A Time for Swords

by Matthew Harffy

  Cormac would bite his lip then, forcing himself to do what he was told, but soon enough, he would be swinging and thrashing with his blade again. Gwawrddur shook his head.

  “You are like an angry child. If you wish to cut oats or barley, I will buy you a scythe. You will not be needing that weapon.”

  Cormac grumbled, but nodded, acknowledging the swordsman’s words. Once more, he began to follow the instructions more closely, but after only a short time, his sword was flailing about wildly.

  The evening before we reached Werceworthe, Gwawrddur rose from where he had been watching us train and clapped his hands together. The sound was loud and caused us both to halt. I was glad of the respite, as my arm and shoulder were on fire and my thighs ached from the constant crouching.

  “Sheathe your blades,” Gwawrddur said. “Now, take these.” He threw each of us a staff the length of a sword. He must have found the wood and cleaned the branches of twigs and offshoots while we had been practising. “Unbuckle your belts,” he went on. After a moment’s hesitation, I did what he asked. I noticed Cormac, frowning, seemed reluctant to remove his sword from his waist. “You are either my pupil, or you are not, Cormac,” Gwawrddur said, shaking his head. “If you will not obey me, then we are done.” He turned to me. “It seems we are back to just you and me,” he said.

  “Wait,” said Cormac, quickly tugging at his belt’s buckle.

  Gwawrddur waited for him to discard his sword and belt before continuing.

  “Now the two of you will pit yourselves against each other.”

  Cormac grinned at me, but I did not return his smile. I could feel the eyes of everyone on me.

  “And listen, both of you,” Gwawrddur said, his tone hard and stern. “I do not want any lasting injuries. This is not about maiming or crippling your opponent, it is about getting first touch. And there are to be no hits to the head, face or neck. The first to three touches will win. If I call halt, you will cease immediately. If I deem either of you to have breached my rules by hitting too hard or by aiming above the neck, I will award the other combatant a hit. Is all that understood?”

  We both nodded. I noted that Cormac looked less pleased now, clearly concerned that he might annoy Gwawrddur and forfeit a point.

  “Before you commence, I would tell you that I believe Cormac to be the stronger of the two of you. Do you agree?”

  Cormac’s smile returned.

  “I will not argue with you on that score,” he said, swishing his staff before him flamboyantly.

  I appraised him. The Hibernian’s shoulders were broader than mine, his neck thick and his hands wide and strong. I could not deny what Gwawrddur had said. I said nothing.

  Seemingly satisfied, Gwawrddur said, “Now, prepare to fight.”

  The Welshman’s words had sparked a deep resentment in me. I may not be as strong as Cormac, but I was fast, and I had proven myself. I would show them both. I dropped into the warrior stance, the aches and pains of moments before forgotten now.

  “I will try my best not to bruise you too much, monk,” Cormac said, and in spite of the friendship I had felt towards him since the fight at the stream, in that moment, I hated him.

  I did not speak, but fixed my gaze on his eyes, allowing my vision to take in his whole body as Gwawrddur had taught us, watching for movements in his feet and the direction he turned his chest. That was how you could see where a warrior would strike.

  “Fight!” said Gwawrddur, and the next instant, as I had expected, Cormac sprang forward, swinging his practice sword wildly for my midriff.

  Without thinking of my response, I took three quick steps backwards, allowing his blow to whistle harmlessly past. He was off balance for a heartbeat, but without the weight of iron and steel in his hand he would recover in an instant. But I was also unencumbered by the weight of a sword. The staff felt as light as air in my hand after the gruelling drills we had been running through. The moment his practice blade swiped past me, I lunged, landing a touch to Cormac’s ribs. I did not put my full weight behind the strike, but it was harder than I had anticipated and Cormac grunted. I sensed he would retaliate in anger, so I skipped back again as he bellowed in fury, aiming a cut at my head.

  I raised my staff, parried the blow, then sent a slicing riposte into his shoulder.

  “Two strikes to Hunlaf,” said Gwawrddur.

  We pulled apart and Cormac rubbed at his chest where my first blow had landed.

  “Bastard,” he spat. Gone was the smile and the glimmer of humour in his eyes. He was furious. I felt the familiar serenity of combat wash over me. There was nothing now in my world apart from Cormac and his weapon.

  “Be glad the fight is not over, young Cormac,” Gwawrddur said. “Your last strike was directed at Hunlaf’s head, was it not?”

  Cormac did not reply, but with a growl, he jumped forward once more.

  It was all over in a heartbeat. I barely knew what had occurred. The vibrations of collision thrummed in my right hand and then Cormac grunted and pulled up short. He bent over and retched. Drosten and Runolf’s laughter rang out in the sudden quiet of the dusk. Hereward shook his head and tended to the food he was cooking over the campfire.

  As I watched Cormac slowly straightening up, rubbing at his groin, my mind caught up with what had transpired. Cormac had rushed me, once again signalling his movements and swinging his weapon with great force. With the speed borne of days of practice, I had parried his attack with ease and sent my counterattack slamming between his legs.

  “The fight is Hunlaf’s,” said Gwawrddur, striding forward and snatching Cormac’s stick from him. He then held out his hand to me. I handed him my staff. Then, to my surprise, he picked up both of our sword belts. “I will look after these for the time being,” he said.

  I went over to Cormac and offered him my hand. He stared at it, his face dark and clouded with anger and pain. After a time, his expression lightened and a sheepish smile lit his face.

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  He grasped my forearm in the warrior grip.

  “No need to be sorry,” he said. “You won. That is all.” He turned to Gwawrddur. “Very well. I understand.”

  “Do you?” asked the Welshman. “What have you learnt here today?”

  Cormac massaged his shoulder.

  “Apart from the fact that Hunlaf is a better swordsman?”

  “Yes,” said Gwawrddur, “for that is not necessarily the case. He has natural skill, it is true.” I looked away from Cormac, so that he could not see the pleasure on my face at Gwawrddur’s praise. “But,” Gwawrddur went on, “you are stronger and have speed and courage.”

  “And yet I lost.”

  “And yet you lost,” Gwawrddur agreed. “So what have you learnt?”

  “That I should listen to what you say,” Cormac replied.

  “Yes, but more than that?”

  Cormac, seemingly fully recovered now, scratched at his beard.

  “That it is skill and not strength that wins a fight.”

  “Even more than skill. It is preparation and sticking to a plan that will conquer a foe,” replied Gwawrddur. “Particularly one who allows himself to be governed by his anger and emotions. The only thing separating you from Hunlaf, was that he focused on what I had taught him. He did not succumb to fear or fury, but awaited your attacks and countered them.”

  Cormac nodded.

  “Good,” said Gwawrddur, “if you have learnt this much, this evening has not been wasted.”

  “Listen to the man,” said Hereward from the fire. “The only time a warrior might cast aside caution and preparation is to save a shield-brother. Even then, he must not neglect his duty to the warband. For what good is it to save one brother and to have the whole shieldwall crumble?” He spat into the flames. “Tomorrow we will reach Werceworthe and our planning will begin in earnest. We are few, so it will not be strength and sword-skill that will win against the Norse when they come. No,” he tapped his head, “it will be wh
at traps we have laid for them and the defences we have built. Only with discipline and forethought can we hope to prevail.”

  I thought on the fight with Cormac and Hereward’s sombre words as we finally trudged into Werceworthe where it nestled in the crook of the river Cocueda. Everything was familiar to me and my first feelings were of relief. The Norse had not come here. I looked to the sky, where dark clouds swarmed in the north. The weather had remained unsettled for much of the journey from Eoforwic. The closer we got to Werceworthe, the darker and more brooding grew the clouds, and a cold wind blustered into our faces from the north. It was still midsummer, but there was an almost wintry chill in that wind.

  “Good sailing wind,” Runolf had said ominously in Englisc that morning. Nobody had replied, but the meaning was clear and we had pressed on with renewed haste.

  The swirling storm clouds on the horizon seemed to mirror my mood as we passed the buildings of the lay people of Werceworthe. The houses and trees were the same as when I had left only days before. The church still rose above the huts of the villagers who tended the land, the sounds of work and stink from Aethelwig’s tannery, the clang of hammer on hot iron, the scent of the smoke from Garulf’s forge and the distant lilt of singing that came from the minster in the distance were all things that made me think of safety and home. Nothing had changed here and I was soothed by the sense of homecoming. And yet, as we passed the houses of the ceorls and made our way towards the vallum ditch and the minster buildings, I could not shake the feeling that I was not the same. Men and women peered from their homes, but they did not venture out to greet us.

  “This is not the welcome I was expecting,” said Drosten.

  “They are frightened of you,” Leofstan replied. “Armed men do not often bring peace with them.”

  I wondered if I too now scared them. Did I frighten Leofstan? He had barely spoken to me in the last few days. I saw the tanner’s wife, Wulfwaru, tiny Aethelwulf on her hip, staring at me and I smiled, glad to see her comely face. She had always been kind to me, but now her face was grim and pale. Was that fear I saw in her expression? Her eyes flicked down and I understood what she was seeing. The sword was again belted at my hip and she must have seen the truth of what I had said to Hereward in my demeanour and the weapon at my side. I was no longer the monk she had known. I was now a warrior merely clothed in the habit of a monk, nothing more.

  I wondered what Aelfwyn would have seen if she were yet alive to witness this change in me? She had known me as a boy and as a shy monk. Would she have recognised this harder, colder man who now wore the monk’s clothes, but carried a sword and had taken lives with his own hands? The vision of her as I had last seen her, terrified with panic and fearful for her own life and that of her husband, flitted into my mind like an unwelcome bat in a hall. For a heartbeat, I saw anew her husband’s corpse and could smell the smoke from the fires that had consumed her and much of Lindisfarnae. With a grimace, I pushed the dark memories away. Clutching the pommel of my sword as if for support, I pressed onward. On the day the Norsemen came to the holy island, the innocent monk had ceased to be, as dead as if he too had been thrown into the inferno of the burning barn alongside Aelfwyn.

  When we reached the minster buildings, Brother Seoca, whom I had known since our time together at Magilros, came out to greet us. He led us all to the dormitory hall where Uhtric and his men had slept on our previous visit.

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” he said. “Food and drink will be brought to you soon.”

  “That is more like it,” said Cormac, who always seemed to be hungry.

  Leofstan followed Seoca out of the hall, but Seoca hesitated at the door, turning to me.

  “Brother Hunlaf,” he said. “Please take your belongings to your cell and then join us for Vespers in the chapel.” I placed a hand on the pommel of my sword but made no move to follow him. He looked down at the weapon, his eyes widening in shock. His mouth fell open, but he made no sound.

  “Hunlaf will not be joining us at Vespers,” Leofstan said, and his voice sounded hollow and tinged with great sadness.

  “But… but…” stammered Brother Seoca.

  Leofstan met my gaze and gave me a small nod of encouragement.

  “Isn’t that right, Hunlaf?”

  I reached up and ran a hand over my head. My scalp was no longer shaved bare in a tonsure. Where the bald circle of skin had been, now the bristles of new hair grew.

  “Leofstan speaks the truth of it,” I said. “Thank you, Brother Seoca.”

  Seoca stared aghast. I returned his gaze, unmoving. Leofstan touched him gently on the arm. Seoca turned, shaking his head and muttering as he left the hall.

  We threw our bags and packs in one corner and pulled benches from where they were propped against the wall. Shortly afterwards, Osfrith entered, carrying an earthenware pitcher and a stack of wooden cups on a tray.

  “What have we here?” asked Cormac.

  “Ale,” Osfrith said in a timid voice. He could not stop looking at me, as though my physical form had changed beyond all recognition. I offered him a thin smile and he hurried away.

  We drank ale and the others talked quietly about what we had witnessed when we had arrived. They spoke of the distribution of the houses and work huts of the lay folk, how the river encircled a good part of the minster, the steepness of the cliffs that fell down to the water in the west, the position of the ferry crossing and where the nearest ford was. Gwawrddur asked about the river. How close was its mouth to the sea? What of the island they had mentioned, could it be seen from here?

  Hereward answered most of their questions, but as the one who had lived here for two years, it was up to me to give them the details they needed. I answered their questions as best I could, but I could not concentrate and more than once Hereward had to angrily bang his hand on the board before him to get my attention.

  “Wake up, Hunlaf,” he said.

  “He is away with the fairy folk,” said Cormac, and absently I crossed myself to ward off the possible curse of the evil elves.

  I took a sip of my ale.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I am tired.”

  Hereward accepted my excuse, but I knew it was a lie. It was not my fatigue that plucked at my concentration like a thread being snagged from the hem of a cloak, pulling and unravelling my thoughts. No, I had that feeling of excitement and dread that presages a thunderstorm. Or battle. I could not focus because I was certain that something portentous was about to happen.

  I did not need to wait long to find out what it was.

  Thirty-Three

  “You are still certain that this is what God has called you to do?” Abbot Beonna asked me.

  He had sent for me before the evening meal and I had walked the short distance to his quarters with a feeling of dread. I recalled feeling the same way when my older brother, Beornnoth, had stolen a jar of Father’s favourite mead and convinced me to drink it with him. Not only had we both become puking drunk, but in our inebriated state, we had smashed the jug too. Father had summoned us before him shortly after we had returned from the top fields, where we had spent the afternoon drinking and playing childish games until we had grown so drunk we had collapsed in the waving barley. We had stopped vomiting by the time we stood before Father, but my head pounded and I could barely walk in a straight line.

  I had been ten summers old, already full of defiance and anger, but I had been no match for my father, who had put me over his knee and spanked me with a wooden butter paddle until I could not sit down. Beornnoth had fared no better. Father had not listened to my protestations that it was Beornnoth who had stolen the jug and goaded me into joining in with the drinking, and we had both received the same punishment.

  I had cried with frustration and pain as Aelfwyn had consoled me later. She’d listened as I had raged against the injustice, nodding because she had known the truth, saying little as no words would alter my father’s mind or take away the punishment I had received.

>   I was no child of ten now, but I felt the same overpowering urge to weep and I half expected the abbot to tell me to bend over so that he could exact a beating on me for being a wayward son.

  He did no such thing. Instead he looked at me from his desk, his eyes rheumy and sad. Leofstan was seated in the same chair he had occupied the last time I had been there.

  “Hunlaf,” he said, his voice gentle. “You must answer the abbot.”

  Startled out of my thoughts, I nodded.

  “Yes, father,” I said, and it was the truth. “The vision was clear to me and since then the good Lord has saved me from what should have been certain death. I am sure He means for me to help to protect the minster from the heathens.”

  “And the Norseman?” Beonna said. “Leofstan tells me he is now baptised into the faith.”

  “Yes, father. The king insisted it must be so if he were to remain in his kingdom. He was baptised and then oath-sworn to Uhtric.”

  “Do you believe we can trust him?”

  I pondered this for a moment only.

  “Yes, I do. He is a man of his word. His ways are foreign and strange to us perhaps, but I believe he is a good man.”

  “And are you a good man?” asked Beonna, frowning at me in the gathering gloom.

  His words took me aback and I did not know how to respond. I looked to Leofstan, but he did not return my gaze.

  “I am a sinner, like all men,” I said at last. My mouth was dry and I swallowed. “But I try to be good. To live by the teachings of the Scriptures.”

  “And is it the Scriptures that teach the killing of your fellow man?”

  I bridled at that, feeling that same defiance and sense of injustice that had so angered me when my father had beaten me. I bit back the words that threatened to burst forth.

  “No,” I said, keeping my voice steady with difficulty. “I know that to kill is a sin. But is not the defender of the weak forgiven by God?”

  For a long while, Beonna did not speak. He reached for the flask I recognised from my last visit and, like then, poured out three cups of mead. He handed one to Leofstan, who took it without comment, the other he passed to me. He drank deeply of the third cup.