by James Wilde
‘Come near,’ he urged with a grim smile. ‘I have torn out the throat of a wolf with my bare teeth. I can do the same for you.’
Harald Redteeth shrugged. In the palm of his right hand, he balanced the axe that hung at his side by a leather thong. The blade was notched and scarred, the haft worn by years of use. ‘This is my axe, Grim. It was given to me by my father, and to him by his father,’ he said, examining the weapon approvingly. ‘That is what we do. Pass down the things of value so there is a chain linking us with the past that shaped us. You English, you do the same with your knives, so I am told.’ He looked to Hereward who showed no response. The Viking nodded reflectively. ‘With these blades, we carve our lives, and our place in the land, and in the years. And when I hold this axe, I feel my father’s hand upon mine, and his father’s upon his. That is how it should be.’
He laid down his weapon and picked another axe off the mud floor. Hereward had not noticed it until now. Harald Redteeth turned the axe over, examining it from every angle. It was clean, shiny, the edge sharp. He wrinkled his nose. ‘This is a Norman axe. They have a way with weapons, those bastards. Sharper.’ He ran one filthy-nailed finger along the cutting edge. ‘Stronger. They are built to kill.’ He tossed the weapon aside and it clattered on the hard ground. ‘They mean nothing. They are not passed on. They do not tie a man to his blood or days long gone.’ He narrowed his eyes and pointed one finger at Hereward. ‘You know what I mean.’
Hereward watched the Viking stand and prowl around the shadows of the undercroft, his hauberk rattling with each step. He came to a halt in the half-light, his red-dyed beard glowing like fire. Hereward sneered. ‘The Butcher has sent you—’
‘The Butcher has not sent me,’ Harald interrupted, cracking his knuckles. ‘I am not here to do you harm. Where would be the honour in that, a man tied up like a dog?’
The Mercian strained at his bonds until his wrists burned. ‘You would do well to kill me now,’ he said. ‘For when I am free I will end your life for what you did to my friend Vadir, in Flanders.’
‘No more than what you did when you killed my battle-brother Ivar, in a burning house, denying him entry to the Halls of the Slain.’ The Viking glowered. ‘We have a blood-feud, you and I, and it can only be ended one way, between men, on the field of battle, whether it be by your death or my own.’
‘Yours, then.’
Nodding, Harald Redteeth drew closer and folded his arms. ‘We shall see.’
‘My wife, Turfrida. She yet lives?’ Hereward held his head up, trying to show no sign of weakness, but a tic gave away his fears. How close he had been to spiriting her away from danger until his father had betrayed him. His stomach heaved at the memory. His mind shied from all thought of Asketil, a man filled with such loathing he would set aside all blood-ties to try to destroy his own flesh.
The Viking nodded, scowling with disgust. ‘Stealing a woman, and a woman with child at that … making her suffer to break your spirit … there is no honour in this course.’
‘And yet you raise your axe for these very snakes.’
Redteeth bristled. ‘I take their coin. And it serves me that they are your enemy.’ Calming himself, he prowled away once more and when he turned, he said in a low voice, ‘And so you must dishonour yourself by denying the English and the battle you fight. Force your own folk to bare their throats to the conqueror’s fangs. And if you do not, your woman will die in agony.’ He spat. ‘No man should endure that choice.’
Hereward kept his shoulders back, but he felt a deep cold run into his bones. Never could he sacrifice his wife and his unborn child. Nor could he renounce the English, and every man and woman who had believed in him. He saw no way out of this misery, and only suffering and death on all sides.
If Redteeth recognized those fears in his face, he said nothing, and Hereward felt grateful for that small mercy. The Viking shook his head wearily and strode back towards the door. At the foot of the steps, he half-turned and said, ‘The Butcher will be here soon, with that noble cur who follows him around. They will demand of you your decision, and one way or another your life will be over.’ He shrugged, humming a strange tune to himself. After a moment, he added, ‘A horse is tethered by the house where your woman is kept. The castle gates are open, and will stay that way until the carts have brought food for this night’s feast.’ He bowed his head in thought for a moment, and then added, ‘A man who was not bound could put both to good use.’
Hereward snarled at the final taunt as Harald Redteeth climbed the steps and went out. But in the flickering candlelight, something glinted in the corner of his vision. He looked round and saw the Norman axe, still lying on the mud next to him.
CHAPTER FIFTY
RAIN LASHED THE castle grounds. Lowering black clouds turned the day into night as the figure crept out of the store near the keep. Torrents of water gushed across the sun-baked mud and grass of the bailey. Shin-deep grey pools formed in the hollows. Thunder cracked overhead, and in the stables the frightened horses whinnied and stamped their hooves. Hereward gripped the Norman axe, creeping low against the wall. So heavy was the downpour he could barely see the gates. It was the perfect cover for what he had to do.
His sodden tunic was already clinging to his skin as he reached the store where Turfrida was imprisoned. Blinking the rain from his eyes, he eased open the door and slipped inside. When the thunder rolled away, he heard the piercing scream hidden beneath it. His wife was not alone. Devastated, his head spun at the agonies he heard in that throat-rending cry. No more would she suffer. Hereward gritted his teeth and crept down the steps.
A steady beat of rain dripped through the roof. More water sluiced down the earth walls of the undercroft and pooled across the floor. An orange glow suffused the far end of the space, from a fire dancing in a circle of stones. Iron rods lay in the coals, the tips glowing yellow. His nose wrinkled at the cloud of sulphurous smoke drifting through the store. Another scream tore from his wife’s throat, and he almost cried out in response. No more, he thought to himself. No more.
As the smoke shifted, he glimpsed Turfrida huddled on the floor in the glimmering light by the far wall. She had rolled into a ball, her hands pressed against her face. Her round belly strained against the filthy linen of her dress. Two figures loomed over her, their backs to him. One was a guard leaning on a spear. Tall and strong, he was, like an oak, a worthy opponent in any battle. In the heat of the undercroft, his helm had been set aside and he wore only a sweat-stained tunic and breeches. Hereward saw the other man was Emeric the witchfinder. He clutched an iron poker, the tip glowing red, and he slowly waved it over Turfrida’s shaking form.
‘Witch,’ he murmured. ‘How many times we have met here. I would have long since shown you God’s mercy were you not the bait for an English rat. And so we must still pull the devils from you one by one, this day, and the next, and the ones beyond that, until the vermin has met his fate.’
‘Soon you will be dead,’ Turfrida croaked, ‘and no one will mourn for you. The vættir have said this is so.’
Her words seemed to drive the churchman into a rage for he swung the poker up as if to strike her. The Mercian flinched, too far from the cleric to strike. The poker hung in the air for a moment, before Emeric lowered it and said with a smile, ‘I pity you, but this is in God’s hands now.’
Hereward felt sickened by what he saw. Other men might be destroyed by seeing their wife in such torment, but not him. He turned his pain deep inside him, as he had all his life. In reply, his rage called to him from the dark chambers of his soul. He could not, would not, contain it any longer.
With a snarl, he bounded across the undercroft like a wolf. His thoughts fled. His vision closed in. He swung the axe. The guard barely had time to raise a defensive arm as the blade came down, cutting through flesh and bone and almost severing the head. Blood splashed into the fire, sizzling. The man fell without a sound escaping his throat and Hereward was already turning on the witchfinder.<
br />
Emeric swung up the hot poker instinctively, but it was a half-hearted defence. With the back of his hand, Hereward swatted it out of the cleric’s grip. It bounced across the floor into a puddle, hissing and steaming.
The churchman stooped and snatched a knife from the ground, no doubt one he had planned to use on his captive. He was fast, like a snake. Hereward saw Emeric might even have drawn blood, but Turfrida slammed her feet into the back of the witchfinder’s legs. The knife tumbled from his grip, and as he sprawled on the ground, she snarled, ‘Let God save you now.’
Hereward grinned at his wife’s defiance. Here was the woman he had married, filled with fire despite the agonies that had near sapped the life from her. Yet when his gaze fell upon the witchfinder once more, he forgot Turfrida. Only one thought burned in his mind. ‘Kneel,’ he growled.
The churchman must have glimpsed some terrible thing in his captor’s face, for he began to shake uncontrollably as all resistance drained from him. Falling to his knees, he bowed his head and clasped his hands together, pleading, ‘Mercy.’
‘I will show mercy,’ Hereward replied. Emeric pushed his head back and closed his eyes with relief. ‘Mercy for all those who might have suffered under your cruel hand.’
And he brought the axe down.
How long passed, he did not know. Blood hammered in his head, and his heart burned like a smith’s forge. When he was done, he looked down, but he could not tell what lay before him. His tunic was stained black, his hands and arms dripping. Setting the axe aside, he fell to his knees and pulled Turfrida into an embrace. Relief flooded him.
‘My husband,’ she murmured. ‘I knew you would save me.’
Yet in truth it was she who had saved him. Lifting her up in his arms, he whispered, ‘I will never let harm come to you again. This I vow.’
He carried her to the steps, and out into the deluge. As the rain rinsed the blood off him, he thought how pale she looked. The horse was tethered where Harald Redteeth had said it would be. Within moments, they were riding through the castle gates, down the winding streets of Lincylene and out into the rain-drenched country. All was well, he told himself. All was well. His wife and unborn child were safe. He had survived to take the battle to the king, finally. And yet, as he looked towards the grey horizon, one thought seared through his mind: the beast inside him had thrown off its shackles and he was afraid it would never again be chained.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
GULLS WHEELED ACROSS the blue sky. Aft, in the distance, the last of the roiling storm-clouds swept away. Alric clawed his way upright with the aid of the mast and attempted to wring out the hem of his sodden tunic as he peered out over calm seas. He smiled to himself. Peace had returned to the world, and with it a sense of purpose.
Diamonds of light glinted off the waves. Ahead he could see a brown smudge of land lit by the full glory of the afternoon sun. He crossed himself and muttered a prayer of thanks. Nasi strode by. ‘That was no storm,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It was only a sneeze.’
Yet as Alric looked around, he saw that of the vast fleet that had set sail from England, only three ships now accompanied them. The Dane followed his gaze and added, ‘Perhaps more than a sneeze.’
‘All lost?’
‘Some will be at the bottom,’ he agreed, his mouth tightening. ‘The others could have been blown anywhere from Normandy to Ireland. On this journey, God has not smiled on us.’ His eyes flickered towards the relic box. Aethelwold and the monks knelt around it, still at prayer. Nasi moved on, passing among his men at their oars. He muttered something in the flinty Danish tongue and they all laughed loudly in response.
As the rocky cliffs drew near, Aethelwold stumbled along the brine-slick deck, shaking from the chill breeze. His soaking tunic dripped a trail behind him. ‘Sometimes I think these Danes are mad,’ he whispered, watching the crew throw their heads back and sing of the sea and women and blood. ‘Death almost takes them by the hand and yet they treat it as nothing. And you … you seem untroubled by how close we came to leaving this world behind,’ the prior added suspiciously.
‘God saved us. He did not smile upon the Danes. They have lost much of their treasure and have little to show for all their fighting in our land. There is a reason for all things, so we are told, and I think I now see with clearer eyes.’ When he had thought he was going to die, sucked down to the cold, black depths where the serpents swam, a calm had descended on him. What if God had divined a path for him, but he had been too busy peering into the dark to see the light ahead? He believed he knew why he had been stolen from his home, why he was there heading to a strange land, why he had been carried past death when so many others had been taken. He had great work to do, and it would test him to the limit, but he would not fail.
Aethelwold looked to the three ships sailing close behind. ‘What if the king is dead? Who will hear our pleas?’
‘You waste your breath,’ Alric replied, a little more harshly than he intended. ‘Even if Sweyn Estrithson lives, he will never let you take St Oswald’s arm back to Burgh. It is worth more than gold itself to a king. It is power, God’s power. Wars have been fought over less. You know these things.’
Aethelwold raised his head in defiance. ‘We have been charged with protecting the holy relic. God will see this thing done.’
‘You sail to your deaths.’ The prior flinched, but refused to meet Alric’s eyes. ‘Sweyn Estrithson slaughtered a church full of men at prayer because they said one word against him. These Danes knew what would happen the moment they agreed for you and your brothers to sail with them. Do you think these warriors who spend their days spilling blood for gold have hearts filled with kindness?’ He watched the cliffs loom ever closer, grey slabs of rock that seemed to suck the light from the air. ‘Once the king is in his hall, he will listen to your pleas, and nod, and then take your heads. When you have been burned, he will count his gold and pray over his new bone and tell the world that God now aids the Danes.’
‘Then you will die too,’ Aethelwold snapped.
‘Whoever set me on this ship knew what my fate would be.’
‘Yet you look towards the land of your fate as if it were a home-fire. You are as mad as these Danes,’ the prior raged, stalking back towards his monks. Alric nodded; he had long believed that to be true.
The light was fading as the four ships reached land. Warriors splashed into the surf and hauled on oak-fibre ropes to beach their vessels on the stones. Once the drain-plugs had been knocked out of the hull to empty the water from each vessel, the men collected their shields and spears and sea-chests and gathered on the beach. Pitch-covered torches hissed into life in the gloom.
Alric watched the Danes eyeing their ship furtively as they gathered in the circles of light. Only when Nasi said to the prior, ‘Fetch your box of bones,’ did he understand why. They had carried the reliquary aboard with barely a second thought, just another piece of plunder. Now they were afraid to touch it.
Once three monks had clambered back into the vessel to retrieve the relic chest, Nasi led the way up a winding path to the top of the cliffs. A track wide enough for a cart plunged through dark woods. Night had fallen by the time they were wading through the thigh-high grass of rolling heathland. Soon woodsmoke drifted on the breeze and Alric could see more torches burning ahead. Behind ramparts and a palisade stood the king’s royal manor: a vast hall and a stone church with many smaller halls and houses surrounding it. Inside the wall, on three sides, narrow streets lined with smaller houses and huts ran off into the dark.
As they passed through the gates, folk swarmed around to hear the news. Faces paled in the dancing light, and the mutterings of the crowd turned into anguished cries: a reaction, Alric assumed, to an account of the storm, and the possible loss of the royal ship. Within the hour scouts were galloping out to spread the word that the search for Sweyn Estrithson must begin immediately.
‘Stay in the church until our king returns,’ Nasi said to the English c
lerics as they waited, weary and cold, by the gates. ‘And take your bone-chest with you. Do not wander freely. My men are quick with their spears and ask questions later.’
Inside the cold church, they lit candles and said prayers at the altar before making beds of clean straw in the tower. The brothers quickly slumped into a deep sleep after their ordeal, but Aethelwold sat in the shadows of one corner, brooding. Alric thought he had fallen asleep too, until a voice rustled out of the gloom. ‘I see now that you were right. They will never let us leave with St Oswald’s arm. I have sacrificed all these lives because of my foolishness.’
‘We are not dead yet,’ Alric replied.
‘There is nothing we can do,’ the prior said with a note of hopelessness. ‘We cannot fight our way out. You heard the truth buried in Nasi’s words. They are holding us here against our will until the king passes his judgement. We are already doomed.’
Alric knew he could not argue. Once he heard Aethelwold’s snores, he muttered a quiet prayer for guidance. This was the reason why he was here, he was sure of it. The first hints of a way out had come to him aboard the ship in the aftermath of the storm, yet it was a road he was afraid to travel. Sleep would not come easily, he knew.
The next morning, he prayed until his knees ached. The Danes brought stew and bread and ale and the monks picked at the meal with little enthusiasm. Alric chewed a few mouthfuls, but the apprehension that nagged at him stole his appetite. As he watched the prior slip into a black mood that seemed to infect all the brothers, he felt the burden upon his shoulders grow heavier still.
Two more days were passed in prayer, then on the following morning Nasi slipped into the church and announced, ‘We have received word. The king has survived and will be in his hall within three days.’