by Chris Page
Which one of them never left.
The money was in the form of gold pieces specifically struck by Alfred before the invaders arrived in order to ensure he could pay for whatever services he required. Each coin bore the crowned head of Alfred on one side and an elaborate cross on the other.
On the strictest terms the king was the only person allowed access to the hoard, with Hywel keeping a tally of every gold piece taken and its destination.
There were many strong rumours that there was an even bigger cache of gold coins kept as a back-up and hidden near the old Wessex palace in Wantage where Alfred was born, but no one knew for sure except, possibly, Hywel and Classen.
And nothing, not even the most brutal Viking torture, would ever get them to reveal its whereabouts—if it existed. Like all those closely associated with Alfred, their loyalty was beyond question, even for the vast sums of gold carried in those saddlebags.
In Winchester they both slept on the saddlebags and carried them through the tunnels on their backs, with Classen carrying twice as much due to his great strength. They were never more than two steps behind Alfred and Elswith through the tunnels, and leaving Chippingham was the same. Their hoof beats were never more than a few seconds behind the king’s as they made for the Summerland Levels, the saddlebags secured on their horses. When they arrived at the hovel on Swifty’s Island, the bags were once more sat on, slept on, lived on by Hywel and Classen, and the only time one of them was opened was when Alfred paid Ike Penbarrow for his services. Now the two of them took up residence with the saddlebags in Tintagel Castle.
These gold coins were everything to Alfred, and the only way he could retain his existing army and pay for food, horses, new recruits, or mercenaries. With the Viking forcing him to the west, he had no access to other funds or the process to make more. Some noblemen and local ealdormen would perhaps help, but raising and maintaining a full fighting army took a great deal of money. If those saddlebags were lost or stolen, Alfred’s brief reign would be history, his remaining days precarious.
And the biggest band of merciless, daring, renegade killers-for hire and mercenaries in the land, under the cunning command of the master thief Jack Cat, were on their way to join him.
True to his word to King Alfred’s emissary, itself a rare event, Jack Cat and his merry band of fight-hungry renegades left the Offa’s Dyke region of Mercia the following morning to ride to Tintagel Castle. On the way they would pass quite close to Combe Castle.
It was an opportunity the renegade bunch couldn’t ignore.
As he cantered along at the head of his men, Jack motioned Patch to him. ‘Since we’re in the pay of the Wessex king, why don’t we have a look at these vaunted Viking as we pass by and see what they’re made of, eh? Earn a few gold pieces now?’
‘Careful,’ said Patch. ‘There’s five thousand of ‘em. That’s big odds even by our standards.’
Jack chuckled and eased the reins of his horse until Arrow and Baby Giant drew alongside. They were in agreement. He dropped further back until the madman Bullwhip caught up. He, too, liked the idea.
Within a day’s ride of Combe Castle, they began to meet a steady stream of frightened people who had left their settlements and hamlets in the vicinity of Combe Castle. Many of them had fled with nothing as the screaming Viking attacks had suddenly poured down onto their homes. The horrendous stories of the brutality grew ever more lurid, and with each telling, the band of misfits licked their lips in an increasing desire to engage the raiders.
Such is the mind-set of the mad mercenary.
The Vikings, however, had changed their tactics. Instead of wholesale slaughter they now only killed the old, infirm, and babies. The able-bodied and young men and women were being captured to ship back to the lowlands to be sold into the slave, or as it was known by the Viking, the trell trade.
A half a day’s ride from Combe Castle, Jack called a halt on the northern fringes of the mighty Savernake Forest. Unknown to them, they were immediately picked up by the watching pica. The Wessex veneficus would soon know about them. Making camp, Jack Cat placed sentries, then sent two men on to scout the ground. In the early hours of the following morning, the scouts returned.
Although the Viking were evenly spread around the grounds leading to Combe Castle, there were opportunities aplenty for booty. The invaders had done their work for them in gathering all their spoils in great piles outside their tents and corralling hundreds of horses stolen from everywhere within raiding distance. They had also built pens for holding those Celts they intended to ship back as slave barter.
‘If Alfred is mustering an army way down at the tip of the country, the one thing he will require is plenty of horseflesh,’ the canny renegade leader mused to his men. ‘I reckon there’s much gold in providing him with horses, eh, Patch?’
Patch nodded and then spat; his one eye glittered maliciously.
‘They can’t all march back up the country, take too long. Besides, they’ll need horseflesh for carrying stores and pulling carts.’
‘The scouts also said them Viking were drunk on the local mead.’ Jack stroked his stubble reflectively. ‘I’ve had some of that stuff myself. Couldn’t fight a rabbit after a night on that poison.’
‘The last thing they’ll be expecting is someone to attack ‘em or try to steal their horses,’ rumbled Baby Giant, tears beginning to course down his cheeks at the thought of it.
‘What are we going to do with the horses?’ Arrow asked, looking along one of his deadly shafts to check its alignment.
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Jack Cat. ‘And I’ve come up with an idea. Not knowing the area, I can’t say it’ll work for certain without looking around.’ He winked conspiratorially. ‘But if it don’t, it’s only death. Nothing we haven’t encountered before, eh, comrades?’
Bell alighted on Twilight’s shoulder and chirped in his ear. He was sitting in the feasting hall of Tintagel Castle with Alfred, de Gaini, and Baron de Lyones. In the background out of earshot, Hywel and Classen dozed on their saddlebags.
‘A message?’ Alfred was getting used to Twilight’s pica lookout system.
‘Yes and an interesting one. There is a large party, two hundred or so, of what I can only guess are mercenaries heading this way.’
‘Good,’ said Alfred, rubbing his hands. ‘This is just what we want. Our army has increased to over three thousand now with more coming in every day.’
‘I only wish they were all soldiers,’ said de Gaini. ‘Since we sent out the message of Viking non-appeasement to all the monasteries and religious orders in Wessex, we have also been inundated with monks and priests of every description. News of the treatment of the Druids at the abbey of the Order of Lacock has spread fast due to our emissaries, and they are deserting their monasteries and churches in droves. This is the only place they can find safety from the Viking. When faced with a howling berserker with a double-handled axe in his hand, as we found out at Winchester, a devotional supplication isn’t very effective. Of the three thousand men here, my liege, at least four hundred are priests of one kind or another.’
‘Are they in the way, Edward?’
‘They are. And apart from distracting the soldiers with their individual version of hell on earth and trying to convert them, each one eats enough food for four men. Some of them even start their chanting at three o’clock in the morning. The sentries have complained because they can’t hear if anyone is approaching, and none of us can get a good night’s sleep.’
‘What is to be done with them?’ Alfred looked at each one of them in turn. His gaze stopped at Twilight. The astounder shrugged.
‘We could try to put them somewhere, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Somewhere safe from the Viking yet out of our way here.’
‘Any suggestions?’ Again from the king.
Twilight chuckled. ‘You’re asking me to suggest
somewhere. You all know that I’m not exactly full of humility when it comes to the devotions of these priests. I am the sworn enemy of all such people. Perhaps one of those uninhabited islands where the gannets and terns cover everything with guano. A dousing in that would do most of them good.’
Everyone laughed.
‘Ireland?’ suggested de Gaini.
‘The few fishing boats around here capable of such a journey have been laid up for the winter,’ replied the Baron de Lyones. ‘Even then it would require a vast fleet to carry that lot. Because of all the food they eat, each one is twice or even three times the size of an ordinary man. They’d need a boat each.’
More laughter. Alfred wiped a tear from his eye.
‘I really shouldn’t be laughing against the church,’ he said. ‘I am the titular head of the Holy Christian church in Wessex. In effect I’m laughing at myself, although to be truthful, in these difficult times it’s good to just laugh.’
‘We can stop them chanting so early in the morning, tell them to leave the soldiers alone, and even try to limit the amount of food they eat. Other than that we have to look after them,’ said de Gaini.
‘There is something else they can do,’ said Twilight. ‘Something useful.’
They looked at him, unsure if another joke at the expense of the priests was about to come.
‘If you give a man a fish or a loaf of bread, you will feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish or grow barley, you will feed him for the rest of his life.’
They digested this for a moment.
‘So we teach them to fish and grow barley?’ replied Alfred.
‘Precisely,’ answered the astounder. ‘There are plenty of uncultivated meadows around here for the barley and enough fishermen to show them how to hold and cast a hand-line. This will provide the castle with more much-needed food. It will also keep them out of the way of the soldiers.’
‘And they can pray and chant as they go,’ mused de Gaini.
‘Interesting,’ said the king. ‘Is there a monk or priest who is a natural leader, someone they will respond to as their spokesman?’
The Baron de Lyones scratched his head.
‘There’s one young man who seems to lead some of them in prayer groups.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Bede,’ replied the baron.
‘Tell Bede he’s their leader and I will hold him responsible for their actions,’ said Alfred decisively. ‘And get every one of them fishing and tilling the soil right away.’
Jack Cat carefully parted the low branches on the edge of a copse of willows. Spread out in front of him in the bright moonlight was a series of open meadows leading up to Combe Castle on a low hill in the distance. In the meadows the evening fires had burned down to gray ashes outside the makeshift shelters and tents housing the slumbering Viking.
Jack pointed to a dozing sentry off to their left and another one to the right. Secure in their tenure, the Viking hadn’t seen fit to place any more.
Patch and Arrow alongside him nodded and slipped away. Minutes later they were both back, wiping blood from their daggers. The sentries had disappeared.
The horse pens were behind the dead sentry on the right, the human pens behind the dead sentry on the left. The penned humans would be a problem if they saw Jack and his men—they would shout to be released and alert the Viking. Jack had no interest in them; there was no reward for releasing them.
Except as a diversion when their getaway was underway.
Jack had split his force into four groups of fifty, and his plan was simple. He estimated that each of the ten horse pens held about fifty horses.
The first group, led by Bullwhip, would release horses from five of the pens over on the far side, round up about two hundred, and drive them to the north of the estate. The second group, led by Patch, would release horses from the other five pens on the near side and also round up about two hundred and drive them to the west. Fifty men could probably just about control two hundred horses providing they were kept calm and didn’t stampede. That would leave around three hundred horses running wild around the place. At this point the third group, led by Baby Giant, would open the pens holding the Celts kept for slave trading and they would then scatter in all directions, running for their very lives. The wild horses and the freed Celts would provide plenty of distractions for the Viking, who, by now Jack hoped, would be charging around everywhere in the confusion.
The group led by Bullwhip, driving their horses to the north, would double back around the far end of the Combe estate and link up with the second group led by Patch. They would then drive their combined four hundred or so horses over the solid wooden bridge that spanned the River Avon nearby at a place called Crew’s Hole.
The fourth group, led by Jack himself with Arrow by his side, would harry and ambush the chasing Viking as best they could as they made their way to the bridge. Baby Giant’s group were to join Jack’s as soon as they could. In the event of any problems, the bridge at Crew’s Hole, which Jack and his men had checked out the previous night along with the routes to be taken by the horses, was to be the rallying point. Once they were over the bridge and providing they had held up the Viking for enough time for the horses to get over as well, some swift chopping of the four main oak stanchions by everyone would soon send the bridge into the river, hopefully before any of the pursuing Viking got across. There was no other bridge or crossing point for many miles, so they would be well away by the time the incensed lowlanders found a way across. Should anything go wrong, everyone was to head for Tintagel Castle as fast as they could.
After the two sentries were taken care of by Arrow and Patch, Bullwhip and his men led their own horses quietly up to the first of the pens on the far side and cut the jute ropes holding the gates in place. Gradually the horses started to drift out through the open gates. Remounting, they began to gently herd them into a large group. At the same time Patch and his men were doing the same on the near side.
Just as Bullwhip’s herd began to break into a trot, their hoof beats muffled by the lush grass, a Viking staggered out of a tent and began to relieve himself right in the path of Patch and his herd of horses. Although it took some time to register with the Viking, he eventually realized what was happening and began to scream to his comrades. As he did so, Baby Giant opened the pens holding the Celts and they streamed out in their hundreds.
The utter confusion that Jack Cat had hoped for now took over with Viking, horses, Celts, and mercenaries all charging off in different directions. In the confusion Bullwhip and his men managed to drive their herd out through the trees at the north end of the estate as planned. Patch wasn’t so lucky and found his men and horses cut off by a line of Viking that had quickly formed to block his escape route west out of the estate. As he paused for a moment to weigh up the situation, the Viking line facing him suddenly broke into their usual screaming charge. Shouting to his men to drive the horses faster, they began to slap their flanks and shout. With everything going on around them, the herd spooked and leapt forward. Spurred on by Patch and his men, the herd surged toward the charging Viking. With close to two hundred panicked horses charging toward them, the howling berserkers didn’t once break stride.
And kept on coming.
As the lead horses neared the screaming invaders, some of them reared up with front hooves flying, only to be crashed into from behind by others. Viking and horses clashed in a catatonic eruption of flying hooves, caterwauling horses, and screaming men. The Viking left standing slashed and chopped at the thrashing horseflesh around them as they tried to clear a path to Patch and his men. Several of them succeeded, only to be cut down by the superior numbers of the mercenaries. The horses that survived the clash veered off toward the woods on their right. The anguished screams of dying men and smashed horses rent the air, with many of the Viking cutting down the released, weaponless Celts i
n revenge or thinking they were the attackers. Dismounting, Patch pushed his sword through the chest of a moving but badly smashed lowlander, then had to put his foot on the dead man’s chest to withdraw the blood-soaked blade. Baby Giant and his men joined them, and they began to fight their way through scattered groups of Viking emerging all over the meadows. Although Patch and his group failed to get any horses, they’d only lost a dozen or so men by the time they neared the tree line. Jack Cat and his men charged out of the woods to help them, and together the two renegade groups fought their way back to the trees largely intact.
‘Head straight for the bridge,’ shouted Jack. ‘Bullwhip will be almost there by now.’
Having a few thousand howling and very annoyed Viking after you certainly concentrates the mind, and they galloped at a breakneck speed toward the bridge at Crew’s Hole. Just before they got there, they caught up with Bullwhip and his men, who were driving their herd of horses with everything they had.
As the mercenaries and herd of charging horses drove onward, a bright, crescent-shaped moon came out from behind cloud cover and bathed the area in light. It also revealed the bridge stretching out over the deep gorge to the river below. Slowed by the herd of horses, the howls of the chasing Viking began to get closer as they gained ground.
‘Narrow the herd down to get them all on the bridge,’ shouted Jack. Patch and Arrow kicked their horses forward to obey the command.
‘Baby,’ Jack shouted. ‘Get over the bridge first with some men and start chopping the stanchions. Wait ‘til we’re all over before you collapse the thing.’
With tears streaming down his face, a situation that had prevailed since he first began this attack, Baby Giant let out a big sob, then kicked his big bay hard and signalled to four of his men to follow. In a flat-out gallop and with just a few yards to go before they reached the bridge, a strange thing happened.
The entire structure exploded in a huge orange fireball, sending pieces of wood high into the air. What was left of Crew’s Hole Bridge disappeared into the deep gorge below.