by Jason Born
“I’d bring what soldiers the king didn’t take with him to the inland wall,” suggested Killian as the gates slammed shut.
“Priest, don’t pretend to tell me how to do my business and I’ll not tell you how to run your flock,” said the soldier. Killian shrugged and fell back in line with us as we moved down the main road. It ran from the inland gate, across the village, past the castle keep, and down to the river that dumped into the bay. As we moved away, the same soldier whispered to his men, “It sounds like the threat is from the island itself. Move half the men from the river and sea side to this wall.” His young charge rambled off to convey his orders. “Priest, take your sad lot down to the river. You can piss there and get a drink. Don’t go stinking up the king’s city.”
“Bless you, my son,” said Killian.
“And keep your pet with you for now. We’ll have some sport with him once Maredubb returns. He might have some information to give the king.”
“It’s a good thought. The king was wise when he made you responsible for his great citadel.” The soldier stuck his chin a bit higher in the air and turned to shove some of his men and bark orders.
. . .
I was pulled behind a shop and unbound. The others dropped their hudfats in the muddy alley and strapped on every weapon they had, only to hide them again under their soiled cloaks.
“Work in twos,” instructed Leif. “Move to separate parts of the village, most of you to the inland wall.” Leif glanced at Killian. “Thank you for that bit about moving the soldiers inland. Getting most of the armed men where we know they’ll be – spread out on a wall – will make our work that much quicker.” Young Leif then addressed the rest of the crowd again. “Lay eyes on four soldiers and see them killed as soon as the bloodletting starts. Don’t waste time on individual warriors until the groups are dead. Do that and we own this town in moments.”
“How will we know when to start?” asked Brandr.
“When the women begin shrieking,” answered Killian which was good enough for Brandr.
In an instant of increased piousness, Godfrey dropped to one knee and mumbled a prayer. Killian, I thought, would be proud, but instead he hoisted the king back up to his feet. “We can’t waste time. Each moment gives King Maredubb a chance to return. The citadel must be ours before he gets tired of beating the bushes for us.”
With that, the group dispersed. Godfrey grabbed Horse Ketil by a sleeve. “You’ll stay right beside me and this beast,” said my king as he pointed at me. Ketil whitened his grip on the shaft of his spear. I did the same on my sword as a warning.
“Is it wise to allow him a weapon?” I asked.
Godfrey shrugged. “He’ll be in front of me. I’d bet my swordplay wins any contest over his use of a spear. Besides, what if the drunken fool does something good for us all? Then we both win.” Horse Ketil nodded at this.
“I’m not so sure he’s a drunkard,” I grumbled.
“Nor am I, but he tolerates walking around with a lot of piss on his pants if he’s not,” answered Godfrey with a wave of his hand.
Ketil looked down at his trousers. A day old urine stain had dried in a crusty mess. Blotches from his vomiting on the sea voyage over covered one leg. “I do like to drink, King Godfrey. You’ll find I also like to fight. I like to get things without much effort. And once I get the throne on the Isle of Man, I’ll enjoy hanging your cousin and taking Gudruna as mine.”
Godfrey wasn’t about to be goaded to a verbal war just before the true bleeding was set to begin. He laughed. “Oh, it might be worth dying just to see what my Gudruna would do to your manhood if you ever tried to come to her bed.”
A chicken squawked somewhere in the capital. It sounded like a butcher chased it around his shop. I didn’t understand his words, but I knew cursing when I heard it. Godfrey, Ketil, and I smiled at the scene that played itself out in each of our minds’ eyes. We gave up arguing with one another.
“I don’t believe I’ll follow the advice of that Leif of yours ever again,” muttered Godfrey while the waiting dragged on. A cat hissed and chased a diseased rat behind some broken crates.
“I think you’re right, king. We probably won’t survive the day to have the chance to follow Leif again,” I answered with gallows humor. The cat gingerly pawed at the cornered beast, not sure if he would win a fight with the sizable rat. Godfrey pinned the feline to the ground with his boot and with a single, quick stab, pierced the rat from above. It was his first kill of the raid. He released the cat which ignored the two of us and sniffed at what moments earlier had been its prey. The cat lost interest. I swear I saw it shrug as it padded off back the way it had come.
The king chuckled at the two beasts and at our situation. “We’re not much different than the cat, Halldorr. Take away our quarry and we lose more than what would have been our treasure. We lose heart. And that, I’m afraid, can kill a man surer than any blade or coup.”
“So if we live through this, then you will follow Leif’s advice again?” I asked. “For the hunt and excitement?”
The king didn’t have time to answer. Aoife’s powerful little screams were the first sounds we heard. Then we heard Killian running through the town screaming about how invaders from the sea had penetrated the defenses. A moment later he yelled about a breach in the inland walls. I heard the sudden, guttural sounds of Welshmen dying at the end of sharp spears and sword edges at the nearest wall. Our raid had finally begun in earnest.
Chaos and confusion were what we needed. Like the struck coins of the English and Saracens, they were our accepted currency. The Welshmen gave us their disordered commotion by the bucketful. They heaped it on us. Before we even stepped out of the alleyway, I saw the terrified look on men’s faces as they skittered past. They gathered up children and ran for what they thought might be safety in the castle keep. I’m not ashamed to say that the sight of their fear was beautiful. In return for the panic etched on their faces, in order to strike a fair bargain, we gave them something else entirely.
Those fearsome Norseman raiders, those pirates of the sea, Godfrey’s men, were like wraiths. We were everywhere at once. We were like the draugr that we thought we’d meet at the barrow. And we brought a rain of death onto the bewildered men of Anglesey.
Horse Ketil, without a word from the sometimes-king, jumped into the muddy street with his spear drawn. A woman, old, perhaps fifty, halted in her tracks. She posed him no threat. Horse Ketil didn’t give her a chance to flee in the opposite direction. He rammed the weapon into her soft belly, driving it and her entire body to the ground. He gave a bloodthirsty scream that sent shivers down my back. Ketil was not only hungry for power and lazy, he was cruel.
Godfrey whacked the back of my head. “Don’t go limp on me. Now’s the time to move, lad! Even though I hate him, you act like that bastard when you fight.”
We followed Horse Ketil into the streets. Men and women ran in all directions. King Godfrey laughed as we ran, hacking down a man who carried a chicken under each arm; or, kicking a boy square in the chest who tried to resist us with a wooden hammer.
I killed three men that day. I had killed before. I’ve told you as much. But each time before, it had been for brute survival. Had I not killed those previous men, they would have killed me. I suppose that is just as simple as it was that day in Aberffraw. Had we not killed over a hundred soldiers and a few dozen villagers, they would have gathered heart and strength, realizing that we were few and they were many. They would have killed us. So I killed three men. One man, brave, but foolish, jumped out of an open door from his home. The king had told us all to stay out of the homes for now, plunder could be had later. I was running past the door and the foolish Welshman slashed at me with his eating knife. It raked across one of my mail sleeves, caught the flesh of my forearm, and danced away. I used my wounded arm to seize the man by his neck and launch him against the outside wall of his house. His head cracked against the rock wall with a pop, leaving a bloody spray and pat
h as he slid down. The other two men, I dispatched with blows from my sword.
King Godfrey killed four men that day, though as the tales go since then, he killed fifty if it was one. It was Horse Ketil who surprised me, though. Not only was he eager to get the slaughter going at the start, but the man whom I thought was nothing but a traitor found the will to carry himself from one kill to another. I can personally attest that I saw him eliminate a dozen souls, as the Christians would call them. His spear, his fists, his knees, his feet were all used as weapons in Aberffraw as his actions helped bring about a victory for his rival Godfrey. I guess I didn’t understand politics.
Then just as quickly as it had begun, the streets were silent. We had fought our way to the front gate and there met Killian and Aoife. The priest’s robes were splattered with blood. His sword, too, was dripping with crimson. Aoife, the little monster, carried a knife evidently given her by Killian. It shone crimson as she pulled it from a soldier’s ribcage; though I do not know if she killed the man or if she had driven the blade into someone killed earlier. In either case, the girl smiled broadly. We stood staring at one another, panting and grinning.
Leif slid down a ladder from the watch platform that snaked behind the palisade. “Just in time!” he huffed. “I see a large force coming to the city now.”
“Maredubb?” asked Godfrey, though he knew the answer. He didn’t wait for confirmation. “Gather the men and send them up to the walls. Make a show of it!”
Leif nodded his understanding and ran off through the now empty streets to swat our men toward the walls. First Randulfr, then Loki, then others began scurrying their way back and filing up the ladders to put on a show of force.
Godfrey jerked a hollowed cow’s horn from around his shoulders and slapped it into Aoife’s ribs. “Go deeper into the town. Play a long single note periodically.” The king turned to Magnus who had just run in. “Go back to our gear and find another horn. Blow it in answer to hers.” Man and girl ran off to perform the tasks prescribed by their king.
By now the walls were filling up. As I looked at the backs of our men from below, I counted. We’d lost none. Some men had a gash here or there or a swollen eye where a Welshman or woman had gotten in a lucky swing. But the fact was that we sixty raiders had taken a town of over two thousand inhabitants and our band was still intact. It had been a bold plan – insane, but bold.
Leif trotted back and began moving to climb a ladder. Godfrey grabbed his leg. “You and Halldorr will serve as my negotiators. I don’t want to give Maredubb the respect that comes with talking directly to me. Go find the finest horses this town has to offer and prepare to ride out.” With that the king, showing a sparkle that was probably reminiscent of his most successful days, scampered up to the platform in order to lie and bluster.
. . .
Leif and I had found suitable horses in the stables. They were not the choicest since those were already out and mounted with the main force of Maredubb’s army. We were just splashing up to the gate when we heard Aoife’s horn blare. A short moment later, Magnus’ horn answered somewhere else in the city. Then Aoife. Then Magnus.
“So you hear our armies coordinating movements within the city,” Killian was shouting over the walls. “The king will send his emissaries out with his terms before the slaughter and rape gets quite out of hand.”
The priest gave a wave with his hand. Leif jumped from his saddle, hefted the heavy timber that served as a bar, and opened the gate. He noticed three Welsh boys cowering in a nearby guardhouse behind the bodies of two dead soldiers. Leif barked at the boys to close up after we went out. I don’t know that they understood his tongue, but they caught his meaning and complied well enough. The strong oak doors creaked and then slammed shut before we had even crossed the narrow bridge.
Leif set our horses’ pace. Slow. We weren’t nervous. At least we were not to appear concerned. I craned back to look at our men lining the walls. Nearly sixty angry, red-splattered faces glowered back at me. They were my people and yet I felt disconcerted looking at them.
I looked ahead to Maredubb. What must he be thinking? He could only assume that his city had been sacked from the sea side by a tremendous army of raiders. The men on the wall would be a small detachment from the rest.
I spun back around to again face the wall, for I had seen but did not immediately register the presence of another man. Horse Ketil had snuck out as the Welsh boys closed the gate. He jogged toward us with a smile on his face.
“This is your last chance,” he said. “In a moment I’ll have Maredubb’s army crawling over the walls to kill those sixty pathetic Norsemen. I’ll have Gudruna and I’ll have the Isle of Man. I will need real warriors, though. Are you in for profit?”
“But you just helped us win in there,” I said, dumbly.
“That was for survival, fool. If I didn’t, Godfrey or a Welshman would have killed me.”
He was running alongside my horse. I didn’t have time to think anymore or debate. I did what came naturally. I tugged my boot from the stirrup and kicked the side of his head. He crashed into the mud. Ketil climbed up to his knees and shouted, “Maredubb!” I leapt from my saddle and muffled whatever else Horse Ketil was going to say. His face was smashed back into the muck. I punched his ears with a balled fist. He struggled at first, nearly shoving me off his back. I grew tired of the fight and removed my dented helmet. Soon there were a few more dimples. I pounded Ketil’s head with it once, then twice, and then three times. He stopped moving. A trickle of bright red oozed from his hairline.
When I crawled up out of the soggy dirt, I saw that no one else had moved. Thankfully, the army stretched out before us had remained still. Leif, too, had waited while I finished my task.
“Is he dead?” my friend asked.
“No,” I said.
“Then toss him across your horse’s withers,” said Leif. I obeyed and remounted my stolen beast. Leif squeezed his heels into his horse’s belly and began our short trek again. In his hands, the leather reins creaked under the weight of his firm grip. His face showed steady calm.
I glanced back to Godfrey. The king’s face was etched with determination.
. . .
Leif led us toward the man who sat on a stout warhorse at the front and center of the small army. Had the black beast not been specifically bred and trained for battle, it appeared as if it were strong enough to plow in the fields day and night without rest. The long black hair that grew from its fetlocks to the ground gave it the appearance of having enormous hooves. It was a pretty animal – quite the opposite of its rider.
Maredubb, like the beast and its black coat was adorned kingly enough. The man wore linen trousers that had been tucked into tall, black hard leather boots. I had never seen such boots. Our men wore simple brown boots that were cinched up the ankles. The trousers were red. Hanging to his knees was a heavily padded, sky blue silk coat with amber-colored trim at the sleeves and bottom hemline. His thighs and waist were protected by a skirt of brown leather strips. Maredubb wore scale armor that resembled the hide of a snake. His helmet was an iron bowl made of several separate pieces. Iron cheek guards hung loosely from their hinges at the sides as the king had not tied them under his chin. The nape of his neck was protected by a curtain of looped mail that dangled from the helm.
Had that been the last of it, I would have said that Maredubb and his beast were perfectly matched – two flawless specimens. But the destrier carried and the armor protected an unattractive man. Maredubb’s eyes were set too close to one another so that the innermost corners were hidden behind the helmet’s nose plate. One of his eyes was blue, the other brown. His nose was fat. He wore a moustache that was shaved to the same width as his nose. Below the narrow moustache was a narrow mouth with bulging lips and downturned corners. The portion of his forehead that showed beneath his armor was speckled with red that appeared like a rash.
“Which one of you is Horse Ketil?” Maredubb asked in my native tongue. “T
his is not how we said this invasion and ambush would happen. You were supposed to land on the north side of Anglesey. We’ve been everywhere looking for you.”
Leif offered a pleasant smile. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced down at Ketil. “I’m afraid none of us is Horse Ketil. King Godfrey uncovered your plot. Ketil was drowned on the voyage over. It was a terrible mishap.”
Maredubb’s red face turned redder. “Get out of my kingdom,” Maredubb whined through gritted teeth. “I’ll burn the city to the ground before I see a Norseman live there.”
Leif answered. “King Godfrey of the Isles has no desire to torch the town. I think that neither do you. Two thousand of your citizenry captured or killed would make it difficult to maintain your already tenuous grip.”
“I don’t talk to a red-haired pup that can push nary a whisker on his chin,” said Maredubb. He then waved a careless hand in the air. “There might be one thousand in the village. My army is here. What do I care of peasants?”
“There are two thousand or more in the village and you know it,” charged Leif. “Many of them are the wives and daughters of the men you have here. Most of them are getting raped now. We can stop it and be gone if you stop bristling and lying. Two thousand bodies are a lot to bury. That’s a lot of barley that is not harvested, a lot of bread not made, a lot of hides not tanned.”
“I get your meaning,” interrupted Maredubb. He scanned our men on the walls who held their spears pointed upwards. The blood that dripped from the tips was only now beginning to coagulate in thick rivers down the wooden shafts and in thick pools around their tightly gripping hands. The king rolled his narrow-set eyes. One of his pledged men returned the gesture. “What are these terms that the wretch Godfrey offers?” The horns blared in the background.
“I’ll test your honesty again,” began Leif.
“I won’t be tested by the likes of you!” Maredubb blustered. A fat drop of Ketil’s blood smacked the earth. “I should kill both of you heathens right now!” He pointed to Horse Ketil. “You’ve attacked one of my citizens right in front of my face. He was calling for his king when this savage beat him.”