The Harrowing

by James Aitcheson

  We would if we could, I said. We’ve watched him. He rarely steps beyond his gates, and when he does he’s always well guarded.

  That was when she told us that the very next day Malger was planning to ride to market to choose a hog for the feast, after complaining that the ones at Stedehamm weren’t fat enough and saying he’d get a better meal if he slaughtered Herestan the swineherd instead.

  Enough about the swineherd, Cynehelm said sourly. You said Malger will be going to market. Where?

  ‘Ledecestre,’ she said. ‘He’ll be taking six men with him for protection.’

  I said, Just six?

  ‘It could be more,’ she said, ‘but he usually leaves half his men behind to guard the hall. They’ll be going at first light, so as to get there and back before the day is out. They’ll be taking the winter road.’

  We’d all seen enough of Stedehamm and its surroundings by then to know what she meant by the winter road. It was the one that made the steep climb up the ridge rather than the track that lay in its shadow, which the last few weeks’ rain had turned into a thick bog that neither man nor horse could cross.

  The old fort, Cynehelm murmured.

  We all nodded, knowing what was in his mind, for we were all thinking the same thing. At the top of the ridge, a mile or maybe two from the village, the track passed a series of banks and ditches, which at some time in the distant past must have served as some sort of stronghold. An ideal place for an ambush.

  Pybba said it was too risky to trust the word of a girl. His arms were folded, and he was frowning. Maybe he was still sour that he’d been shown up by her.

  I pointed out that we wouldn’t get a better chance than this, and that if we didn’t take it we might as well give up. We put it to another vote. This time eleven were in favour, with only Pybba against, but he soon relented. And so it was decided.

  It was foolish, I see now, allowing hope to get in the way of my better judgement, but at the time I really thought we could do it. Fate had delivered this girl to us. And fate would deliver us victory. Of that I was more sure than ever.

  Eawen left us not long after that so that she could get back before anyone realised she was missing, although we insisted that she eat something before she went. She’d taken an enormous risk on our behalf, and we were all grateful to her.

  As soon as she’d left, we gathered our helmets and our shields, our swords and knives and seaxes and bows and axes and spears. We fastened our sword belts and baldrics and buckled up our shirts of leather. Our tents and all our other belongings – our packs and our cooking pots and everything else – we left behind, thinking we could come back for them once it was done. We threw water on the fire and stamped upon the cinders and ground them with the toes of our shoes into the earth, and then, under the cover of darkness, under a starless sky, we set off. We had some miles to cover, across fields and streams, tramping through flooded water-meadows, scrambling up hillsides with uneven tussocks and muddy paths that kept giving way beneath our soles. The fog was closing in and at times we could barely see our own feet, let alone who was in front of us, but somehow we kept going.

  It was still dark by the time we found the winter road and arrived at the old fort, or what remained of it. There was a short stretch where the rutted track ran within perhaps ten paces of part of the encircling ditch, and we chose that as our hiding place. Ten of us huddled down on the wet slopes, surrounded by thorns and bramble bushes, with the ramparts at our back, while Cynehelm sent Sebbe and Gamal to keep watch across the valley. They were to hurry back as soon as they saw anyone approaching from the direction of Stedehamm.

  We didn’t sleep. We couldn’t. We spoke in low voices, shared a little bread and ale and did our best to keep warm. It wasn’t that we were nervous. I wasn’t. It was more the anticipation, knowing that finally our chance had come not just to carry out the promise we’d made to ourselves at the start, but also to fulfil the duty we owed Eawen and these people. None of us wanted to let this chance slip. The fate of kingdoms might not have rested upon our shoulders, but we knew how important this was. We would send a message to the foreigners. The English people were not defeated. They would not simply bow their heads to the yoke. We would fight on, and so long as we did, no Norman was safe.

  Morning came. The fog still hung close. The skies grew lighter, and still we waited. Eawen had told us they’d be riding out at dawn, but an hour must have passed since then and there was no sign of them. No word either from the two youngsters keeping watch. Someone murmured that she’d lied to us. Wihtred, I think it was, but I’m not sure.

  Someone else, more charitably, said she must have misheard. Whatever she thought she’d heard about Malger riding to Ledecestre, she was mistaken.

  Cynehelm said nothing, but I could tell he was thinking the same thing as me: we were wasting our time.

  Pybba was asking how much longer we were going to wait when through the fog from the direction of the manor came the clinking of harnesses, the dull thudding of hooves upon turf.

  It’s them, said Cynehelm. He told the others to stay low to the ground and to wait for his signal, then he and I scrambled, as quietly as we could, further up the side of the ditch so that we might have a better view of whoever these people were.

  I asked, Where are Sebbe and Gamal? They were supposed to come and tell us if they saw anyone.

  They must have fallen asleep, Cynehelm said and swore under his breath, saying that he should have sent someone older rather than entrust such an important task to them.

  Malger was late, and we hadn’t heard from the two boys. Alone, each fact meant nothing, but taken together I couldn’t help but see them as signs. There was a tightness in the pit of my stomach, a tightness that only grew worse with every passing moment. Why hadn’t Sebbe and Gamal returned?

  I said, This isn’t right.

  He replied, You’re just anxious.

  The horsemen were growing closer. We pressed our bellies against the dirt, breathing as lightly as we could. I could hear my heartbeat sounding through my entire body as we lay there, peering out from behind a thorn bush, trying to catch a glimpse of our enemy.

  And there they were. Four shadows in the gloom.

  This should be easy, said Cynehelm.

  He was thinking that we had three men to every one of theirs, but I was thinking that they were missing at least two of their number. Hadn’t Eawen told us there would be six?

  No, I said to him. Something’s wrong.

  Enough, he told me, stopping me before I could go on, and in a way he was right to, because by then it was too late to change our plan. They were getting close now, riding at a gentle trot. Clad all in mail from neck to knee, with long spears in their hands and strips of coloured cloth flying from the shafts of those spears. I forget what colours they were.

  But not one of them looked like Malger.

  It was hard to tell, because of the fog and because they all wore helmets like the one Cynehelm had, with a piece to protect the nose, and so it was hard to make out their features. I knew, though, that Malger was short and broad of shoulder, with a round face, nothing like the riders approaching, and the closer they came the surer I was.

  He wasn’t among them.

  And I knew. Somehow, suddenly I knew. I could feel it right here, in my gut. Even as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the others sliding their blades from their scabbards, I could feel a wrenching, a twisting, a churning.

  That was when I heard my name. It came from somewhere beyond the rampart behind us, and it sounded like the girl’s voice. Eawen’s, I mean, but it couldn’t be, I thought, not all the way out here. I must be imagining things, I told myself.

  A cry went up and I turned, and suddenly there they were, Malger and his men, half-running, half-sliding down the grassy bank with swords in hand, while others stood on top of the rampart with bows, loosing arrow
after arrow into our small band. Wihtred fell and Thurgils too, and there was blood everywhere, over their tunics and their faces, blood on the frosted ground, and everyone was shouting all at once, and no one knew what to do. We were caught like eels in a trap, and there was no way out.

  At once Cynehelm threw himself into the fray, yelling at us to kill them, to kill the foreigners. They had reached the bottom of the ditch, where battle was joined. One of our younger men went down to a blow across the shoulder and neck and did not get up; I saw Malger plunging his sword into Pybba’s gut and ripping it free. He was whooping with joy, and I wanted to strike that grin from his face, to bury my axe in his skull, but there were too many men between us.

  Then, above the shouts and the cries of pain, I heard the shrieks. A girl’s shrieks. On top of the ramparts on the other side of the ditch was Eawen, and I knew then that I hadn’t imagined her voice. She was trying to break free from the grasp of one of Malger’s men.

  *

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Tova says. ‘What was she doing there?’

  ‘I didn’t understand either. Not at the time, with all that was going on. It was only later, when I was far away from there, that I was able to make sense of it all, that I was able to work out what must have happened.’

  ‘And what was that?’ asks Merewyn.

  ‘My guess is that while Eawen was with us the night before, someone noticed she was missing. Her sister, maybe. When eventually she came back, they made her say where she’d been. As soon as they discovered she’d been with outlaws, they must have gone to Malger.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘For much the same reasons as her sister gave, I suppose. They were scared they would be accused of conspiring against him. They were scared of the consequences.’

  ‘So it was Ymme who betrayed you, then?’

  ‘Maybe it was. Maybe she was right to.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why the Normans took the younger one with them that morning,’ says Guthred. ‘All she’d done was bring you food. She had no hand in what you were doing.’

  ‘No, but she’d spent long enough with us to see not just how many we numbered, but also how well armed we all were. Also where we had made our camp and where we were planning our ambush. I suppose they took her so that she could show them the way. Maybe they were also thinking she might make a useful hostage as well, if it came to it.’

  *

  At the time, though, as I said, I didn’t know how or why Eawen was there, but it hardly mattered. There she was, shrieking, limbs flailing as she struggled against her captor. His arms were around her middle, and there I was, with the ditch and more than a dozen of the foreigners between me and her, and there was nothing I could do.

  Run, Cynehelm was shouting, but there was nowhere we could go. The foreigners had us hemmed in on both sides: from the ramparts and from the track, where the horsemen were riding down any who scrambled out from the ditch. They were killing us, tearing us apart.

  One of the Normans came at me, his sword raised, but his mail and his shield made him slow, and I was able to duck under his swing and clatter my axe into his neck. His head jerked back and he fell, and I hurled myself at the next. I was howling with rage, seeking vengeance for all my friends they’d killed. Before he knew what was happening I’d brought my blade round and smashed it into his face, carving a gash from temple to jaw. His cheek was gushing crimson, thick and dark, and he was yelling something in his own tongue that I didn’t understand, and I was turning, stumbling over the corpses underfoot, the corpses that lay sprawled over one another, arms outstretched, legs crooked.

  The soles of my shoes were slick with mud and blood, and the ground was still hard with frost, and when I glanced down the faces of Leofstan and Eadbald stared up at me, their eyes empty and their mouths hanging open. Their bodies broken. Wihtred too, lying on his belly, his face buried in the grass, a feathered shaft lodged in his back, his tunic soaked and matted against his torso.

  Another scream from the rampart. I looked up at the Frenchman holding Eawen. Drawing his knife. Raising it to her face. Her eyes were wide, and she was shaking her head from side to side, twisting and kicking and twisting again, doing everything she could to get away from that blade, and she was shouting my name, screaming for help. Over and over and over she called out, and even now I hear her cries every night in my dreams.

  *

  He breaks off, trying to hide his face behind his hand. The tears are streaming down his face and the fire is reflected in his cheeks.

  ‘What?’ Tova asks. ‘What happened to her?’

  But she can already guess.

  *

  I don’t know if she’d seen me. Maybe she hadn’t and just supposed I was there, but anyway she kept on calling my name, and it was like a great spear was being driven through my heart and twisted, twisted. At once all the strength left my limbs, and I felt helpless like I’ve never done before or since. Another of the Normans was coming at me, and behind him was another, and behind him two more, but I knew somehow I had to get to her.

  She was still shouting my name, and maybe there was more but that’s all I was able to make out.

  Eawen, I yelled as I ducked beneath the first Norman’s strike and hooked my axe around his ankle, bringing him down.

  Eawen, I yelled again, and I hoped that over the shouting and the dying and the ringing of steel upon steel she could hear me and know that I was there and I was coming.

  She didn’t answer. I risked another glance up towards her.

  A bright line blossomed straight across her throat where the Frenchman’s knife had slit it. He was holding her up by the hair as she raised a powerless hand to her neck, and I was roaring, refusing to accept what I was seeing, but there was no denying it.

  Eawen, I shouted and shouted again. Eawen!

  He let go, and her limp body sank to the ground, the weight of her head carrying her forward, down the slope, rolling and tumbling, her arms and legs everywhere. Her brow struck a stone on the way down, her neck jerked back, and when she reached the bottom she was still.

  After that I don’t remember much. Things happened so quickly. I remember Cynehelm yelling above the clash of steel. I remember the clatter of lime wood and the shouts of pain and the Normans’ war cries and the pleas for mercy. I remember the hatred pounding inside my skull. Cynehelm’s helmet had come off, and his cheek was grazed and his nose was streaming and his lip was cut and his tunic was torn where his shoulder had been gashed. It was just him and another man, Tatel with the red hair, I think it was, against four of the foreigners, but he wasn’t giving in. He was swearing death upon them, striking out on all sides, fighting like I’d never seen him fight before, but there were too many of them, and I think he knew that his death was near.

  Run, Cynehelm was saying, over and over and over. While you still can, run!

  But I wasn’t going to give up the fight, not like that. I heaved my axe into the mailed back of one of his attackers, sending him sprawling to the ground, but just as I did so, another of them plunged his sword into Tatel’s gut, driving it deep, so deep that it went all the way through, and I was yelling through my tears. A little way off, where the thorns grew dense and tall, there was more fighting, but there could only have been one or two of our band left by then. They were surrounded, and I realised there was nothing I could do for them.

  Then I couldn’t hear Cynehelm shouting any more, and when I glanced around he was nowhere. And I knew. I didn’t need to see his bloodied corpse to be sure. He was gone. Cynehelm was dead.

  And so I ran. I didn’t wait for Tatel’s killers to turn on me; I just fled. I remember scrambling on my palms and knees up the side of the ditch, through the grass and the thistles, in the direction of the road. I remember hearing a voice and thinking it was Mal­ger’s although I’m not sure why, and he was bellowing something. The air was whist
ling as arrows spat down around me, out of the fog to my right and to my left, burying themselves in the turf. One came right over my head, and I thought I felt it graze my scalp, but I kept going, and then one struck my shoulder, and it was like I’d been slapped hard on the back. I’d reached the top by then and I almost fell, but somehow I stayed on my feet and kept hold of my axe, and it was just as well, because that’s where the horsemen were, waiting to cut off our escape.

  They saw me and wheeled about, then charged at me with their long spears. I ducked under the blade of the first, threw myself out of the way of the second, rolling across the hard earth, and then as the third came past I raised my axe, hooking the under-edge of my blade around his leg and wrenching hard so that he fell from the saddle. His steed ran on a little way up the track, and I chased after it, not stopping to finish the Frenchman off. My chest was burning and I was running like I’ve never run before, willing it to slow, to come to a halt.

  Eventually it pulled up. I caught up with it and swung myself into the saddle, and then I was galloping down the track. I kept my head down as another one, two, three arrows whistled past.

  I’ve never been the fastest of riders, but I rode then like I was fleeing the world’s end. They came after me, of course; I could hear them behind me, and how they didn’t catch me I’ll never know, but I knew that if they did it would be the end, and so I didn’t look back but just kept going through the swirling fog, following the track along the high ridge, away from the foreigners, hoping that eventually I’d lose them. Away from Stedehamm, away from all that death and all that pain.

  At what point I realised they were no longer behind me, that they’d given up the chase, I don’t know. It didn’t matter. For hour after hour I rode, hardly slowing, not once pausing to rest. The further I could get away, the better.

  The fog passed and the wind rose and the rain came, and I welcomed the hard, bitter drops as they stung my cheeks. They rinsed the blood, the grime and the sweat from my face and my clothes, but they did not rinse away the memories. I drove the animal on, through the rain and the mud, on ill-trodden paths far from anywhere, until eventually his foot lodged in a rut or struck a stone or a root. I don’t know what it was, but he stumbled and fell. I was pitched over his neck and thrown into a hollow by the side of the track, and that was where I lay, bruised and bleeding and hurting, in the cold dirt and with the rainwater pooling around me, for hour after hour, weeping and weeping and weeping. How long I lay there I don’t know. By the time I finally found the strength to get up, it was nearly night. My horse lay still and silent; I suppose it was exhaustion that did for him.