by James Wilde
Redwald clenched his fist in triumph. He had doubted Hereward’s assertion that the numerous pits they had dug would claim lives, but the warrior had insisted he had witnessed the tactic’s lethal success on his travels on the other side of the whale road. His brother had grown during the years they had been apart, Redwald decided. Perhaps Hereward truly could lay claim to the throne.
Sprinting to the edge of the marshland, Redwald continued along the rim until he came to a green area reaching into the fog. He glanced around for the secret marker and then ran out from the treeline. The four remaining knights roared as they saw him.
Feigning panic, the rebel raced ahead. A sly smile crossed his face as he heard the pounding of the Normans’ leather shoes turn to splashing. A moment later their frantic cries sounded and Redwald came to a halt. He turned and placed his hands on his hips, relishing the sight of his enemies’ final breaths. The four knights thrashed thigh-deep in the sucking bog, the weight of their armour dragging them down. Redwald stood on the thin finger of solid ground reaching out into the marsh that only a fenlander would recognize. The more the Normans fought to get free, the more they sank. In desperation, they tossed aside their swords and axes, and hurled their helmets away. Redwald enjoyed that, for it meant he could see the terror in their eyes more clearly. Two of them struggled to remove their hauberks, but it was a futile task. Down they went, with gathering speed, the stinking black mud pulling at their stomachs, their chests, their necks. Their cries became childlike, their eyes filling with tears.
Redwald drew closer, dropping to his haunches to see better. His enemies pleaded with him in their tongue, but then the mud washed into their mouths, and only chokes and gurgles emerged, and then a silence broken only by the bubbles bursting on the slimy surface.
Redwald stood up, brushing the dried mud from his hands. His darkest days lay behind him now, he was sure. His heart swelled. He would never again be deflected from reaching his goal. By any means necessary, power and security would be his.
CHAPTER FIFTY — SIX
Blood streamed from the ragged neck of the severed head. His eyes burning with fierce fire, Hereward held his trophy high for Harald Redteeth to see. Hatred burned in the Viking’s chest, not just for the English warrior, but for the Normans, whose many failings had denied his axe the life for which it hungered. The red-bearded mercenary fought his urge to confront the rebel leader and raced back up the slope, knowing that he was in danger of being outnumbered. He loathed fleeing from a battle, but he was wise enough to know there would be another opportunity for his axe to drink deep.
Avoiding the paths that snaked between the trees, Harald crashed through the undergrowth, hacking at any branch that fell in his way. Everywhere he looked he saw death. Knights stumbled into bogs. Bodies bristled with arrows. Weakening moans rose from gaping pits. The alfar had been right. There were raven harvests aplenty, but all of them Normans. The rebels had made fools of them all. The Viking glimpsed them moving through the fog like spectres. Some climbed from ditches or rose up from covered hiding places. Others called warnings from the branches above. And floating on the floodlands, two men had wielded bows from strange shell-shaped boats, the like of which Redteeth had never seen before. All of them bore hideous masks of mud and ash and charcoal.
A battle cry resounded at his back, taken up on all sides. As the mercenary hauled himself through the willows, he heard the bellicose shouts begin to draw near. The English were not about to let their enemies escape, if they could help it. Spitting epithets, the Viking crashed through tangled branches and twining bramble.
But when he reached the lip of the downward slope, he glimpsed a shape looming on the left of his vision. A spear ripped through the flesh of his forearm. Numb to all pain, he reacted faster than his foe could have expected. Before the English rebel had a chance to dart back, the Viking whirled, crunching his axe into the man’s neck and wrenching it free in a gush of blood. For a moment, the shower of red jewels gripped him in a mushroom-fed fascination.
More battle cries tore him from his reverie and he threw himself over the rim and careered down the slope. Through the folds of grey, he glimpsed other figures hurtling through the trees alongside him. The heavy thud of feet on the soft loam told him they were Normans. Crashing out of the trees, he sped on to the grassy shoulder where the fog had started to clear. The musky smell of the horses hung on the breeze, and he could hear their snorts and whinnies ahead. The beasts smelled blood and death.
When he mounted his steed, the mercenary allowed himself the luxury of glancing back. Barely twenty Normans from the fifty-strong force were racing away from the island. Behind them, shadowy figures shifted through the mist along the treeline.
I will be back, he vowed, and I will take your ears to hang on my mail. He began to sing a jaunty song that ended with a peal of high-pitched laughter. The surviving Normans eyed him as if they thought the privations of the battle had driven him mad. That only made him laugh harder.
Once they had put some distance between them and the rebels, Aldous Wyvill slowed his men to a trot. Dried blood caked the corner of his eye and a blue bruise was spreading over his cheeks. ‘We will be back to avenge our fallen,’ he snarled. ‘Be brave. Hold fast.’
‘They were taking the heads,’ one of the knights gasped in horror.
‘I said, be brave!’ the Norman commander yelled at the man. ‘We shall not be beaten by peasants armed with clubs and rocks, and warriors who trick us with traps.’
The men fell silent for the rest of the ride, but Harald could smell the sour stink of fear in their sweat.
In the enclosure, Aldous ordered the gate to be shut and barred. As the dispirited knights dismounted and led their horses away, Frederic of Warenne eased out of the hall in a flap of silk and linen. He pressed his hands together in anticipation of delight, but the thin-lipped smile fell away when he saw how few men had returned, their sagging shoulders and the wounds on show.
‘What is this?’ he cried in dismay.
‘The English were waiting for us. It was a trap.’ The Norman commander tucked his helmet under his arm.
Aghast, Frederic clutched his hand to his mouth as a dreadful future flashed before his eyes. ‘The rebellion continues? Will it spread? Will the English retake their lands?’
‘Your lands are safe,’ Aldous snapped. ‘For now. But we need reinforcements soon. Our scouts report that the ranks of the rebels are swelling by the day.’
Harald Redteeth watched the simmering tension between the two men. Neither knew how to combat this turn of events, he could see. No cavalry charge could move the rebels from their natural fortress of water, bog and mist. Stifling a giggle, he put on a grave face and announced, ‘Terror is the only answer.’
The Norman commander whirled, but Frederic held up a limp hand to halt Aldous. ‘Speak,’ the landowner urged.
‘We must make the English too scared to come here. They must know that they will face axe and fire. Starvation. They must believe that these fenlands are little more than a slaughterhouse for their kind.’
Frederic clapped his hands. ‘Yes, he is right. Let us send for reinforcements. Many reinforcements.’
Aldous looked unsure, recognizing that such a course might reflect badly on his own ability to manage the fens. But it was clear that the landowner had made up his mind. ‘My men are needed here,’ the commander sniffed, turning to Harald. ‘Ride to the garrison at Lincolne. I will give you a message for the commander there, who will send to London for what we need.’
The red-bearded mercenary nodded. Glancing round the enclosure at the ragged remains of the Norman force, he felt it was a good time to be away from Barholme yet still be able to claim his coin. The invaders had failed to respect Hereward and had paid the price. The English warrior had changed greatly since their first meeting, Redteeth now realized. He was more dangerous, cleverer, wiser, and had learned many new strategies. To treat Hereward as just another rebel was to court disaster.
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As he strode towards the store to fetch supplies for his journey, Frederic’s reedy voice floated back to him: ‘At least we are safe here.’
Harald Redteeth laughed long and hard.
CHAPTER FIFTY — SEVEN
An owl shrieked away in the moonless night. The wind lured whispers from the reed-beds. And out of the lonely wetlands the silent ghosts walked, dark-eyed, sallow-skinned, with murder in their hearts.
We will drench this land in blood to honour our ancestors.
The whispered exhortation rustled among the band of men as they slipped past the ebony lakes and through the wild woods; an oath that could never be broken. With his shield on his arm and his axe in his hand, Hereward led the rebels towards the old straight track. After the rout at the camp, the men had learned to follow him without question. His mail shirt jangled with the rhythm of every step, but he wore no helm. Instead he showed his ash-painted face to the enemy; in the dark the crusted, grey mask became a glowing skull, a portent of what was to come for all who saw it.
His head throbbed with the beat of his blood. The thing he carried with him at all times, shackled deep in his heart, was rising free. He welcomed it. There was no other way. Back at the camp, in the grey hour just before dark, Alric had pleaded with him to hold his true nature in check or risk losing his soul for ever. And part of him knew the monk was right; to give in to the bestial bloodlust and the slaughter, where was the honour in that? But the peace of which he had always dreamed now seemed as ephemeral as the fenland mist. Alric had been a good friend to him, perhaps the best he had ever had. But Hereward Asketilson was already dead. Hereward the scourge of the invader, the feeder of ravens, demanded blood. And his devil would ensure it flowed in torrents.
Through the leafless trees, the torches glimmered round the Normans’ hall, Hereward’s old home. The warrior raised his hand to bring his war band to a halt. For a long moment, they waited in silence until a shadow separated from the trees and edged towards them.
‘Did I do well?’ it whispered.
‘You did well, Hengist.’
The thin-faced man from the village ran a shaking hand through his lank blond hair. His pale eyes glistened. ‘The Normans killed all the other men,’ he croaked. ‘Once I had told them the location of your camp, as you instructed, I thought they would leave. But they put my neighbours to the sword, while they knelt, while their women sobbed and prayed.’ The words died in his throat.
Hereward rested a supportive hand on the trembling man’s shoulder. ‘The invaders can never be trusted. They have no honour. But through your courage, and your neighbours’ sacrifice, we lured them into the fens and broke them. And soon, perhaps this night, we will be rid of them.’
Hengist nodded, wiping the back of his hand across his sticky nose. ‘I will join you,’ he vowed, ‘and I will pay them back in kind.’
‘And this night?’
‘Two men upon the fence.’
‘Only two?’
‘The others feast in the hall, and lick their wounds.’
Hereward shook his head in disbelief. ‘Then they have brought this end upon themselves.’ He nodded to Redwald, who flashed a grin, and Guthrinc, who cracked the knuckles of his large hands. The two men pulled their hunting bows from their shoulders, and an arrow each from the pouch upon their backs, and then moved quietly into the willows surrounding the enclosure.
The rebels ghosted among the trees. Beyond the palisade, the Norman guards stood on their platform, their helmets agleam in the torchlight. Redwald and Guthrinc knelt on the treeline, shafts notched. Hereward knew it would take a good eye to hit their prey in the gloom, but those two men were the best archers he had. They would not fail, as he had failed Vadir.
The bow-lines creaked, held for a moment, and then snapped free. Twin arrows whistled through the dark. The shafts flew so fast Hereward didn’t see them strike, but he heard them puncture flesh, and a gasp of shock and a gurgle. Both knights fell from their platform.
For a long moment, the warrior listened for any sign that the Normans in the hall had heard the falling bodies. When no sound came, he waved the rebels on. Clambering over the newly dug ramparts, the men gathered at the foot of the fence. Dropping to his hands and knees, Hengist felt around the base of the timber palisade until he came to an area that had been padded with loose chips of wood under a thin covering of soil. Hereward felt his heart swell at the risks the English farmers had taken to meet his strict instructions during their labours. At his nod, four men fell to the ground and scrabbled out the padding until there was space enough for a slight man to crawl under the fence.
‘Let me,’ Redwald whispered.
‘Take care,’ Hereward said. ‘The guards may still be alive. The knights could leave the hall at any time-’
‘Brother,’ Redwald interrupted with a grin, ‘trust me.’
‘I trust you,’ the warrior replied. He felt a burst of pride at the other man’s bravery.
Redwald wriggled through the narrow gap, and a few moments later the rebels heard the groan of the bar lifting from the gate. Once the way swung open, the men flooded inside the enclosure. Hengist padded around to the rear of the hall, Hereward and Alric darting behind. From within came the sound of drunken singing and laughter. Fools, Hereward thought. The Normans had too quickly drowned their misery at the day’s dismal outcome. But then they did not understand the English, and the fire that burned in their hearts, or the weight of their hatred.
Edging past the pit where the waste and rotting food was tossed, along the side of the chicken hut, Hengist ducked down at the hall’s rear wall and moved a pile of wood. A hole had been dug behind it, just big enough for a man to squeeze into the space beneath the hall’s timber floor where the straw had been stuffed to keep out the winter cold. Hereward nodded approvingly. Once again he felt impressed by the risks that had been taken by the men the Normans had put to work. He found a grim humour in the thought that the invaders had turned good men into their slaves and thereby brought about their own demise.
The warrior sent Alric to fetch one of the torches. When the monk returned with the sputtering brand, Hereward handed it to Hengist and whispered, ‘You know what to do.’
‘Aye. With joy in my heart,’ the other man replied, his face cold.
As they made their way back to the front of the hall, Alric caught Hereward’s arm. ‘You are not alone. I will pray for your soul.’ The monk’s face looked like stone, but his eyes swam with passion.
‘Then pray hard, monk.’ Clapping his arms around his friend, Hereward squeezed tightly. He held the embrace for a moment, and then, without a word or a look, turned and loped to the front of the hall where the rebels waited in the shadows along the palisade.
Grasping his axe with both hands, Hereward strode to the side of the door and waited. His men darted into a tight semicircle around him. The warrior looked across the row of faces, seeing courage and fear, the iron of defiance and the fire of righteous fury. The English were ready. And now there would be blood.
Hereward closed his eyes. In his mind, he pictured Asketil within the hall, his father’s fists beating his mother to death. The warrior remembered the way her blood had drained along the lines of the timber boards, creating an indelible stain that had haunted him every day he had spent there. He recalled the deep wound of his grief and his long belief that it would never heal. And then he felt his rage, his old companion, begin to simmer, and then boil, and then rise up through him. With a whisper, he summoned his devil.
The acrid scent of burning whipped in on the breeze. Wisps of grey smoke began to curl out from under the mud-coloured wattle-and-daub walls of the hall. And then the night filled with a roaring as if a great beast had been woken. Orange sparks glowed, whisking up towards the starless sky. Tongues of flame licked out from the base of the walls. Within the hall, a panicked din erupted. Feet thundered towards the door.
Coughing and spluttering, the first man burst out into the night. Herewar
d swung his axe. The head spun through the air and bounced across the mud and wet leaves. Blood drenched the warrior, but he barely recognized the sensation. His thoughts had washed away on a tranquil sea, his vision narrowing to that small doorway. Things emerged, familiar shapes that could have been shadows or monsters or memories, and each time he swung his axe. The bodies piled around his feet in the growing red pool. When the commander, Aldous Wyvill, lurched out, his gaze locked on the warrior’s face for a moment and his lips curled back from his teeth in horror at what he saw before the axe fell.
As the smoke billowed out in clouds, the warrior stepped back to give the others a chance. They lunged in one after the other, hacking with their axes or thrusting with their spears, their faces dark and emotionless. The only utterances were the prayers and screams of the Normans.
When the landowner staggered out, Hereward recognized the expensive clothes and the soft body and dragged him to one side before he could be cut down. Frederic fell to his knees, sobbing in fear.
Flames tore through the hall, cleansing it of its ghosts, and soon the intense heat drove the rebels to the edges of the enclosure. No other Normans emerged. When the roof fell in with a resounding crash, the fire whirled up towards the black sky in a gush of golden sparks. And the beast roared on. Hereward flashed back to the night Gedley had burned, the moment when the trajectory of his life had changed. A fleeting thought of Harald Redteeth whistled through his head, and he wondered where his hated enemy had gone. The red-bearded mercenary would never have allowed himself to die in the conflagration. But they would meet again, he knew, and then he would take his revenge for Vadir’s death.
But this was a night for a bonfire of the Normans’ vanity. They thought they could hold England in their fist and slowly choke the life from it. Now, as they felt the first cold fingers of terror on their spines, they would have to accept that the war had not yet ended.