by James Wilde
‘King Sweyn Estrithson of the Danes,’ William boomed, flinging his arms wide and laughing.
Balthar gaped. For months now, the Danes and the Normans had been engaged in a bloody dance throughout the east, and now William was greeting his opponent like a brother. What could this mean?
The two kings disappeared into the hall and the doors slammed shut behind them.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THE NEW CASTLE loomed over the high-town. In the merciless summer sun, the whitewashed timber of the keep shone across the great river plain from the top of the steep-sided hill. Age-old wood-framed houses and the great hall of the Mint clustered in the fortress’s shadow within the stone walls of old Lincylene. Shielding his eyes, Hereward let his gaze drift outside the walls where the jumble of newer houses tumbled down the hillside to the broad, black ribbon of the River Witham. Sails billowed and lines cracked on the ships moored along the quayside. Bare-chested men sweated in the sun as they unloaded iron from the south and lead from the west, and chests and bales of prized goods from foreign shores, perhaps amethyst pendants from the hot lands to the south, or delicate pottery from Byzantium. The din of hammers from the workshops and the shouts of merchants along the river and in the marketplace carried across the still countryside. He wrinkled his nose at the reek of the cess-pits and the bitter smoke from the furnaces, sharp even at that distance.
Hereward drew his shoulders back. What lay ahead did not daunt him. He would not enter Lincylene cowed and whimpering and beg for Turfrida’s life. A warrior, he was, and if there was even the slightest chance that he could free his wife and escape, he would seize it. Cunning would win him that prize, not the edge of his sword, he knew that: slow and careful, like the fox at night, not savage like the wolves.
Leaving the dusty track, he pushed his way into the cool of a wood. He trampled through snaking brambles until he found an ancient oak as broad as four men abreast, its roots so twisted that dark caves and crevices had formed beneath them. Scraping out the leaf mould and rich, black soil, he slid his spear, shield and sword into the dim recesses where not even curious children at play would find them. Now he would not be a warrior, but a freeman seeking work and food. No man would think him a stranger, with his Danish blood and Mercian accent. He was amongst his own here. The chin hair he had let grow would hide his jaw-line, his eyes shadowed by the hood pulled low over his head. With a stoop of his shoulders to make him appear shorter, he feigned a limp and set off for the straight north road that the monks said had been built by the Roman invaders in times long gone.
As he joined the stream of creaking carts and merchants trudging in the sweltering heat, he glanced up at the town from under hooded eyes. Now he could see why the king had made Lincylene key to his strategy in this last rebellious part of his realm. On its high hill, surrounded by thick stone walls, the new castle commanded the area. From that eagle’s perch, the Normans could see across the river plain and up to the thick forest of the wolds to the north-east, perhaps even to the marshes beyond. Only a siege that lasted weeks would break its back. He looked around and saw how vital this place was for the trade that had brought wealth to every part of the land. All life in the east passed through here at some point, so Mercians said. The north road made travel from Northumbria and Wessex easy. Another old Roman road that the locals called Fosse ran towards the west. The Witham carried the ships to the whale road in the east, and to the west was the wide valley of the Trent, which could be navigated, via the Ouse, to Eoferwic itself. Who controlled the trade routes controlled England. But more than that, from this stronghold William the Bastard could send out his iron army to crush any foe, whether English rebel or Danish invader. He lowered his head. He had seen enough.
When he passed through the gates into the low-town, he hid his distaste. After so long with only the soughing of the wind and the murmur of the water for company, his ears ached from the din of the teeming town. He forced his way through the stream of bodies reeking of sweat in the heat. The stink of rotting food and human waste choked the back of his throat. Yet a brief smile touched his lips. For all the discomfort, here he could lose himself, just one more soul struggling to pass through the day.
Through the low-town he picked his way, following the streets up the hill. The Normans were everywhere, some in hauberks and helms, fixing a cold eye on everyone who passed. These ones saw only enemies. Others were dressed in the finest linen tunics, the colours bright, only their shaven heads revealing their origins. How many could he have killed that day. He pushed aside his hatred and thought only of Turfrida. If all went well, there would be time enough for vengeance.
Away from the river, the crowds thinned. In a tavern not far from the walls of the high-town, he filled his growling belly with stew and moistened his dry mouth with beer. With his back to the wall and his eyes on the door, he could watch everyone who entered. He kept his ears open. Work continued at the castle, he heard. William had ordered the timber keep to be replaced by a stone one at the earliest opportunity, and new ramparts were being dug.
Once he had heard enough, he limped out into the baking day. Shouts and jeers were now ringing from the direction of the marketplace. Curious, he made his way to the edge of a growing crowd. On a mound on the eastern edge, a Norman commander with a face like granite looked out over the throng. Two of his men held the arms of a stout youth with hair like thatch. His eyes were wide with terror, his face bloodless. A third Norman stood near by, holding a long-bladed knife.
The commander held up his right hand and the crowd fell silent. Hereward glanced around and saw faces flushed with excitement or dark with cold judgement. No fear of the Normans here, nor anger it seemed. He felt troubled by this sight.
He looked back to the mound as the commander said in faltering English, ‘Beornstan the White, accused and found guilty of the crime of rape. With force, he took the girl Winfred, daughter of Ulger the Smith, five nights gone. Here, now, his punishment.’
The crowd watched, rapt, as the youth began to whimper. One of his captors ripped down his breeches. The other grabbed the youth’s prick and yanked it out. Fear rooted the lad to the spot; he offered no resistance. The third Norman stepped forward, rested the long knife against Beornstan’s balls and began to saw upwards. Hereward glimpsed a spurt of crimson before he looked away. The youth’s screams tore out, drowned in an instant by the jubilant yells of the crowd.
‘He got what he deserved,’ a doughy woman beside him affirmed.
‘Aye, the little bastard’s done it before and never been caught,’ her friend replied.
As he pushed back through the throng, Hereward felt a growing uneasiness with the satisfaction he heard expressed. Too many folk seemed pleased with their new masters. The Normans brought justice where it was needed, and punishment was swift. Since the brutal crushing of the north, the king had restrained his crueller urges, at least here, in the east. The war would have to come soon, or these sheep would be too content to rise up.
Climbing the hill, he reached the solid stone wall encircling the high-town that the Romans had built when they had ruled this place. The gate was oak, new and robust, and five guards watched over it. No easy way in presented itself. Anxiety tightened his chest. He had no idea how long he had, or even whether he was already too late. But he knew he had to stifle his desperation. However much he wanted to hack through every bastard Norman to save his wife, he knew if he acted rashly it would only lead to his death, and no doubt Turfrida’s too.
That night, with the coin in his pouch he bought a berth in the sleeping hall in the low-town. As a rule, it would have been full of drunken sailors snoring loudly, but in that hot night they slept under the stars aboard their vessels. At dawn, he slipped out into the silent streets and made his way once more up the steep hill. Even there, surrounded by his enemies, he felt no fear, only a grim determination to save Turfrida.
When the men working on the castle trudged up to the gate, bleary-eyed and reeking of night-s
weat, he slipped in among them, just another strong pair of arms forced to do the Normans’ bidding.
The labour was hard. He spent long hours digging the new ramparts in the blazing sun alongside the work-band, with only cups of ale and a few morsels of bread to keep him going. But he watched everything. Nobles came and went, purposeful, their conversations low and intense, and not only those who had been granted land around Lincylene. Warriors rode out of the gates in the early morning and disappeared into the wild country. Other fighting men strode into the bailey before the sun was at its highest, fresh from the south. Hereward sensed a throb of keen anticipation everywhere. His eyes flickered to every face that passed as he dug into the hard, stony soil. After Burgh, the Normans should be worried. They knew the English had new allies in the Danes, a formidable army that could strike at any moment. Word of the burning of the town and the looting of the abbey rushed across the land like the spring waters. Yet he saw no concern anywhere.
The workmen stripped off their tunics in the blistering heat, their skin reddening by the hour. At first he had felt uneasy and exposed when he had thrown aside his hood and cloak. But he had smeared his face and hair with his filthy hands like many of the other men and in no time they resembled the children who played along the muddy banks of the Wellstream. The Normans paid no heed to dirty English dogs, anyway.
During the most intense heat of the day, he sheltered in the thin shadow beside the stables. As he mopped the sweat from his brow, he glimpsed two familiar figures striding across the bailey towards the keep. Ivo Taillebois was as grim as ever, his eyes narrow slits, his mouth a slash in his stony face. But the nobleman William de Warenne beamed and waved his hand in the air as he spoke. How easy it would be to smash in their skulls with a stone. But Hereward gritted his teeth and pushed the urge aside. Not long after, he looked over to the gates where a knot of newly arrived warriors milled and saw Harald Redteeth. Once he had overcome his disappointment that the Northman had not died from his wounds the previous year, his loathing burned hotter still. He could not look at the Viking without remembering the head of his friend Vadir hanging from Harald’s filthy hand. Vengeance would not come soon enough.
The Northman suddenly jerked his head round as though Hereward had called to him. Half-hidden by the spoil heap, the Mercian knew he could not be seen. Yet he felt the hairs on his neck prickle erect. The Viking stared for a long moment and then moved out of the gates with the other warriors.
The first day Hereward laboured in silence. On the second day, when his face was familiar, he struck up short conversations with the other men. He sifted through the talk of weather and food and women and found the gold: hints of a coming battle, overheard plans for the construction of more castles and sturdier ones, built in stone, to keep the king’s peace. Yet none of this held value beside what he truly needed to know.
As the third day drew to a close, he leaned on his shovel, his muscles aching from long hours of digging. When the castle gates rattled open, he looked up and grimaced to see the cold features of Emeric the Witchfinder. It seemed only yesterday that he had been in hiding with Turfrida as the Norman churchman hunted her through the woods in Flanders. His jaw tightened as he watched the cleric make his way across the bailey to the third of six timber-framed stores.
‘Aye, he’s a cruel bastard,’ the man beside him muttered when he saw where Hereward was looking. ‘Sometimes you can hear the screams.’
Hereward jerked round. ‘Who screams?’
‘I heard tell the Normans keep a woman in there, a witch, who could shake the very foundations of the king’s rule.’ The man crossed himself with a hand missing two fingers. ‘Her torments were great indeed, so one of the guards said, for only when the devil had been driven out of her could all our souls be safe.’
Never had Hereward felt such anguish. He turned away and closed his eyes, thinking he might be driven mad by the thought of his wife’s suffering.
‘Get some food in your belly,’ the other man said, eyeing him with concern. ‘This work is hard, and under this sun it can turn even the strongest man’s head.’
Hereward nodded, pretending it was the heat that had drained the blood from his face. In his mind’s eye, he saw the witchfinder at his feet, beaten to death, and at that moment he wanted nothing more. Yet one wrong step would end his life, and Turfrida’s too, most likely. Throwing aside his shovel, he all but ran from the bailey, not stopping until he was in the low-town. No sleep came that night. But he contained his fury and made his plans.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE NORMAN COMMANDER raised his gauntleted fist. At the centre of the bailey, his warriors fell silent and awaited their orders. Their helms gleamed in the hot sun. They held their spears erect and their shields tight against their chests. Hereward watched the band of fighting men as he wiped the sweat from his brow. They looked too sure of themselves, he thought, too many grins, too many eager glances. Were they merely content in their ignorance of the threat the English posed? Or did they harbour some secret knowledge at which he could only guess?
The nobles and guests of the Norman lords milled around, raising their cups of wine in celebration of some coming victory. Hereward grimaced as he looked at their faces, seeing arrogance and pride and contempt. He wished he could burn them all there and then. With disdain, he returned to his digging, only to sense eyes upon him. No one seemed to be looking his way, but he could take no risks so close to bringing his plan into effect. Putting his head down, he eased behind the other workmen.
The gates groaned open. The Norman commander dropped his fist and with a cheer from the crowd, the warriors surged out into the high-town. Once the gates had creaked shut behind the disappearing men, the nobles and guests trailed back into the keep, wafting their hands by their flushed faces.
For a while, Hereward struggled to lose himself in the work, tormented by the knowledge that every moment he wasted Turfrida suffered more. She was strong, he told himself, and he prayed she would endure, but he knew the child she carried would sap some of her vigour.
When next he looked up, the sun was at last slipping towards the west. The shadows lengthened across the bailey. While the other men kept their heads to their labours, he edged behind the spoil-heap and began to dig a low trench. Soon the work-master whistled low and long. With sagging shoulders, the relieved men threw aside their shovels and trudged towards the gate. The Mercian ducked down behind the pile of earth, listening to the grumbles slowly fade away.
As the gate groaned open, Hereward crawled into the trench he had dug and clawed earth over himself. Soil tumbled across his face, into his mouth and his nose. Once his frantic scrambling was complete, he lay as still as he could and listened. No one came. In the stifling gloom, all he could think was that he had dug his own grave. Sweat soaked his tunic and his throat became like sand. Muffled sounds reached his ears: snatches of dim conversation, hoofbeats near the stables, a guard hailing a friend.
The thin light faded until he swam in darkness. The sounds of the bailey ebbed. Silence lay heavy on the castle. Still, though, he could not risk leaving his hiding place, not until all his enemies were in their deepest sleep.
As if to echo his worries, vibrations throbbed through the ground around him. He stiffened. Someone was prowling around the spoil-heap. He choked back his breath, praying the trench would be well hidden in the dark. The gentle steps stopped for a moment, as if the walker were looking around, and then moved on past him. Once they had faded away, he sucked in air through gritted teeth. The pounding of his heart slowed. His plan had been a good one.
For what seemed like an age, he choked in the stink of the soil, hearing only the rasp of his laboured breathing. Time held no meaning there. He found his thoughts drifting to his childhood, miles away in Barholme, and his mother singing to him gently at twilight. The peace of those evenings settled on him once more. But it was fleeting. Again he felt the blows from his father’s fist on his cheek, the ringing in his head, the pain
in his belly from where the shoe had thumped. Still no anger came from those distant memories, only a terrible regret as if his suffering had been all his own fault.
More footsteps thudded in the dim distance. He jerked from his lucid dream, his chest tightening. This time he heard another sound too, a faint scrabbling not far from where his head lay. Rats, scavenging for any crumbs of bread dropped during the day’s work. The scurrying circled his hiding place. Those hungry vermin would not be frightened away by anything. Once he had seen a rat as long as his forearm attack a baby while the parents were sitting close by at the hearth.
The footsteps drew closer. He swallowed. Now he could not risk driving the rats away. The weight of one of the squirming creatures pressed down upon his face. He worked his mouth, hoping the movement would shift the thing, but his actions only seemed to make the rat more frenzied. Claws began to tear at the earth. Eager snuffling reached his ears. It smelled him there, fresh meat on which to gnaw.
His body was as rigid as an iron rod, his breath burning in his chest. The feet shook the ground next to where he lay. After a moment, he heard the sound of splashing, a bladder being emptied. Unperturbed, the rat raked the soil away from his face. Sharp nails tore at his skin. The vermin’s rough nose darted in, pressing next to his eye. He could feel the vibrations of its jaw. Any moment it would start to rend with its fangs.
The splashing slowed and then gushed down once more.
The rat lunged. Before the fangs tore his flesh, Hereward wrenched up in a shower of black soil. The writhing vermin spun through the night. The pissing man, a guard, reeled in horror at the terrifying apparition rising from the cold earth beside him. So shocked was he, his cry caught in his throat. He stumbled back, soaking his shoes, his hands clawing at the air.
Hereward pounced, driving the man down on to the towering pile of earth. He clamped a hand across the guard’s mouth and ripped the head to one side. The snapping of the neck sounded like a dry branch breaking. Leaving the limp body for the rats, he crawled around the heap and crouched, listening. All was still. The brief struggle could not have been heard.