The Harrowing

by James Aitcheson

  That’s how he explained it to me, anyway.

  The smith was busy too: the sound of steel on steel rang out from dawn till night as blades were sharpened and dents in helmets hammered out and new links added to Skalpi’s mail shirt to repair holes and because he was a little wider around the stomach than he had been the last time he’d donned it. Provisions were set aside from the storehouses to last the men for a couple of weeks, since we had no idea how well supplied the army would be when they joined it. While all that was happening, Tova and I worked to repair Skalpi’s faded banner, helped by some of the younger slave girls, whose fingers were nimble and whose sight was good enough. It was a task for more pairs of hands than we had, but the other women were all busy mending cloaks and tunics and caps and shoes and everything else their husbands and sons and brothers might need.

  The banner had been stored in the same strongbox as his silver, beneath the floor of Skalpi’s chamber. In brown and blue thread, it showed an owl in flight with wings outstretched, but over the years the damp had got to it and caused one corner to rot away, while colours that once had been bright were now muted.

  ‘An owl,’ Skalpi said when he came to see how we were doing, ‘because it is ever watchful, because it chooses to hunt while other creatures sleep, and because it is wiser than all the other birds.’

  By the time he was ready to leave, it looked more or less as it was meant to. We had no brown thread and no time to buy more at market, so we used black instead, but Skalpi was pleased, and that was all that mattered.

  That was a sad day. I couldn’t bear even to watch as the band mustered in the yard. Instead I stayed at my stitching while outside Skalpi barked instructions to the men he was taking, fifteen in all. Horses whickered, men called to one another, and their wives and daughters were crying. I could hear Father Thorvald’s dull voice as he said Mass in the open and prayed that the Lord kept his warriors safe from harm.

  I didn’t want to see them. Most of all I didn’t want to face Skalpi. Eventually he came looking for me, as I knew he would. He held me tightly against his chest, and I wrapped my arms around him. Neither of us spoke, and the only sound was that of my sobs. He kissed me on the forehead and then on the cheek and lastly and longest on the lips. Then all too soon he broke off our embrace and I knew it was time. I thought about trying to sway him once more, but I didn’t. I knew it wouldn’t make any difference. All I could do was wish him well and pray that he returned safely.

  I followed him out into the yard, where he told Ælfric to take care of me and of the manor in his absence, and then he mounted Hengest, his gelding. I saw men young and old, some of whom I knew had seen battle before because they had the scars to show it, although most hadn’t. Almost all carried around their necks some rune charm or trinket given to them by their loved ones; each had a spear and a knife or seax, most had a shield and a handful had helmets. A couple had padded jerkins of cloth, a couple more had leather shirts. None possessed mail – save Skalpi, of course, and Orm, who was in as bad a temper as I’d ever seen him. His eyes were dark as if he hadn’t slept, and he had a look about him of such fury. He snapped at everyone who approached him as if they’d personally slighted him, and kept his distance from his father. I didn’t know if someone had said or done something to upset him. I had supposed he would be happy because he was finally getting his wish. He was riding to war, being given the chance to prove himself, but evidently even that wasn’t enough to please him. A part of me was glad he was taking his anger elsewhere and putting it to good use, but that wasn’t much consolation.

  All of Heldeby had gathered to watch them go. I stood with Tova and a few of the alewives and the miller’s daughter. Children stood beside their mothers, the younger ones clutching their legs, some of them wailing. They didn’t understand what was happening, what everyone was doing in one place, why they were all hugging and crying, why their fathers and brothers were leaving or where they were going. And how could they? I didn’t understand it, not entirely, and if it didn’t make sense to me then how could it make sense to them?

  We followed them to the crossroads. That was as far as Skalpi wanted us to come, so we halted there, at the edge of the manor. He told us to be strong and to pray for victory, and his gaze found me in the crowd. I can still remember the look in his eyes. Until then it had never occurred to me that he might be just as anxious as me. As I said, it had always seemed to me that there was nothing in the world that frightened him, but I understood then how wrong I was. Maybe no one else noticed it, but I did – a look in his eyes, as if he wasn’t sure whether he would be coming back.

  He must have realised what I saw, realised that he’d betrayed himself, because the blood rose to his cheeks. He tried to hide it by quickly turning away and raising a cry for King Eadgar, for Northumbria and for England. He rode to the head of the column, and then they were on their way. All the men waved as they went, calling out to their children and womenfolk, who waved in return, wishing them luck.

  All the men, that was, except Skalpi. He didn’t falter or glance over his shoulder. Not once. Not even for a moment. I suppose he thought that if he looked back others might see what I had seen. It wasn’t that he was proud, or it wasn’t just that. He knew that men were looking to him as their leader, relying on him to give them encouragement and strength. More than anything, he needed their respect and their confidence. And so he just rode on, his gaze fixed on the track ahead. I watched as they grew further and further away, until they were dots amid the haze: dots that became pinpricks and then were no more.

  He was gone.

  It was weeks before we had any news. When we did, it was never much. Often it didn’t make sense, and we were never sure of the order in which things were supposed to have happened. A battle here, raiding and hall burnings there. The king of the Danes had supposedly sent a great fleet bearing thousands of warriors, which had entered the Humbre and sent messengers to Eadgar to seek an alliance with him. He’d accepted and together they had marched on Eoferwic and this time had burned it to the ground.

  I know now that’s what happened, but at the time it all sounded so far-fetched we didn’t know what to make of it all. This was the first any of us knew about the Danes’ arrival, and we didn’t know whether it was a good thing or not. Besides, we had worries of our own: every week we heard stories of brigands and outlaws roaming the shire, taking advantage of the uncertainty to waylay travellers, to steal sheep and grain and whatever else they could lay their hands on, to extort silver with the threat of violence from stewards and village priests, who had no choice but to give them what they asked because their lords and protectors were away fighting. If they couldn’t pay or they refused, they were beaten or killed, and their homes torched.

  And so we lived in fear. Fear for our own safety, and in my case fear for my family as well. We used to exchange letters every few weeks, but I’d heard nothing from them in months. I didn’t know if Eadmer had also gone to join the rebellion; he was still young and I didn’t like to think of him standing in the shield wall facing the Normans. I was desperate for the war to be over, and I didn’t care whether it was defeat or victory, as long as Skalpi came home safely, and soon. Where he was and what had happened to him, I didn’t know. If he’d sent us any messages, as I kept hoping he would, they never reached our ears.

  In the meantime I looked after Ketil and did my best to keep him busy by teaching him his letters, although he was becoming more difficult as he grew older. More like his brother. He was a sackless boy, refusing to sit still for long, and was easily frustrated, but I persisted because I knew it was what Skalpi would want. When I wasn’t with him, I was helping Ælfric, doing my best to keep the manor running as it should, although the fact that so many of the younger men had gone away made the work more difficult, especially as the months passed and the harvest came round and we needed as many hands as possible to reap and sheaf and stook, to plant turnips and mo
w hay, to pull up leeks and onions and carrots from the vegetable garden behind Thorvald’s house. I was out there in the fields with them, with my sleeves bunched to my elbows, and my dress rolled up, helping where I—

  Why is that funny? Do you think I spend so long at my weaving and my sewing that I don’t know how to use a scythe or flail or winnowing basket? I might not have seen as much of the world as some of you, and maybe I don’t have as many calluses and my face isn’t as weather-worn as yours, Beorn, but I know what it means to work hard.

  As I was saying, the months passed and the seasons turned. It wasn’t until after the winter barley had been sown that we had the first news of the rebellion. The first proper news, I mean, because that’s when our men started coming back.

  *

  ‘And was your husband among them?’ asks Guthred.

  Merewyn shakes her head.

  Tova knows this part of the story. Seeing them again after so many months, the joy that turned so quickly to anguish, as she and everyone else abandoned the pails they were carrying, the firewood they were chopping, the shovels they were using to clean out the groops, and rushed out to greet them, only to see how few they were.

  Even now it hurts her to think about it. How Merewyn can talk about these things without faltering or breaking into tears, Tova has no idea.

  *

  No, Skalpi wasn’t with them. There were just four, and he wasn’t one of them. When I asked where he was, they looked at each other blankly until one spoke up. Ceolred the miller’s son, it was, although at first I didn’t recognise him because his face was blotched yellow with so many bruises and his nose was out of shape. He couldn’t have been much older than seventeen years, but he was hobbling like a greybeard, leaning on his spear haft for support.

  Ceolred said they didn’t know where their lord was or what had happened to him. When the Danes abandoned them and the rebellion collapsed, he said, all fell into chaos. He told me that one afternoon the four of them had returned to camp having spent the day collecting armfuls of firewood to find everything in disarray, men running everywhere, saddling their horses if they had them, abandoning tents and cooking pots, making for the hills. Eadgar and his huscarls had fled back into the north, and word was that the Normans were only an hour away, that King Wilelm was riding at the head of a mounted army thousands strong.

  They didn’t even have time to strike camp, Ceolred said. They just snatched up what they could, and then, like everyone else, they ran. They thought if they could make their way back home they’d perhaps find Skalpi here.

  Others returned over the next few days, alone or in pairs, all with tear-filled stories of the things they’d seen and friends who had died at Norman hands, and there was much grieving. The brothers Ubba and Uffa, both gaunt-faced, bruised and hungry. Hæsta the smith and Saba the goatherd.

  Last of all to come was Orm. He arrived on foot and he arrived alone, his cheeks scratched and cut in a hundred places, his lip scarred, his eyes dark and hooded, clutching at his side where his tunic was matted with blood. He still had his sword, but his shield rim was cracked and the leather facing flapped where it had come loose. He didn’t say what had happened to his horse, and he knew nothing about his father, except that they’d become separated when they ran into a Norman scouting party on the road home. He had searched for Skalpi but couldn’t find him, and he had feared the worst. When Ælfric and I told him that his father hadn’t returned, he stared at us for the longest time, his eyes hollow. None of us wanted to believe he was dead, but as the days and the weeks passed, the harder it became to deny. I kept waiting, waking every dawn hoping that would be the day when he came back.

  But he never did. Each morning the frosts lay heavier across the land. That’s when we first learned about the raiding armies that King Wilelm was sending into Lincolnescir and Heldernesse to root out the remaining rebels. Even then we never thought the enemy would have any reason to come to Heldeby, and indeed as the weeks went by we heard less and less about the Normans and so assumed they must have gone back to their strongholds for the winter, which was fast approaching.

  The leaves had long since fallen and the days were growing ever shorter, which meant Ælfric and I were supposed to be discussing how many hogs we should slaughter and how many cattle we’d be able to keep fed and so how many we should sell at market, and what price we might expect to get for them. But I couldn’t face it; my mind was filled with worry about my brother, and about whether or not my husband still lived, and so I spent more and more time alone in my bower. Tova would bring me food from time to time, and if she wasn’t busy with other things she would come and sit with me for a while, and we would spin yarn together, sometimes talking and sometimes not.

  After a few days Thorvald came to me. At first he seemed reluctant to speak and kept on fingering the cross that hung around his neck, as he often did when he was nervous. Once he saw I was growing impatient, though, he came out with it. He said he had been discussing matters with Ælfric, and they had agreed that if I wasn’t well enough or willing to fulfil my duties as lady then perhaps it would be better for me to allow Orm to take on those burdens, as Skalpi’s heir.

  I replied indignantly that this was no time to be talking about heirs, since we didn’t even know yet whether or not Skalpi was dead, and that until I saw his body I refused to believe anyone who claimed that he was. I’d convinced myself that he must have fallen into the hands of the enemy, which was why we’d heard nothing from him. All I could do was pray that they had spared him, although in truth I had no idea how likely that was.

  Thorvald wrung his hands and tried to soothe me, but I would not be soothed. I shouted him down and ordered him to go away, which he did, meekly in the end. That evening, though, he came to see me again, and this time he brought with him Orm and Ælfric.

  ‘Everyone is concerned for you,’ the reeve said. ‘As much as we all miss Skalpi, we can’t go on hoping against hope for ever. Sooner or later we have to accept the truth. He won’t be coming back.’

  When I heard this, I broke down, sobbing, sitting on the edge of the bed with my hair in my face, while Ælfric explained solemnly that I would keep the portion of land that had been set aside on my marriage as my morning gift, but Orm would become lord of Heldeby, as was his right. I saw the priest nodding sagely, and through my tears I caught Orm smirking. It was the merest glimmer of a smile and swiftly concealed, vanishing almost as soon as it appeared, and I knew he hadn’t meant me to see it. But see it I did, and it was all I needed.

  I rose and hurled myself at him, fists flailing, screaming all the most hateful things I could think of, every insult, every curse. Words he probably thought I didn’t know. Words I’d hardly ever spoken before. I seized his collar and shook him, or tried to, and for the first time said what I really thought of him and that he wasn’t fit to be his father’s heir. He tried to fend me off, but I was quicker and I slapped his face. At first he just looked stunned, but then he made as if to strike me back.

  Ælfric seized my arm and held it firm, and though I struggled I couldn’t break his grip. ‘Enough,’ he bellowed at Orm, whose hand was raised. ‘She’s your father’s wife.’

  He spat on the floor at my feet. ‘His widow, you mean.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ Ælfric said, ‘but she still deserves your respect.’

  ‘Why? You see how she hates me. She doesn’t respect me.’

  ‘Because you’re a vile creature,’ I said, and suddenly all those thoughts I’d never dared voice all came tumbling out. He was an evil child who cared for nothing and no one but himself. Skalpi had been ashamed of him, ashamed of what he had grown into.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about him,’ Orm warned me.

  But the weir had burst. The reeve and priest tried to calm me, tried to shout me down, but they couldn’t stop the torrent. And so I went on. How Skalpi used to confess to me his despair, because all Orm se
emed to dream about was war and violence and killing and glory. Because he refused to understand that a good lord had responsibilities and couldn’t simply do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Because Skalpi thought he had failed him and failed as a father. How sometimes he doubted whether Orm was even his own son, or whether Ælfswith’s falseness had led to him raising a cuckoo in his nest.

  Orm’s eyes grew narrower, his cheeks redder, and I thought he might again try to take his hand to me. Instead he just turned and went without saying anything, and I think that was the first time I ever saw him lost for words.

  I took ever greater care to avoid him after that, although it wasn’t easy. Whenever I saw him he greeted me with a stare that made my skin prickle. I thought about going back to my brother’s house for a while, or perhaps for good. When a pedlar arrived a few days before Yule selling wax candles and herbs and spices, I asked him if he might take a letter to Eadmer. He agreed, but whether it ever got through, I don’t know. From what he told us, in the wake of the rebellion’s collapse all order had broken down, and the roads were growing ever more dangerous. Everyone lived in fear that the Normans would come and take possession of this land, but most agreed that wouldn’t happen until the spring if it happened at all, and there was a good chance that it wouldn’t, if King Wilelm was merciful.

  You’ll tell me now that we should have started making preparations to leave without delay, that it was reckless hope we were clinging to, that we should have known that eventually the Normans would come. But it was our land, our home. Many of those who lived there had hardly set foot outside the manor bounds; as far as they were concerned, that was their world, and so it would remain until the day someone came to take it from them. And so we waited and prayed, and tried not to lose faith but to convince ourselves and each other that no matter how dark things seemed at that moment, all would be well and God would deliver us from harm. It was all we could do.