Crusade

by Stewart Binns

  ‘Let’s bed down in the hall. I don’t think our host is far away.’

  William and Roger enter the modest hall and start to pile wood on to the ashes of the smouldering fire.

  ‘Roger, hand me those bellows.’

  As the young monk reaches for the means to bring the fire to life, a gruff voice speaks to them from the shadows.

  ‘What do you want here?’

  William, startled, turns sharply.

  ‘Show yourself, we have had enough shocks for one day.’

  ‘We are the ones who should be shocked. You have entered our hall uninvited.’

  ‘I am William of Malmesbury, and this is my cleric, Roger of Caen. We seek Edgar, Prince of this realm.’

  ‘There are no princes here, priest. Are you mad? Why would a royal prince be living in this godforsaken place?’

  ‘I am sorry; we have been told that Prince Edgar lives here. In fact, it was your neighbours, the Gul, who escorted us here.’

  With that, another much gentler voice speaks.

  ‘Welcome to Ashgyll, William of Malmesbury. I’m afraid we will not be able to offer you the many comforts of the dormitories in your great abbey, but our settlement suffices for our simple needs.’

  William and Roger turn to their right as the man they seek steps from the shadows with his steward. At the same time, the first man also steps forward; he is a large battle-scarred man, who is clearly Edgar’s sergeant-at-arms.

  William bows and says, ‘My Lord, I am honoured to meet the Atheling Prince of England. You knew of our coming?’

  ‘Of course, my friends the Gul keep me informed. But none of that “Atheling” formality, that was a long time ago. I am now Edgar, Lord of Ashgyll, but my realm is no more than what you see around you. You must call me Edgar.’

  The Prince tells his steward to take care of the horses, then gestures to William and Roger to move closer to the fire.

  ‘You must forgive my furtiveness when you appeared. I like to remain as anonymous as possible up here. I have chosen a quiet and contemplative end to my life. As a monk, I’m sure you will understand that.’

  ‘Indeed, although life at Malmesbury can sometimes be far more hectic than I would wish.’

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’

  ‘A Norseman. He came to the abbey to sell linen.’

  Edgar smiles ruefully.

  ‘I thought as much. I recall he just appeared one day. He recognized me at Durham and must have followed me here. I don’t know how he avoided the Gul; perhaps he paid them off. I suppose you made it worth his while to tell you where I lived?’

  ‘Well, we did buy rather a lot of linen from him.’

  ‘Yes, he was a good salesman – very persuasive; he carried some excellent Norse mead. He probably got me drunk. Anyway, he had already guessed my identity, so there was no point in denying it.’

  Edgar shrugs his shoulders, sits himself down by the fire and changes the subject.

  ‘You are a Norman, young Roger. I know Caen; it is a fine city. And I know the Normans well – especially a very noble one called Robert.’

  After a pause, Edgar turns to William and stares at him pointedly.

  ‘Are you here to hear my confession?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I would like to hear the account of your many trials and tribulations. My life is devoted to the chronicles of the past.’

  ‘I know your work and that you have just completed your Deeds of the Kings of the English. The monks at Durham have a copy, which they are very proud of.’

  ‘You flatter me. How often do you visit the cathedral?’

  ‘I used to go occasionally, but now the stiffness of old age prevents any travel beyond my weekly trip to Alston, an old Norse settlement nearby. Like so much of the North, it’s not much more than a ruin where the few locals who survive hold a weekly market.’

  ‘Does that include the mysterious Owain Rheged and his band of Celts?’

  ‘No, indeed. No one ever sees them. They live deep in the forest – high up, near the open fells. Owain comes here from time to time. I like to drink, he likes to talk; he tells me endless stories about his ancestors and the great Urien Rheged.’

  ‘He killed two of my men; beheaded one and hanged his head from a tree like an animal. The other he butchered in front of us like a deer in the forest.’

  ‘I’m surprised he didn’t do that to all of you; he is guarding the safety of his tribe. He still holds human sacrifices, or so I am told. He’s getting old, though, so perhaps he was curious about you. Maybe he was tempted to tell you his story? He must know the end is close for his people. It’s one thing keeping superstitious Saxons and Danes at bay with his sorcery, but quite another to resist the Normans. He knows their brutal reputation.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there is any point in trying to seek redress for what he has done?’

  ‘No, he is the law here. The Earl doesn’t venture up here; no one in their right mind does – except you, of course.’

  Recalling the Druid’s account of his early life, William asks, ‘Where did he learn English?’

  ‘From me, although I suspect I wasn’t the first to teach him. I came here nearly fifteen years ago; I chose this place to be close to my friends in Scotland and because Ashgyll Force cleanses me. I like to wash away the dust of Palestine and the memory of Jerusalem every day. I also came here because I once had a very traumatic experience high in the fells of the Pennines. It changed my life.’

  ‘May I ask about the circumstances?’

  ‘You may. My life was saved by a man called Hereward of Bourne. You know of him?’

  ‘I do. He has become a legend, but I would like to hear about him from you.’

  Edgar appears to ignore William’s request.

  ‘Let me tell you about Owain Rheged. He is a remarkable man and his people are a lost tribe, full of strange rituals. He started to appear in the distance after I had been here for about a year and we had finished building our home. Then one day, as I was admiring the endless cascade of the Force, he appeared behind me, shouting and cursing in his language and pointing his ram’s-head staff at me. Eventually, I realized he was telling me the ground was sacred, so I fell to my knees and bowed my head. I felt certain I would be struck down, but he saw my gold ring and seal and relented. He just stared at me, then walked away.

  ‘I didn’t cast eyes on him again for several months. Then, one bright spring morning, he appeared with an oak sapling, their sacred tree. It stands over there, taller than my hall now. We have been friends ever since. I am very meek with him; he is a king, after all, and I’m only a prince.’

  William observes Edgar intently as he speaks about Owain, King of Rheged, and of the land of Hen Ogledd.

  He is tall and, although now stooped with the ravages of age, still has the bearing of a nobleman. His clothes are modest, no better than those of a minor thegn, and his only adornment is the gold ring of the House of Wessex, the royal Cerdician lineage of the ancient kings of England. Although its many wrinkles suggest much anguish in the past, his face has a kindly demeanour. His grey hair is cut short, as is his neat beard; only his dark eyebrows hint at his previous colouring. His steel-grey eyes are clear and alert; he carries no visible scars, and his aged hands are delicate and soft like those of a scholar.

  ‘Do you know there are still bears up here?’

  ‘That cannot be. The last bears in England died out hundreds of years ago.’

  ‘So, you don’t know everything, William of Malmesbury.’

  Edgar then asks his steward to bring him his winter cloak.

  ‘It’s cold enough for this today. Here, try it.’

  William takes the bearskin cloak and drapes it over his shoulders.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly a bearskin – ideal for your Pennine eyrie.’

  ‘Owain’s people know where the bears are. There are only a few dozen left, but they’re here all right. And lots of hungry wolves to keep them company. The Anglo-
Danes who lived in the valleys – before King William butchered them – used to say that Owain could change himself into a bear or a wolf at will.’

  ‘Edgar, it is your life I have come to hear about. The mysteries of Owain Rheged can wait for another time.’

  Again, Edgar ignores William’s request.

  ‘He has a Roman centurion’s helmet and sword, hundreds of years old. He brought them here once; he’s very proud of them. They were passed down to him from his ancestors. The helmet still has some of its horsehair crest, a remarkable thing. He says he also has the head of the Roman who once wore the helmet. It wouldn’t surprise me. The Gul keep the skulls of their victims as trophies.’

  ‘Edgar, your story please.’

  ‘Let’s discuss it in the morning. We must build up the fire now, and drink some mead; tonight will be cold.’

  ‘It is already cold! Does that wind never stop howling? And how do you sleep with that thundering waterfall?’

  ‘You’ll get used to the waterfall. As for the wind, that happens often. It comes off Cross Fell, which the locals call Fiends’ Fell. It is the Helm Wind and it shrieks like a banshee. The Gul say it is their gods speaking to them.’

  The next day, Edgar the Atheling, the 74-year-old rightful heir to the throne of England, is still reluctant to give his account of his turbulent life. He asks William to walk with him to Ashgyll Force, so that he can talk to him beyond the earshot of others.

  The deafening roar of the Force makes it hard to hear, and Edgar’s words fight against nature’s resounding presence.

  ‘William, I am sure you are as sympathetic a man as you are learned. But if I were to tell you my story, it would be painful for me. Few men have been as blessed by birth as I have, but I doubt that many have had their blessings so cursed. When I first came to England as a boy, I spoke only broken English; I knew several of the Slavic languages of Europe and some local Magyar, but English was very foreign to me. My father died within days of setting foot on our ancestral soil, and I immediately became a target for the ambitions and greed of others. I lived in fear and, despite all that has happened to me, I am still haunted by my formative years. Even now, I often wake in the night, disturbed by some nightmare or other. That’s when the Force comforts me, or the Helm Wind takes away the hot sweats. Do you live with fear, my learned scribe?’

  ‘I live with my anxieties, like every man. Perhaps the telling of your story will bring you peace, as well as enlightenment to others.’

  ‘I have already found a sort of peace here. I have learned to live with my past. And I think, when my life is weighed in the balance, the favourable will outweigh the unfavourable – at least, that is my hope. There is a thread which weaves its way through my story and makes some sense of it all.’

  ‘Will you at least reveal that to me?’

  ‘The thread connects four old men. I am one, and my good friend Robert, Duke of Normandy, now languishing in the King’s keep at Cardiff, is the second.’

  Edgar hesitates; he looks wistful, sad even.

  ‘And the other two?’ William prompts.

  Edgar turns away and sighs before continuing, clearly in two minds about whether to trust William with his story.

  ‘The third is Hereward of Bourne, a man whose heroic deeds are known to us all, and the fourth is the seer, the Old Man of the Wildwood and father of Hereward’s remarkable wife Torfida, who set Hereward on the path that changed his life. We all lived into old age and, I hope, acquired some contentment and a little wisdom from what we had experienced. I know three of us did, and I only hope the same is true for Robert – I have had no contact with him for twenty years.’

  William takes a deep breath. He is about to make the move that he hopes will convince Edgar to tell his story.

  ‘I have been to see Robert, in Cardiff.’

  ‘How …?’

  ‘I have been asking the King for permission for several years. When I heard of your whereabouts, it became much more urgent, so I went to Winchester to plead my case and he relented. He’s getting old himself and softening a bit.’

  ‘How is Robert?’

  ‘He’s frail, but well. He is well taken care of – confined, of course, but he can walk about the keep freely and his chamber is warm and comfortable.’

  ‘Did he tell you his story?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t really strong enough for that and he said you would be a much better storyteller.’

  ‘Did he, indeed? He had a habit of getting me to do the things he didn’t like to do.’

  ‘He gave me this parchment.’

  William hands Edgar a small scroll, sealed with Robert’s ducal ring. The Prince’s thin, bony fingers carefully break the seal and he begins to read. At first he smiles, then his eyes fill with tears. The message is only brief and William has no idea what it says. But it has a profound effect on Edgar, who turns and walks closer to the Force.

  After a while, he walks back towards William, pushing the scroll up into the sleeve of his shirt.

  ‘He must be very frail; his writing is tentative, like the scrawl of a child.’

  ‘I’m sorry. He was a little shaky when we met; he’s a very old man.’

  ‘He says I can trust you, that your chronicles are fair and accurate, but I knew that already. When I heard that you had arrived on these fells, I knew what you had come for. I have had time to think. The mighty Hereward once told me that the lives of men move in great circles and that at the end of a long journey there should be time for reflection. I have had plenty of time to reflect here in the Pennines. It’s a place for penance, as in Purgatory. Perhaps I am purged; I will tell you my tale. As you say, it may do some good, and Robert seems content that I should let people know more of his life.’

  Later that morning, Edgar settles by his fire to begin his account. William of Malmesbury reminds young Roger of the date. It is 31 October, All Hallows, the Feast of the Dead, in the year 1126.

  Roger’s responsibility will be to help William remember as much of the detail as possible. It is fortunate that he does not have to commit quill to vellum, as his hand still quivers from the horrors of the previous day and the menacing environment in which they find themselves, with the chilling cold of an approaching winter at over 1,000 feet in the Pennines, the thunder of Ashgyll Force and the screams of the Helm Wind off Fiends’ Fell.

  PART TWO

  The Rightful Heir

  4. Abernethy

  The years following the Conquest were a living hell for me and the people of England. Its army, once so potent behind its legendary shield wall, never recovered from the gruesome battle of Stamford Bridge against Harald Hardrada’s formidable Norwegians and the slaughter of Senlac Ridge, where the courageous King Harold and most of the English aristocracy were massacred by William, Duke of Normandy, and his merciless clan.

  Some brave souls rose in rebellion but were quickly annihilated. One by one, village by village, burgh by burgh, the English acquiesced. The last great rising came in the North, in the earldoms of Edwin and Morcar. When Svein Estrithson, the King of Denmark, landed with his army, there was a glimmer of hope. But Estrithson was easily bought off by William – his treasury was full with the spoils of his prosperous new domain – and the English rebels, now just a handful of valiant men, were left to their fate.

  I played a part in the rebellion, but was too young to lead it; I was no more than a boy and had lived a confined life under the watchful eye of old King Edward. As I was the true heir of the Cerdician line of England’s Kings, the last thing he would have let me do was prepare to be a leader of men and learn how to wield a sword like any other in the realm.

  I will always believe that it was King Edward who had my father poisoned when we arrived in England from exile in Hungary in 1057. My father was also called Edward; he would have been fifty-one years old at the old King’s death and the undisputed successor to the throne. None of the events we will speak of would have happened had my father not been poisoned. Ironical
ly, the King placed the blame at the door of Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex, the future King Harold, who had travelled to Budapest to bring us home.

  But I digress. The real hero of those final days of England’s resistance was the man who saved my life in Swaledale, Hereward of Bourne. He was a great warrior and almost reclaimed this land.

  He had stood with Harold on Senlac Ridge and was badly wounded, but his companions got him away and he escaped to Aquitaine. Edith Swan-Neck, Harold’s widow, persuaded him to return. In a long campaign in the North, he came close to killing the King by his own hand, but he had neither good fortune nor enough loyal supporters. William was a cunning, ruthless and formidable opponent and, in due course, prevailed.

  I admired Hereward enormously, and wanted so much to be like him. When the campaign became too dangerous, he sent me with a small force high into the Pennines, into Upper Swaledale, a remote and harsh place, to see out the winter. But it proved disastrous – I wasn’t strong enough, and the morale of my men disintegrated.

  When William and his Normans began their massacres in the North, it looked as though we were trapped. My men had lost the will to fight. Then, when all seemed lost, Hereward and a small squadron of his redoubtable followers appeared from the top of the fells, as if from nowhere, their horses sinking to their chests in deep snow. It was a miracle – a moment I will never forget.

  Hereward breathed new life into us, just by his presence and sense of purpose. I vowed then to find a way to follow his example.

  He sent me to Malcolm Canmore, King of the Scots, for my protection and organized a last redoubt on the Isle of Ely. Hundreds flocked to his standard, including all the prominent men of England who still had the courage to resist. These included, to their ultimate credit, the last two English earls, Edwin of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria, who had previously disgraced themselves by not joining Harold at Senlac Ridge and then by submitting to William at his court. A Brotherhood in honour of St Etheldreda was sworn and word was sent to all corners of the land proclaiming the right of the people to be ruled justly by common law.