Storm of Steel

by Matthew Harffy

  For a short while he had felt a surge of relief to be away from the place, but then, as the night wrapped about them like a shroud he had cursed himself for a fool and a craven. Yes, they were free of the palace, but this would not be the end of things with Vulmar. And how could he feel relief when his daughter still languished within the palace? The gods alone knew what the girl had already endured, but one thing was certain in Beobrand’s mind. He could not rest while she yet resided in the thrall of that toad, Vulmar. And then there was that bastard, Grimr. He would have to pay the blood-price for poor Dalston. And for taking Ardith from Hithe. And if that gloating one-eyed whoreson was with him, Beobrand would slay him too. And be glad of it.

  But as they had ridden further into the black chill, Beobrand’s mind gnawed and scratched at his thoughts. By all the gods, how could he free Ardith and seek vengeance for Dalston? Thoughts of great deeds were easy, but he could see no path from the thinking of it to the doing. They were few, in a strange land, and Vulmar was surrounded by walls and loyal warriors.

  They had ridden in silence for a time, each lost in their thoughts, until it became too dark to ride safely. They had dismounted on the edge of the ruins and trudged through the echoing gloom, disconsolate and seething at the impotence of their position. They were men of action, warriors all, who burnt with the fire of vengeance against those who had wronged them or their kin. Or their hlaford’s kin. Even Brinin, young and untried in battle, would gladly fight and give his life to see Ardith safe. But there was the rub. They could all give their lives, but for what? To die here for no gain was pointless. To throw themselves onto the points of Vulmar’s guards’ spears would avail nothing.

  They plodded on and the infinite darkness above them reflected the blackness of Beobrand’s thoughts and mood.

  “Vulmar will send men to kill us,” said Cynan, again speaking over the quiet, cutting into Beobrand’s dark thoughts.

  Beobrand said nothing.

  A sudden flare of light before them caused him to blink. After-images in the darkness, the shapes of the sprawled ruins. Were those men? For an instant he thought it was the flicker of lightning, but then, just as quickly, he saw the truth. Several fire pots had been uncovered, throwing pools of light flooding out onto the path. Long black shadows danced and trembled in the night.

  Beobrand and the others halted, blinking against the new brightness. Beobrand was aware of more light behind them. Men stepped from the ruins and blocked their path. The light gleamed from their byrnies, helms and shield bosses. The steel of sword and seax blades glimmered in the darkness.

  Beobrand reached for Hrunting, thrilling at the touch of the sword’s hilt. If it was to end here tonight, at least he could carve a bloody swathe through his enemies’ ranks. He might provide one last tale for the scops to sing of, and send some more men on to Woden’s corpse hall to serve him in the afterlife. He looked sidelong at Cynan who had also drawn his blade.

  “It seems Vulmar already has,” Beobrand said.

  Cynan’s teeth flashed white in the dark.

  “I hate always being right,” he said.

  And then, without warning, the men attacked and the night was filled with the bitter music of battle: the keening of sword-song and screams.

  Chapter 47

  Coenred was panting. Out of breath, he looked about the smoke-hazed room. The place was packed full of men and the air was thick with the odour of sweat, ale, sour wine and, underlying it all, the brackish tang of river water. Across the steamy fog of the room, a flash of pale flesh caught Coenred’s attention and for a few heartbeats he found himself unable to look away from a scrawny woman who, skirts hitched up to reveal skinny legs, straddled a bearded seaman. The woman returned his gaze and stuck her tongue out at him, waggling it lasciviously. He shivered, turning back to the man on his left.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” he said to Gadd.

  Feologild’s servant nodded, his expression pinched and eyes narrowed. Perhaps against the smoke, or maybe as an indication of his anger at having been coerced into leading them here. Gadd had agreed to accompany them into the night only after Attor had whispered to him in a dark corner of the merchant’s yard. Coenred had seen Attor’s hand rest on the handle of his seax, and the smile on his face had been absent from his eyes. The servant had swallowed and grown pale at the Northumbrian’s whispered words, but had nodded his agreement to lead them once more into Rodomo.

  On leaving the church, they had rushed through the darkening streets back to Feologild’s home. Coenred had buzzed with excitement at what he had learnt from Walaric. But when they had arrived, they’d found that Beobrand and the others had left. Coenred had been dismayed to discover that Beobrand had been summoned to Lord Vulmar’s palace, though to what end he could only guess. It had not taken him long to convince Attor that they should venture out into the evening streets in search of this hovel where cheap ale and wine were served to those who did not have a hall to go to. It seemed that despite his protestations, Gadd knew of the place’s whereabouts, for he led them unerringly through the now quiet streets and they had arrived without incident.

  It was a leaning, timber structure, that seemed about to sink into the mud of the Secoana. It overlooked the shifting, gently creaking herd of wave-steeds that thronged, moored and anchored along the docks. Most of the men who lined the benches within appeared to be sailors.

  “Can you see our man?” Coenred asked, half to himself. None of them knew who they were looking for.

  A swarthy man, with a thick, curled black beard, shouted something at them. Coenred gawped at the man, not understanding.

  Gadd touched Coenred’s arm.

  “He asks if we are coming in or going out, for now we are letting in the cold air.” It was not such a bad thing to let some fresh river air into the reeking place, thought Coenred, but he nodded and stepped inside the crowded ale house. Attor and the servant followed and they dragged the door closed behind them. It hung on leather hinges, and there were large gaps at its edges where it did not sit true in the frame. But the black-bearded man seemed mollified and turned away from them, back to his friends and his ale.

  “There,” said Attor, pointing across the room to a corner less crowded than the rest. In the shadow, far from the hearth, sat a man in a yellow cloak. He was hunched over the board before him, staring into a wooden cup as if all the secrets of middle earth lay within.

  Gone was Coenred’s excitement of earlier, replaced with a sense of gloom and worry. When he had been talking to the priest, Walaric, it had seemed a simple thing to seek out this man. He could provide them with a solution to their predicament. But now, with Beobrand and his gesithas at Vulmar’s hall, the lustre of the idea had vanished. How could this man, huddled in a corner of this slovenly hovel, help them? Coenred offered up a silent prayer to the Lord, asking forgiveness for his lack of faith and began to thread his way across the room.

  A sailor suddenly leapt to his feet beside Coenred. The man was tall and slim with hair braided into a long plait that hung down his back like a serpent. Swaying, he careened into Coenred, almost knocking the monk from his feet. Attor leapt forward and shoved the drunk man away with a snarl. The man’s friends, all dark eyes and braided hair, caught him and cursed Attor in their foreign tongue. Beside Coenred, Gadd had grown very pale and quiet, as if he did not expect to ever see the light of day again.

  A straw-haired woman, who was draped over a barrel, looked up at their passing and made a desultory effort to pull down the front of her dress to expose her white, doughy breasts. Her nipples were large and dimpled, the colour of clouds on a summer’s sunset.

  Coenred’s mouth grew dry and Attor chuckled, pulling him along.

  “Come on, young Coenred,” he said, “no time for that tonight.”

  At last, they reached the solitary man in the mustard-coloured cloak and Attor rapped with his knuckles on the scarred and splintering board before him.

  The man looked up without ha
ste. His expression was dull and disinterested as he took in Attor and Gadd. But when he spied Coenred with his dark woollen habit and his shaved forehead, he pulled himself up on the bench, making an effort to straighten his back. He said something, and following an elbow in the ribs from Attor, Gadd translated.

  “He asks what it is you want,” he said. The yellow-cloaked man continued speaking. “He wants to drink in peace.”

  Coenred swallowed.

  “Tell him we need his help.”

  Gadd spoke. The man listened, then shook his head and drained the contents of his cup. Coenred did not need to understand the words of the reply for the man’s meaning to be clear.

  “Tell him I have a friend who needs his help.”

  The servant translated. The man gave a short answer.

  “What friend?” asked Gadd.

  “A man who has travelled all the way from Albion to Rodomo,” Coenred said, and Gadd continued to translate. “A lord of Bernicia.”

  The man spoke then, anger creeping into his tone.

  “He says he cares nothing for lords.”

  “This lord is a good man,” continued Coenred, “and he has something in common with you, Halinard.” He pronounced the man’s name with care, just as Walaric had taught him.

  The man’s eyes widened. His mouth twisted, making him seem even less inviting than before, if such were possible.

  “He says he has nothing in common with any lord of Albion. And he asks how you know his name.”

  “Tell him the priest of the church of Our Lady of the Assumption gave me his name and told me where I might find him. Walaric, the priest, believed he had something in common with my friend.”

  “And what is that?” asked the man through the servant’s interpreting. He was angry now, but unnerved too, wary and expectant, evidently wondering what the priest had told this young monk from Albion.

  Coenred took a deep breath.

  “My friend has a daughter too.”

  Gadd spoke Coenred’s words in Frankish, but before he had finished uttering them, Halinard burst up from the bench. His face was thunder. His eyes blazed. The bench tumbled over onto the sodden rushes of the floor. Halinard raged, spittle flying from his mouth.

  Coenred took a step back, scared that the man meant to attack him. He jostled into the board behind him, rattling cups and spilling ale. Curses and cries of anger from the men seated there.

  By the Lord Almighty, I will be slain here now, thought Coenred, quite sure that between Halinard and the angered sailors, he would not be leaving this noisome hut alive.

  Attor seemed unperturbed. He pulled Coenred away from the table of irate sailors, then, with a nod and not a word, he slammed his hand onto the ale-spattered board. The crash of it silenced the men for a heartbeat and Attor withdrew his hand. Beneath it he left a small sliver of silver; enough to buy drinks for all the men for longer than they could remain awake. He met their gaze and after a moment, one of them shrugged, nodded and palmed the silver. Satisfied, Attor turned back to Coenred and Halinard.

  Gadd was as white as a newborn lamb’s wool, clearly terrified at the yellow-cloaked man’s outburst. But it seemed that Halinard’s anger had blown out as quickly as it had kindled, snuffed out like a tallow candle carried into a gale. He stood, breathing heavily, shoulders slumped, eyes downcast.

  Despite not understanding the Frankish words the man had spoken, Attor appeared to comprehend the man’s pain. And his need. Casting about the ale house, he spotted the innkeeper, a short fellow with white hair and bushy eyebrows. Attor picked up Halinard’s empty cup in his left hand, and held up four fingers on his right. The innkeeper grinned and hurried to bring them more ale.

  Attor righted the bench and from somewhere dragged over a couple of stools, and soon the four of them were seated at the board, with freshly filled cups before them. Attor handed the old gnome of an innkeeper a piece of hacksilver and the man’s grin broadened. The silver disappeared into a fold of his apron and he bustled away.

  Halinard reached out trembling fingers for his ale. Before he could raise the cup, Attor’s hand flashed out, fast as thought, and gripped his wrist. Halinard pulled against Attor’s grasp, his face darkening once more. Attor held him fast with an iron strength. His face just as hard, eyes narrowed.

  “Tell him,” Attor said, “that he would do well to listen to my friend here. And that the ale is his, and more too, if he will help us.”

  He held Halinard’s gaze and his wrist while Gadd stammered words in Frankish. After a moment’s hesitation, Halinard nodded. Attor released him. Gingerly, as if expecting a trick, Halinard reached out for the cup again. Attor did not move. Halinard raised it to his lips and drank deeply.

  The innkeeper appeared with a platter of bread and a bowl of steaming broth. There were lumps in that broth, and Coenred tentatively fished one out with the wooden spoon provided. He had thought it would be meat, pork or mutton, but it was neither. His stomach twisted to see what lay in the spoon’s depression. It was a dark snail, shell and all.

  “By all the saints,” he said, startled.

  For the first time since they had arrived, Halinard relaxed. There was even a hint of a smile on his lips. He plucked the snail from the spoon, and sucked the broth from its shell with a slurp. He then used the tip of his eating knife to prise the meat from the shell. For a moment he had the brown, twisted gobbet of meat dangling from his knife point, and then he popped it in his mouth. He chewed with obvious relish.

  When he spoke again, Gadd translated.

  “He says that Amadeo cooks the best snails in the world. You’d be a fool not to try them.” To reinforce the point, the servant took a snail from the bowl and ate it. “They really are wonderful,” he added, visibly relaxing now that it seemed they might escape this place with their lives.

  Attor shrugged, took a snail and emulated Halinard.

  “Not bad,” he said.

  Coenred’s stomach churned. He had not been hungry before, and the idea of eating a slimy snail revolted him. But Halinard nudged the bowl towards him and was watching expectantly. To refuse would risk insulting the man, so Coenred took a snail.

  He shook it, so that broth dripped back into the bowl. The snail’s dark, meaty body, wobbled from the shell. Coenred hoped he could eat this without vomiting. Halinard nodded, urging him to try it.

  Quickly making the sign of Christ’s cross over his body and offering up a silent prayer that he would not empty his stomach moments later, Coenred tugged the snail meat from its hard, curled home and, without pausing to reconsider, he put it in his mouth.

  It was more solid than he had expected. And rich with the oily broth, spicy and flavoursome with whatever recipe Amadeo used for the liquor he cooked the snails in. Coenred’s eyes widened and he nodded his approval to Halinard.

  In turn, Halinard raised his cup to the young monk. He drank, ate another snail and then mumbled something.

  Around a mouthful of snails and bread, Gadd said, “He says you should not speak of his daughter. You know nothing of her.”

  “I know enough,” Coenred said. “Walaric told me.”

  Halinard slammed his cup down onto the board. The bowl of snails rocked and Gadd steadied it before it could topple.

  “The priest should not have told you,” Halinard said, the servant interpreting. “He told me whatever I said was secret,” his eyes were haunted, recalling memories perhaps best left in the past, “that it was between me, him and God.” He took a shuddering breath, ran his dirty fingers through his tangled hair. “He said he could tell nobody.”

  Coenred recalled his own shock as Walaric had spoken of Halinard’s tale and the plight of his daughter. Like Halinard, he too had told the priest that a man’s confession was secret. The sanctity of the seal of confession could not be broken. Walaric had sighed in the gloom of the chancel. But he’d had an answer for Coenred.

  The monk used Walaric’s own words now to reply to Halinard.

  “Would G
od have a priest remain silent if by speaking out he could prevent suffering and sin? I believe Jesu would rather help people than to keep secrets.”

  Halinard stared at Coenred. All about them men laughed. Raucous talk and bawdy chatter rolled over them. But Halinard’s face was that of a man who has lost everything. His eyes were hollow, bruised and dark from lack of sleep. His skin was sallow and sickly. Coenred wondered then if Walaric had been wrong. This man was broken. Halinard would do nothing to help a stranger. But then Coenred thought back to the fury that had overcome the man only moments before. A man who could yet be stirred to such anger surely still cared. Maybe enough to help others in need.

  Coenred said, “Walaric told me you were a good man.” Halinard said nothing at hearing these words translated. He cast his gaze down into his cup, as if searching there for an answer to what kind of man he was. Coenred pressed on.

  “He said you are a man who would not stand by and allow evil to occur again.” He hesitated. “To the daughter of another.”

  Coenred did not look away from Halinard. The man’s features twisted as he wrestled with his emotions. Trembling, he lifted his cup to find it was empty. Attor passed him his own. Halinard snatched it from him and drained it.

  When Walaric had told him Halinard’s tale, Coenred had at first been horrified at the breaking of the sanctity of the seal, but then, as the priest had spoken in the cool shadowed church, his heart had gone out to this man he had never met. A warrior in Lord Vulmar’s guard, Halinard had the misfortune to have a pretty young daughter. Lord Vulmar would never have seen her if it had not been because one day, Halinard, late to rise after drinking too much the night before, had rushed to his duty, only to forget his knife. As Vulmar’s retinue was leaving the palace enclosure, Halinard’s daughter had run after them, calling for her father, and causing the procession to halt. Vulmar himself had ridden along the line of men to see what had caused the commotion and at first Halinard had been pleased that the lord had smiled at the girl, magnanimous and not angry as Halinard had feared he would be. Vulmar was famed for his violent temper, but that day, he had seemed affable and had not rebuked Halinard or his young daughter.