by Justin Hill
‘You say that every year.’
‘Well, harvest will tell all. Are there two kings or not?’
‘Not,’ Kendra said, who was listening near by.
‘So what happened at Hamtun? You tell me. Godwin has got us into a mighty pickle. We’ll pay for his loyalty.’
Kendra grabbed a bucket of water and tipped it over Grond’s head.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’ she spat, and marched away.
So the summer dragged, and word was that Edmund and Godwin and a ragged war band were being hunted like a fox throughout the country. As July turned to August Kendra felt that she was being slowly crushed, as if a fist were squeezing out her life. She had unquiet dreams. Her mother came back to her, standing by the boat-side, screaming like a gull. Kendra woke with a start, but the night was dark and still and she lay with her eyes open and remembered the procession that carried Wulfnoth to his grave high on the headlands above Dyflin.
In her dream she lingered with Caerl by the fire but when Kendra looked at Caerl she saw his mouth was full of blood. She shrank back from him. His skull was split, and he reached for her, and she leapt like a gull out from a cliff. She swirled for a moment over a stormy grey sea battering a lonely isle of black rock, swirling on the up-drafts, the waves crashing themselves against the against the stone.
Kendra’s dream startled her. She felt the spirits were talking to her, and when word came that a battle had been fought in the far west, and that Edmund – everyone was calling him Ironside now – had been victorious, Kendra questioned the messengers closely, and then ran to her room and sat down suddenly and put her hand to her mouth and dared to hope.
In the following months the crops in the fields grew tall and strong. The wheat corns full and heavy as they swelled with the summer rains, green-gold in the sun. But Kendra was restless. She felt that bad news was coming. It hung on the horizon like a gathering stormclouds that turn from white to grey to bruised, furious black, the dark shape of things ordained.
A party of tired horsemen picked their way through the fields towards the dark shape of the Weald, which reared up like a shadow before them. They were armed and wary, weather-stained and hungry, and moved cautiously under the low branches. It had been a hard and dangerous ride, for there were Danish raiders about the country, and many of the fords were held against them. They were forced to swim the Temese at a grubby little hamlet named Ettone, in the marshes by the river, and much of their food had got wet and spoilt in the crossing.
‘Let us find a farmstead to rest,’ Beorn said.
He looked pained when he saw Godwin, slumped in his saddle. It was a cleft path before him, and Beorn did not like to make decisions. He scowled. Caerl should have been here. Caerl would know what to do. Why was Beorn having to make decisions by himself?
‘Well,’ he said. ‘It looks as though the ride might kill him. But if we stay here, who knows what Danes are about. Even if we hide our mail and weapons, they will know us from our horses, and are any of you willing to let the horses go and walk?’
They shook their heads.
Beorn paused for a long time. He hawked and spat. No one offered him any advice. Godwin mumbled through his illness, but Beorn had long since stopped trying to find meaning in his words.
Beorn looked about him. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Listen to me. We rest till evening, and then we ride at night, unless we see raiders.’
They found a farm at the edge of the Weald, and the people there were good-hearted and loyal. They fed the men with fresh-baked barley bread and gave their horses as much hay as they could eat. But they were also suspicious folk, and as soon as they heard that Beorn planned to take Godwin into the forest at night they looked pale.
‘Do not go in!’ they warned him. ‘There are fear-babes in the forest that steal men’s souls to Hell!’
Beorn was quiet as he stood and watched his men getting ready. At the end they went in to fetch Godwin. The men here slept sitting up, and Godwin was propped up by pillows, his head lolling to the side. Beorn sniffed. Wulfnoth had died of sickness, and Beorn felt for a moment that this was the fate of all the men of Wulfnoth’s family: to be consumed by the fast-burning fires of sickness.
When Godwin was safely mounted, Beorn checked the ropes that tied his master to his saddle. He had done this for Godwin and Leofwine when they were knee-high. Godwin’s trousers were warm and wet. They smelt of urine. He ought to change them, but he was eager to be off, patted Godwin’s thigh and put this from his mind.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
Under the heavy summer canopy the forest was dark and sombre and watchful. Beorn crossed himself and touched his swords and went under the dark arch of the evening wood that plunged him into night. It was a path little used by horsemen, with many low branches and trailing brambles. The path was thick with the dry brown mulch of many years of leaves, so the horses went almost without a sound, and it was soft underfoot. There was an eerie stillness, with sudden views down rows of trees or into far glades, where surprised deer started. As darkness gathered its cloaks about the world, strange sounds came from the branches above their heads.
‘Turn back!’ Beorn imagined voices calling from the shadows. ‘Beorn the Brave, do not ride down the road to doom. Turn back!’
But Beorn kept his horse on the path ahead. His hand grew sweaty as he gripped the reins of Godwin’s horse, and behind him the men followed.
It was a long, quiet ride. As they grew used to the darkness, and it to them, it no longer seemed hostile or threatening, and there was no danger of Danes so deep in the forest. It was almost a shame to see the light paling the patches of sky above their heads. Beorn yawned. He dropped off and startled himself awake, heard birds beginning their chorus, like forest angels celebrating the return of the sun.
The low fields at Contone were already being harvested. The men stood in line and moved through the corn, slashing it down. Behind them the women and children were bent at the waist, bundling the corn into sheaves, which lay like bodies in the field behind them.
Kendra had her sleeves rolled up to her elbows as she loaded the ox cart with fresh cheese and bread and pots of refreshing ale. The sun had coloured her cheeks and forearms with a blush of brown.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her forearm. The men in the fields had stopped working. Horsemen were coming down the hill towards them.
Kendra froze in terror. Oh God, she thought, not again, and was about to turn to run for a pitchfork when she noticed that there was something odd in the way the men were greeting the horsemen. They were running to welcome them. She shaded her eyes. The horses were strange, but some of the men looked familiar. Harder, rougher, leaner perhaps, but familiar as well.
One of the men was slumped in his horse. The harvesters moved in a way that showed concern as well as welcome, and then they began to look to the hall and gesture wildly.
Kendra grabbed the reins of the oxen, and took the goad from it’s peg.
‘Yah!’ she said, and the surprised oxen pitched forward. ‘Yah!’ she said, and they started to plod along the lane, and the wheels crushed new ruts into the dry-crusted mud.
Kendra was appalled when she saw Godwin: he was pale and feverish, his cheeks were hollow and his eyes bulged.
She was furious with Beorn. ‘Look what you have done to him! You should not have brought him. The journey has almost killed him.’
Beorn was tired and irritable. He flashed an ugly smile. ‘The filth of Lundenburh would have killed him more certainly.’
‘Why not take him to a village?’
‘The whole of Cantware is full of raiding parties of Danes and English,’ Beorn said. His temper was close to breaking. ‘Hush, woman! You will disturb him. I give him to your care. Don’t let him die, as you did his father.’
They parted without further words. There was nothing left to say. There was no point arguing. Cattle, like dying men, knew when to come home from the grazing g
round.
Kendra had Godwin brought gently down to the hall. As she did, the sun came out from behind a high drifting cloud and the land gleamed with golden light, and Mykelhal seemed thatched with silver as Godwin was carried by four men, eight legs, into the cool shade of the hall.
Mykelhal arched above Kendra. She arranged a bed of fresh straw and blankets and bent over Godwin as she stripped away his clothes.
There were fat swollen ticks on his legs, lice in his hair and rows of brown lice eggs in the hems of his kirtle. Kendra put his clothes aside for boiling. Gently plucked the ticks off, and dropped them into the fire. There was a few seconds of silence before each tick popped. She combed his hair, washed him, and felt his brow. He was burning up.
Kendra looked up and saw Godwin’s men standing in the hall door.
‘All of you, take off your clothes. Go and wash and comb yourselves. Agnes will boil your clothes. You’ll sleep better tonight.’
Kendra felt both frustration and relief, and as Godwin did not die that first day the feeling grew. At least Beorn had brought Godwin to her, she thought, so that she could care for him as if no other hands would do.
She sponged his brow, wiped his arms and chest with the damp cloth. Godwin’s eyelids fluttered for a moment but he did not speak, just let out a low moan as if he was trapped in a nightmare.
‘Hush!’ she told him. ‘Hush. You are safe at home in the land that raised you. Hush, Godwin son of Wulfnoth, son of England and Contone and the fair Downs of Sudsexe.’
Kendra sat over Godwin day and night. She sang the songs she had learnt as a child, charms against elfshot and witchery and other men’s curses, but sickness waged a war within Godwin and no one knew what would help him beyond their prayers and herb lore and the beneficence of Christ.
Agnes sent boys out to find all manner of roots and herbs, and spent long hours by her cauldron, mixing and tasting and preparing poultices to strap to his wound. It was hard and his sickness spread, as if it had taken over his body, battle by battle, province by province, till the will to resist collapsed.
‘How is he?’ Agnes asked in the first few days, and Kendra would force a smile and say, ‘A little better,’ or, ‘No worse,’ or, ‘He is fighting it.’
But the days stretched into a week and still Godwin clung to life. An unsure rope, frayed and hanging, that would snap under any weight.
Agnes no longer asked how Godwin was. She stood behind Kendra and looked down on him, and her hand squeezed Kendra’s shoulder as if to say, So he is still alive?
‘How are you?’ she asked. ‘You should get some rest.’
Kendra forced a smile. ‘I am well, thank you. Now leave me alone.’
But Agnes lingered. ‘You should fetch a priest,’ she said. ‘It never hurt any man to be blessed before he passed into the next world.’
‘No,’ Kendra said, but she was tired and exhausted and she was not thinking clearly. Godwin’s soul and his sins weighed upon her and in the end she relented.
It was Beorn who brought the monk. He was a skinny fellow who had come over from Dyflin with a gift for the minster at Cicestre and stayed on.
‘So, this lad is dying, is he?’
Beorn grunted in the affirmative.
‘In battle, was he?’
Another grunt.
‘Poor soul. It is the end of the world, you know. The signs are everywhere. It is both uplifting and terrifying, is it not? All of us should be ready for his coming. I feel it is near. It is a thousand years since Our Lord Christ departed this world. It is fitting that Christ will return in our own lifetimes.
‘I’ve always been one for a good funeral. The Pope has just declared that a priest must be there to bless a marriage, but I can’t see the point myself. Weddings are just for two great families to show off, and when they come to the church door to be blessed, they’re all in a hurry and cannot wait to go and get drunk at the wedding feast. But at least at a funeral they stay and listen to the hymns.’
Mass was said, and holy water used to make the sign of the cross upon Godwin’s brow.
One of the men waited outside.
‘Should we dig a grave?’ he said.
Beorn hit him. ‘Wait till he’s dead!’
That evening Grond stood outside the hall and eased his patched backside down on to the wood pile where the other men sat.
‘So he’s dying,’ he said.
‘That he is,’ another man said.
Grond let out a vague noise. ‘So who will be lord next?’
No one knew. Maybe they’d be given as book-land to the Church in return for prayers for Godwin’s soul.
‘The bees won’t make honey for fat old monks. A good lord is in hall, and a good lord is one who will fight against the Danes. Prayers never stopped any Danish axe.’
That night a warm dry gale began to blow. It tossed the trees back and forth, while the hall fire burnt low and Kendra lit a candle to hold off the night. The flame guttered in the draughts. When the wind moaned most loudly, its light shrank back against the wick and seemed many times to almost go out. When the moaning of wild spirits stopped, the flame always sprang back, its small circle of yellow light for all the world defiantly holding back the dark.
Kendra tried to sing, but she could not. Her throat was sore and she had no more heart for singing. Singing had not worked.
Alone, with the dying lad, she sat silently for a long time and urged him to fight. The world is a good and beautiful place. Do not leave so soon, Godwin, son of Wulfnoth, she willed him.
Your father loved you, she told Godwin.
He was a frightened fool that day. Five years the memory tormented him. He loved you more than he could say. You were not guilty. You did nothing wrong, for look how you have prospered. Hearth fellow of your victorious king. Do not let that life slip by now. You have worked and laboured for so long for this. Oh Godwin, do not slip into that great night.
Spirits howled and moaned, and it seemed that Godwin drew strength from the wild winds and racing clouds that hid the fitful moon, and he did not die. It was as if Leofwine was there, and Wulfnoth also, and all the men who had stood with him at each battle he had fought in.
His ramblings became more lucid. Then they stopped altogether, and rather than fitful tossing and turning, he lay and slept and snored deeply and soundly.
Two days later he opened his eyes abruptly, as if he were waking from a brief nap.
He frowned as he looked about him. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said to Kendra.
Kendra laughed. ‘Looking at you!’
‘Where am I?’
‘Here!’ she said. ‘Home!’ She could have shaken him, but she was too happy, and he was still too weak and confused. ‘They brought you home,’ she whispered. ‘They thought you would die.’
‘Why would I die?’ he mumbled, and closed his eyes again, because he was not as strong as he had remembered. The day was too bright, the noises too intense; he had no idea what was happening. ‘Where are the Danes?’ he said. ‘Where is Edmund?’
‘Hush!’ Kendra said.
‘He needs me,’ Godwin said, but Kendra held him down to the bed, and it struck her that she was strong enough – or that he was so weak – and his voice faded as he slipped back into sleep, ‘There is danger coming. I must stay by his side.’
Hush, Kendra thought, and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Slowly but surely the colour began to return to Godwin’s cheeks. Kendra kept him both warm and rested, and after a few days he seemed in much better spirits and laughed when she told him how close to death he had been.
‘Oh Kendra All-Knowing,’ he teased, ‘you have no faith.’
He listened to all that he had missed. He learnt what had happened since the battle in the fields of Sudwerca, where the Danes had been put to flight.
‘Edmund has the Danes pinned down on Tanet,’ Beorn said. ‘When the harvest is over, all the kingdom’s men will be brought to bear.’
God
win laughed. ‘Thank God,’ he said.
A shadow passed over Beorn’s face. ‘But there is something I should tell you.’
The tone in Beorn’s voice said a lot. Godwin did not feel as recovered as he had ten seconds before. He felt weak and sick and uneasy. ‘Is Edmund well?’
‘The king is well. All have come to Edmund’s banner. All,’ he said, with heavy emphasis.
Godwin’s mouth hung open. His whole body ached.
‘Eadric,’ Beorn said, slowing down the syllables, ‘has left the Danish camp.’
‘No,’ Godwin said.
Beorn nodded. ‘He begged Edmund to forgive him. Edmund has accepted Eadric’s oath.’
The words had a visible effect on Godwin. It was like watching someone hear about a loved one’s death. Godwin did not know what to say, was fearful of what had happened whilst he had been sick. Many voices began to speak in his head. A Babel. Godwin stilled them all. Only fools thought that victory came easily. Even victors had to carry their dead home with them.
But fear, like a long and slender blade, slipped into Godwin’s side and worked slowly deeper. He could not rest.
‘I have to go,’ he said. Blind panic built within him. ‘Eadric is with Edmund. No good will come of it. I must go to Edmund. The king needs me.’
‘The muster is set for three weeks hence.’
‘I cannot wait.’
‘You are too weak to ride.’
‘I cannot wait,’ Godwin said.
‘Is Edmund a fool?’ Beorn said.
‘No.’
‘Does he know Eadric?’
Godwin nodded. ‘Yes, but—’
‘But nothing. He knows a snake as well as you. He is the king. He has to unite the country.’
‘Beorn,’ Godwin said, ‘I have to go to him.’
Beorn pushed him back down. ‘Rest,’ he said. ‘Do you want to stand with the king when the last battle comes?’
Of course he did.
‘Then rest. When you are fit and well, then we shall all go.’
The last days of that battle summer of 1016 were bright and clear and heartening. Kendra cared for Godwin as if he was the spoilt youngest child. She had lambs slaughtered and roasted each night, and did not spare the cinnamon, but added another pinch to his cup of warm mead, and at night when they both slept, she lay with both arms wrapped tight about him.