A Time for Swords

by Matthew Harffy

  Thirty

  Thinking back, that was the moment when I truly came to believe that I was on the path that God had chosen for me. He could have allowed me to die there. I was outnumbered and my companions were too far away to reach me, even if they had heard my screams. And when the newcomer threw himself into the fight, taking on the leader, my stocky enemy could still have remained focused on his task. I would have been dead in moments. But instead of hacking into me with his great seax, or leaping onto me and forcing my face under the water, he turned to see what was happening behind him. He made that fateful error that is many a warrior’s last mistake: he underestimated his enemy.

  The instant when his eyes flicked away from mine, I launched myself forward, the shattered end of the ash sword clutched tightly in my fist. My throat-wrenching scream mingled with that of the other fighting men as I plunged the sharp, splintered tip of the broken practice sword into my adversary’s neck. We fell together into the mud, beside the stamping hooves of the horses. My hand was warm, and looking down, I saw that dark blood was pumping over my fingers, soaking the bandage there and colouring the water-filled hoof prints red. The man tried to push me off, but I drove the branch deeper into his throat. I did not look away from him, despite the sounds of fighting close by. He made to strike me with the seax, but I raised my weight up and pinned his arm beneath my left knee.

  His eyes were dimming now, looking beyond me to whatever it is that men witness when their life leaves their mortal shell. He trembled, let out a rattling sigh and was still.

  Panting, I pushed myself to my feet, wrenching the seax from the dead man’s hand. Its handle was fashioned from an antler. It was warm to the touch, though not as warm as the man’s blood.

  The howling had ceased where the other two men were fighting and I watched warily to see who had vanquished and who it was that had come rushing to my aid. There was no doubt in my mind then or now, that without that timely intervention, I would have died there beside that stream.

  Slowly, gasping for breath as if he had run a long way, one man rose. I recognised the motionless form that remained on the earth first. The pallid corpse had a curtain of blood over its face and the left eye was a ragged, ripped mess. The man who stood over the dead swordsman held a blood-drenched sword in his hand. His dark hair and his beard were an unruly tangle, but his teeth flashed bright in a grin.

  “I told you my enemies feared me,” Cormac said.

  “My enemies too, it seems,” I said. His grin widened, but I could not smile. I was only now allowing myself to believe that I would not be dead in a few heartbeats.

  “Your enemies are my enemies, Hunlaf,” he said. “If you’ll have me.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but speech seemed difficult. My mind twisted and squirmed. I was both horrified and exalted by what had occurred. And yet I could not bring forth the words to give meaning to my feelings. In an effort to hide my confusion, I staggered forward to where the thin man lay sprawled in the mud. His uninjured bulging eye stared up at the darkening sky. The gouged left socket glowered at me in silent, hideous accusation. I glanced back at the other cooling corpse.

  I had done this thing.

  To take a life was the ultimate sin. Had Jesu not instructed us to love our enemies; to do good to those who hate us? Could it be that I was wrong and God was sending me these tribulations as a test of my faith? I thought of the story of Job and how God had tested him. And then I remembered the tale of Abraham and his son, Isaac. God had ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, only allowing Abraham to slay a ram instead after the man had tied his son to the altar, proving that he would do what the Lord commanded.

  Had I failed the tests God had placed before me? Should I have offered up a prayer for the souls of my attackers, allowing them to strike me down?

  I bent and picked up the brigand’s sword. His fingers still gripped the hilt and I took hold of the blade to pull it from his dead grasp. Looking away from the corpse and its accusing glare, I gave a couple of tentative swings to the weapon. It was significantly heavier than my wooden staff of course, but it was well-balanced and the wooden handle seemed made for my hand.

  Sounds of running feet cut through my reverie and without thinking I raised the sword menacingly. Cormac lifted his own sword, turning towards the approaching noise. Without a word, we stepped close together to stand shoulder to shoulder.

  Gwawrddur came bounding down the muddy slope, sword drawn and sweat glistening on his brow.

  In an instant, he took in the scene. Stepping close, he gently pushed our blades aside.

  “You’ll not be needing those now,” he said.

  Quickly, he knelt beside each man, checking for signs of life. With practised efficiency, he searched the bodies, finding little of interest apart from a pouch of dried tinder, along with a flint and a thin rod of iron.

  Moments later, Runolf, carrying his huge axe, and Drosten, armed with his knife, careened down the sloping path. They were both gasping for air after the long run from the camp in the woods. After seeing that the fight was finished, Runolf bent over, putting his hands on his knees, and gulping in great breaths. Sweat poured down his face. After a time, he straightened and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. When he could finally speak, he asked what had happened.

  I recounted what had transpired. I spoke abruptly, giving the barest of details without dwelling on the savagery of the wounds. I could not push from my mind the thoughts of the man’s warm lifeblood pumping onto my hand. I kept reliving the lunge that had taken the first man’s eye. My excitement at what I had done filled me with shame. What sort of man was I to revel in such violence?

  Runolf looked about the clearing as if he could see the fight taking place in his mind’s eye.

  Gwawrddur picked up the shattered half of my practice sword. The other half jutted from the man’s gore-slick throat.

  “You did well,” he said. “But you seem to have broken your sword.”

  All the while, I had gripped the sword I had picked up tightly, as if it could somehow anchor me to the spot; stop my swirling mind from floating away on the swell of my emotions.

  “I have a new sword,” I said, lifting the tip of the blade to show him.

  He nodded and went to the swordsman’s corpse. He bent and unbuckled the man’s belt. With an effort he tugged it free of the dead weight and handed it to me. It had a simple leather scabbard attached.

  “You’ll be needing this then,” he said.

  I took the belt and scabbard, staring at them as if I had never before seen their like. Gwawrddur patted me on the shoulder.

  “I will show you how to fasten it and how best to draw a blade from a scabbard. But later, after we’ve eaten.”

  In a daze, I staggered to where the other man was sprawled in the mud. I tugged the sheath from his belt with difficulty. Such was the trembling of my hands that it took me two attempts before I managed to slide the antler-handled seax into its leather home.

  Cormac had been standing silently since the others had arrived. Now Gwawrddur turned to him.

  “You may be clumsy, Hibernian,” he said, “but you show a fighter’s spirit. I like that.”

  Cormac beamed.

  “You will train me then?”

  Gwawrddur chuckled.

  “Go and fetch Hunlaf’s horse. It has run off aways.”

  “And then you will teach me?”

  Gwawrddur shook his head.

  “It seems to me you have both had enough training for one day.”

  Cormac looked disappointed. My whole body ached and my hands trembled. I could not imagine wanting to train or fight again. All I wished for now was to eat, drink and sleep. I wondered whether I would see the faces of the dead in my dreams.

  “Go and get the horse,” Gwawrddur repeated.

  “You will wait here?”

  “No. Follow us back to our campsite. It’s in the woods to the west of here.”

  “I know where it is,” Cormac s
aid with a cunning grin, before turning and sprinting up the path. I wondered how close he had been to us since last we’d seen him. He must move as stealthily as a fox, I thought.

  “What will we say to Hereward when we return with Cormac?” I asked.

  Gwawrddur looked after the Hibernian.

  “We will tell him we have another warrior to join our band.” He glanced at the corpses and then looked at me. “Or perhaps that is two warriors, eh, Killer?”

  Without waiting for a reply, he strode away, back up the muddy slope, leaving me to collect the water skins and the three tethered horses.

  Thirty-One

  After we had eaten, Gwawrddur finally agreed to train Cormac. The Hibernian was ecstatically happy. In fact, he had not stopped beaming since he walked into the camp leading my horse. By then, it was fully dark under the trees and he had been cautious and quiet at first, perhaps nervous at how Hereward and Runolf would react to him joining the group.

  Hereward did not put up much resistance. What could he say, after the young man had saved my life?

  “Do you give me your solemn word that you will obey my command?” Hereward asked Cormac.

  “I swear.”

  “And do you swear to hold your tongue when you disagree with me?”

  Cormac frowned, clearly torn as to what to say. In the end, with a disconsolate shake of his head, he sighed.

  “I cannot do that,” he said. “For what sort of man would I be to allow my leader to make a mistake without me warning him first?”

  There was a glimmer in his eye, even though his face was sombre. Runolf, who was sitting on the far side of the fire, let out a bark of laughter.

  “I change my mind,” he said. “The boy can fight. He stay.”

  “I’ll decide if he can come with us,” said Hereward.

  “Yes, yes,” replied Runolf, waving his hand airily. “But he stay, no?”

  Drosten laughed.

  Hereward puffed out his cheeks, and blew out his breath in exasperation.

  “You must swear another oath to me first, Cormac,” he said.

  Serious now, sensing that this was the moment that would decide his future, Cormac nodded.

  “You must give your word,” said Hereward, “that you will keep peace with all the others in this band.” He paused. “Even with Runolf.”

  Cormac stared at the Norseman through the flames. He was suddenly very serious and I wondered what he was contemplating.

  “You have my word,” Cormac said at last, unsmiling now.

  “Very well,” said Hereward, clapping him on the shoulder. “You are one of our small warband.”

  We told riddles and tales for long into the night and slowly the tensions of the fight ebbed from me. Cormac seemed instantly to be at home in the group and talked incessantly, as if he had thirsted for company for so long that now he meant to drink deeply of the well of conversation around the flickering fire. When I had been yawning for some time and Drosten had already wrapped himself in his blanket and cloak to sleep, Cormac was still singing bawdy songs. In the end, Hereward had to intervene.

  “I may yet have you swear another oath, Cormac,” he said, interrupting a song about the many joys of being drunk.

  “What oath?” Cormac asked, sensing a jest in Hereward’s tone.

  “That you will let the rest of us sleep!”

  Drosten chuckled from where he lay.

  “Yes,” he said. “Have him swear it!”

  Despite the light tone, Cormac heard the serious request for peace behind the words and fell silent. Gwawrddur took the first watch, sitting with his back to the fire and looking out into the darkness so that the flames would not burn away his night vision.

  I pulled my blanket about me and tried to get comfortable. I closed my eyes, desperate now for the embrace of sleep, but fearful of what dreams it might bring.

  Just before I fell into an exhausted slumber, Gwawrddur spoke.

  “It is good that Cormac has joined our number.”

  Hereward, half awake, grunted.

  “Why is that?”

  “Now we are seven.”

  “And?”

  “Any fewer, and by the dooms of the land, we are but a group of thieves.”

  I recalled having to copy out some of the dooms, the legal texts by which the land is governed. I had scratched the letters into the vellum under Leofstan’s watchful gaze and I remembered the law about bands of warriors. A group between seven and thirty-five in number was deemed to be a warband. More than that, and it was a here, an army.

  “I am no thief,” grumbled Drosten from the gloom.

  “No,” replied Gwawrddur. “Not now that Cormac has bolstered our number.”

  Drosten hoomed in the back of his throat, but said no more.

  “We are seven,” said Leofstan from where he lay in the darkness. “But we are not all warriors.”

  He had been silent for much of the time since I had returned with my new sword from the stream. He had asked if I was well, but when he’d heard the tale of how I had killed a man, he had grown reserved and had retreated to the edge of the firelight.

  “True,” said Gwawrddur. “Perhaps we will need to find another to join us, if we are not to be thought of as brigands.”

  Nobody else spoke, and the soft sighing of the wind through the leaves above us soon pulled me into the welcome arms of sleep. Thankfully, I did not dream and when I awoke I was surprised to find that I had not been awakened for my turn at sentry duty.

  “You needed the rest,” said Hereward, when he saw me rising from my blanket and looking about me as the others prepared to strike camp.

  “I am one of the band now,” I said. “You must treat me as such.”

  “Or one of the thieves,” he replied with a smirk.

  “I am one of this band of warriors,” I said, more forcefully.

  He fixed me in his stare.

  “You wear the habit of a monk and the sword of a warrior. You cannot be both, I fear, Hunlaf.”

  I had been thinking much on this and knew he was right.

  “I am a warrior in the clothes of a monk,” I said, feeling a weight lifted from me as I spoke the words.

  Hereward held my gaze for a time, before nodding.

  “Very well,” he said. “Warrior it is.”

  I turned to see to my gear. Leofstan was watching me. I realised with a pang of guilt and shame that he had not woken me for prayers. The first thing I had thought of was that I should have stood guard along with the other men. I could sense his judgement of me, of what I had done and what I wanted to become. Or perhaps what I had already become. He could not understand what drove me. I barely understood it myself. I wanted to explain to him how I felt, but when I opened my mouth to speak, I could not find the words. I bent to roll up my blanket and then buckled my sword belt around my waist. I twisted and turned my body to get a feel for the unusual weight of the weapon on my hip. I nodded. I liked the solidity of it.

  When I looked up, Leofstan was no longer there.

  Thirty-Two

  My legs ached and I was bone weary when we reached Werceworthe two days later. The long days had been tiring enough without the extra effort of sword practice, as I had opted to walk, rather than ride after Cormac’s arrival. I liked the Hibernian’s company, he was quick to jest and had a strange way of speaking of things that was different from anyone I had ever met before. Also, since he had come to my rescue by the stream, there was an unspoken bond between us. I felt something similar with Runolf too, I mused, as I trudged along the road, watching the rumps and swishing tails of the horses ahead of us. I had also shared a moment of combat with the Norseman. We had fought together against a common foe and I surmised that the camaraderie I felt with Cormac stemmed from the realisation that he had risked his life, and taken another man’s life, for me. This thought was at the forefront of my mind when I had awoken the morning after the fight and offered my horse to Drosten.

  “Are you sure?” he as
ked, his blue tattoos making his face seem as if he were scowling, though his tone was friendly enough.

  “Yes, I would walk.”

  He did not need coaxing and, with a nod of thanks, he swung up onto my horse’s back. The animal snorted at the extra weight of the heavily-muscled Pict and Drosten patted its neck and offered me a smile that I am sure was meant to show his gratitude, but appeared like a monstrous leer from his tattooed face.

  It was true that I was glad to walk alongside Cormac, to hear more of his tale, though I soon found out that whilst he talked a lot, it was difficult to glean much of the story of his past and how he had come to be in Northumbria seeking someone willing to pay him for his sword. But above this, I knew the real reason I had decided to walk rather than ride. I could not bear the thought of Cormac speaking to Gwawrddur all day without me. Whatever techniques and tricks the older man might impart, I would hear them too.

  When we halted at midday and after the camps were set up at night, Cormac and I trained. Gwawrddur made us both run through routines of movements, growling at us to attend to our footwork.

  “A swordsman is only as good as his speed and balance,” he said.

  It was clear that despite great enthusiasm, Cormac was as unskilled with a blade as I was. I had the advantage of having performed some of the movements over the last few days, and so I moved through them fluidly and more naturally than the Hibernian. But I was only used to practising with a stick, and the weight of my newly acquired blade soon had me panting and sweating from the exertion. My fingers throbbed and my shoulders burnt with the effort. Cormac made up for his lack of skill with his overwhelming physical presence. He swung his sword hard and fast, leaping forward and backward, rather than the quick shuffle that Gwawrddur advocated, causing the Welshman to shout out.

  “Speed and skill, not strength, will win a fight.”