The Harrowing

by James Aitcheson

‘Listen to him, Father,’ Merewyn says. ‘Think about it. If you die then you won’t be able to atone, will you?’

  ‘Atone?’ Wulfnoth asks, laughing. ‘Do you really think the Lord will forgive you after everything you’ve done?’

  Just do it, Tova implores silently. Please, for our sakes, just let him have what he wants. God will understand, won’t he?

  Beorn gestures towards Guthred. The priest hesitates before reluctantly passing the strap of the scrip over his head and handing it to him. Beorn tosses it across to the bank where Wulfnoth and his friend are standing. It lands with a dull thud and a clatter of metal.

  ‘There,’ he says. ‘You have what you came for.’

  Wulfnoth picks it up and loosens the drawstring. He casts a brief look inside before letting it fall at his feet. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘What?’ Beorn glances at Guthred. ‘It’s all there, isn’t it?’

  Wulfnoth gives a snort. ‘Do you think we’ve ridden all this way just to take back a few shiny trinkets and a worthless bundle of parchment? We want Guthred. Hand him over to us and then you can go.’

  ‘Guthred?’ Tova asks. ‘Why?’

  ‘He knows why,’ shouts the woman, Gytha, from the other bank. She stands under the trees, in shadow, all but hidden. ‘He betrayed us. We trusted him and he betrayed that trust. He stole from us.’

  ‘You crossed me, Guthred,’ Wulfnoth says. ‘You crossed me twice. You made my life a misery. You took everything from me. But you can’t run any longer.’

  He takes a step forward, then another. He walks with a limp, but at the same time with an air of confidence, as if he has mastery of the world and everything in it, and there is nothing that frightens him.

  Silvery hair, thinning on top. Ears protruding from the side of his head. Those ridiculous ears, Guthred said. They don’t look so ridiculous now.

  Behind Wulfnoth is possibly the tallest man Tova has ever seen. Taller even than the Norman giant Beorn slew that night when they met him. This one, though, is beanpole-thin. In his hand is a sword, the blade of which is long and narrow to match his build. She tries to remember what the priest said was his name. Cuffa? Was that it?

  They step down towards the water’s edge. At once Beorn’s axe is in his hand. He drops his pack, lets it slide from his shoulders. It falls into the river.

  ‘Don’t come any closer,’ he says. ‘You have the book, the silver. Everything. You don’t need him as well.’

  ‘You’re defending him? That worthless turd, that stinking piece of goat filth? Hasn’t he told you who he is? Hasn’t he told you what he’s done?’

  Merewyn shouts, ‘He’s told us enough. He’s told us about all of you.’

  ‘And you believed him?’ asks Gytha. Now out of the shadows, she spits noisily on the ground at her feet. Dressed in tunic and trews, and with her hair cut so short she might easily be mistaken for a man, were it not for the shape of her face and the pitch of her voice.

  Tova stares at her, half in wonderment and half in shock. When Guthred first mentioned Gytha, she couldn’t help but be intrigued. Now that she sees her with her own eyes, the feeling she has is closer to revulsion.

  ‘Whatever he told you, he was lying,’ Gytha goes on. She spits the words rather than speaks them. ‘His head is so full of shit he doesn’t even know what he’s saying. You can’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth. He’ll tell you one thing and then deny it a moment later. He’s nothing but a worm. A mawk, that’s what he is, a spineless, slimy, dirty, squirming—’

  ‘That’s enough, Gytha,’ Wulfnoth says. ‘And you can put your axe away, you there. The big fellow. Our business is with Guthred, not with you. If he gives himself up, then we’ll leave you alone. On that you have my word.’

  ‘Your word?’ Merewyn echoes. She sounds like she is about to laugh or cry, or maybe both at the same time.

  Tova sees Gytha make a signal to the mute one with rapid flicks of her hands, tapping first the side of her head and then her chest. He nods, following her as she advances, still keeping to the riverbank but nearly at the water’s edge now. He isn’t as tall as the other men, but he has a blacksmith’s arms and a neck like a tree trunk.

  Both Guthred and Merewyn edge away from them towards the middle of the stream. Winter shifts restlessly; Tova holds tightly to the reins. The animal knows that something isn’t right and she’s impatient to get going again.

  Please, Tova prays. Don’t let there be bloodshed. There has to be some other way to settle things. A way that doesn’t need weapons.

  ‘What’s it going to be, Guthred?’ Wulfnoth calls. ‘Are you going to come willingly to your fate and save these good people, these new friends of yours, from any trouble? Or are we going to have to drag you?’

  The priest stares back at him with empty eyes, his mouth agape.

  ‘If you want him,’ Beorn says, ‘then come and take him. But you’ll have to kill me first.’

  No, no, no, no, thinks Tova. This isn’t the way. It can’t be. Don’t you see? Wulfnoth and his band will stop at nothing. They don’t care what they have to do to get what they want. That’s the kind of people they are.

  That’s what she wants to say, but the breath catches in her chest and her tongue, like the rest of her, is frozen.

  Wulfnoth exchanges a glance with the tall man next to him, then says loudly, ‘Put down your weapon and hand Guthred over to us. I won’t ask again.’

  This time the edge in his voice is unmistakable.

  This is it, Tova thinks. This is how it ends. This is how we die. At the hands not of the Normans but of wretched oath breakers and desperate outcasts. The dregs of mankind, the basest of all God’s creatures.

  ‘Beorn,’ says Guthred in a small voice. ‘Don’t do this. It’s all right. I know what I have to do.’

  ‘Stay exactly where you are,’ the warrior says. ‘Don’t move.’

  Tova isn’t sure whether he’s talking to the priest, to her and Merewyn or to Wulfnoth, but she does as he says anyway, staying as close as she can to her lady. Here in the midstream the current runs quickly. Her dress is soaked to the knee; it clings to her ankles and her shins. She can’t feel her feet any more. Winter is growing ever more agitated; she struggles against the reins and tosses her head.

  Wulfnoth takes another step forward, and Cuffa too. Into the shallows, where the water laps against the bank.

  ‘I’m warning you,’ Beorn says. ‘Any closer and—’

  But Wulfnoth’s patience has run out. He breaks into a charge, splashing through the water, yelling as he comes, with Cuffa behind him.

  A rush of feet, a flash of steel, a roar of anger, a cry of pain. Winter rears up, spooked. The reins slip through Tova’s fingers as her faithful mare tears herself away and crashes through the river, kicking up mud and gravel. Some place in the darkness where Tova can’t see, Guthred is yelling. Merewyn screams as the deaf one seizes her dress, and she’s struggling, waving her arms, twisting and falling all at the same time, trying to get away. More splashing; the horses in confusion go first one way and then the other, getting in each other’s way, narrowly missing Tova, casting up great slews of water.

  Between the horses and the enemy there’s nowhere to go. Out of the corner of her eye Tova spots a shadow rushing towards her. She turns, sees Gytha bearing down on her. She steps back. One pace, two. But she’s too slow. The she-wolf seizes the collar of her cloak.

  ‘Let me go!’ Tova yells, but the woman’s grip is strong. Strong like a man’s. She flails, trying to tear herself free.

  Ripping cloth. A hand across her cheek. Hard, sharp, stinging.

  Tova yells out, in surprise more than pain, and stumbles back, almost losing her footing on the loose stones of the riverbed. The current tugs at her skirts, trying to drag her down, but somehow she manages to stay on her feet.

  Merewyn shrieks as th
e deaf one stands over her. She scrabbles, spluttering, in the stream, trying to stand up. Her hair and face are wet, her clothes drenched and clinging to her. Too far away for Tova to help her. Gytha comes for Tova again but this time she’s ready. She ducks to one side, out of the woman’s reach.

  ‘Beorn!’ she shouts as she fumbles at her belt for the hilt of her knife.

  Axe whirling, Beorn strikes the tall one high on the arm. An anguished howl as the blade rips through flesh, and Cuffa reels. His seax falls through his fingers and disappears into the black of the river, and Beorn is turning as Wulfnoth rushes towards him, steel flashing silver—

  Gytha shouts. Tova turns, gripping her knife, back to face her, at the same time as a cry goes up. Not one voice, but many, all at once, coming from amid the trees on the south bank of the river.

  And suddenly she sees what Gytha sees. Helmets, swords, shield bosses, mail byrnies. Too many to count, gleaming in the moonlight as they hurry down the narrow path. Steel clinking, feet thundering. Calling to one another in words she doesn’t understand. Foreign words.

  Normans.

  Three, four, five, six, seven of them, scrambling one at a time down the narrow, muddy path towards the riverbank.

  It can’t be, she thinks. Not now. Not after we’ve come so far.

  But it is. They’re here.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Beorn roars as he ducks under a wild swing of Wulfnoth’s seax. ‘Run! Now!’

  Gytha is shouting Wulfnoth’s name, desperately trying to get his attention, to warn him of the danger. The deaf one doesn’t seem to have noticed that anything is amiss. Guthred is on his knees in front of him, his hands together and pointing to the sky, pleading for mercy. Halfdan kicks him hard in the stomach.

  Tova glances at Merewyn, then back at Guthred, before rushing to her lady’s side. She still hasn’t got up; her eyes are wide and her breath comes in quick, short bursts. Is she hurt or just frightened?

  ‘We have to go,’ Tova says desperately as she reaches out a hand and drags Merewyn to her feet, struggling against the weight of her drenched clothes. ‘Now!’

  She glances up, sees the Normans nearly at the water’s edge, their swords drawn.

  ‘Now!’ she says again, wrenching at her lady’s sleeve. But Merewyn doesn’t budge; instead she stares, panic-stricken, at the oncoming Normans.

  And then, above the din, a voice from somewhere unseen, shouting urgently and for some reason in the English tongue: ‘There he is! That’s him, over there!’

  The voice sounds somehow familiar, but she isn’t sure why, and she isn’t about to wait to find out. She pulls harder at Merewyn’s sleeve, and this time her lady does move. They splash through the swirling, frothing, icy water towards Guthred, who is on his knees, doubled over, coughing.

  ‘The book,’ he splutters, his eyes wide, as together they haul him to his feet. He winces as he clutches his side. ‘We have to go back for it. Where is it?’

  ‘There’s no time,’ Tova says. ‘It’s theirs now.’

  She looks about for their horses, but she can only see Beorn’s, charging off downstream, crashing through the bare branches that overhang the stream.

  Gytha is running now; Halfdan too has seen the danger. They splash away downriver in the direction of the mill, chased by three of the Normans. Cuffa’s seax is in his hand once more; he rises to face the men bearing down on him.

  Wulfnoth continues to hurl himself at Beorn. Either he hasn’t realised what’s happening, or he doesn’t care.

  ‘Go!’ Beorn roars again. ‘Do you hear me? Go! Go!’

  He brings his axe about; it strikes Wulfnoth on the thigh. The outlaw’s leg buckles beneath him and he falls back with a yelp.

  And then the Normans are upon Beorn. In their mail and their helmets, with their swords drawn, they encircle him, and he is hurling himself and his axe at their shields: battering, twisting, striking low and high, trying to break through.

  ‘This way,’ Merewyn shouts as she makes for the other side of the ford. ‘Tova!’

  Tova’s about to follow, but when she looks about to see where the priest is, he’s no longer there. Instead he’s running back towards the Normans surrounding Beorn.

  ‘Guthred!’ Tova cries, but it’s too late.

  The priest throws himself at the flank of the nearest foreigner, grabbing at his sword arm, tearing him off balance, bringing him down with a crash of mail and water and gravel. The priest throws himself down on the man, pressing his head under the surface, and the foreigner is struggling, choking, kicking, trying to shake him off.

  ‘Tova,’ Merewyn calls. ‘Quickly, this way!’

  She knows she should go. She knows it’s the only sensible thing to do. But she’s had enough of running. All this time on the road, exiles in their own land, and what good has it done them? However fast they flee, however many miles they travel, it isn’t enough.

  Wherever they go, their enemies will always be there, hard on their heels. They will never escape. They can never go home. Nowhere is safe. And she realises she can’t do it any more. She won’t. If her fate is to die, then she’ll go to it with her head held high. Proud. Defiant. Not like a coward; like the heroes in the songs that she used to love. Fighting to the end, knowing she did everything she could.

  Knife in hand, she tears across the ford, through the tumbling waters, crying out in anger. For all the blood they’ve spilled. For everyone at Heldeby. Everyone she ever knew.

  She sees Cuffa crash his blade into the back of one of the Normans’ helmets. She sees Wulfnoth rise, his damp hair flailing, and lunge at the midriff of another. She sees Beorn swing his axe against one of the enemy’s heads. It clatters off his helmet, steel upon steel, and the Norman goes down, and Beorn is shouting something, but she can’t hear what.

  She sees his face, dark with spatters of mud, or maybe blood. His eyes white with hate. She sees one of the foreigners shove his shield boss into Beorn’s jaw. She sees him reel back, barely out of reach of his foe’s sword point.

  She sees it all happen slowly, as if time itself is drawing to a standstill. Every beat of her heart seems like an eternity as she prepares to fling herself at Beorn’s attackers. They haven’t seen her yet. She can hear Merewyn screaming her name, but only distantly.

  And through the confusion and the flashing steel and the spray and the darkness, scurrying down the bank after them, she sees—

  Oslac?

  She stops. Is it him?

  It is him. She recognises his cloth cap with the ear flaps, the curly hair trailing from underneath. What is he doing here?

  He reaches the water’s edge and bends down. When he stands up again there’s something slung across his shoulder.

  The scrip. Guthred’s scrip, with the book inside.

  He glances up, and their eyes meet. And he yells something at her. She doesn’t hear what, but she can tell from the way he moves his lips.

  Go, he’s saying. Go!

  Where did he come from? Have the Normans seen him? Has Beorn? Has Guthred? She wants to shout and tell them, but she knows they won’t hear her.

  Joy blossoms inside her. He didn’t leave, after all. Or he did, but he came back, and that’s what matters. He came back.

  ‘Don’t just stand there!’ Oslac yells. ‘While you still can, go!’

  Here he comes, across the river, half-running and half-wading where it’s deeper, weighed down by the scrip, nearly falling a couple of times. The Normans still haven’t spotted him. Beorn lands a kick upon his foe’s chest, sending him sprawling, and he is twisting away, aiming a swing over the shield rim of the next man, smashing the edge into the enemy’s face—

  And Guthred? Where is he?

  A hand on her shoulder. She spins round, stepping back, thrusting her knife out in warning, but it’s only Merewyn. Clothes soaked and clinging to her
skin, hair plastered against her face.

  ‘Come on,’ her lady is saying. Her eyes are wide and she is trembling from head to foot. ‘What are you doing?’

  Seeing Merewyn’s face, Tova remembers where she is. All the courage she’d built up, all the hatred that was coursing through her only moments ago, drains away faster than she can blink.

  She takes her lady’s hand, and they are running together through the shallows, away from the tumult, away from the noise, away from the screams, away from the killing. Scrambling on hands and knees up the bank, through the mud and the leaves and the darkness, into the trees. Fighting the undergrowth, the brambles and the ferns, the low-hanging branches. Stumbling, falling, rising, stumbling again. On, on, on. Her face and hands are scratched and her dress is full of holes where it has caught, and her cloak is torn, but none of that matters.

  ‘Keep going,’ Merewyn says, over and over. ‘Just keep running.’

  Guthred and Beorn, Tova thinks. Oslac as well. We’ve left them all behind.

  They plunge onward, the two of them, over fallen trunks, through muddy hollows, down into ditches and up the other sides, deeper and deeper and deeper into the woods, further and further from the river.

  Eventually they collapse, breathless, the two of them huddled together, alone, behind the trunk of a broad-bellied oak. How long have they been running? Tova gasps for air. Her chest is aching. Her arms and legs are bruised. She’s sweating all over. Shivering.

  If she holds her breath and keeps still she can make out shouting somewhere behind them. The sound of steel on steel rings out faintly, and she’s reminded, for no good reason she can work out, of the sound of the handbell with which Skalpi, when he was alive, used to summon everyone at Heldeby into the hall for the Christmas feast.

  They say nothing at all, but sit in silence, backs pressed against the knotted bark, keeping as close as they can, trying not to move for fear that any sound might give them away. Tova can feel Merewyn shuddering; carefully she prises her lady’s sodden cloak from her shoulders, before taking off her own to wrap around her. Merewyn’s cheek is stone cold. Her hands too. Tova holds her close, trying to keep her warm. Sooner or later they’re going to have to move and find some place where she can dry off, before she catches a chill.