A Time for Swords

by Matthew Harffy

  “There will be time enough for the harvest before the rains fall in earnest,” he said, nodding and smiling a toothless grin. Some of the other villagers seemed happy, and nodded, as if the greybeard had the power of prophecy. It had looked to me as if it was set to rain for days. The clouds had brooded over us for a long time and they were heavy and dark.

  But as I stepped out of the hall into the darkness, the air was dry. The clouds yet covered the moon, that lit up the sky with its pallid white light, but there were breaks in the clouds from which the chill light of stars shone. Perhaps the old man had been right after all.

  There was no fire out here. One might be welcomed by the sentry on duty, but the light from the flames would impede a man’s ability to see in the dark. We could not afford to miss the beacons when they were lit and so there was no fire. I shivered, noting the coolness and how my breath steamed about my face. Winter was a whisper in that chill air.

  Cormac did not turn as he heard my approach, but despite the darkness, I knew him from the angle of his head and the line of his neck. I stood close to him and leaned against the timber frame of the hall. I could smell the sap of the wood and the earthy scent of the daub that had been applied recently to the wattled walls between the timbers. If the hall was to remain intact and dry through the winter, it would need at least one more coating of the manure, mud and straw mixture. The previous layers had begun to crack as they dried out.

  For a time we stood in silence. It had been two days since his outburst and none of us had spoken to him about it. I realised I knew nothing of his past life, of the time before he had joined our band, but the things he had said had allowed me to see a glimpse of the terrible anguish that beset him. He hid his pain well behind a screen of humour and bravado. And yet, it seemed to me, that the wall he protected himself behind was, just like the daub on the hall, cracking and threatening to flake and peel away. I longed to tell him that he could confide in me. We were close and had spent much time together in those long, hot summer days, but in the way of men, I knew not how to say these things to him.

  “She reminds me of my sister,” Cormac said into the silent darkness.

  “Who?” I asked, but I knew the answer.

  “Wulfwaru,” he replied, in a voice not much more than a whisper. True to his word, Hereward had kept Cormac away from her since the confrontation with Aethelwig. The day before, when the rain began to fall, we had headed for shelter under a stand of willows by the river. Aethelwig and Wulfwaru were there, and Cormac had halted in his tracks and run off towards the church where a few others had gone to stand out of the rain. Before he had gone, I’d seen the sadness that had washed over him. I wished I’d gone with him, but instead I had watched him go and wondered at his infatuation with Wulfwaru.

  “You should have told us,” I said.

  “What? That she reminds me of my older sister, Darerca, who was defiled and murdered?” He sniffed quietly in the gloom. “What would be the point? They had all made up their mind about what it was I wanted from her. They think me as bad as the Norsemen.”

  “They think you a man. Nothing more.”

  Silence grew between us again and I thought of all the horrors that had brought us to this place.

  “He is a good man,” I said, after a time.

  “Who?” he asked. Apparently it was his turn to act as though he did not know the answer to his question.

  “Runolf,” I replied.

  “He is Norse,” he said.

  “He is a man. No more than you.” I hesitated, but I had to speak now. Cormac had opened the door to this conversation and I had to step through it. “He did not do those things to your family.”

  “I know it,” he said. “But he would have, wouldn’t he? If he had been there.”

  “I cannot say. But in the time I have known him, I have seen him save children’s lives and only take those of men wishing to cause me and others harm.”

  Cormac sighed. The moonlight caught the cloud of breath that drifted for a moment about his face like cobwebs, or the ghosts of memories.

  “You have oft spoke of this,” he said, “and yet when I look at him, I see that heathen bastard…” His voice trailed off. He let out a shuddering breath. “Everything I had was taken from me when that serpent-prowed ship landed on the banks of Loch Cuan. Vengeance is all I have now.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that, and so I said nothing. We each had our reason for being here. Vengeance was as good as any.

  After that night-time talk, Cormac’s mood seemed to lighten somewhat. He had never spoken of these things before and it seemed that the act of describing what had happened to his kin had perhaps begun to allow their shades to depart, leaving him less burdened by their suffering.

  He made more of an effort to talk to Runolf without his usual rudeness and a few nights later he sat with us in Werce’s Hall. The harvest was over and we had celebrated with a roasted pig. It had been cooked over a great fire and the succulent meat had been shared by everyone, lay people, monks and warriors. The atmosphere had been buoyant and more than one person said they thought that all the work we had done on those hot summer days preparing defences had been a waste of time.

  Beonna had come over to where Hereward lounged in the shade of a willow.

  “Thank you all for your help with the harvest,” he said. “It seems that the Lord smiles upon us. The rains have held off and so have the Norse.” He smiled and looked about at the happy faces around us. “I pray to Jesu that the defences you have all toiled so hard over are never needed. Perhaps soon we can return to the life we used to live.”

  Hereward chewed the meat in his mouth and washed it down with some ale from a large wooden cup.

  “I too pray the Norse do not come,” he said. “But the seas are yet mellow enough for travel. I will not trust that you are safe until the storms come that will see the raiders holed up in their northern lands until the thaws of spring.”

  Beonna was not happy with that answer and had trudged away, muttering and shaking his head.

  “So,” said Leofstan, who had been standing close to the abbot, “you still think they will come?” I had scarcely spoken to him these last few weeks. Whenever we crossed paths, we would exchange greetings and pleasantries, but truth be told, I was nervous in his presence. Whenever he looked at me, I felt that I was being judged and found wanting. I much preferred to ignore my feelings of guilt and uncertainty when it came to my motives. We were all sinners, but Leofstan had a way of making me see what I must look like in his eyes: a lapsed monk who had turned his back on Christ and instead chose murder and violence as his creed.

  “Runolf says they will,” I replied.

  “And you believe him?”

  “I have no reason to doubt his word.”

  “I hope he is wrong,” he said, but I could tell from the slump of his shoulders that he too believed the Norseman. Leofstan had witnessed the frenzied attack on Lindisfarnae and knew, deep down, that the heathens, having feasted on the flesh of Northumbria, would have a taste for it now and would return soon enough for more plunder. Leofstan turned to walk away, then halted.

  “Hunlaf,” he said, fixing me with his sad stare. “When the fighting starts, you must forget who you were.” He looked away from me up at Werce’s Hall, but not before I saw there were tears in his eyes. “The bright boy who wants to understand everything under God’s heaven will not survive a battle.”

  “I know not if that boy still lives,” I said.

  “I think he does,” he said, turning back to face me. His eyes were full of sorrow. “But when the Norse come and the bloodletting begins, you must push that boy deep inside yourself. That Hunlaf would be slain in an instant. Battle is not a time for pondering and thinking. When the time comes, you cannot hesitate.”

  His words shocked me.

  “You are not disappointed in me then?” I asked.

  Leofstan sighed and shook his head.

  “What I think is unimpo
rtant. What God sees within your heart is all. He can forgive any trespass.”

  Leofstan’s words lifted my spirits. I had craved his approval, and whilst I knew he would never give me that, it was good to know he understood the difficult decision I must take to defend the minster.

  That night we were all sated, full of roasted meat, good fresh bread and a thick pottage of peas, beans and onion that the women of Werceworthe had made. It was full dark by the time we reached Werce’s Hall, but although we were tired from days of working hard in the fields, the atmosphere of celebration hung in the air as much as the scent of the roasting pig. We had all drunk more than Hereward usually allowed, sneaking in an extra cup or two of the good ale that the monks had brought out for the festivities.

  Hereward had taken over from Drosten, who had been on watch that afternoon, and now the Pict sat in the hall beside the newly lit hearth fire and ate the food we had brought him. The talk always seemed to flow more easily when Hereward was not in the hall and so it was that night. When being led by Uhtric, he had been a man prone to jest and gripe. That had changed after he had found himself in command, and none of us could truly be at our ease in his presence. He was only just outside the door and might very well be able to listen to our conversations, but even the fact that we could not see him made the men relax and speak more freely.

  Cormac lay back and belched.

  “So, Drosten,” he said with a smile, “you all know why I am here. What of you? What makes you happy to risk your life for the men and women of this place? Why are you not at home?”

  Gwawrddur shot me a wary glance, clearly concerned that Cormac was going to rake over the coals of his own past, kindling the fire of his distress once more. I shrugged. Cormac seemed much more at ease now that he had spoken to me and I could not deny that I was as interested as anyone to know what brought the tattooed Pict to Northumbria and made him willing to stand here with us against the Norse. As far as I knew, Drosten had never spoken of his past and none of us knew more about him than that he had fought with his fists for money at Eoforwic and that he had been robbed there.

  Drosten took a bite of the meat, savouring it and chewing slowly. The tattooed lines on his face writhed like serpents as his jaw worked. We knew he was not a man prone to speak quickly and so we waited patiently for him to finish. He took a long draught of ale and stared into the flames of the fire. Just when I was sure he would not reply to Cormac’s question, Drosten spoke.

  “I am a warrior,” he said, keeping his gaze fixed on the dancing flames. “What better place to be than where there is fighting?”

  “But why here?” asked Cormac. “Northumbria is not a friend of the Picts. You would be better served standing with your people against Æthelred, rather than here, defending his folk.”

  A chapman had passed through the previous week with tales of battle in the north. Æthelred’s forces had clashed with those of Causantín. The peddler was not clear which of the two sides had won, but he had eyed Drosten fearfully and declined to spend the night at Werceworthe, instead hurrying southward. Drosten had listened to the news of war without expression.

  “I have no home,” Drosten said, his voice as grim and hard as the mountains of his birth. He took another gulp of ale. “Not now.”

  “Why?” prompted Cormac. “What happened?”

  Drosten drew in a deep breath and I saw his knuckles whiten on the wooden cup he clutched in his huge fist. The hall was silent. Much as I wanted to hear the answer, I was concerned that the Pict might launch himself at Cormac. It seemed that all of us held our breaths. It always surprised me that Cormac could be so dismissive of others’ feelings when his own were so raw.

  After what seemed a long time, Drosten sighed and set his cup aside.

  “I was accused of a crime,” he said.

  “What crime?” Cormac asked.

  Drosten shook his head and smiled ruefully.

  “They said I stole something of great value.” He shook his head and watched the flames flick and dance. “But I am no thief.”

  “If you are innocent, you should return.”

  Drosten snorted in derision.

  “It is not so simple, boy,” he said. “Nothing ever is.” He picked up a stick and prodded at the fire. “No, I can never return.” His tone was distant and filled with sorrow and memories of things that were lost. “But I am no thief. I’m still the man I always was, and it is right that a warrior stands in defence of the weak and helpless.”

  “Like the people of Werceworthe,” said Cormac.

  Drosten offered him a thin smile. The lines on his face and the shadows from the flames gave his features a sombre, almost monstrous aspect.

  “Yes, like the people of Werceworthe,” he said before falling silent again. He refilled his cup and drank. “You asked me why I would stand with you against Norsemen who seek to kill and enslave the monks and people here.” He fixed Cormac in his gaze, but it seemed to me that he was speaking as much for himself as for the young Hibernian. “I do it because it is right. And while I do what is right, I know I am not the man they tried to make me become with their lies and deceit.”

  Cormac opened his mouth to ask another question, but Gwawrddur, sensing that it would be best to leave the Pict to his memories, cut the Hibernian off, speaking over him.

  “What of you, Hunlaf?” he said. “What truly made a monk decide to throw away all that learning and prayer? To put down the quill and pick up the sword?”

  They all turned towards me and I blushed under their scrutiny. How could I explain to them what I barely understood myself? Unsure how to answer the question, I reached for a log, one of the oak offcuts from when the hall had been repaired, and tossed it onto the fire. Sparks showered up and Drosten cursed, stamping out a smouldering ember that had landed on the fresh rushes that covered the floor.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. Drosten just shook his head and took a sip from his cup. None of them uttered a word and I looked at each of them in turn. What could I say that would satisfy these men of action, warriors and killers all? And then, with a start, I understood that I was one of them by my own actions, just as much, if not more so, than I had ever been a man of God. I had fought and slain my enemies and I had felt that rush of ecstatic power that came from fighting for survival and winning. No words can truly capture that feeling, and any man who has not felt it, cannot understand how it feels. Or its allure.

  “My father wanted me to become a monk,” I said. “My brother, Beornnoth, became the warrior. I was happy enough, I suppose. I learnt quickly and I have a good hand when it comes to penmanship. I followed the order of the brethren, praying, fasting, working, studying, scribing and I think I would have carried on that way until I grew old like Leofstan, I suppose.” I scratched my head and was surprised at how long the hair on my crown had grown. There was almost no sign that once I had worn the tonsure. “If I had not been on Lindisfarnae when the Norsemen attacked.” I scanned their faces in the firelight. They were rapt, eyes glimmering, intent on my words. I had chosen to make this the tale of how I became a warrior, but even then I could feel the pull of knowledge, the desire to read and to write and learn about the world and its mysteries. I wondered if this was how a scop feels, to have the attention of everyone in a hall on him and to mould his story according to his audience. A tremor of excitement scratched the back of my neck. I had never enjoyed being the centre of attention before. How many other things had changed in me?

  “When they landed, it was as Cormac said. They were like devils. People were screaming,” I hesitated, seeing again in my mind the terrified faces, Tidraed’s expression as he had been defiled, the blood of slaughtered innocents staining the surf. “Men and women were dying. They were being hacked down and they were defenceless. We were not warriors. We had no weapons.” I could feel the memory of the sensations of that day, the growing anger at what was happening around me. “And it was then that something snapped within me. I did not know it at the time, but I thin
k now, looking back, that it was in that moment that I ceased to be a monk.”

  “What happened?” asked Cormac, his eyes wide.

  “People were fleeing away from the raiders, running as fast as they could.” I reached for the ale and poured myself another cup, even though my head was already fuzzy with drink. My hand was shaking. I took a swallow. “But I did not run with them. I was filled with an ire such as I had never felt before. I had to do something to defy these heathens who had come with the dawn tide. I knew not what I could do, but instead of running away, I ran towards them.” I thought of Aelfwyn and how I had desperately wanted to save her. But I did not mention her. “My fury was greater than my fear and as I ran, I grew more and more angry. I snatched up a seax, much like this one.” I placed my hand on the weapon that now hung sheathed at my side, wondering what had happened to the weapon I had used that day, for my first kill. I swallowed at the lump in my throat. “I picked up a seax from the corpse of one of them and I threw myself at another man. I’ll never forget him till the day I die.” For a heartbeat I could not breathe, could not speak as I recalled his eyes, the scent of his breath, the strength ebbing from his body as I drove the blade into his flesh. “I took his life and it was easy. His blood covered me and I ran on… Looking back, so help me God, but I think I enjoyed it.” I shuddered, suddenly feeling exposed. I had said too much, shown too much of myself. This was a truth I had scarcely allowed myself to admit, let alone speak out loud. “What sort of sinner does that make me?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

  “I would say it makes you one of us,” said Gwawrddur. “We are all sinners, are we not, Killer?” I was uncomfortable by the use of the name he had given me. Is that who I was now?

  “All men are born of sin, it is true,” I said, feeling sad. “But what kind of man revels in killing?”