The Bloody Crown

by James Wilde

  A day later, as they plunged into a wooded valley deep enough to keep the wind howling high above them in the treetops, they heard cries echoing from the gloom somewhere ahead. Hereward took a handful of his men forward to investigate.

  In the mud and grass at the side of the road, a cart leaned over almost on its side, its axle shattered when it had veered off the hard surface. Bales had spilled out from the back, some of them splitting open. A red-faced merchant spitting with fury was lashing a cowering boy with the whip he used to steer his horse.

  Hereward felt such a surge of anger he shocked himself. Deep inside his head his devil roared, and the blood thundered through his temples.

  ‘Leave him,’ he bellowed, but the merchant was so caught up in his rage that he was oblivious even of an army riding up beside him.

  Jumping down from his mount, Hereward strode off the road. As his vision closed in around him, he saw not a merchant chastising his helper, but his father Asketil pounding his fists on his own younger self.

  Without slowing his step, he snarled his hand in the back of the merchant’s tunic and yanked him round. He caught a glimpse of a startled expression, heard the beginning of a choked plea, but he could no longer control himself. His fist hammered into the man’s face. Blood spurted. For a moment all his senses left him.

  When the rumble of sound returned, filled with strange shouts and the screaming of a boy, he became aware that his sword was in his hand and he was about to thrust it into the merchant’s gut.

  Hands grasped his arms and shoulders and hauled him back. Kraki’s voice thrummed in his ears before Brainbiter was wrenched from his hand. Though he struggled, the spear-brothers held him fast and gradually his devil slipped back into the depths.

  Hereward shook his head to clear it. Between sobs, the boy was pleading, ‘Do not kill him. He is a good man.’ The lad was so small a strong wind might blow him away. His sandy hair was a mass of curls, his cheeks red and tear-stained. He held out an imploring hand.

  The Mercian bowed his head, feeling a cold knot in his gut. When he looked up, Alexios floated in front of him, his brow furrowed. ‘What is wrong, brother?’

  Hereward glanced down at his bloody hands. A chill crept into his bones. ‘You may let me go,’ he murmured. ‘I am done.’ Reluctantly Alexios and the spear-brothers stepped back. Hereward felt shamed when he saw their wary stares. Taking back his blade and sheathing it, he said to the merchant, ‘You have your life. Use it well. Do not hurt this boy again.’

  The merchant muttered something, but his mangled lips made the words unintelligible.

  ‘It is not his fault.’ The boy wiped away the snot on his upper lip. ‘The Normans murdered his wife. His grief has made him a different man. We are fleeing with all we had.’ He glanced down at the broken cart and added in a low voice, ‘I steered it off the road. I have brought ruin to him.’

  Hereward had thought his guilt could get no stronger, but now his chest felt so tight it would burst. He looked back at the merchant. ‘You were wrong to whip the boy, but now I have wronged you more.’

  When he had made arrangements with Alexios for the merchant to be given one of the army’s carts, he rode ahead of the column, alone, aware of his spear-brothers’ eyes upon his back, unsure what they thought of him, no longer knowing what he thought of himself.

  Three nights later they had crossed the high ground and were making their way down the westward slopes towards the coast. They were six days out of Constantinople. Now, so near to their enemy, they took more care, leaving the great road to wend their way through deep, tree-shrouded valleys where flies droned through dappled patches of light.

  Ahead of the main column, the scouts roamed far and wide. Herrig the Rat led the band. He was far from his home among the vermin in the watercourses and bogs of the fenlands, but he had earned the respect of the Guard, though few would spend much time drinking with him, unsettled by his odd stare and the strange cackling that had come from too many seasons in the wilderness away from other men. And, too, by the chinking Norman finger bones that hung on a leather thong around his neck. But when he was tracking spoor, following the pattern of broken grass, or spying shadows moving more than a day’s march away, even the fiercest warrior held his breath in awe. Only God or the Devil could have granted him such powers.

  That evening they made camp in a clearing in the forest about halfway down the slope of the final foothill before the coastal plain. When the wind was from the west, they could smell the salt of the whale road. The tents spread deep into the trees on every side, where the insects clicked and the scent of resin was strong.

  Under a clear, star-sprinkled sky, the warriors feasted on cold rations: cheese, olives, venison. No fires were allowed for fear the smoke would carry to the enemy, and no singing rang up to the heavens.

  His belly full, Hereward walked among the men with Kraki and Tiberius at his side. He kept his eyes ahead, ignoring the wary looks from those men who did not know him well and were troubled by his attack upon the merchant. The night was balmy, but he sensed no relaxation. The warriors stared deep into the dark, their faces taut, every one aware that the next day’s battle would be hard. Many would not return to Constantinople.

  ‘You Romans think this a winter chill.’ Kraki wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘You would think you had entered hell if you spent a cold season in Eoferwic. The winds cut sharper than a Damascan blade.’

  ‘I have heard tell of your barbarian lands,’ Tiberius replied, his eyes sly. ‘If there is no woman to keep you warm at night, you sleep with sheep.’

  ‘Better sheep than the small boys you Romans love,’ Kraki grunted.

  When Tiberius stepped away to piss against a tree, Hereward said, ‘Sighard came to me earlier. He thinks he wants to wed this girl who has taken his days.’

  ‘Aye, he is besotted,’ Kraki said. ‘What did you tell him? To dunk his head in a water barrel?’

  ‘And you would not have wed Acha, given half the chance?’

  The Viking looked away into the night. ‘That was never to be.’

  ‘He is young, true, but he deserves some reward.’ Hereward imagined the face of Turfrida.

  ‘Those women who idle their days in the Vlanga are hungry for the gold and the glory of the Varangian Guard. Any man will do. You know that.’ Kraki hawked up phelgm and spat. ‘Spare him the sword in his heart that will be his only reward for that coupling.’

  Hereward heard a fatherly note of concern in those words, though the Viking would undoubtedly deny he cared even a jot about the youngest of the spear-brothers. ‘I will ponder on it,’ he said.

  Keen whispers rippled back through the resting men, and when Hereward saw they were accompanied by broad grins he knew Herrig the Rat had returned.

  Sure enough, the English scout strode up through the tents. His hand-picked band followed close at his heels, struggling with someone in their midst that the Mercian could not see.

  ‘Your man is good,’ Tiberius said with a satisfied smile when he returned and saw that the scouts had a captive.

  ‘Aye, though you would not tell it to look at him.’

  When the scouting band found Hereward, Herrig gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘A gift for you.’

  Two of the others hurled their captive forward. He sprawled at Hereward’s feet and looked up with hate-filled eyes.

  It was a Norman soldier; the Mercian recognized the shaved head. His face was bruised, his lips caked with blood.

  ‘We have cleared all of Robert Guiscard’s scouts that we could find. No word will reach the fox of our approach.’ Herrig snickered. ‘I brought this one back so you could put him to the question. But when you are done with him, let me have his hand.’

  The Norman scout showed a defiant face, but a flash of fear lit his eyes. He had spent enough time in Herrig’s company to know what was to come.

  ‘I will not speak,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘You will. Do not ask for mercy. There will be
none.’ Hereward turned and walked in the direction of his tent. Without looking back, he flicked his fingers. ‘Bring him.’

  The scout closed his eyes and muttered a desperate prayer before hands grabbed him and dragged him towards his fate.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  A SILVER WAVE washed out of the forest on to the grassy slopes running down to the shore. The ground throbbed with the sound of hooves. The Immortals and the Varangian Guard were sweeping out of their camp, ready for battle after their silent night.

  Ahead, the dawn light edged glistening strands along the rolling breakers. Like a disturbed anthill, the camp of Robert Guiscard and his army swarmed with activity along the edge of the beach.

  At the point where the land flattened, Tiberius Grabas raised one hand and the rumble slowly ebbed away as his force came to a halt. The wind had dropped, but the air felt warm and heavy, threatening storms to come.

  Hereward watched Alexios and Tiberius guide their horses along the line to where he waited at the head of the Varangian Guard. The Athanatoi lined the flanks, ready to torment the Normans from either side while the Guard drove like a spear into their heart.

  Alexios’ and Tiberius’ armour caught the first rays of the sun. The commander of the Immortals had drawn his sword already, but the younger Roman seemed as calm as if he were at hunt, Hereward thought. Their horses were skittish, as if they sensed what was to come.

  ‘They knew we were coming before dawn.’ Tiberius nodded towards the enemy. ‘This close, we could not hide the sound of an army approaching.’

  ‘Aye. But fate has been kind to let us reach this point undiscovered.’

  Before his death the previous night, the Norman scout had told Hereward everything he wanted to know. Robert Guiscard had no knowledge of the army bearing down on him. He must have been waiting in vain for his scouts to return from the hinterland, but Herrig the Rat had done a good job of ensuring that none of them would ever be seen again.

  The Mercian watched Guiscard’s men readying themselves. They were fast, well organized. He weighed their numbers and the location that Herrig had described to him in detail, turning over the strategy that he had discussed with the Roman commander deep into the night. In his arrogance, Robert Guiscard had camped his army in a bowl. High land, heavily wooded, rose up on three sides. The fourth was the whale road. Guiscard was trapped. His warriors could only retreat into the waves, where the waters would eventually run red with their blood. A few no doubt would escape to the ships at anchor just offshore, the ropes straining against the swell. All they could do then was flee back to Apulia, their tails between their legs.

  ‘We are evenly matched,’ Alexios noted. ‘Clearly, more men have joined Guiscard’s army since we left Constantinople.’

  ‘Then it is good we have the upper hand,’ Tiberius said.

  Hereward could see the unease in his eyes. They all knew victory here could change everything. If Guiscard was crushed the moment he set foot upon Roman land, he would not be so quick to risk an attack in days yet to come. No one could doubt that he lusted after the power that resided in the crown, and all the wealth that would be his if he found a way to seat his daughter beside a new emperor on the throne in Constantinople. But the duke’s own empire was already large, and if his forces were weakened in battle with the Romans it was unlikely he would be able to hold on to Apulia and Sicily.

  Aye, victory could change everything, Hereward thought, just as defeat could set them all on course for disaster. Emboldened by success, how long before Robert Guiscard decided to march upon a weakened Constantinople? And who would be left to stand in his way?

  Tiberius sucked in a deep, calming breath, then swept his eyes along the ranks of gleaming armour of the Immortals and the brooding warriors of the Guard. He nodded. ‘It is time.’

  Hereward gritted his teeth, summoning up his devil from deep within him. Here it had a part to play, not tormenting innocents.

  A raven flashed across his vision. ‘Death waits in silence,’ it said to him in a croaking old man’s voice.

  Somewhere on the edge of that great black sea, his long-dead allies were cheering him on. All the warriors of the Varangian Guard would be hearing the voices of their own dead now, he knew. Those voices would rustle through their skulls. The fire in their breasts would roar into a blaze that could burn down all before them. The battle-rage would come, and it could only be sated by the blood of their enemies.

  ‘Death waits in silence,’ the raven called to him again, before it took wing into the shimmering dawn light.

  For a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath. Every man was fixed in place, eyes narrowing so that all they saw was the enemy.

  The wind moaned. The surf crashed. The gulls cried.

  The command rang out.

  The world heaved into life, the air booming with the thunder of hooves and full-throated battle-cries. As the Roman army surged out of the grasslands and into the salt wastes, the Immortals skirted the edges along the solid ground that Herrig and his band had already scouted.

  Hereward punched his fist into the air and roared. As one the Varangian Guard slid off their mounts, breaking into a lope the moment their feet touched the ground. Axes swung, balancing the rolling gait. The Mercian heard the rasp of breath all around, like the sound of a waking wolf. But then the wind roared in his ears, and the blood pounded, and all the sounds of the world were snatched away.

  Through pools of brine, the pace never slowed. The hungry gaze never shifted from the prey. Hereward wondered how it must feel to be their enemies and to see this monstrous sight bearing down upon them. A smudge of black and crimson reaching across the breadth of sight, resolving itself into a savage pack filled with glittering eyes, wild beards and hair, yet joined in a single purpose.

  Destruction.

  Doom.

  The ground flew beneath his feet. Glistening diamonds of spray danced all around.

  Ahead, the Normans waited, unmoving, a wall of iron. Grey they were in their hauberks and helms, with their double-edged swords drawn, and their axes raised. Faces carved from granite, eyes like frozen lakes.

  Closer the Roman army drew, and closer still.

  And then the wave broke. Hereward hacked his Dane-axe down. An arc of sparks blazed as the Norman in front of him parried the strike with his own axe.

  The sun fell away, and the sky, and the world became dark in the turmoil of battle raging all around. Bodies crashed against him, elbows and knees fighting for advantage. Blades whisked everywhere. Screams ripped through the thump of blood. Cascades of rubies showered down, splattering faces, staining armour.

  Hereward narrowed his eyes, his vision closing in on that single face in front of him, a patchwork of scars running the length of the left side. Lips pulled back from teeth in a snarl. So close they were, face to face in a dance of death, that Hereward felt a hot blast of breath upon his face.

  His eyes never left his enemy’s, and in that moment they knew each other, knew the values they shared, their strengths and weaknesses, their fears and hopes.

  The Norman warrior swung his short-handled axe towards the Mercian, thrusting it forward in an attempt to hook his foe. Hereward leapt aside before the scarred man could wrench the weapon back, tearing open flesh.

  Rolling on his heels, the Mercian heaved his axe down once more. The Norman jerked back, cursing. But the fighting men roiling behind him blocked his escape. Brought up sharp, he turned his face away. The blade missed his cheek by a whisker and tore across his shoulder, rending links on his hauberk. With a howl, the warrior renewed his attack, more venomous than ever.

  Hereward felt a calm settle on him. He was ready, as was his devil. The Norman had allowed his pain to rule his mind, a fatal error.

  As the scarred man lurched forward, axe raised, the Mercian rammed the haft of his axe into his foe’s face. Lips burst, teeth shattered. Stunned, the warrior reeled. Before he could find his wits, Hereward crashed the axe into his shoulder, drivin
g him to his knees. Wrenching the weapon back, the Mercian saw he had cut deep into the Norman’s ribs. Blood gouted. The man could not survive. Thrusting one boot into his chest, Hereward drove him into the wet ground and moved on to the next.

  How long the battle raged the Mercian could not tell. Every moment seemed to last an age. The faces of his fallen enemies blurred. How many had he slain? His right arm ached and blood stained him from head to toe.

  As space opened up about him, his devil began to settle back, sated. He looked around. His feet dragged through a sucking bog of gore and shit and piss. Bodies littered the shoreline, at times three or four deep. As many dead Varangians as Normans, it seemed. They were evenly matched.

  Wiping the blood from his eyes, Hereward glanced towards the flanks where the Immortals harried the enemy. Herrig had warned there would be little space to use the cavalry effectively, and the Mercian could see that was true. The riders churned as they lashed their swords down.

  But the Normans had positioned their archers on the edges of their army, ready for just such an attack. Arrows whined, and the horses reared up in agony as the riders fought to keep them under control. Some went down, the Romans falling to the swords of their enemies.

  A cry rang out, and Hereward whirled to see Kraki standing over the bloody body of a Norman who, no doubt, had been ready to end the Mercian’s days while his back was turned. The Viking pointed to his eyes, his head, and then at Hereward.

  Drawing himself up, the Mercian looked to the Immortals once more. Now he could see that for all the skill of their archers, the Normans on the flanks were being whittled down. Perhaps there was hope, and the two armies would not hack each other down into the bloody mire until there was only one man left standing.

  Yet barely had the thought crossed his mind before a battle-cry rang out at his back.

  Spinning round, he squinted into the dawn light. Warriors on horseback were streaming out of the trees, perhaps two hundred of them. His heart pounded. Somehow the Normans had called down allies. This force had been waiting for the moment when they were most needed to turn the tide of battle.