The Harrowing

by James Aitcheson

  He says it without any hint of irony. Just as well, Tova thinks. Anyone who dares joke when there’s a knife at his throat would have to be brave indeed.

  ‘Yet you waited until now to show yourself?’

  Oslac’s eyes flick down towards the blade at his throat, then back to Beorn. ‘I wanted to make sure, that’s all. Please, don’t kill me. I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  Tova can’t help but feel a little sorry for him, but it’s his own fault really. He shouldn’t have crept up on her like he did. What did he expect?

  ‘Let him go, Beorn,’ Merewyn calls. ‘You’ve made your point. He doesn’t mean any harm.’

  Beorn gazes hard at him for a few moments longer, before finally he releases his grip on the other man’s collar, returns his knife to its sheath and steps away. ‘So your name is Oslac?’

  ‘Oslac, son of Osferth, son of Oswald—’

  ‘I don’t need to hear your whole family line. Where did you come from?’

  ‘Everywhere. Nowhere.’

  ‘I’m in no mood for riddles,’ Beorn snaps.

  ‘It’s not a riddle,’ Oslac says. ‘It’s the truth. I’m a traveller. A poet. A wordsmith. I wander from place to place, gathering tales to weave into songs that I sing at feasts. I used to, anyway. I don’t suppose there’ll be any more of those now. I play them on my harp. I can show you, if you want. Look, I have it with me. It’s in my pack. You’ll see that I’m telling the truth.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ says Merewyn, before Beorn has a chance to answer. ‘You don’t have to show us. We believe you, don’t we?’

  He doesn’t look much like a poet, Tova thinks, which is to say he doesn’t look much like the ones who used to come to Heldeby. Skalpi and his first wife, Ælfswith, loved nothing more than an evening of singing and storytelling. Whenever one happened to arrive at the hall on a winter’s evening, drenched from the rain and mud-spattered from the road but bearing lyre or flute or reed pipe, they would invite him in with open arms, hustling him into the hall, where they’d lavish on him mead and the finest food that Ulf the cook knew how to make. And of course he’d savour all of it – every morsel, every gulp, every word of praise – and that was even before he’d played a note or sung a line, tested his audience with a riddle or told them anything of the places he’d been and the marvels he’d seen.

  None of those men were ever as young as Oslac, though. Yes, some of them came accompanied by students, who would watch and listen and sometimes, if they were lucky, be allowed to try a few stories, a few verses of their own. But she was told that it takes many years to master the poet’s art. No youth, no matter how deft his fingerwork might be or how talented he is at crafting words, has ever seen enough of the world, its glories and its ills to be able to speak with true wisdom.

  ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to find you,’ Oslac says. ‘Everywhere I went— Well, you’ve seen, haven’t you? I was beginning to think that there was no one left alive, except for me and the robbers.’

  Guthred fingers the gold cross at his breast. ‘Robbers?’

  Oslac nods. ‘I’ve seen them roaming the hills. Like carrion beasts, they are. They live off whatever the Normans leave behind. I’ve tried to keep well away from them, but a couple of times all I could do was hide and pray that they didn’t find me. That’s why I had to follow you for a while first. I needed to be sure.’

  As if we didn’t already have enough to worry about, Tova thinks. Now we have thieves as well.

  ‘You thought we were robbers?’ Merewyn asks him. ‘Us?’

  ‘I didn’t know if there were more of you nearby. More of him,’ he says, gesturing at Beorn. ‘It’s hard to know who you can trust.’

  Tova sneezes. The rain is turning to sleet. It’s going to be another harsh night.

  ‘Let’s go back to the barn,’ says Guthred quickly. ‘It’s dry in there, more or less. The roof leaks a little but it keeps most of the rain out. We’ll all end up catching a chill if we stand out here much longer.’

  *

  It isn’t long before they have the fire blazing. Tova for one is glad of its warmth. She can’t stop shivering, despite the blankets wrapped around her shoulders. She hopes that sneeze wasn’t the first of many. There’s a tickling at the back of her throat that’s been there for a while, and she’s already starting to worry. The last thing she needs right now is to fall ill. If ever there was a time for that, this isn’t it.

  It can happen so quickly. A sniffle that becomes a sneeze, a tickle that becomes a cough, a shiver that becomes a sweat. Soon a fever, and after that? The rest is in God’s hands.

  That was how it went with her mother. She was still young at the time, not yet even thirty, and easily as strong as any man. All that counted for nothing, though. Christmas hadn’t long passed, Tova remembers, when she woke that morning to find her mother groaning as she lay in her bed, her throat so dry and swollen that it was painful to swallow, and barely able to stand because all her limbs were aching and because, when she tried, it made her dizzy. At once Tova went to fetch Eda, who as well as ale also knew how to prepare remedies to treat all manner of illnesses. She came with her herbs and her poultices, and spent many hours mixing up ointments and pastes and rubbing them into the places where it hurt the most. When none of those things eased her suffering, Eda even sent word to the next village, where her sister lived, asking her to come and help if she could, which she did that very same day, though none of her preparations did any good either.

  Every day after that, her mother grew weaker. Along with the fever came bouts of sickness and the skitters. She couldn’t take any proper food; the only thing she could keep down was a watered-down broth of mashed carrot and barley, and sometimes not even that.

  Tova realised then that the end was close, although that didn’t stop her praying, hoping, wishing, pleading for a miracle to be sent. Eventually, after four days and nights, an hour or so before first light on the eve of the Epiphany, her mother breathed her last breath and left this world.

  Left Tova, alone.

  Enough, she tells herself. She has seen enough sadness and suffering already today. If she dwells any longer on such things she’ll only become lost in her own grief. Besides, it was all so long ago. What’s past is past. Some day she’ll see her mother again. For now, though, she has to put those memories from her head.

  She shifts closer to the fire. It isn’t anything like the kind they used to have in the great hearth back at home, the logs stacked so deep that the flames would burn yellow-bright, that its heat could be felt even from the far end of the hall, that even in the morning when she came in to clear out the hearth and sweep up the ashes, they’d still be hot. But it’s better than nothing. Merewyn kneels beside it, keeping it fed with wood, while Guthred idly stirs the iron pot hanging from a spit over the flames, to which they’ve added a few thin parsnips and beans and pieces of bread.

  Her stomach growls. It feels like weeks since she last had hot food inside her, even though it’s only been two days.

  Gunnhild, who was like a mother to Tova after hers died that winter, always did say she was too thin. She was forever trying to get her to eat more. You never knew how long God’s bounty would last, she said; it was important to have your fill when you could, since leaner times were rarely far away.

  Where are Gunnhild and Ase now? Are they even still alive? It’s been a long time since she thought about them too. Now that she has, she wishes she hasn’t.

  Stop it, she chides herself. You have to try to keep your spirits up.

  She closes her eyes and remembers sitting with Ase, Gunnhild’s daughter, by the hearth in the kitchen where they sometimes come to sleep because it’s always warm there.

  It’s long after dark, and the embers are darkening as she and Ase, the same age as her and the closest thing she has to a sister, play with the tæfl pieces by candleli
ght. They know they’re supposed to be in bed, not spending the night hours on games when they should be sleeping, but that’s part of the fun. They don’t know the rules since it’s only ever the men who play, and so they make up their own, taking it in turns to move the carved antler and jet counters across the board, each trying to be the one who gets all their counters to the other side first. To each piece they give a name, usually of someone they know.

  That one’s Lord Skalpi, says Ase, because he’s bigger and rounder than the rest.

  Then this one must be Lady Merewyn, says Tova, because she’s thin and pale, and they fall about giggling and shushing each other. They know if anyone hears them they’ll be for it.

  Tova can’t help herself, though, and when Ase starts talking about the sow that escaped its pen, which Leofric spent an hour this morning chasing around the yard, that sets her off again, and once she’s started she can’t stop, and Ase is telling her to keep quiet but at the same time is laughing too, until they hear footsteps outside in the yard and suddenly things are no longer funny. Hurriedly they shove the tæfl board with its pieces under their mattress. The set doesn’t belong to them; they found it on the table in the hall, left out by Orm and Ælfric when they went to bed, and Tova knows they’ll have to return it quickly in the morning before anyone notices it’s missing. No sooner is it out of the way than they blow out the candle and leap under the blankets and then they lie as still as stone, not even daring to whisper to one another, their hearts pounding as they do their best to still their breathing, until the footsteps go away and they know they’re safe.

  How long ago it all seems now, Tova thinks, although it was only last spring. Of course it can’t have been long after that night when—

  She’s doing it again. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

  ‘How’s the stew?’ she asks Guthred, to distract herself more than anything. She can’t smell it yet, but she can see wisps of steam rising. ‘It must be nearly ready by now.’

  The old man doesn’t answer. He’s staring into the fire, his eyes glazed.

  ‘Guthred?’

  At the sound of his name he turns around, blinking. ‘I’m sorry. I was thinking.’

  ‘What about?’

  He smiles gently, sadly. ‘I was thinking how only a few hours ago I was wondering whether I was going to die without ever seeing another friendly face again. Now here you are. Here we are.’

  ‘None of us is going to die,’ Merewyn says, in that stern way that she has. ‘We’re going to survive this, somehow. All of us. I know it. We’re going to get to Hagustaldesham, and everything will be all right.’

  ‘Where?’ Oslac asks.

  ‘Hagustaldesham. It’s somewhere to the north of here. About a week’s ride, Beorn says, or maybe a little less. I’d barely heard of it before, either, but he tells us we’ll be safe there. It’s where the rest of the rebels are mustering, apparently. The ones who are left.’

  ‘The rebels? But I thought the war was over.’

  ‘We did too,’ Tova says. ‘But Beorn says otherwise, so that’s where we’re going.’

  ‘And you don’t think that if that’s where they’re rallying, King Wilelm will be on his way there as well soon enough, to crush them once and for all?’

  ‘He wouldn’t dare,’ says a voice from out of the darkness of the barn. It’s Beorn, returned from feeding the horses. ‘Not that far north, so far from his castles. Certainly not in the middle of winter like this.’

  ‘How do you know? What’s to stop him? He’s already come this far, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Into a land where he met no resistance, where his foes have already scattered. Beyond the River Tine, things are different. Gospatric, earl of Bebbanburh, rules there. He was one of the rebellion’s leaders, one of the last to give up the struggle, even after half our army had abandoned the cause.’

  ‘You fought in the rebellion?’ Guthred asks.

  ‘I did,’ Beorn says. ‘Much good though it did.’

  Oslac says, ‘What brings you here, then? Did you desert?’

  ‘You take me for a coward, do you?’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Then keep your mouth shut.’

  A hush falls.

  ‘I think you underestimate the king,’ Oslac says after a while, softly but firmly, speaking as he might to an ill-tempered child, which sounds strange coming from him, young as he is.

  ‘Oh, you do, do you? And what would you know?’

  ‘Only what I’ve seen and heard on my travels. He’s single-­minded in everything he does. Once he has made up his mind, he doesn’t change it. He’ll stop at nothing to destroy those who oppose him, even if that means marching the length and breadth of Britain.’

  Beorn folds his arms across his chest. ‘So tell me, then. Where should we go instead?’

  ‘I don’t know. Across the sea, maybe. That was my plan. If we make for the coast, we might be able to find a boat that will take us far enough away that we won’t have to worry about the Normans. To Yrland, or across the German Sea. Away from England entirely.’

  ‘Away from England?’ Tova echoes, her heart sinking. She has barely left the manor in all her life; now already they’re talking about distant shores.

  ‘No,’ says Beorn. ‘The Danes are prowling in their ships all the way from the Humber to the Tine, doing what they do best. Taking everything they can. Food, slaves, silver – whatever they can lay their hands on.’

  ‘The Danes?’ Merewyn asks. ‘I thought they were your allies against the Normans.’

  ‘They were. But then they made a pact with King Wilelm. He bribed them with gold and agreed that they could raid for supplies along the coast, if they broke off their alliance with us and returned back across the sea in the spring.’

  Guthred shakes his head in disbelief. ‘So the Danes are doing the Normans’ work for them?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Oslac frowns. ‘If not the coast, then where?’

  ‘Well,’ says Beorn, ‘you could flee into the high hills to the west, where the Normans won’t come at you, as many have already done. There’s precious little up there to live on, though, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be up there when the snows come.’

  ‘Lindisfarena,’ Guthred says abruptly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We should go to Lindisfarena. The monks there will take us in. They’ll shelter us. The Danes won’t be roaming that far north, surely?’

  ‘The Holy Isle?’ Oslac asks. ‘But that’s easily a hundred miles from here.’

  ‘All the more reason to go. We’ll be safe from the Normans there, won’t we? And from the Danes, too.’

  ‘I’m not going all the way to Lindisfarena,’ Beorn says. ‘I’m going to Hagustaldesham.’

  ‘Whatever we do, we should stay together,’ Tova puts in, her voice small. No one has asked for her opinion, she realises, but she feels she has as much right to speak as anyone. ‘Especially if Oslac’s right and there are robbers around. We’ll be much safer together, won’t we?’

  Beorn glares warningly at her. Wondering why he ever agreed to let them join him, probably. He never wanted to take the two of them under his protection in the first place. Now she’s offering his help to strangers.

  ‘She’s right,’ Merewyn says, and it isn’t often that Tova has heard those words from her lips. ‘There’s no sense in us going our separate ways.’

  ‘You’d let me come with you?’ Guthred asks hopefully.

  ‘Why not?’ Tova asks.

  Beorn says, ‘Girl—’

  ‘You agreed to help us. Why not them as well?’

  He doesn’t answer, but fixes her with a stern look.

  Guthred’s head is bowed as he plays with the cross at his breast. ‘For so long I haven’t had a friend or ally worth the name. No one except Whitefoot to talk to and shar
e my fears with. I was losing my wits. The last thing I want is to be alone again. I’d greatly appreciate the company, if you’d let me join you.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Tova quickly, before Beorn can say otherwise.

  Merewyn turns to Oslac. ‘What about you?’

  The poet sighs. ‘If you ask me, I think that making for Hagustaldesham is a mistake. On the other hand, if what you say about the Danes is right, then I don’t know where else we can go. Whatever we do and wherever we go, it’s going to be dangerous. So if Hagustaldesham is where you’re going, and if you’ll accept me, then yes. I’ll come with you.’

  It’s settled, then. Five of them against the might of King Wilelm’s army.

  Tova’s eyes meet Beorn’s. He stares at her without speaking, just shaking his head, before at last he turns and stalks away.

  *

  The flames have begun to dim and the pot has been scraped out so many times it’s a wonder there isn’t a hole in the bottom. Beans and parsnips and bread don’t make much of a meal, but for now it’s enough. She sits with her legs crossed, leaning against Merewyn, her head resting upon her lady’s shoulder, her eyelids drooping. Another long day, and there’ll be more like this ahead of them.

  Beorn sits inside the entrance to the barn, checking the fletchings on his arrows. From the other side of the fire floats the soft sound of strings being plucked: Oslac on his harp. The same careful passage, over and over: first hurrying and then drawn out. Not mournful, exactly, but somehow wistful. Every time the notes climb the scale, she wills them to reach the top and find some sort of perfection, but they never do. Just as they approach the summit, they waver, once, twice, before despondently tumbling back down again. Never content; instead always struggling, striving for purity that never arrives.

  The song isn’t one Tova recognises, but it reminds her of those she’d sometimes hear at night coming from Skalpi’s chamber. Sometimes when his old injuries pained him or he found himself in one of his darker moods, he’d have Ælfswith sing the old laments: songs that were in every way the opposite of the bawdy airs those poets who visited used to perform in the hall. Tova never liked them then and she likes them even less now. She closes her eyes, trying to shut out the sound, but then he begins to sing, in a voice more sweet and true than she could have imagined a man ever possessing.