The Harrowing

by James Aitcheson

  I’m sorry. I’m all right, really I am.

  What was I saying?

  How long I knelt there, I don’t know. Eventually I had no more tears to give. Only the sound of my own breathing broke the stillness.

  That’s when I panicked. My gaze settled upon his still form. Lying there he looked so peaceful, nothing at all like he’d been in life. His mouth and eyes hung open, not so much in pain, I thought, as in surprise. That was when it struck me what I’d done. What I’d become.

  I knew what I had to do. First I took off my undergown and went to the stone basin in the corner, which was filled with water drawn from the well. I splashed some in my face and almost choked because it was so cold. My breath came quick and short, forming clouds in front of my eyes, and I was shuddering, partly from the cold and partly from fright, but there was a voice inside me telling me I shouldn’t waste any time, that the longer I spent here the greater chance I’d be discovered. As quickly as I was able, then, I rubbed down my hands and my arms, trying to cleanse the worst of the blood from my skin, then dried myself with the blankets on my bed, before throwing open the kist and searching for fresh clothes. There was another shift buried in there, I knew, threadbare in places and frayed at the hems, but it was the best I had apart from the one which lay in a sodden pile by Orm. I found it and tugged it on, followed by the thickest dress I had, then my winter cloak on top of that and lastly my shoes.

  There was nothing I could do about Orm’s body. He was too heavy for me to move, and if I did it would do no good; there was so much blood. And so I left him where he was. Sooner or later they would find him. I could only hope it would be later, by which time with any luck we would be long gone.

  Maybe I should have stayed and told them what had happened. Maybe if I had, if I’d told them everything I’ve just told you, they’d have believed me. Maybe they would have forgiven me, but I didn’t know that, and so I did the only thing that made sense at the time.

  I fled.

  I gathered everything I thought I might need, and then I ran like I’d never run before, from the house along the path and past the church to the kitchen, where the servants sometimes slept during the winter. That night was mild, but I knew Tova felt the cold more than most, so I hoped to find her there, and I was right. She was curled under the blankets next to Cene, who was one of our best running hounds and had always been Skalpi’s favourite.

  Cene stirred first and began yapping, so loudly that I knew he would wake the other servants in their quarters across the yard if he carried on much longer. I did my best to calm him at the same time as I woke her. Once he saw it was me he stopped, but I knew that any moment someone might find us. I told Tova to get dressed and pack whatever she needed. Cene went after her; I think he sensed she was nervous and was trying to protect her, but I found some meat in the storehouse and put it down for him, and hoped that would keep him quiet for as long as it took.

  I saddled horses for both of us, and led them towards the bridge, where Tova was already waiting for me, and there was Cene again, at her feet, circling her, bounding with excitement. He thought this was all a game, and began to follow us as we rode away. I told him to stay, and God be thanked he didn’t try to come after us, although it wasn’t long before he started barking again, and whining, and barking some more. I was sure the noise would rouse everyone on the manor, and it wouldn’t be long before they realised we were missing.

  I didn’t dare look back as we made for the hills, riding as fast as we could through the darkness, leaving Heldeby behind us.

  That was the last time we saw home.

  *

  ‘After that we found Beorn, or rather he found us,’ she says. ‘He came just in time to save us from a band of Normans. He said he would take us to Hagustaldesham, to safety. And here we are, talking to you now.’

  ‘Orm killed Skalpi?’ Tova asks weakly. She can hardly speak. It can’t be true, she thinks. Please, God, don’t let it be true. Like everyone else, she’d long ago given up hope that he might ever come back. But to be betrayed by his own son . . . he didn’t deserve that fate.

  Merewyn’s voice, when she speaks again, is small. Even now, days after it all happened, still her hands tremble, and not just her hands but her shoulders too.

  ‘He did. He killed him. I know it. He wouldn’t speak the words aloud, but there was no mistaking what he meant.’

  ‘He was drunk,’ Oslac says. ‘Have you thought that maybe he didn’t know what he was saying?’

  ‘Mead often loosens a man’s tongue,’ Beorn points out. ‘And he didn’t deny it when you asked him directly.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing as admitting it, though, is it? What if he didn’t do it? Then she killed a man for no good reason.’

  Beorn says, ‘She was defending herself. What do you think she should have done?’

  Only the priest stays quiet. He’s torn, Tova thinks. On the one hand he doesn’t approve, but on the other he knows he’s in no position to judge.

  Tova asks her, ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this before?’

  Isn’t she supposed to be her lady’s most trusted friend? Like sisters, she said they were. There aren’t supposed to be any secrets between them. Not ones as big as this.

  ‘I should have said, I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think you’d understand.’

  ‘Of course I’d understand. Whatever made you think I wouldn’t?’

  Merewyn shakes her head. ‘An eye for an eye. It isn’t lawful. It isn’t just. What would Father Thorvald say? But when I heard Orm say those things about Skalpi, about how his father’s death was his fault, I couldn’t help myself. I was so full of rage that I couldn’t suffer him to live any longer. All I wanted was revenge.’

  She turns to Guthred. ‘God will understand, won’t he, Father? He’ll forgive me. There must be some penance I can undertake. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.’

  Absolution. That’s what she wants. All he has to do is say the words.

  But the priest doesn’t seem to hear. He sits, staring at the ground, unblinking.

  ‘Father?’

  Guthred looks up. ‘I wish I could tell you what you want to hear. But I fear that gift is not mine to grant. Not any longer. I can pray with you, if you wish. I can help you find the words. But I can’t promise you any more than that. I’m sorry.’

  She nods, sniffing. ‘I am too.’

  *

  ‘That’s not how it happened, is it?’ Tova asks later, when they are alone.

  The others are back at the camp; the two of them have gone together to gather more wood for the fire. The pile is getting low, and they’re going to need plenty if it’s to keep burning through the night. The rain has stopped and the skies are beginning to clear. There’ll be a thick frost come the morning.

  Merewyn picks up another branch and tucks it under her arm. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I know it isn’t true – what you said. About Orm. About what happened that night. If it were, you’d have told me already. You wouldn’t have kept it from me until now.’

  ‘Tova,’ Merewyn says in that warning voice that she has grown to know.

  But Tova will not be deterred. She will not be put in her place. Not this time. Even as her lady was telling her story, she thought that there were some things that didn’t quite make sense. Now that she’s worked it out, she’s not going to stop until she has answers.

  ‘He didn’t try to attack you, did he? All that about the lock on the door—’

  ‘You have no right to speak to me like this. To accuse me.’

  ‘Of what? That’s why you didn’t want me there that night, isn’t it? Because you had it all planned. He didn’t come to your chamber on some whim; he came for a reason. He came because you’d invited him there, hadn’t you?’

  Saying afterwards that she neve
r meant to do it. Of course she did. She knew exactly what she was doing. Tempting him to his death.

  ‘Don’t lie to me any more, please,’ Tova says. ‘Just tell me. You trust me, don’t you?’

  Merewyn hesitates and then says quietly, ‘I left him a message on a scrap of parchment. I wrote that he should come to my chamber that night after everyone else was asleep.’

  ‘You deceived him. You lured him with false promises so that you could kill him.’

  ‘No!’ Merewyn protests. ‘I mean, it wasn’t as simple as that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I did it so that I could find out the truth. About what happened to Skalpi. A part of me had long suspected, I suppose, ever since Orm returned. It was a feeling I had, nothing more than that. Not until that day when they took Heldeby from me and gave it to him, and I saw that hateful smirk on his face. Then I started putting things together. Why, when I said how Skalpi wasn’t sure if Orm was his own son, he acted as he did. Because he’d guessed it himself, long ago. He knew that if Skalpi ever disowned him, by claiming he wasn’t of his blood, then he’d lose all right to Heldeby. And that’s why he did it. Not just because he hated Skalpi, but to make sure he didn’t come back. To make sure that no one ever found out.’

  ‘It was true, then?’ Tova asks.

  ‘Maybe it was. Who knows? Skalpi had wondered ever since he cast Ælfswith out. The longer their quarrels went on, the greater his doubts grew.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean Orm killed him, though.’

  ‘That’s why, before I did anything, I had to be sure. I knew he’d never admit the truth normally, but I thought that if I gave in to him, if I could gain his confidence, then he would tell me.’

  And Tova understands. ‘No,’ she says under her breath. ‘You didn’t. You can’t have.’

  She can’t say it. She doesn’t even want to think it.

  Merewyn’s back is turned. ‘I did. Yes, I did. It makes me sick to think about it. But it was all I could do. I needed the truth.’

  Tova wants to retch. The thought that Merewyn might willingly have offered herself, allowed him to . . .

  ‘And did he really say those things?’

  Merewyn nods.

  ‘You could have told me. You could always have told me, even if you didn’t want the others to know.’

  ‘I was frightened of what you might think. I wanted you to see that I didn’t have any choice.’

  ‘You were frightened of what I might think?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to think badly of me. That’s why I lied. It was wrong, I know. I ought to have told you everything from the start, but I was ashamed. Can you forgive me?’

  For what? For trying to hide the truth from her? Or for the things that she did?

  ‘It’s all right,’ Tova says, to reassure herself as much as Merewyn. The words sound as if someone else is speaking them. ‘I forgive you.’

  *

  But it isn’t all right.

  Hours later the thought of it continues to eat away at her. She can’t settle. She can’t sleep. She turns over and over, coiled tightly inside her blankets, trying to rid her mind of the pictures that keep forming, unbidden.

  It isn’t that she feels sorry for Orm. She had as much reason to hate him as Merewyn. It might have been the right thing to do. It might have been only what he deserved. God will judge, she supposes, when the end comes.

  Why, then, does she feel so uneasy? Because she never thought her lady capable of such trickery? Or because she isn’t, after all, the person that Tova thought she was?

  She can imagine how it would have happened. It would have happened something like this.

  He enters, flagon in hand, just like her lady described, except that Merewyn is expecting him, waiting by the top of the stairs, listening for the sound of the door and for the creak of the floorboards under his feet. The smell of drink on his breath as she greets and kisses him. Shyly she leads him in the darkness across her chamber towards her bed. The smile of surprise and puzzlement and triumph as he follows, his mind so dulled by ale that he doesn’t question why as they shed their clothes. She tells him she didn’t mean the things she said about him before, that she has been foolish, that she wants to show him how sorry she is. He knows that, doesn’t he?

  He says that he does. But he will say anything.

  Afterwards, she tells him that she’d wanted him for such a long time, but that as long as Skalpi was alive, as long as there was a chance that he might yet come back, she couldn’t afford to let her real feelings show.

  He never loved you, he murmurs, his words slurred. He lies beside her upon the bed, face buried in the sheets, the sweat on his skin glistening in the candlelight. He never loved you like I love you, he goes on. He never deserved you. He never cared for you as a man should.

  She tells him she knows. She says that she understands now. She asks him baldly, Skalpi isn’t coming back, is he?

  No, he says. No, he isn’t.

  That’s what she’s been waiting to hear. Her trembling hand reaches up past her head. Slowly, quietly, so that she doesn’t disturb him. Sliding underneath the pillow until she can feel the hilt. Her fingers curl around it.

  Trying to keep her voice as even and as gentle as possible, she asks, What do you mean? How do you know?

  But she already knows. She made up her mind long ago. And she’s ready. She draws the blade out and sits up.

  It was me, he says. There was never any scouting party. It was me. It’s my fault that he’s dead.

  She waits until he’s asleep, insensible with drink, snoring softly. And she takes the knife in both hands. And she kneels over him. And she summons all her strength, all her anger. And she plunges it down into his back, through the back of his ribs. And again. And again. Driving it home until it is buried all the way up to the hilt.

  And he lies as still as stone.

  To take a man’s life in desperation, out of fear for one’s own safety, that’s one thing. To take that same life coldly, out of hatred, that is something else entirely.

  Merewyn was always so good, so pure. Someone to be looked up to. Virtuous and honest. Strong in her own quiet way. Incapable of malice or of harm.

  So she used to think, anyway.

  Now she isn’t so sure.

  Fourth Day

  They rise early, in the chill grey half-light that comes before dawn. There’s a ford a mile upriver from their camp, says Beorn, who’s been up for some hours already, riding on and back to check whether the way ahead is safe. No sign of the enemy. As long as they keep moving, they’ll be all right.

  A glimmer of light as they lead the horses down the muddy, crumbling path towards the river. The very sky aflame. The clouds lit from below in searing orange, on top as black as charcoal. A sea of marsh mist. Hills rise as islands out of the thick murk. Lost amid those swirling wispy veils is the sun’s feeble disc, too craven and timid to show itself fully.

  Tova slips off her shoes and puts them inside her pack and tucks her skirts into her belt, where they’ll be out of her way. The last thing she needs is to get them wet. She curses as she tests the water with her toes, but there is nothing for it. Beorn and Oslac are beckoning her on, and behind her Merewyn and Guthred are waiting. The river is high and swift-coursing, rising more than halfway to Tova’s knees. She tugs on Winter’s reins, urging her on. The riverbed is thick with mud which sucks at her soles, forcing her to tread carefully. She grits her teeth against the biting cold. One step, then another, then another. By the time she reaches the other side she can hardly feel her legs, they’re so numb; it’s a wonder her toes haven’t dropped off. She’s seen it happen: a decrepit pedlar that Ælfric found out by the crossroads after a blizzard. Barely alive when they brought him into the hall, his lips were blue and his fingers and toes purple, turning soon to black as they withered away
. He lived, but he was lucky.

  They pause on the north bank to dry themselves off and let the feeling return to their limbs, but they don’t dare tarry for long. By the time they’re on their way the sun has disappeared again into the grey. Tova wonders how many more dawns she’ll get the chance to see.

  *

  Three more days, maybe four. That’s how long Beorn reckons it will take them to reach Hagustaldesham. If they move quickly. And they’re going to have to.

  ‘The wind’s changing,’ he says as he pauses to look up at the sky. ‘Colder weather to come. There could be snow on the way.’

  ‘How soon?’ Guthred asks.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Tomorrow, maybe, or the day after. It’s a feeling I have, that’s all. Just as in summer you can sense a storm in the air. You can feel it on your skin long before it arrives. It’s like that. If you spend any time at sea, as I’ve done, you learn to recognise the signs.’

  ‘You didn’t tell us you’d been to sea,’ Tova says.

  ‘I’ve been to lots of places.’

  She has only seen the sea once in her life, although of course she has heard many songs and stories about ships and the beasts of the deep, and the lands that lie across the water, and the strange and wonderful creatures that live there. What it must be like to be out there on the vast, open whale road, she can’t begin to imagine.

  ‘Have you been to Miklagard?’

  ‘Not Miklagard, no. Never that far.’

  ‘Where, then?’

  She wants to know more about these faraway places she’s heard of, but this time from someone who has actually seen them with his own eyes.

  ‘Yrland and Ysland. Orkaneya. The kingdom of the Danes. Sometimes to the lands of the Moors.’

  ‘They say that the Moors have skin that’s as black as coal,’ she says. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Not quite. Not the ones I’ve seen, anyway. But dark. Much darker than you or I or anyone living in England.’