The Harrowing

by James Aitcheson

  No one, Norman or English, felt safe. And the less safe the foreigners felt, the less trusting they became of the common folk who worked on their lands. They levied ever higher rents, forcing them to work harder and for less reward. They meted out harsh penalties for the smallest crimes, whether it was stealing a cheese from a storehouse, or gathering more than your allowance of kindling from the woods. Any of the wild men they did manage to catch they disembowelled and strung up for all to see. They didn’t do such things because they were wicked or callous, though. They weren’t like that. Most of them, anyway. That’s what I came to realise.

  No, it’s true. Do you think, deep down, they’re any different to us, really? They’re not fiends sent by the Devil to plague us. They’re not God’s instruments, harbingers of the end of days. They’re people, just like us.

  *

  ‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ Beorn mutters.

  ‘Why not?’ Oslac says. ‘It’s true. Don’t you see? Every Frenchman ambushed on the road or murdered in his bed only gave them another reason to fear us. To be suspicious of us. To hate us. To punish us. All that bloodshed, and what did it achieve? Nothing, except to spread suffering and resentment. Why do you think this is happening right now? Why do you think their armies are ravaging the country? It’s revenge. If the rebellions hadn’t happened, if Eadgar had never raised his standard—’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘King Wilelm wouldn’t have marched all this way to lay waste this land, if you and everyone like you hadn’t carried on the war even though your cause was long lost. If you’d only stopped for a moment to see the hurt it was bringing—’

  ‘You’re wrong. We saw how the Normans were treating folk; that was why we fought in the first place. Were we supposed to just let that happen? Were we supposed to give up and let them take this kingdom without a struggle?’

  ‘They’re never going to be driven from this land. Things aren’t going to go back to the way they were before. Anyone who doesn’t realise that is deluding himself.’

  Beorn makes a noise of disgust as he turns away.

  ‘As I saw it,’ Oslac continues, ‘there was only one way to avoid further misery, and that was to make our peace with the enemy. That’s why I did it. That’s why I went to them again, like I’d done that first time, except now it wasn’t about vengeance. It was about doing the right thing. I gave them information I’d learned on my travels and in return they gave me silver. I told them where the wild men were gathering, how many of them there were and how well they were armed. Sometimes I’d seek out the rebels myself, and join one of the small bands that hid in the fens or the forests or the moors. I’d live with them for a week or two or sometimes longer, gain their confidence until I discovered where they planned to attack next, and then one night I’d slip away and report what I knew, so that when the time came for them to carry out their plans they found the Normans waiting for them.’

  ‘You betrayed them?’ Tova asks.

  ‘Because I knew that things would only grow worse if I didn’t.’

  *

  And they did grow worse, anyway.

  Time after time over the next year I went to the Normans to pass on what I’d managed to glean about the wild men and their movements. It was now two years since the invasion, and for a while it seemed that things were getting better: that the will to keep fighting was waning, that at last men were beginning to accept that things could not go back to being the way they were.

  Soon, I thought, the bloodshed would be over and we could all live our lives without fear once more.

  But then Eadgar raised his army and sent his messengers throughout the kingdom, urging every Englishman who could hold a spear or a spade or a pick to take up arms against the Normans, and it started again, only this time it was worse than ever. More raids, more killings. Not just lords and reeves but also messengers and monks, traders and stonemasons, blacksmiths and hired men: anyone who was suspected of having consorted with the foreigners or taken their coin was a target.

  If you weren’t with them, the wild men seemed to think, then you must be against them. There was no sense to it, no sense at all.

  Those were miserable, desperate times. In some villages crops were left to spoil in the fields because so many ran off to join the rebellion. Meanwhile the Normans brought in more and more warriors to protect them from ambush and to guard their castles and their halls, unruly, boorish men, quick to anger, who made folk afraid wherever they went. People worried about what would happen when Eadgar and the Danes were defeated, and what that would mean for them, and if there would be further reprisals. If you think that across the kingdom all Englishmen were praying for the ætheling to lead his army to victory, you’re wrong. They were praying simply that the fighting didn’t come their way. The last thing they wanted was another war.

  I had the confidence of the Normans by then; they saw they could rely on me and they sent me on ever more difficult tasks. The king was calling out his barons, marching north to head off the threat posed by Eadgar and his allies the heathens, who had captured Eoferwic. And so that autumn I was sent on ahead of the king’s army, with instructions to make my way into the city and seek an audience with the Danes’ leader, Jarl Osbjorn, and deliver a message—

  *

  Beorn fixes him with a sharp look. ‘A message?’

  ‘An offer,’ Oslac says, ‘from King Wilelm. For weeks I carried word back and forth between Osbjorn and the Normans as they tried to forge an agreement.’

  The warrior advances upon him. ‘You?’

  ‘Yes, me. And I’d do it again, if I had to.’

  ‘You brought down the rebellion. You handed this kingdom to King Wilelm.’

  ‘I saved you from yourselves. I was doing what I could to bring an end to a hopeless war, if you’d only been able to see it.’

  *

  Besides, if you want to blame anyone, blame the Danes. You should have known from the start they weren’t trustworthy allies. This isn’t their land; they weren’t about to give their blood to defend English homes and halls. All they wanted was enough booty to fill their holds and to sail home as rich men. And that’s what we gave them.

  We thought that would be it. We hoped that when Eadgar’s army fell apart, that would be the end of the bloodshed. No more thoughtless murders, we thought. No more needless suffering.

  But it wasn’t.

  As you know – as Beorn has told you – there were still some who refused to believe that it was over. They wrought ruin throughout the kingdom, striking suddenly from nowhere with fire and sword, spreading terror wherever they went. This time they were experienced warriors: men born to the sword, who had stood in shield walls, who had fought at Hæstinges and Dunholm and Eoferwic, for whom killing was the only trade they dealt in.

  And it wasn’t just Normans who died at their hands. It was English folk, too: men like my father, whose only misdeed was that they’d come to terms with the fact that things were different now. That a new king sat on the throne. All they wanted was to live their lives in peace, to keep their wives and their children from further hardship. To save themselves from yet more grief. But the rebels didn’t care. They slew those folk anyway, without thought and without pity.

  There was one whose name was known everywhere, whose cruelty was unsurpassed. He took pleasure in others’ pain; he never offered mercy even when his victims pleaded for it. It was said that if ever you managed to cut him he would shed ice, not blood. There was no love in his heart, no compassion, no Christian kindness. Only hatred. It consumed him. People called him a godless fiend, a shadow-walker, a night-wraith. Long after everyone else had given up the struggle, still he kept up the slaughter, leaving only blood and ashes in his wake as he burned and pillaged from shire to shire.

  He never stopped. He wasn’t ever going to stop. He was going to ke
ep on fighting and killing, killing and fighting, no matter how insignificant each of his victories were, or how hollow. No matter if all his friends and loyal companions deserted him. He didn’t care. He had one goal, and he would pursue that goal above everything else, for ever and ever and ever, until his dying breath. Until the world’s end.

  His name was Cynehelm.

  *

  ‘Enough,’ Beorn says and kicks Oslac again. ‘Tell yourself such things if you have to, if they help you feel better about what you’ve done. But don’t poison their minds with this filth.’

  ‘It hurts to see yourself as others see you, doesn’t it?’

  ‘You’re nothing but a craven. You hide behind your lies because you can’t accept the truth.’

  ‘You’re the one who won’t accept the truth. You refuse to see that everything you’ve fought for has been for nothing.’

  ‘It hasn’t been for nothing. And it’s not over. Not until every Englishman thinks like you. Not while there are still people like me willing to defend what’s ours and to make a stand for what’s right.’

  ‘There is no one else. Don’t you understand? They’re dead. All of them.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘There aren’t any others. You’re the only one left still fighting. No one else. The rest of the rebels are all dead. Hagustaldesham is no more. They burned it, killed everyone, destroyed everything.’

  Tova feels as though all the air has been knocked out of her. She can’t breathe. Her stomach lurches. The darkness is about to swallow her.

  No.

  Beorn crouches beside Oslac, seizing him by the collar. ‘What?’

  Oslac spits in Beorn’s face. At once the warrior’s blade is back in his hand, at the poet’s throat again.

  ‘Speak, you worthless turd, or I’ll cut you apart, piece by little piece.’

  But this time Oslac doesn’t flinch. No fear shows in his eyes as he stares back at the warrior.

  ‘The Normans have already been there,’ he says. ‘King Wilelm himself went and he crushed the rebels, the few hundred of them that were left, the ones who hadn’t already fled. There was a battle, but it didn’t last long. There’s nothing left now. They slew everyone they could find, destroyed the rebel camp, sacked the town and then razed it to the ground.’

  ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  But if Hagustaldesham is no more, Tova thinks, if the rebels have been destroyed, where else can they go? What are they supposed to do now?

  She asks weakly, ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Two days ago. So they said – the ones I was with. Some of them were there. They told me how they fell upon the town, surrounded the rebels and cut them down. Like pigs to the slaughter, they told me. Pigs in mail shirts, running and crashing about, squealing in panic—’

  ‘What about Gospatric?’ Beorn asks, cutting him off. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Gospatric? He surrendered to the king more than a week ago. Not in person. By way of messengers. He fled as soon as he heard the king was on his way to Hagustaldesham – slunk away in the dead of night, back to his stronghold in the distant north, leaving the rest to face the Normans by themselves.’

  ‘He’d never do that. He’d rather die than bend his knee to the foreigners.’

  ‘He saw what was about to happen. He did the sensible thing. The only thing.’

  More than a week ago, Tova thinks. Before they ever left Heldeby. Before all of this.

  ‘Did you know?’ she asks. ‘When we first met you, did you know then that Gospatric had already surrendered?’

  Of course he did. Even then, on that very first night when they were all together, the five of them gathered in that barn, he was arguing against going to Hagustaldesham. She remembers.

  ‘You did, didn’t you?’

  Oslac doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t have to. His silence says everything.

  He knew. He’d already heard, or guessed, that the Normans were marching north to finish off the remnants of the rebellion. All the time he was travelling with them, he knew it was a lost cause. He knew they’d never reach Hagustaldesham before the enemy. He knew that Beorn was only leading them into ever greater danger.

  He could have warned them, but he didn’t. He chose not to. Right from the very beginning he was deceiving them.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ she asks, but she knows the answer. He was interested only in Beorn. In Cynehelm. He never really cared about the rest of them.

  ‘You realise, don’t you,’ says Merewyn quietly, huddled in her two borrowed cloaks, ‘that if you’d just told us the truth from the start, then Guthred would still be alive?’

  ‘I never meant him to die,’ Oslac insists.

  ‘But he did die,’ Beorn says as he yanks the other man’s collar, pulling him forward and forcing him on to his hands and knees.

  The poet is whimpering like a wounded hound.

  ‘He did die,’ Beorn says again. ‘As did all those others you sold to the Normans. All for a few miserable pieces of silver. How many Englishmen went to their deaths because of the things you did? Do you grieve for them too?’

  ‘I did what I had to do.’

  Beorn stands behind Oslac. He glances questioningly towards Merewyn. She nods slowly but deliberately.

  His eyes meet Tova’s. Her throat is dry and she swallows. She knows she has to decide. She doesn’t want to. But she has to. All of them, together. That was what they agreed.

  And she will be complicit. She will become like them.

  She nods.

  Beorn nods too. Then he clamps his free hand on Oslac’s chin and wrenches his head up, exposing the poet’s pale neck. He lowers his knife so that the edge rests against the skin.

  Oslac’s breath comes in short, sharp stutters. His teeth are clenched but he doesn’t struggle. He knows it’s no use. There is no escaping his fate now.

  ‘You did what you had to do,’ says Beorn. ‘And so do we.’

  *

  They stumble on through the darkness. Through the trees. Through ditches and hollows thick with wet bracken. Through freezing streams. Tova keeps glancing over her shoulder, expecting to see the enemy bearing down on them, to hear them shouting to one another, to hear the sound of hooves, but there’s no sign of them.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ says Beorn.

  ‘What about Wulfnoth and the others?’ she asks.

  ‘He’s dead. I don’t know about the rest of them. They ran. I didn’t see where they went.’

  She wants to go back to find Winter, to find Guthred’s body so that they can pay their respects to him, but she knows they can’t. Their packs too. Their provisions, their food, water, firewood, blankets.

  Gone. All of it.

  Guthred’s scrip slaps against her thigh as she runs, or tries to. The strap digs into her shoulder. She hadn’t appreciated its weight until now.

  Beorn sees that she’s struggling. ‘Leave it.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Yes, you can. It’s not important. What do you plan to do with it, anyway?’

  ‘It was important to him, so it’s important to me. Don’t you see? It’s all we have of his. It’s what he would have wanted.’

  ‘Girl—’

  Her mind is made up. ‘I’m not leaving it.’

  He shakes his head in frustration, but he doesn’t bother arguing.

  *

  The snow is falling again, heavier this time, darting and swirling about them, by the time they find the small church nestling near the bottom of a wide vale, almost hidden from sight amidst the folds of the earth. It stings Tova’s cheeks, but she grits her teeth as the three of them make their way carefully down the slope, fighting the gusting wind, trying not to slip on the wet grass, towards the squat dark b
uilding with the cross nailed to the gable.

  They try the door. The lock is rusted, but one good strike from Beorn’s axe and it gives way. The door is heavy; it grinds against the floor, but he presses against it with his shoulder and it opens.

  He moves stiffly, she sees, and with a limp. Is he injured? Was he wounded during the fight? Why didn’t she notice before? Why hasn’t he said anything?

  Inside it smells stale, as if no one has been here in weeks, or months, or maybe even years. At least the roof still holds. It’s shelter, and that’s what matters.

  There are hangings on the walls: thick linen, nothing extrava­gant. Motheaten but otherwise in one piece. Beorn tears them down while Tova sits Merewyn down, then takes the altar cloth and wraps it around her lady’s shoulders. She’s shivering violently, drawing quick, shallow breaths. They need to get a fire going and get her out of her sodden dress, and soon.

  Beorn goes in search of wood they can burn while Tova huddles close to her lady, rubbing her arms and her shoulders, doing her best to keep her warm.

  Outside, the night wind howls.

  Sixth Day

  In the morning the hills, the fields, the trees are white. The whole world lies silent and empty beneath winter’s blanket. And still it snows, sometimes lighter, sometimes so heavy that it’s impossible to see even ten paces beyond the door of the church.

  Beorn ventures out to fetch more wood. It looks like they’re going to be stuck here, at least until tomorrow. Hopefully by then it’ll have relented. In the meantime they’ll have to stay put and keep warm as best they can.

  They sit in silence on what used to be one of the wall hangings, in front of the meagre fire. Merewyn’s cheek rests on her shoulder. Her eyes are closed but Tova thinks she’s awake. She has stopped shivering, but her nose won’t stop running. Every so often she’ll break out in a fit of coughing that leaves her hoarse. Some honey mixed with warm water is what she needs to soothe her throat. That’s what Eda would say.