dry, her breath sticks in her chest and her feet are rooted where she stands.
‘Tova!’
Abandoning the animals, she pelts, heart pounding, across the yard as fast as her feet will carry her, the fear that was holding her stiff now driving her on. Her ankle sinks into a puddle that’s deeper than it looks, and she stumbles, the mud sucking at her shoe. She claws at the air, trying to keep her balance, but it’s no use. She meets the yard face first: mud in her hair and on her cheeks, on her han
ds and sleeves and the front of her dress. She scrambles to her feet, struggling against the weight of the dirt plastering her clothes, and hurls herself through the doorway into the arms of the waiting Merewyn, nearly knocking her from her feet. The blood is pounding so hard inside her skull that she thinks her head must burst.
‘Quiet,’ Merewyn whispers. ‘Not a sound.’
Tova nods, unable to speak even if she wanted to. Merewyn pulls the door to. Darkness enfolds them.
Not a moment too soon, either. One of the men shouts out, and the laughter and talking cease.
They’ve spied the horses, she thinks.
She holds her breath as she huddles down between her lady and a pile of unsplit logs. Small ones for the hearth fire or the kitchens. Bigger ones for fencing and staving. There’s no bolt on the door and so it hangs ajar. Not by much – a finger’s breadth, maybe – but enough to let in a sliver of moonlight. In the walls are cracks where the daub has crumbled away from the wattle: some needle-fine, others large enough to poke her thumb through.
‘Five,’ Merewyn says. ‘I saw them.’
‘Did they see you?’
Merewyn doesn’t answer. Maybe she doesn’t know. Her eyes are shut tight; her breath comes quickly and lightly and her lips move silently.
She’s praying, Tova thinks. As well she might. They’re trapped. If they try to leave, they’ll surely be seen. And where would they go? Across the fields towards the woods? Their packs are with the horses; everything they own is inside them.
One of the men calls out, although whether for their benefit or to his companions, Tova isn’t sure. Whatever he’s saying, she can’t make sense of it. It isn’t English, and she doesn’t think it’s Danish, either.
Which can only mean—
A chill runs through her, deeper even than when they were up on the high hills, and the wind was battering her and screaming in her ear.
It can’t be.
Moving as quietly as she can, she edges towards the wall that faces the yard.
‘What are you doing?’
Tova peers through the cracks, trying to catch a glimpse of them. She has to know. At first she sees nothing except shadows. Then she makes out the well, and the figures next to it.
Five of them, just as her lady said.
One is still mounted; the others are on foot, standing beside their horses. Each one clad from head to knees in steel. Their byrnies and spurs glint in the moonlight as if newly polished. Slung across their backs are tall shields of a sort she has never seen before, wide at the top and tapering to a rounded point. Gold-inlaid sword hilts protrude from garnet-studded scabbards.
One of those on foot has taken off his helmet. She notices his hair, cut close on top and shaved at the back. Not like any Englishman.
And she knows.
‘Normans,’ she breathes. ‘They’re Normans.’
‘Are you sure?’
No, she isn’t. Tova has never seen one before, even though it’s more than three years since they first came to England. They’ve never come this far north.
Like everyone, though, she has heard the stories. In her imagination she has always pictured them clearly enough. Dark featured, built like bulls, with eyes as cold as the steel in their scabbards.
Just like these men.
‘We know you’re there,’ barks the helmet-less one in clumsy English, as if he can’t quite get his tongue around the words.
Through the crack she sees him stride forward. He must be their leader, she thinks: he looks like he’s used to giving orders. Long-limbed, he stands tall, his thin face in shadow.
‘Show yourselves,’ he says. ‘We won’t harm you!’
He flashes a grin at his friends. Two of them rest their hands on the pommels of their swords.
They know no honour; they are the Devil’s creatures, craving only pillage and ruin. She has heard how they have ravaged the south, how they have built towering strongholds everywhere from which to keep watch over the land. But people always said they were too frightened to venture this far, that they feared to go up against the proud people of Northumbria. Even once the rebellion was defeated, still they hadn’t come. The weeks had passed, Christmas had been and gone. Tova, like everyone else, had begun to believe they were safe.
But not any more.
Have mercy upon us, Lord, Tova prays silently, sitting with her back against the wall, hardly daring to breathe. As if that will make them go away. God didn’t stop them crossing the Narrow Sea that fateful autumn. He didn’t lend his aid when it was most needed: in the great battle at Hæstinges, or in the rebellion that everyone hoped would drive them from this land.
Her heart thumps in her chest so loudly that she fears they’re going to hear.
This is how we die, she thinks.
She wishes this day had never begun. She wishes more than ever that she’d never come.
How long it is until she realises she can no longer hear the men’s footsteps, or their mail or the harnesses on their horses, she isn’t sure. No longer is there laughter, nor murmuring in a foreign tongue. All is still. She exchanges a glance with Merewyn.
Merewyn whispers, ‘Have they gone?’
No, Tova thinks. They can’t have. They’re only listening, waiting for us to make some sound, some movement that will give us away. They know we can’t hide for ever.
And then, on the other side of the thin wattle work, there’s the soft chink-chink of mail. Slowly, deliberately, one pace at a time, a shadow breaks the tiny moonbeams that shine through the cracks. Tova can’t breathe, can’t do anything but watch as the shadow passes gradually along the wall, towards the door.
It halts. Darkness fills the finger’s breadth between the door and the jamb. The small sliver of light is blotted out. He knows. He’s noticed the door standing ajar, and he knows!
Make it quick, she thinks as the door flies open.
One moment she’s huddled on the floor by the logs, shrinking away from the giant towering above her, the next his rough hands are upon her, dragging her to her feet. Shrieking, she flails wildly with fists and feet, trying to escape his grasp and his hot, putrid breath.
Eyes and groin, she thinks. Eyes and groin.
She lashes out towards his face, but his fingers clamp about her wrist before she can land the blow. He twists her arm behind her back as easily as he might bend a withy, and plants his other hand firmly on her shoulder. Merewyn flings herself at him, clutching at his arm, but he brushes her aside before shoving Tova out the door faster than her feet can carry her. She falls forward, landing awkwardly on her shoulder.
A chorus of cheers. She scrambles on to her back and sees the rest of them, and then the giant emerges from the woodshed, ducking beneath the lintel, all six feet of him and more. The one she took for their leader. Dark, hard eyes gaze out from beneath his helmet rim, probing her, stripping her to her bare skin. She’s seen that look before.
Grinning like a fisherman pleased with his day’s catch, he advances. She edges away, crab-wise. One of her shoes has slipped off. Her skirts are bunched up around her thighs. Her palms and one of her knees are stinging.
Nowhere to go. The giant and two of his friends encircle her. Hungry looks in their eyes. One more still in the saddle, but that only makes four. Then she sees the fifth, squat and bearded, dragging Merewyn backwards from the woodshed, his arm around her neck and shoulders.
‘Please,’ Tova says, though it’s probably in vain. Even if they understand, what chance they’ll listen?
Merewyn’s captor gives a yell as he shakes his wrist free from between her teeth. She twists away but doesn’t get far before his other hand catches hold of her arm. He spins her to face him, then slaps her across the cheek and pushes her into the middle of the circle; she wails as she slips on the mud. Eyes wide, arms outstretched, she tumbles towards Tova, who’s stil
l trying to back away when her lady collapses on top of her.
Tangle of limbs, of clothes, of hair. The breath is knocked from Tova’s chest as the heel of Merewyn’s hand slams into her ribs. As they try to separate themselves, Tova finds her face somehow caught in her lady’s cloak. She can’t see, but she can hear the howls of laughter ringing out. She feel tears welling, like a cauldron about to boil over.
And then it happens. A sound like nothing Tova has ever heard before. A sharp whistle, like the very air is being torn apart.
All at once the men are yelling, their horses shrieking. Tova prises herself away from Merewyn. She shakes her head free from her lady’s cloak and sees one of the animals rearing up, teetering on its hind hooves, the whites of its eyes gleaming. Its rider is on the ground, yelling as he struggles to free his foot from the stirrup where it’s lodged.
Again that sound. And again, and again. Shouting to one another, the men unsling their shields from across their backs and draw their swords. No longer interested in her and Merewyn, they face the darkness, turning first this way and then that. Something silver flashes through the air, ringing off a helmet. Another strikes the bearded man square in the back. He staggers towards Tova and Merewyn, before crashing to the ground inches from their feet. White feathers adorn the shaft protruding from his byrnie. His eyes are glazed. He doesn’t move.
Tova would scream but all the breath has been stolen from her. Merewyn squirms away, as if afraid that his corpse could still hurt them. Her lips move, but above the thunder of blood inside her skull and the shouts of the men, Tova can’t hear what she’s saying. Fear has her in its grip and won’t let go.
Another arrow. And another. And another. The Normans duck behind their shields, still yelling. Their horses are bolting back the way they came, down the track.
Merewyn clings to Tova’s arm. ‘What’s happening?’
The one on the ground has freed his trapped leg; he scrambles away from where his mount writhes on its side in the mud: a flurry of flailing hooves kicking up stones and clods of mud and turf. The giant who laid his hands upon Tova is in the centre of the yard, pointing, waving his sword as he bellows orders. And then they’re charging towards the long barn on the other side of the yard.
The Harrowing Page 2