The Scathing

by C. R. May

  The horn sounded from the ramparts again, and Eofer watched as a familiar figure appeared there. His heart leapt at the sight and he raised a hand in greeting as they left the Roman hard way and took the path which arced northeastwards. Thrush Hemming threw a wave in return before turning back and disappearing into the fortress.

  In a short while they were there, and Eofer led the weary war party into the shadow of the great burh and through the lower gate. The guards beamed as they dismounted, stretching aching limbs and flexing joints as grooms hurried up, hauling saddles and tackle from the horses as they guided them towards the paddock.

  ‘Youth,’ he said sadly as the final horse was led through the gate. ‘Stay with our friend until Hemming can provide something suitable to bring him up. Even in death he remains part of our brotherhood until the pyre consumes flesh and bones.’

  They nodded their agreement as the spearmen at the gate came forward to mark the wounds on the fallen hero and hear the tale of his death, sharing ale and news with his friends as his erstwhile thegn led the duguth away.

  Hemming stood hands on hips, silhouetted between the posts of the upper gatehouse as they shouldered shields and spears and climbed the path, the smile driven from his face as he too saw that one of his old friends had paid the ultimate price for his valour. A quick headcount told him that the duguth were all present at least, and the ghost of a welcoming smile returned as Eofer led them upwards. Hemming dipped his head to his lord as they drew near, but Eofer stepped in and drew him close and bade him hold his head high. They shared an embrace as both men’s hearth warriors looked on proudly, and Eofer clapped his old weorthman on the shoulder as he ran his eyes over the defences which towered all around them. ‘You have done a magnificent job here old friend, I can scarcely believe the change in the place.’

  Hemming snorted. ‘It’s funny just how fast you can get things done when you have powerful foemen a short ride away.’ His demeanour soured as his eyes strayed to the compound at the foot of the hill and his voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Who fell?’

  ‘Anna.’

  Hemming sighed. ‘So young. He died well?’

  Eofer nodded. ‘Spear in hand, surrounded by enemies.’

  ‘That’s all that we can ask of the gods, lord. To give us an ending worthy of a man when the old girls hover over our life thread with their shears of woe. You boys look like you could use a place to sleep, I will have a pyre prepared while you take your rest.’ He frowned. ‘The bitches know that we have had enough practice this last month.’

  Eofer took another sip from the cup, licking the honeyed mead from his moustache as his eyes wandered over the plain below. ‘This is good stuff, Thrush.’

  ‘One thing we are not short of is beehives,’ he replied, sweeping the area below them with an arm. ‘The water meadows are full of wildflowers, all the way down to the road. I’d lay odds that the whole area is a carpet of buds in the spring.’

  ‘Tamtun burh is impressive,’ Eofer said proudly. ‘Haystack is over the moon.’ He shot his old duguth a smile. ‘The ætheling said that he would make you a full thegn once we have thrown Cynlas Goch back beyond the forest of Canoc, and I am going to become your ealdorman, the Ealdorman of Leircestre.’

  Hemming’s brow crinkled in surprise. ‘So you are settling down after all, lord? I know someone who will be happy with that.’

  ‘I will keep the ship and hall at Snæpe.’ He dug Hemming in the ribs and shot him a smile. ‘So we can still go raiding further up the coast or over in Frankland when the fancy takes us. Sæward and his lads can run the hall there on my behalf, collect the tolls at the river crossing and keep an eye on the Wulfings to the south.’

  Eofer noticed Horsa hovering at the corner of his vision, and he glanced back in acknowledgement. ‘It looks as if they are ready,’ he sighed, the good mood broken. ‘Let’s go and send the lad onwards.’

  Hemming nodded as they swung their legs back from the edge of the parapet. The shadows in the valley were easting as the long day came to a close, away to the west a small group of horsemen sat at a safe distance. ‘It’s time to move back anyway,’ he said. ‘Our friends arrive the same time every night, hoping to pick off a man or two from the ramparts. The hilltop remains in full sunlight for a time while the valley becomes cloaked in shadow.’ He pursed his lips before continuing. ‘They have excellent bowmen, we have already lost a couple of men to them, either at sundown when we can’t see much westwards because of the setting sun or later if any guards are foolish enough to let themselves become backlit by the light of a torch.’ He saw the look of surprise flash across Eofer’s face at his apparent lack of aggression and gave a snort. ‘Oh, we go out and strike back at them lord, make no mistake. There was one time,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘that Sigmund led a group out one night and spied on a couple of Powys’ sat swapping yarns around a small campfire. With his knowledge of Welsh he can pick up useful tidbits of information like that before he polishes them off.’

  Eofer’s ears pricked up at the mention of the name. Sigmund had been a gift to Hemming's troop from the ætheling himself. ‘How has your new weorthman been doing?’

  ‘He’s a good lad. Not as good as your old one, lord,’ he said with a smile. ‘But he knows his stuff. Thanks for sending him out with the recommendation.’

  Eofer nodded. ‘Thank Icel, he was one of his gesith after all.’

  Hemming nodded earnestly. ‘I will, Eofer. I appreciate all the help that the both of you have given me here. Men arrive nearly every day bringing news and adding spears to our defence. I can see the effect that it has on the men here, they know that they are valued and not forgotten.’

  He fixed his old thegn with a look of gratitude. ‘I wont forget it either, nor the honour which you have both shown me. I am strong enough here now to withstand all but a prolonged siege, and the men are confident that help will arrive from Leircestre or Grantebrycge long before they can starve us out. You can count on me, lord,’ he said earnestly. ‘We will carry the fight to our enemies before the new moon waxes.’

  Eofer pulled a smile, a little embarrassed by his old weorthman’s words. Somehow Hemming’s earnestness made him uncomfortable; it was, he had discovered on his travels, a peculiarly English trait. To Eofer’s relief Hemming remembered that he was halfway through a tale before the situation became too awkward, and he snorted with amusement as the man furrowed his brow.

  ‘Where was I before I got sidetracked?’

  ‘The two Britons were at the fireside.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he chuckled as he took up the thread of the tale. ‘Just as Sigmund decided that this pair were more interested in prattling on about the delights to be had from tumbling with sturdy women called Blodwyn and the like rather than their leader’s glorious war of conquest, one of them decides that he needs to take a shit and disappears into the night. When he returns, what does he find, grinning at him from the fireside?’

  ‘Sigmund?’

  Hemming shook his head and chuckled with delight. ‘No sign of our lads, they were already halfway back to the burh. All he saw was his friend’s head fixed to a spearhead waiting for his return.’ The pair laughed aloud as Hemming struggled to finish his tale. ‘They even carried the rest of the body away to make it look spookier! All that the boys heard was a strangled yell and the sound of running. It wouldn’t surprise me if he hasn’t slowed down yet!’

  Rounding the corner of the hall the mirth was driven away as the pyre came into view. Muffled conversations trailed away as the waiting men noticed their approach, and Eofer crossed to Finn who was waiting with the flaming brand. He was glad that the new duguth had taken responsibility for the duty. The pair had struck up a close friendship over the course of the year or so that Anna had been among Eofer’s hearth troop and, despite the fact that Finn had lately been elevated into the ranks of the doughty ones, the bond had remained firm.

  Eofer took the torch with a nod of thanks and turned to the waiting men. Despite the s
olemnity of the occasion he was glad to see that heads remained raised, the pride in the manner of their friend’s death obvious in their bearing. He spoke the eulogy, praising the skill and humour of the young boy who had joined their troop on a dark hillside in Daneland and mourning his loss. Raising the brand aloft, Eofer called on the wælcyrge to gather his soul and hasten him to the hall of the slain, before he swept the torch in a fiery arc and thrust it deep within the timbers. Soaked in pitch and fats the pyre caught with a soft whumph, and Eofer stood back as the lad’s spear-brothers came forward one by one to share their own memories of Anna and his time among them. Mindful of Hemming’s earlier warnings about the bowmen of Powys, Eofer ushered them away as Crawa finished his piece, and the group moved back to sit deep within the shadows at the lee of the hall as sparks twisted and danced in the darkening sky.

  Einar was sat with them, and Eofer asked the Geat if he could entertain them with a story of his own as he had no memories of Anna to share. The idea was quickly taken up, and a cup of Hemming’s finest mead was thrust his way as the scout cleared his throat and prepared to tell the story of King Hygelac’s disastrous raid against the lands of the Frisians and Franks.

  Einar drank deeply, cleared his throat and began as Anna’s pyre began to settle. ‘I led the scouting party who first discovered the army of the Frankish prince, Theudobert.’ This was unexpected news, even to Eofer, and the men sat tall as they craned their necks to hear every detail of the tumultuous day. ‘I was scouting along the Roman Road which ran south to Frankland with my kinsman Gunnar Gunnarson and two Englishmen Oslaf and Offa who had come along for the fun of being on campaign, when about ten miles south of Dorestada we trotted clear of a wood and came almost face-to-face with a dozen Frankish horsemen doing the same thing as us. Two of them took off before we could close on them, but the others stayed to fight.’ Einar cleared his throat. ‘My cousin Gunnar fell there, but the ten remaining Franks paid part blood-price for that loss, sore as it was to me.’

  The Engles nodded earnestly as they recognised both the scale of their victory and the personal cost to their new friend.

  ‘I was the best climber out of the three remaining, so I scurried up a tree and peered away to the south. What I saw nearly knocked me from my branch.’ He pulled a wry smile as he sipped again from his cup. ‘A mighty host was darkening the road.’ He shook his head, obviously still awed by the sight which had greeted him that day. ‘Ten, fifteen thousand strong,’ he shrugged as the Engles shared looks of wonderment, ‘coming on beneath their Iesus crosses and gaudy war banners; it seemed to be an army without end. We rode straight back and reported to the king. He took the news calmly,’ he said with obvious pride. ‘Despite the fact that the king’s son Heardred, your own kinsman lord,’ he said with a nod of recognition to Eofer, ‘had already taken part of our army and all the ships to sea, ready to begin the journey home. The great rivers thereabouts, the Masa and the Rin, divide into many channels as they approach the sea and King Hygelac led those remaining with him onto a large island to deny the Frankish army passage. The bridge at Dorestada was the only one for miles in each direction so holding the Franks there would enable the bulk of the army to get back to the ships, but as we deployed word came of a second army moving up to our rear. Before they could close the trap, the king sent me to warn the fleet that the enemy were on the move.’

  He grimaced before taking another pull from the mead cup. The Engles already knew the story from thereon, they had rescued Heardred from the Frankish fleet themselves and heard the tale firsthand. Einar shrugged. ‘I know that you yourselves witnessed the end. I stole a skiff and managed to get picked up further along the coast. After a hard fight we managed to batter our way clear.’ He spat. ‘The sea lay dark under a press of Frankish sail, it was a grim day.’ Einar lowered his gaze and spoke in a voice as thick as honey in winter. ‘To think that I should live at such a time, to bear witness to the end days of my country.’

  The tale had lowered spirits and Eofer reproached himself, but Hemming had listened in and the mood lifted again as a platter of freshly roasted deer meat was brought out and laid before them. The eorle nodded at his old weorthman in recognition of his foresight, kicking back on the bench as the men’s spirits returned with their appetite and they tucked in.

  Eofer examined the pits and scratches at the rear of his helm, running the pad of his thumb across the incomplete repair work as the pyre flared for a final time and collapsed in on itself. Anna had promised to hammer and polish them out once they had reached a smithy, but neither man then knew that it would be the hands of another smith who would complete the task. Eofer let out a snort of irony as the stack settled and the enemy shields that ringed it folded down into the white heat at its core. No man knew the length of his life thread, but despite the injustice often felt by those left to mourn all were thankful for it.

  A roll of thunder sounded in the distance, and Eofer looked up from his cup as he recognised that Thunor was in the sky. Like most Engles Anna had always worn the hammer amulet of the god at his throat, and although he would have expected the smith god Wayland to welcome the boy’s spirit to his forge, the thunder god seemed as good as any. The sound came again, different in tone this time, man-like, and he gave a knowing smile as the voice of another youth, a boy long dead, carried to him on the wind:

  Then on the hill, a balefire was kindled.

  Wood-smoke billowed black over blaze,

  keen was the roar of flame,

  till the fire had burst the frame of bones,

  hot at the heart.

  16

  A spearman crouched in the courtyard, bent over as he offered up the fire steel to the kindling. The sparks were bright in the dusk, and the Engles watched from cover as the first fronds of flame flickered and were fanned into life. The Briton’s features were thrown into relief as the fire grew, pinched cheeks and a hooked nose, black bushy brows stark against a skin made sallow by weeks on campaign. Others came across as the flames were fed, and soon men were moving from thatch to thatch, touching brands to the eaves as an unseen woman wailed in pain and distress.

  Half a dozen ceorls were standing in line, waiting sullen faced for their turn to have the wooden slave collars fitted to their necks, and an inhuman wail of pain and despair rose from the group as a bairn, too burdensome to bring along, was dashed to the ground and run through. As the ashen faced men and women were manhandled back into line and the wooden pegs which secured the collars worked roughly into place, the leader of the raiding party shook his head and kicked out a boot. ‘Not that one, he will never keep up and I am not hanging around any longer than needs be.’ The Briton hawked and sent a gobbet of phlegm spinning into the dust. ‘We are not so far from that new barbarian fort, and I don’t want to get into a fight just so that Cynlas Goch can top up his pile of silver. Anyways, nobody will get a full days work out of that old coot,’ he sniffed and pointed to one of his men. ‘Ifan, see him out.’

  The English warriors watched with heavy hearts from the shadows as the chosen man exchanged looks of bewilderment with his family members and a middle aged woman plucked at his sleeve in fear and desperation. Ifan grabbed at his tunic, the old threadbare thing testament to the fact that the settlers had little to offer by way of plunder save a lifetime of work for their new owners, twisting the thing and giving it a sharp tug which sent the man staggering towards the nearby woodland.

  The watching pair eased back into the shadows as the man shuffled across, instinctively narrowing their eyes as the spearman forced him to his knees little more than a dozen paces before them. Both men had been warriors long enough to know that the eyes were more than the windows to a man’s soul, the whites of the eyes were the most visible thing as the light began to fade and the hours of darkness approached.

  Backlit by the flames the pair, victim and executioner, were little more than silhouettes. The old man raised his chin, and a new-found defiance kindled within him as he came to accept that his
time on Middle-earth was drawing to a close. The action had raised the level of his gaze to that of Hemming’s own, and the big warrior’s eyes flared with anxiety as he recognised the moment when the old man picked him out from the shadows.

  Hemming moved a forefinger slowly across to rest against his lips as he held the elder’s gaze in his own, and an understanding passed between them that the wrongs visited on the man’s family would be avenged, even if he did not live long enough to witness the act. The ghost of a smile played about the ceorl’s lips, and Hemming risked a gentle bob of his head in recognition of the old man’s bravery as the first spear thrust threw him forward onto the grass. A moan drifted across from the captives as they watched their elder spasm in death, and Hemming froze as the spearman raised his gaze and looked his way. The Briton must have sensed the change in the old ceorl’s demeanour in his final moments, and he made as if to approach the tree line as he tugged the spear clear and a frown came to his face.

  ‘Ifan!’

  The cry brought the man up short, and he turned back in question.

  ‘Come on it is getting dark, and I want to get back at the camp while we can still see.’

  The English pair watched as the Briton hesitated, and Hemming gripped his spear as he prepared to dart forward and run him through, but another summons followed and he shrugged his shoulders, flicked a final look at the tree line and loped back across the clearing to rejoin the others. The Welsh leader lost no time in hustling the captives out of the village, and Hemming and Hryp shared a look at the closeness of discovery as they shuffled away.

  The huts were a fiery holocaust now, and Hemming gave the nightmare scene a last look as the pair shuffled back into the greenwood and melted away.

  The shadows were merging together as the sun sank in the west, but Hemming had marked the path well and in a short while they were back where they had left their hearth mates. The pair slid down the bank as faces turned their way, and Hemming gave the thumbs up as excitement began to build within him. ‘It’s on lads!’ he said happily. ‘There are only six of them and they are going to do just what we hoped.’