The Raven Banner

by Tim Hodkinson

The nuns were woken at dawn.

  In the grey light Affreca looked up to see Osgyth standing above her. A bell was ringing somewhere outside and the other nuns were all dragging themselves from their warm beds.

  Osgyth flung a nun’s robe at Affreca.

  ‘Put that on, Dane, and meet me downstairs in the lavatorium,’ she said, then turned on her heel and left. Affreca got up and looked at the robe. She was well aware how uncomfortable the rough, undyed wool garment was from when she had worn Osgyth’s stolen robe in Jorvik. They had made her give that back and given her a plain linen dress which she had worn ever since. She had no desire to put a nun’s habit back on. She rolled up the dress and squatted over the pot beside her bed to piss while she decided what to do next.

  She knew the words of the abbess held truth. If she kept resisting she had a long and painful time ahead. With a sigh she resolved that for the time being she would have to go along with things, at least until she could spot a way that she might escape.

  Affreca stood up, rolled the nun’s habit up and put it under her arm. She lifted the warm pot of steaming urine and left the dormitory. She descended the set of wooden steps that led down to the lower floor and out into the cold morning air. There was a wooden building nearby with a stream diverted through it that nuns were going into in various stages of undress. This lavatorium, as Osgyth had referred to it, was clearly some sort of wash house. On the far side, where the dirty water flowed out, was a sluice where other nuns were emptying their under-bed pots and rinsing them.

  Affreca went into the wash house. There were big wooden tubs for bathing in. Over a smoky fire a huge cauldron seethed with boiling water. There were bowls and other washing accoutrements around the room. Some nuns were working on bellows that fanned the fire beneath the cauldron to heat it faster.

  Sister Osgyth stood, arms folded, in the centre of the room. Beside her was a three-legged wooden stool, the kind used by someone milking a cow. A knife and a pair of shears rested on the seat of the stool. Osgyth was flanked by two burly monks. They looked like they spent more time working in the fields or repairing stone walls than kneeling at prayer.

  ‘You didn’t put the habit on, I see,’ Osgyth said. ‘As I expected. Brother Edwin, Brother Cuthbert. We must teach this rebellious soul obedience.’

  The two monks and Osgyth came forward. Affreca dropped the robe and began to back away. The monks pounced. Affreca side stepped their clumsy grasps and turned to run. She had just taken a couple of steps when she felt a hard smack against the side of her shins. Then something snagged her feet and she was sprawling forwards, face first, onto the floor.

  Affreca rolled onto her back and saw Osgyth standing over her, a long-handled broom in her hands. She had snatched this and used it to trip Affreca.

  ‘Fool,’ the nun said with a tut. ‘Do you think you’re the first girl we’ve had here who didn’t want to be a nun? Bring her!’

  The two monks grabbed Affreca by the shoulders and trailed her back to the waiting stool. There they forced her to sit and leaned their considerable weight on her to keep her in position. Affreca kicked, bit and spat but it was futile. The men were just too heavy and strong for her.

  ‘Now you will become just like the rest of us,’ Osgyth said. Her eyes gleamed with sheer delight. ‘You will dress like us and you will lose those vain locks.’

  ‘No,’ Affreca screamed. She looked around at the other nuns in the washroom but they just looked away and carried on their own business of washing as if nothing strange was going on.

  Osgyth dropped the broom and grabbed the shears. She forced the blades into the neckline of Affreca’s dress and began cutting, half slicing with the shears and half simply ripping the material with the force she applied. Affreca felt the cold metal of the blades running along the skin of her breast and realised that if she struggled too much Osgyth could well slice her flesh along with the dress. In a few moments Osgyth had cut the dress all the way down the front. She grabbed a handful of the material at Affreca’s shoulder and ripped the garment off her body. Affreca felt the hungry eyes of the monks on her as they ogled her naked body, mouths agape. Brother Cuthbert’s tongue lolled out of his mouth. She felt their hot breath on her exposed flesh.

  ‘Avert your eyes, brothers,’ Osgyth said. ‘Do not let lust enter your hearts. This girl is a child of Satan. A pagan whore. She will steal your very soul if you are not careful. Now hold her fast!’

  The monks redoubled their efforts. Affreca bucked and writhed beneath them, trying to loosen their grip in some way but it was futile.

  Osgyth grabbed Affreca’s long braided pony tail. Affreca let out an unintelligible scream of anger. Tears of frustration ran from her eyes.

  ‘Sit still, you Danish bitch,’ Brother Edwin hissed in her ear. ‘Or Osgyth might slip and you’ll lose an ear. Not that I care. The Danes killed my cousin and took my uncle’s land.’

  With a snap the shears came together. Osgyth threw Affreca’s severed ponytail onto the floor before her so she could see it. Affreca struggled more but Cuthbert moved and slid his arm around her neck. He tightened his grip and Affreca found she could not breathe. Her throat crushed, she could not make a sound. As Cuthbert held her head still, Osgyth went to work with the shears, cropping Affreca’s auburn hair to her scalp. Affreca saw her hair falling past her eyes as she struggled for air. Black dots started to spin before her vision and she started to pass out.

  ‘Done! Release her,’ Osgyth said with a sigh of satisfaction. She tossed the shears onto the ground. Brother Cuthbert released his arm lock and Brother Edwin shoved Affreca forwards. She fell off the stool onto the earthen floor, lying naked amid the remnants of her ripped dress and shorn hair. She stayed there for a moment, tears flowing down her cheeks as she recovered her breath. She ran her hands over her head, feeling the close-cropped stubble of her hair and realising it was nearly all gone.

  ‘Now you’re starting to at least look like a nun,’ Osgyth said. She tossed the nun’s habit down onto Affreca. ‘Get dressed like one. You have work to do.’

  Still sobbing, but eager to cover her nakedness, Affreca got to her knees and pulled the rough wool dress over her head. She stood up and brushed herself down.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re crying,’ Brother Edwin said. ‘This is for your own good.’

  Affreca looked at him and saw the smirk on his face. Osgyth stood beside him, a grin of triumph on hers.

  With a snarl Affreca dived for the shears on the floor. Edwin moved towards her but he was too late. She snatched the iron tool in both hands and, still lying on the floor, drove them down into Edwin’s right foot. The monk screamed out as the blades sheared through the leather of his sandal and tore through his flesh. Cracking the foot bones apart, the points burst through his sole and buried in the earth of the floor beneath.

  Affreca rolled sideways and scrambled up onto her feet. Brother Cuthbert was charging at her. She saw the milking stool. Affreca grabbed it by one leg and swung it with all her might. The stool shattered across Cuthbert’s head. Affreca saw his eyes roll up into his head as his charge turned into a stumble and he collapsed to the ground.

  Brother Edwin, his foot still transfixed to the ground, was screaming all sorts of words that Affreca was sure were not appropriate for a monk to use. Sister Osgyth screeched in fury and ran at Affreca. Affreca’s fist smashed into her chin and the older woman staggered sideways, a look of total surprise on her face. Affreca half turned and launched a powerful side kick at the nun, sending her rocketing backwards across the floor. Osgyth’s progress was halted when she collided with the big cauldron. Her feet went into the flames beneath it and with a howl she toppled backwards, falling bottom first into the scalding water.

  Affreca knew this was her only chance. Without waiting any further she ran for the door and tore it open. She raced outside into the morning sunlight.

  In an instant she knew something was wrong.

  Panicking monks and nuns ran this way and th
at. In contrast to the earlier measured tolling, the bell in the church was now making a frantic ringing. It was an alarm. She saw a monk come stumbling out of the kirk, struggling under the weight of the big gold cross.

  Past the kirk and beyond the low perimeter wall where the beach lay, a ship was grounded. Its square sail was furled and its prow was embedded in the sand so the dragon carved on it rose up like a rearing beast from the sea. Affreca knew it was a longship, a ship of war, even before she saw the men clad in mail coats and visored helmets, carrying round shields and sharp, gleaming swords who poured over the strakes. When they hit the sand, they started running straight towards the Abbey.

  ‘Vikings! Vikings! Run for your lives,’ a monk shouted as he ran past her. His voice was high and hoarse, his face pale as death.

  Affreca felt exhilaration surge in her chest. If these were Vikings then they were her people.

  Then she looked down and her rough woollen habit. She ran a hand over her close-cropped hair and realised that she was in the middle of a viking raid, and she looked just like all the other nuns in the Abbey.

  Seventeen

  Winter was no time for sea travel. Rain hissed down from the perpetually grey sky into an equally grey sea. Huge swells continually lifted and lowered the ship, sending the men onboard to the side, spewing their guts into the water. With his wrists bound, this was a risky process for Einar and twice he slipped on the wet boards of the deck and almost toppled into the water and the cold, wet arms of death.

  There was a canvas shelter raised over the deck and everyone onboard was given a sealskin cloak. Despite that they were still cold and wet all the time. Einar suffered more as the salt water stung the raw flesh where his bonds rubbed his skin. They sailed along the coast which gave some respite. At night they landed and got a chance to dry out beside a warm fire and their emptied bellies were refilled with bread, meat and beer.

  The days drew into weeks, each day’s sailing taking them further around Britain. The further they progressed, Einar noticed the skipper got more tetchy. He shouted a lot more at Ricbehrt’s bodyguards who acted as his crew. He learned from overhearing their talk that they had reached the most south-west part of Britain and were approaching a point where they had to round a dangerous headland in order to start sailing north again.

  If the ship was wrecked he stood no chance of surviving with his wrists bound. Much as it galled him to do it, Einar swallowed his pride and pleaded with Osric to untie him. Osric just laughed and told him that if the ship did go down he wanted to be damn sure that Einar went with it.

  In the end the trip around the headland was a non-event. A bleak winter sun crept from behind the clouds for a change and a mild wind and calm sea made it almost pleasant.

  Then they began the voyage north. The skipper still hugged the coast, staying close to Britain rather than cross towards Ireland. This was because, he said, Waterford, Dublin and the Isle of Man were all infested by Vikings.

  Einar looked for any chance to escape but Ricbehrt’s men were too good. Over the time on the ship he was able to pick up information about them from their conversations. Some were Franks, like Ricbehrt, the rest were Saxons, or Aenglishmen as they also called themselves. These included Osric and another blond-haired hulk of a man called Oswald. They were all a lot older than Einar, having spent their younger years fighting in the warbands and armies of kings and lords from all over the Christian lands. Then they had fought for honour and glory. Now they sold their hard-won skills to the highest bidder, so as to make enough money to ensure their old age was comfortable. They paid enough attention to Einar that he was never able to escape, but otherwise he was treated with a practised indifference.

  Osric and Oswald were different. While the others seemed indifferent, these Aenglishmen never failed to kick him or spit on him every time they walked past. Osric often left the others to come and sit beside Einar and tell him how he hated Danes. How they had come to his country in the time of his great-grandfather and taken their land and their women.

  ‘The way you wash every week,’ Osric said. ‘And comb your hair every day. It’s so unmanly. It’s time we sent you all home. Back where you came from.’

  Einar’s repeated protestations that he was an Icelander were to no avail. Icelanders, Norwegians, Orkneymen, Norsemen from Ireland and those from Denmark were all just Danes to Osric. Einar was reminded of how Affreca had told him the Irish name for the Norse there was ‘foreigners’, even though they had lived there for perhaps two hundred years. Osric talked often about how he could not wait until they got their hands on the swords, because then he could cut Einar’s throat. Oswald did not talk much, but his glare and the blows he aimed at Einar showed he shared Osric’s feelings about Danes.

  The skipper was a Frisian, the only other heathen aboard apart from Einar. When the crew went ashore on Sunnudagr, the Sun’s Day, to visit a Christian temple, they left the skipper behind. Osric and Oswald hauled Einar along with them and made him kneel on the hard-stone floor through the whole boring ritual.

  As they sailed on northward, the shoreline became more deserted and rugged and the relative comfort of nights spent on the shore got less and less.

  The further north they sailed, the more tense the atmosphere on board became. Men scanned the horizon constantly, watching for sails that could herald an attack. Then the weather closed in, the rain pelted down and the ship surged and fell on the heavy swell. The skipper actually seemed happier.

  ‘No Vikings,’ he shouted over the buffeting wind and the booming of the waves against the prow. ‘Only fools would be out in weather like this. Fools like us!’

  The weather improved, the rain stopped and eventually a point came in the journey where the skipper turned the prow towards the open sea. The water was dark green, tipped with white and it rolled and fell like fields covered with endless burial mounds that spread in all directions. They crossed the point where the coast of Britain disappeared behind them and Ireland still lurked beyond the horizon ahead. There was nothing all around but heaving water. Even the sea birds whose constant mourning cries had accompanied their voyage ever since leaving Grims Boe, deserted the ship and they were left alone in the wide, empty ocean.

  The skipper was as implacable as ever but Einar noted that the hard-bitten warriors around him became very quiet. Oswald chewed his nails until he was biting the flesh on the end of his fingers. Most of them sat around the deck, muttering prayers to the Christ God. Einar heard them mutter the names of other gods too, one called Brendan and one called Nicholas.

  At one point an excited shout from one of the Franks at the prow sent everyone running in that direction. As Einar arrived, several of the men were pointing at something a little way off from the ship. He just had time to see the sleek, grey-black skin of something as it slid in an arc through the surface of the water. Then it disappeared again. It was not a seal. It was too big and they were too far from land.

  ‘What is it?’ Osric said.

  The skipper shrugged. ‘A fish? Who knows? We see things like that all the time out here.’

  ‘A fish?!’ The Frank who first saw the thing stood, mouth ajar. ‘Did you see the size of it?’

  ‘There are big fish out here,’ the skipper said. ‘Perhaps it was a whale. Or maybe a water dragon. A Nicor maybe.’

  Einar caught the playful glint in the old sailor’s eye but most of Ricbehrt’s men missed it. The sea thing, whatever it was, did not resurface, but all the same several of the bodyguards kept close watch on the water, spears gripped in their white-knuckled fists.

  Returning to his solitary position near the back of the boat, Einar gazed at the green, opaque waters of the sea and wondered just what was down there. When he was a child his nurse had told him that an old giant called Aegir lived in a hall at the bottom of the sea. Aegir would get lonely, and when he did, he prepared his hall for a feast. He brewed ale, and the froth from the ale is the froth you see on the surface of the sea. His wife Rán then went u
p from the sea bottom with a net, and snared sailors on their ships above, dragging them down into the depths so they could share in the feast. Of course, once down there in the deep, that was the end of them. Einar looked at the flecks of white that tipped the choppy waves and wondered if there was a joyless feast waiting for them all in those unseen depths.

  The day wore on and late in the afternoon two dark mounds appeared in the far distance where the sea met the horizon. As the ship rose on the swell those on board saw they were the tops of some mountains. It was their first sight of Ireland.

  ‘It’s too far away.’ Oswald looked at the skipper, his eyes wide. ‘What if we don’t make it there before dark?’

  ‘Then we keep on sailing until we do,’ the skipper said. ‘Otherwise, we’ll get hopelessly lost. Don’t worry. I’ve crossed this sea many times.’

  His words did little to reassure anyone onboard. As the cloud-obscured sun dropped, unseen, into the sea, Einar could not help the thrill of panic that squirmed around his guts like a bucket of eels.

  The night that came was not as dark as they all anticipated. A full moon flitted behind clouds, showing its face every now and again to cast bright silver light on the sea. Stars glittered around it and even when the clouds rolled over, there was enough ambient light for them to tell sea from sky. What they could not tell, as the mountains rose ever higher and the blackness of the land beneath them began to blot out the horizon ahead, was whether or not the dark lumps in the sea ahead were waves or rocks that waited to tear open the hull and send them all to their death.

  There were sighs all round when the skipper finally judged they were close enough to land to drop the anchor stone. Even he feared going any shallower in the darkness.

  They set a watch then crawled under their blankets for the rest of the night.

  At dawn the rain returned and the voyage began again. In the daylight Einar recognised the shoreline and mountains from his previous trip to Ireland. They were south of the Strangrfjordr, the inlet with the village of Norse people Grim the former Wolf Coat had been a Christian priest for. Part of Einar held a vague hope that a longship from there might come sailing out to attack them. Ricbehrt’s men would be killed but they would welcome him as one of their own. Then he remembered the pathetic collection of huts that made up the village and the sorry collection of farmers and fishermen with their rusty old ancestral weapons who had met them that last time they had landed there. They were no Vikings who could take on a shipful of men like Ricbehrt’s crew who made their living from fighting. For all he knew the Irish had swept the Norse inhabitants of Strangrfjordr into the sea by now anyhow.