I saw something and cried out, raising the oar before me as though it were a weapon, or a staff imbued with the Lord’s own power against evil. Something was on that causeway. Or above it. Some fen-dweller looming in the mist, watching me with hungry eyes. Or a spirit? The ghost of someone who never crossed to the afterlife. Perhaps even one of the unknown men who had laboured on the trackway so long ago, a thousand years or more before the Romans came.
I made the sign of the Thorn but otherwise just sat there, the coracle rocking beneath me, my fear gripping me so entirely I could not move. Whatever the thing was, it was turning slowly, and I was drifting towards it, as though it commanded the currents of the dark water and summoned me to it. A breeze stirred, sickly and weak, as if lost to wander the marsh these hundred years, and now clawed at the mist, shredding it to reveal a face. Not some ungodly creature or spirit, but a face of flesh. Old, rotting flesh. Sunken cheeks and black hollows where once there were eyes which beheld God’s creation, before death fogged them and, after that, crows and gulls savaged them with greedy indifference to all that they had witnessed.
The corpse was suspended from a crude gibbet; an ancient pile robbed from the track and driven into the reed-bed. I whispered a prayer for the dead man’s soul, for all the good it would do him now, and thrust my oar into the water again, wondering who had strung him up like that, robbing the poor man of his life and surely damning their own soul in the foul deed.
I had made only a dozen strokes when the next victim revealed herself through the thinning mist. A woman with long red hair, her nakedness a shocking and shameful sight to behold. I tried to look away from that poor wretch, but my eyes kept finding their way back, until I had passed and could not gaze upon her without turning round, which I would not do. And these were not the only ones. Seven more corpses I saw, twisting slowly on creaking ropes, and one of them a child, a boy no more than nine years old, and I asked the Lord on High how any man could put a noose around a child’s neck and watch his life snuffed out like a candle flame.
‘The world beyond this island is a terrible, cruel place, Galahad,’ Father Brice had told me the previous summer, when Father Yvain had returned from one of his trips with news of all he had seen and heard. ‘Be grateful that you will never have to leave our sanctuary.’
‘Should we not try to help others resist all that is evil?’ I had asked, in my naivety. And the old monk had given a sad smile and touched my head, perhaps recalling a time long ago before he had completed his own novitiate and shaved his hair.
‘All we can do now is protect the Holy Thorn and ensure that our order survives,’ he said. ‘I fear Britain is lost, Galahad, her people scattered like chaff on the wind. But we few shall remain here, so long as we have breath. And we shall protect the Thorn.’
One of the dead boy’s eyes had been spared beak and claw. It glared at me through the sullen vapours and I felt the bitter accusation. The envy. The rage at a life cut short. I shivered, trying to ignore the burning ache of needing to empty my bladder. And I followed the channel, my eyes drawn skyward by the urgent mewing of gulls, a flock of hundreds flying into the west, turning like a shoal of fish, their white bodies flashing in a shaft of dawn light.
Soon after, I saw living children, doubtless long after they had seen me. Five of them, two boys and three girls, none taller than the bulrush and bur-reed around them. All filthy, wild-eyed and hungry-looking. They were the offspring of fisher folk or salt farmers, I guessed. Creatures of marsh, fen and bog, who watched me in silence, not afraid but wary, and I signed the Thorn at them, but they gave no indication of comprehending the blessing.
I caught the sweet smell of peat smoke on that thin breeze now. Could see it hanging in the wintry dawn, a darker grey smudge against the wan sky. Aiming for it, I came among thicker reeds and, leaning over, saw the silty bed of the shallows. I knew I must be close. I spied another channel and took it, sculling between low ridges of land thick with blackthorn, and eventually I came to the lake village, sweating now despite the chill and comforted to smell hearth smoke. I whispered thanks to God that I would soon be on dry land among men and women, safe from the unknowable dangers of the marsh.
I tied the coracle to a jetty thronged with similar craft and sleek, long dug-outs, and greeted a heron which stood looking out across the water. Beside that unmoving bird were piled half a dozen willow baskets ready to be set out in the marsh to trap perch and roach, trout and eel, and my stomach rumbled at the thought, for I had not broken my fast.
‘A brother of the Thorn,’ someone called. I looked up to see the broad shoulders and bearded face of a man above the willow fence which circled the cluster of roundhouses, keeping wind out and livestock in. ‘What brings you here?’ he called.
‘Eudaf the cobbler,’ I replied, slipping and sliding on the mud towards him.
The man frowned. ‘We sent his boy to you two days since,’ he said. ‘Your songs will do Eudaf no good now. He died in the night.’
‘I am sorry for the loss,’ I said, lifting the hem of my habit out of the filth before signing the Thorn in respect for the cobbler’s passing. And yet my spirits lifted upon wings of hope, that an infant’s soul might yet be guided to heaven and into the Lord’s keeping.
2
A Wolf in the Reeds
I HAD BEEN AFRAID BEFORE. Now I was faint with terror as I made my way back across the dark water, the mist wreathing around me like the ghosts of serpents. Cold sweat soaked me, and my heart was clenched tight as a fist in my chest. My breathing was shallow and ragged, and I felt that there was a scream in my throat ready to break free at any moment.
Where did Father Yvain find the courage to venture into the marsh whenever the brothers needed him to? I would never again set out across the water after this, I thought, glancing over my shoulder at the corpse of Eudaf the cobbler lying behind the thwart. His kin had wrapped him head to foot in two threadbare woollen cloaks, and I was relieved that at least I did not have to see his face, nor would he witness my fear. The man had lain in his dwelling on a bed of skins and stiffened there so that now he did not fit in the coracle but stuck out of it, his legs wedged beneath the bench upon which I sat with the oar, tracing knots in the water.
Just me and a dead man alone out there in the marsh. Or so I thought.
I heard them before I saw them. Heard their guttural voices speaking the Saxon tongue. I pulled the oar from the water and held it still, my heart thumping against my breastbone in time with the drips falling from the oar blade. The coracle slowed and stopped, as I twisted on the thwart, peering through the tall reeds around me for any movement. Sound carried unnaturally far in the marsh, so that I could not know if the men I had heard were within spitting distance or an arrow’s flight away. Yet I did not hear the dip of oars and so thought they must be walking along the spine of gorse-crested land ahead, which I could just make out through the reeds.
Laughter now, and more voices, one growling, low and ominous as thunder. Another with a weariness to it. This man trying to make peace between the others, perhaps. But all of them louder than before. Closer. And if they came to the brow of that ridge, they must surely see me below them, and if they had spears or bows, I would make an easy target before I could put any distance between us. Yet, even knowing that, I was too afraid to move. I sat there, gripping the little craft’s sides as we bobbed on the still water. And the Saxons drew nearer with every shallow breath.
Hide. Quickly.
I wanted to. My mind demanded that I do something, but my limbs refused to move. I couldn’t breathe.
Hide. Now!
I leant forward and slowly, softly, sank the oar blade back into the water and propelled the craft towards the bank. If I could hide in the lee of that ridge, the Saxons might pass by, never knowing I was there. But they were almost upon me, their gruff voices grating in the heavy marsh air.
Faster!
I sculled as quickly as I dared, given the sound of the oar sweeping its knots t
hrough the water, and barrelled into the thick vegetation of the bank, the craft tipping forward so that I had to thrust the oar down into the mud to stop myself falling overboard. Behind me, the corpse rolled and tipped on the edge, but I threw myself across the thwart, grabbing fistfuls of cloak before Eudaf the cobbler was given to the lake.
A shout from the other side of the ridge. They had heard me. They were coming.
I scrambled back over the bench and took up the oar, but looked up to see the Saxons coming down the bank, tearing through thistles and blackthorn. Shields and spears and fierce, bearded faces. Heathen voices yelling ungodly words.
I spun the coracle and worked the oar through the water, then heard a splash and the coracle bucked beneath me and I was being pulled backwards, my efforts with the oar useless. Another savage buck and I fell against the willow ribs. Hands on me then, snarled in my habit and in my hair, and I was on my back being hauled through the cold water, reeds breaking off in my hands as I grasped at them. Onto the muddy bank. The reek of warriors. The blur of fair beards and hair and teeth as they dragged me through thorn and briar, up onto the ridge, barking like ravens.
I screamed in terror and shock and called God’s wrath upon them, though they showed no fear nor understanding. Then one of them hammered his fist against my face and my lip popped like a pea pod, spilling blood into my mouth and down my chin. I yelled still, spitting blood as they threw me down and stepped back to see what they had caught.
There were three of them, two grizzled-looking, scarred warriors and one younger man, perhaps my own age, with the little square-headed hammer amulet of their god Thunor hanging at his throat. These warriors from across the Morimaru were the men who had taken Britain from us and I knew they would kill me now. My only chance was to wriggle free and run, but in the heartbeat that I moved, the biggest of the three warriors knew my intention and stepped forward, turning his spear to slam the butt into my shoulder, knocking me back down. Pain replaced fear and I lay on the wet earth looking up at the sky, the click of reed buntings all around me, and I saw a marsh harrier high up, its pale underside blending with the wan day, and even in that moment, as I waited for death, I wondered if it was the same bird which I had seen earlier.
The leader of these Saxons growled something at me. An order or a curse. For a moment I looked into his eyes and all I saw there was cruelty. My life measured in no more than a dozen sour breaths. And so I closed my own eyes and commended myself unto God.
‘Lord of Heaven, receive me,’ I said. And in that breath, I saw my mother’s face, the memory flooding me with sadness, and when I opened my eyes the spear blade was blurred by tears.
The spear fell. The Saxon’s mouth hung open, his eyes bulging in their sockets as he gurgled and choked on a froth of bloody bubbles. Then he toppled to the ground beside me, and I am certain I looked as shocked as he that the Lord of Heaven had made good my threats and struck him down.
The other two Saxons crouched and raised their shields, turning away from me, which was when I saw the arrow embedded in their dead companion’s side. The elder of the two warriors roared a challenge at the reeds, fear keeping him hunched behind his limewood shield, anger filling his beard with spittle as he yelled.
No one replied. The only answer the Saxon received was an arrow which streaked from the reed-bed and took him in the shin, making him screech in pain, though he kept his shield up and his head down. It was too much for the other Saxon, who turned and ran, though he did not outrun the next arrow. It thumped into the back of his neck and burst from his windpipe in a spray of gore.
That young man was dead before his thin beard touched the grass, and I got back on my feet and moved away from the remaining warrior, who paid me no heed now. This last Saxon had more sense than to turn his back on his unseen enemy. Not that he could have run far with that arrow in his leg. Blood stained his trews and trickled in rivulets across his shoe as he yelled challenges at the hidden bowman who was the cause of his unexpected misery. He spun the spear in his hand and thrust it into the ground, then drew his sword, whose iron gleamed in the dull day. He roared to his god, Woden, and keeping his shield high, limped down the slope towards the reeds, repeating his chant of ‘Woden! Woden! Woden!’
The next arrow thunked into his shield. The one after that took him in his right eye. He staggered three more paces and dropped, gone from this life to the next, and I made the sign of the Thorn at the devastation wrought by that warrior upon whom I had yet to lay eyes.
There was a rustling and movement of the reeds and I held my breath as the archer came out, using the bow to force a way through the tall stalks. Then I muttered an oath which would have seen me punished with cleaning the byre for a month back at the monastery. The archer, this killer who had slaughtered three Saxon wolves, was a young woman.
‘You owe me two arrows, monk,’ the woman said, having collected all but one of her shafts and examined them to see which could be used again and which would first need repairing. She was on her knees now beside one of the Saxons, bent over him, her face hidden by unruly auburn tresses, and I realized that she was spitting onto the dead man’s hand, trying to loosen the ring on his middle finger.
‘Though you’re not a real monk, are you?’ She looked up at me, her grimace becoming a grin as she twisted the ring over the knuckle and pulled it off. ‘You’d be shorn.’ She put the ring into the drawstring purse beside the arrow-bag tied to her belt. ‘From ear to ear. But you’re not. Why do your kind do that?’ she asked. ‘And why are there no women on Ynys Wydryn?’
I couldn’t find the words to reply. I was as shocked as a fish in a net pulled aboard a boat. I stood there slathered in mud, a hand pressed to my bleeding lip, watching this young woman who had undoubtedly saved my life. My stomach heaved. Were it not empty, I would have puked into the grass.
She took the dead Saxon’s long knife and thrust it into her belt, then moved back to the man whose throat she had ripped open with one of her deadly arrows.
‘That arrow was surely guided by God,’ I said, hearing a shiver in my words, the same trembling that gripped my hands and the muscles in my legs, as the young woman went down on one knee and set about trying to pull the arrow from the ruined flesh.
She put her head on one side, frowning at me. ‘Your god?’ she asked. ‘The Christ god?’
I nodded. I could not have spoken sensibly of the mysteries of the Holy Trinity then even if I’d wanted to. I saw one copper eyebrow lift behind the errant strands of damp hair which fell across her face and could hear the gristle tearing as she twisted the shaft this way and that. Could see the young man’s head jerking horribly.
My stomach lurched and I retched, but nothing came up. With one final effort the arrow came free, but only the shaft. The iron head clung on somewhere in the mess of the wound.
‘Then your god owes me an arrow, monk.’ She wiped her bloody hands on the dead man’s tunic and stood.
I made the sign of the Thorn in case she had meant any impiety, my tongue questing into the raw, stinging split in my bottom lip. I saw that she held the little hammer amulet which had hung at the Saxon’s neck. A dedication to his god Thunor. Somewhere a raven croaked, and I looked up, expecting to see more Saxons coming over the rise.
‘We should go,’ she said.
I looked back at her. I was staring. My tongue felt too big for my mouth. She had killed three men. She had taken rings and buckles, the brooches from their cloaks and their knives, and now she pulled the scabbard from the one who had owned a sword.
‘Bring me the sword, monk.’ She nodded towards a clump of wind-stirred grass in which I could just see the dull gleam of the long blade.
I looked down at the man, at the blood-pooled hole of his eye, hearing in my mind a faint echo of his last words. Woden! Woden! Woden!
‘The chief of their gods has one eye,’ the young woman said. I wondered how she knew such things, but I did not ask, and I bent, for a moment afraid to touch the dead man’
s sword. But this strange young woman was watching me and so I wrapped my hand around the sweat-stained leather of the hilt and lifted the sword into the day.
‘They make good blades. Better than ours,’ she said, looping the bow over her shoulder.
I tilted the sword this way and that, trying to catch the weak daylight in the blade, in which a watery pattern had been trapped during its forging. Or perhaps it looked more like smoke than water. I had heard Father Yvain speak in awe of the breath in the blade, almost as though a warrior’s sword were a living thing, hungry for blood.
‘Here.’ I handed the sword over, relieved to be rid of it, but gazed at my own hand as if it remembered something which I did not.
She stepped back and slashed that iron and steel blade through the fetid air. Testing its balance, though for the thrill of it too, I thought. Then she thrust it into the leather scabbard. ‘We should go,’ she said again, lifting her chin.
I looked behind me to where the coracle sat among the reeds. The shroud-wrapped corpse of Eudaf the cobbler still lay there. Assuming his spirit had not yet flown from his body, I wondered if Eudaf had any understanding of what had just taken place on this mist-wreathed embankment in the marsh. Had the cobbler’s spirit heard the souls of those Saxons shrieking in terror and perhaps even disbelief, at their lives being unexpectedly cut short that winter day?
‘We should go?’ I asked. She was close. I could smell the wood smoke in her clothes. I could smell her sweat too, which was unlike that of the brothers. Sharper but not unpleasant.
She pointed the sheathed sword northward towards a swirl of rooks that were flying back to their roosts. ‘These Saxons were scouts.’ She pulled a fur hood onto her head. Our breath was fogging in the air. It would be getting dark soon. ‘There are raiding parties everywhere. I’ve seen them.’ She turned her head and spat in disgust. ‘They are like rats crawling over a corpse.’
I put two fingers to my mouth, feeling the swollen lips which throbbed with pain, though at least the bleeding had slowed. ‘I don’t need you to protect me,’ I said, wanting to know the colour of her eyes. Impossible now with that hood.
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