by James Wilde
‘I am still the Devil, Father,’ Hereward replied with a wry smile, ‘but in an age of hardship you must take what help you can.’ He turned to Kraki and whispered, ‘When the time is right, lead our battle-wolves to the boats. Keep the monks apart from the treasure.’ The Viking grunted his understanding.
Drawing Brainbiter, the Mercian beckoned for Redwald, Guthrinc and four of the fiercest Danes to follow him through the gap in the wall. He prowled through the shadows along the palisade until he glimpsed the Normans caught in the moonlight by the smaller river-gate. There were five of them, and one more on horseback, ready to ride off and raise the alarm if the English tried to escape that way. Kneeling, Guthrinc nocked an arrow and drew his bow. He nodded to Hereward, understanding what was expected of him.
The shaft whipped through the air. As the mounted knight fell backwards, dead, the other warriors jumped to their feet. Their cries were lost beneath the roar of the fire. Hereward ghosted forward. His blade whispered once and the nearest warrior fell. Before his foes could gather their wits, he rammed his sword up into the armpit of the next soldier. Like wolves, the Danes fell on the remaining three. Hereward watched the slaughter with satisfaction. The Normans had tried to trick them into a trap. They had given their best, and still they had lost.
Sheathing his blade, he watched his men and the monks flood out from the gap in the wall. Kraki waved them towards the boats. At the rear, men lumbered under the weight of the sacks of treasure and the relic chest.
Hereward raised one fist to the heavens in celebration. How long he had desired that victory, and how sweet it tasted. Yet it was only the start. More fighting lay ahead, more bloodshed. But now there could be no doubts that with the Danes beside them, and God on their side, the English could win back their land.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
THE SUN WAS rising across the fenlands. Streaks of pink and purple flowed through sky and into glassy mere as the fleet of flat-bottomed boats drifted home. The exhausted army could have been alone in all the world. Only oars dipping with lazy strokes and hide hulls creaking against the currents disturbed the tranquil morning. Overhead, marsh harriers wheeled. In the prow of the lead vessel, Hereward shielded his eyes to watch the elegant birds of prey perform their intricate dance. For a while he flew with them.
Ely loomed up, twirls of grey smoke from the morning fires rising to the pale blue sky. He gazed back over his silent warriors and saw grins blossom whenever his eyes were met. He felt proud of his war-band. Not a single man had failed him.
‘What now?’ Redwald asked, looking up with an easy smile.
‘Rest. Fill our bellies. And let word of our victory spread.’
Redwald thought for a moment as he watched a dragonfly skimming across the dark water. ‘You believe we can win?’
‘Do you have doubts?’ Hereward asked, surprised.
The younger man flashed a grin. ‘No. No doubts.’
Once the boats had moored, the chattering crowd of warriors and monks milled along the mere’s edge. Weariness ebbed away in a flood of euphoria at their great victory. Hereward led the troupe up the winding track to the dewy ramparts and through the gates into the just-waking community. The Danes flooded back to their camp where the rest of their brothers waited, shaking their axes in the air as they bellowed for mead.
Prior Aethelwold trudged up the slope towards the abbey. His beaming monks trailed close behind, whispering to each other with excitement. How bright they looked for men who had lost their home, Hereward noted. The threat of their new master must have haunted them indeed. He walked alongside the small knot of English warriors hauling the heavy sacks of treasure and the relic chest. While Aethelwold and the new arrivals were welcomed by Abbot Thurstan, Hereward ordered the men to hide their plunder beneath the floor of a hall next to the church. He nodded with satisfaction as he watched the relic being carried into the church. Folk would come from all around to marvel over it and seek God’s grace. And then the word would spread like a summer fire.
‘Keep guards upon the door of the treasure house at all hours,’ he murmured to Kraki. ‘There are men here who would kill for such riches.’
‘I would kill for such riches,’ the Viking grunted in reply.
As Kraki strode off to find fresh men to watch the hall, Alric hurried over from the gate. He clapped a hand on his friend’s arm. ‘William still sits on the throne? You have failed us all.’
‘I am leaving him for you, monk. You can talk him to death,’ the Mercian replied, grinning.
‘Hengist has already talked enough for both of us. The children dance around him as he weaves a tale of this last night that would not shame a scop. Your great victory has put fire back in his belly.’
‘Hengist is a good man who has suffered much. He has earned some peace.’ He nodded towards the church. ‘Go. Greet your new friends from Burgh. I would tell my wife I am well.’ As he made to go, he saw the monk frowning.
‘I cannot find Turfrida,’ Alric said. ‘I took her fresh bread at dawn, as I do each day, but your home was empty, the hearth cold.’
Hereward shrugged. ‘She is in the camp, then, helping out the sick with her plants and pastes and foul drinks. Even though she is heavy with her own child, she will still help any who ask. Or,’ he laughed, ‘she is out in the woods, whispering to the trees and the birds and learning their secrets.’
Reassured, Alric hurried towards the church and Hereward strode to his house, his belly growling and his limbs aching for rest. But he found his home as empty as Alric had said, and he felt sad that for the first time in many a day his wife was not there to greet him. He ate some of the bread the monk had brought, and some cold stew, and he swigged back a cup of beer before sleeping soundly until the sun was at its highest. And still Turfrida was not there.
Curious now, he strode down to the Camp of Refuge. It was warm, and the narrow tracks among the makeshift houses were crowded with folk gossiping about the night’s raid. Men clapped him on the shoulder and young girls flirted as he moved among the throng. The children would not leave him alone. How he hated that. Everywhere he asked after Turfrida, but no one had seen her since the previous evening.
As the day drew on, he began to worry. Ely was brimming with life, but it was a small place and everyone knew his wife. Someone would have seen her if she were there. With the shadows lengthening, he forged out of the gates and searched the quiet glades and along the banks of streams where she hunted for her plants, or practised her mechanical arts. Alric strode down from the ramparts, then Guthrinc, and Redwald, and Kraki. They barely spoke. Every inch of the isle, they walked.
The sun set.
Through the long reaches of the night, Hereward waited by the hearth, staring into the flames, listening to every footstep that passed his door, every creak of the settling timber, every whisper of the breeze in the roof.
In the chill dawn, his panic began to mount but he tried to push his fears aside. He ventured out to the walls. His friends were already waiting. They took the fen boats and rowed along the edge of the mere, pushing a long stick into the shallows.
On the next day, they rowed out into deeper water. News of their search had travelled across Ely, and the mood had darkened. People spoke once more of Dunnere’s daughter, who had not been seen since the English army settled in Ely. When he returned to snatch a bite of bread or fish, Hereward sensed eyes on him, but every man and woman looked away rather than meet his gaze.
Once night had fallen, Acha found him desperate and brooding on the mound, watching the stars reflected in the mere. She sat with him in silence for a long moment, and then said, ‘Doubt my words if you will, but I would never wish for this misery, nor would I see your heart ache so. I pray that she comes back to you.’ Her hand touched his, so briefly he barely realized it before she had slipped away into the dark. He heard the heartfelt emotion in her words and he was surprised how much it touched him.
Near sick with worry, he could not sleep, catching on
ly fitful dozes in the church, nor could he bear to return to the home he had shared with his wife. He refused to believe her dead, but mounting grief crept up on him and settled into his heart like a stone. He tried to distract himself with plans for the coming war, but even they could not console him.
Early in the morning, desperate for any sign, he forced himself to go back to his cold dwelling and picked through Turfrida’s meagre possessions. Each item called forth a sharp memory. He felt an ache that he had not experienced since he looked down on the body of his mother, her blood draining into the boards of his father’s hall. But as his hand hovered over the old chest she had brought with her from Flanders, his senses prickled. Something was missing. He sifted through his memories, turning over the necklaces and charms with increasing desperation until a revelation struck him. The brooch her father had given her on their wedding day, her most precious possession – gone. Her comb too. He reeled back, barely daring to believe. Rushing out into the pale light, he raced to Redwald’s home and dragged him from his bed.
‘Turfrida is not dead,’ he shouted with a defiant shake of his fist. ‘She took her brooch … her comb …’
Redwald wiped his bleary eyes with the back of his hand and looked up at his brother. ‘Do not raise your hopes,’ he began.
‘No,’ Hereward almost shouted. ‘I know her. If she were travelling those are the two things she would take with her.’
‘Where would she go? And why would she tell no one?’
‘I have no answer. But I will find one. Wake the others. We will meet at the abbot’s hall, and plan—’ He stopped speaking and cocked his head. Someone was shouting his name.
Out in the street, one of the guards ran up to him. ‘A stranger, at the gates,’ he said breathlessly. ‘He has words for your ears alone.’
Hereward followed the guard to the palisade, annoyed by the distraction. Folk would occasionally arrive at Ely to test the truth of the tales of the wild men of the woods or the blood-soaked battle-prince before they made their decision to join the army. Outside the gates, a ruddy-faced ceorl in a mud-spattered tunic waited, his hands clasped in front of him. His eyes darted around as if he thought he would be cut down at any moment.
‘I am Hereward. What is your business?’
‘Your ears only,’ the peasant muttered, eyeing the guard. The Mercian hid his irritation and stepped closer.
‘I have word from the Norman lord,’ the man began, unable to meet Hereward’s eye, ‘about your wife—’
Cold flooded Hereward. He grabbed the stranger by the tunic, almost lifting his feet off the ground. ‘Speak,’ he snarled, ‘before I carve out your heart.’
‘She is in the hands of the witchfinder,’ the man stammered, the blood draining from his taut features. ‘She is to be tested.’
Hereward felt sickened. Visions flashed across his mind of atrocities inflicted by the Church upon women suspected of being witches. Missing noses and ears, scars and burning. And death more often than not.
‘The Norman lord said you can save her from harm,’ the ceorl continued. His eyes grew faraway and Hereward could see he was repeating word for word a message that had been branded into him. ‘But you must give yourself up to him, at the new castle in Lincylene. And you must come alone, without your Devil’s Army. If you fail to do this in good time, your wife will be put to death.’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
THE WARRIORS CAME in the grey twilight. As the master of the flame lit the torches over Ely’s gates, five wild-bearded Danes swept in, their furs reeking of stale grease, their clanking hauberks scarred from numerous axe-blows. They had travelled far through the treacherous wetlands, losing one of their number to the waters along the way. They were in no mood for talk. Ignoring offers of bread and stew from the English hosts, they marched to the camp where their own men sat swilling back horns of ale around campfires.
In the abbot’s hall, the fire blazed in the hearth to dispel the coming night’s chill. Long and deep were the shadows, and the meaty scent of baked eel from the evening meal still hung in the air. At the head of the long table, Hereward hid his fears behind the mask of a ring-giver, aloof, cold, reflective. Redwald watched his brother, wondering what thoughts passed through his head. Since he had met the stranger at the gates, he had been a changed man. Yet he would tell no one what had transpired between the two of them.
Kraki shook his fist in the air and cursed in a tongue Redwald didn’t recognize. Guthrinc nodded, smiling wryly, which seemed to send the Viking into even greater spasms of anger. They were arguing over the tactics for the coming war. Hereward seemed to hear none of it, as though their words were little more than the droning of flies.
What could be more important than the battle for which Hereward had planned for so long? he wondered. And where was the joy his brother had shown that morning when he believed his wife had left Ely of her own choice? Redwald looked around and saw he was not the only one to be puzzled by his brother’s demeanour. That interfering monk, Alric, watched from the shadows near the door. Though it seemed he scarcely left Hereward’s side, he never took part in the battle-talks. How great he must consider himself to be, so unconcerned by the petty struggles that dominated the lives of other men. Yet now the monk’s face was drawn, his gaze never leaving Hereward.
‘Are you blind or ale-soaked?’ Kraki roared. Redwald jerked his attention back to the war-council. The Viking leaned across the table as though he were about to take Guthrinc’s neck in his huge, scarred hands. ‘The trickle of men coming to our gates is turning into a flood once more. All tongues speak of Burgh, and William’s bloodied nose, and God’s glory shining down upon the English.’
‘And you would send those men, as untried and untested as children, into the storm of Norman axes and swords?’ Guthrinc’s voice was light.
‘We strike now!’ Kraki hammered a fist on the table. The cups flew over, flooding ale across the table-top.
‘Enough,’ Hereward commanded. ‘We sacrifice no man who comes to us in good faith. We fight when they are ready. Make them ready.’ As silence fell, the Mercian looked around the faces, glowering, and then stalked out into the night. Alric followed. Redwald could hear the harsh back and forth of their muffled conversation as they swept across the enclosure towards the church gate.
With an apologetic smile, Redwald held his arms out. ‘He has not eaten all day. Some food in his belly will do him good.’
‘Finding his woman is the only thing that will make him well,’ Guthrinc said. ‘The leech has no salve to cure that ill.’ Kraki grunted his agreement.
‘Then I hope he finds her soon,’ Redwald replied, ‘for there are times when I think she is the source of all his strength.’
‘Her and the monk,’ the Viking interjected, shaking his head at the strangeness of it all.
‘Aye, we are all riddles.’ Guthrinc poured himself more ale and swigged it back in one. ‘That is the way God made us, so there must be some sense in it.’
‘Hel take me if I can see it,’ Kraki muttered.
The sound of running feet echoed outside the door. Hengist crashed in, breathless. ‘Danes,’ he gasped. ‘Here.’
‘We know there are Danes here,’ Kraki snapped. ‘Your madness has you in its grip again.’
Hengist shook his head. He seemed to have more of his wits about him since Burgh, Redwald thought. Truly that was another form of madness if the thought of war with the king made him sane. ‘Messengers from Sweyn Estrithson. Their mood is grim. I smell trouble.’
Guthrinc and Kraki jumped to their feet, striding to the door. ‘Fetch Hereward,’ Guthrinc ordered. ‘His mood may be foul, but he will come.’ Hengist raced into the night.
‘What would trouble the Danes’ king?’ Redwald enquired, doubtful.
‘News that William is to attack their camp by the whale road?’ Kraki mused. ‘That is what I would do. Drive the Danes away and leave us with half an army again.’ He looked to Guthrinc, adding, ‘We thought that sl
y bastard would try something like that.’
Cries and the clash of iron jerked them from their conversation. As they ran out of the hall, following their ears, the tumult grew louder. Redwald thought it sounded like a mob brawling and a vision of his brother caught in the grip of his terrible rage flashed across his mind. Outside the treasure hall, torches danced. Warriors surged amid the bark of orders in the guttural Danish mother-tongue. Redwald slowed, unable to comprehend what was happening. His gaze fell upon the guards Kraki had placed outside the hall, now lying face down on the ground. Dead, he thought at first until he saw one stir. The treasure-hall door hung open and warriors were carrying out armfuls of the gold, silver and jewels that they had plundered from Burgh.
‘Stay your hands,’ Kraki bellowed, ‘or face my axe. I care little that there are more of you. I can reduce that number in a thrice.’ To make his point, he shook his weapon in the face of the nearest Dane.
‘Hold.’ The order rang out and the warriors slowed and came to a halt. All eyes fell on Kraki, Guthrinc and Redwald as the one who had made the command pushed his way through his men. Redwald recognized Nasi, a tall man, beardless, with blond hair tied with leather thongs. He was one of the two seasoned warriors Sweyn Estrithson had put in charge of the war-band he had released to the rebel army. Most of the English liked him. He laughed easily and bragged less than his brothers, but he had been first into battle when the Normans had attacked at Burgh.
He turned his ice-blue eyes on Kraki. ‘I would not have wanted this.’
‘What is this?’ Guthrinc asked, folding his arms.
‘My king has ordered us to give you no further aid in battle, and to take the gold to our ships, where it will be safe.’
‘It is safe here,’ Kraki growled.
‘Aye. For you.’
Kraki flinched, raising his axe. The Danes bristled at the threat, levelling their own weapons. Guthrinc waved his hands palm down to calm the situation. He saw the danger, as Redwald did. The Danes were always quick to anger. He had seen men laid flat with a single punch for one wrong word. And gold always made those passions burn hotter. ‘You do not trust us?’ Guthrinc asked.