The Splintered Kingdom c-2

by James Aitcheson

  Erchembald peered at the arrow. ‘There are no barbs that I can see. With any luck that should make this easier.’ He turned to me. ‘Hold him still. Otherwise this will only take longer. Give him that piece of wood to bite down on.’

  He pointed to the block that Turold had brought him, which rested on the floor just behind me. On each side there were marks where previous patients had buried their teeth.

  ‘Here,’ I said to the Englishman as I placed it between his jaws.

  Outside I could hear Robert shouting at the gathering crowd, driving them away from the house, and suddenly bright sunlight flooded into the room.

  I pressed down on both of?dda’s shoulders with all my weight, pinning him to the bed as I met his gaze. The look of steely determination that I had grown used to had all but vanished; instead there were tears in his good eye, tears rolling down his bruised cheek, though he was trying to hold them back, and I could feel his fear.

  And then it began. First the priest worked two long-handled spoons into the wound, which he cupped around either side of the arrowhead before extracting it with great care.?dda grunted and clenched his teeth firmly around the woodblock, but this was not even the hard part.

  ‘The cloth,’ Erchembald said, as a trickle of fresh blood ran down the Englishman’s side.

  While Turold did as instructed, the priest set aside the arrowhead, then he inspected the wound.

  ‘No shards of wood or steel left inside.’ He lifted up a steel pin, fearsomely sharp, from the stool next to him, and I saw the whites of?dda’s eyes. To Turold he said: ‘Take those tongs. When I say, you must hold the flesh either side of the wound while I make the holes. Grip tightly and don’t let go unless I tell you to.’ He turned to me. ‘Are you ready? He will struggle, but for this I need you to make sure he doesn’t move.’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  While Turold gripped?dda’s flesh with the tongs, the priest drove the steel pin through the skin, making the holes where he would later sew the linen sutures to bind the two sides of the wound together. I had seen it done before, but never so deftly or so quickly.

  Not that it made it any easier for?dda, who roared through it all. He roared every time the pin penetrated his flesh and he roared every time it came out again. He yelled through gritted teeth, biting down so hard on the wood that I thought it might split, his whole body shaking with agony. His cries filled the air, so loud that when Father Erchembald told Turold to grip the flesh tighter with the tongs, he had to shout so as to be heard. But I did not relent as I held the stableman down, leaning on his shoulders with all my weight, preventing him from struggling. I did not want to cause him pain, but I knew that if we didn’t do this, his suffering would only be worse.

  Robert returned with two wineskins as the priest was about to begin stitching, although there was little need for them by then for?dda had passed out. It was probably just as well, since it meant Erchembald could finish what he needed to do without further difficulty, and I could rest my arms. Even so, I stayed until it was done, crouching by the Englishman’s bedside in case by some chance he came to. But he did not, and when at last the priest laid down his needle and tied off the final suture,?dda was asleep, his chest rising and falling in even rhythm.

  ‘It is done,’ Erchembald said. His brow glistened with sweat as he stood up, wiping his hands with a dirtied cloth. There was blood on his fingers and on his forearms, and his sleeves and his robe were stained a deep crimson.

  Without another word he went outside, and I followed him to the stream which ran beside the herb-patch behind his house. The sun was almost at its highest, and I was struck by the heat; it must have been cool inside, though I hadn’t been aware of it. Flies darted about us, attracted by the stench of fresh-spilt blood, and I had to fend them away from my face.

  ‘Will he live?’ I asked.

  The priest did not reply straightaway, and I wondered if he had heard me. He crouched down by the edge of the brook, cleaning his hands in its clear waters and rinsing out some of the cloths he had used.

  ‘Father?’

  He splashed some water into his face and, blinking, stood up. ‘God alone has the answer to that question,’ he said, his expression solemn. ‘I have done what I can for him, but so often it is hard to tell. Some live; others die. While I can close the wound and stop the bleeding, much depends on the extent of the damage done to his innards and that I cannot help.’

  Exactly what I was expecting to hear I didn’t know, but that was not it. A numbness overcame me. I knew he was only being honest, but I would have thought that a man of the Church would also try to offer some manner of consolation, some hope.

  He must have seen what I was thinking, for he added quickly: ‘He is strong, I will say that much. For most men the pain is too much and they pass out straightaway, but he held on and almost saw it through. If God grants him that same strength over the days to come, then there is a good chance he will survive.’

  ‘And what do we do in the meantime?’

  ‘In the meantime the best you can do is pray,’ Erchembald said. ‘Now, I must prepare a poultice for that wound. The sutures will prevent it from bleeding further, but it will not heal well otherwise.’

  ‘Let me help,’ I said.

  ‘There is nothing you can help with, lord, except ensure that no one disturbs me. I know the villagers mean well, but I cannot have them getting in my way.’

  Indeed I could see a group of men and women gathering close by the church, glancing nervously towards us. They would want to know what was happening.

  ‘I will make sure of it,’ I said.

  ‘In that case, if you will forgive me, I must go.’

  He hastened back inside, leaving me to gaze into the stream. The cloths he had left to soak in the water, and I watched pink tendrils twist and coil around each other, forming eddies in the current.

  I was not alone for long, as shortly I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Robert. ‘I’m sorry for the Englishman,’ he said. ‘You know him well?’

  Better than most in Earnford, I liked to think. ‘He is my stableman,’ I said. ‘The ablest tracker I’ve known, and a good friend too.’

  ‘He will survive, Tancred. I’m sure of it.’

  He meant well, but after what Father Erchembald had said his words sounded hollow to my ears. ‘You don’t know that, lord.’

  ‘No,’ he said after a moment’s pause, and he sighed. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You saw no sign of any raiders on your way to Earnford this afternoon?’

  ‘None,’ he replied. ‘But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. They could well have fled when they saw us approaching.’

  That was more than possible. If they were a small band, they would have been easily hidden.

  ‘I’ll take a dozen men out to scout the country,’ Robert said, grim-faced, as he gazed out across the fields along the edge of the woods. ‘If the enemy are close by, we’ll find them.’

  That I doubted, though I did not say so. Whoever had attacked the stableman, Pons and Turold was probably long gone by now, and Robert would have little chance of catching up with them.

  Yet as he began to marshal his knights and they prepared to ride out once more, I had the unsettling feeling that Byrhtwald had been right; that somewhere in that wilderness beyond the dyke the Welsh were lurking, and in numbers too. Like eagles circling high overhead, they watched, waiting for the moment when they could stoop and catch their prey unawares.

  For the moment to strike again, and this time to kill.

  My doubts were borne out when Robert and his men returned a few hours later. Dusk was upon us and I’d retreated to my hall, having spent much of the afternoon trying to calm the men and women of Earnford. They had seen what had happened to?dda and now feared for their own lives as well as those of their children.

  Leofrun had joined me for a time to try and lift me from my darkened mood, and while I was grateful for her presence and her efforts, I was
not much cheered. Now she had retired to our chambers and I was alone. I sat on a stool before the hearth-fire, drawing a whetstone up my knife-edge, not because it needed it but because I did not know what else to do. My first lord had given this blade to me when I entered his service at the age of thirteen. It had shed some of its weight since then, so many times had I sharpened it, and it was no longer as well balanced as a fighting blade ought to be, but I could never bring myself to use any other and so it had stayed by my side all these years.

  I was holding the edge up to the firelight, examining it for any nicks, when the doors to the hall were flung open and Robert strode in, bringing a burst of cool air with him.

  I got to my feet, sheathing the knife and setting it down on the floor. ‘Did you see anything?’

  He shook his head as he untied his helmet-strap. ‘There were some pony tracks leading away from where your men said the attack took place. We followed the trail over the hills, and for a short way into the forest, but there we lost it. As soon as that happened we turned back; it was too dangerous to linger there longer than we had to, especially with the light fading.’

  ‘How many sets of tracks were there?’

  ‘Only two or three, we reckoned, with perhaps a couple more on foot, although it was hard to tell.’

  ?dda would have known, I thought; he would have been able to stay on their trail. The irony was not lost on me. And what if those few were merely the advance party for a larger raiding-band?

  ‘How does the Englishman fare?’

  ‘He lives,’ I replied. ‘He’s still in much pain, but no longer bleeding.’

  Robert was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I hear this isn’t the first time that the Welsh have attacked in recent weeks.’

  ‘No, lord.’

  ‘I was speaking with your man Serlo, who told me the story of how you hunted down the ones who came raiding last month. Didn’t you consider that by killing them all you might only end up provoking the enemy?’

  ‘I didn’t kill them all,’ I protested. ‘One of them I spared.’

  ‘One to tell the tale. Yes, I know.’

  ‘What choice did I have?’ I asked, rounding on him. ‘They sent several of my people to their graves, butchered their livestock and burnt their cottages to the ground. Death was no more than they deserved.’

  ‘I’m only suggesting that if you had let those men live, the Welsh might not have come seeking vengeance, and the Englishman would not lie injured and perhaps dying.’

  ‘The Welsh are always raiding, looking for opportunities to steal and wreak their violence,’ I countered. ‘It wasn’t vengeance that brought them here today. Besides, if I’d let those who came last time live, they would only have returned in greater numbers. They are a savage people; they have no understanding of honour as we do.’

  ‘The sword is not the answer to every problem,’ Robert said, seemingly not listening to what I was saying. ‘Sometimes it is better to keep it sheathed and stay your hand. You would be wise to remember that.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ I said. ‘This is my manor. I am lord here.’

  The blood was hot in my veins, my heart thumping in my chest as I glared at him. He might have been my liege, but even so he had no right to appear as if out of nowhere, to ask for food and drink and shelter, and then to tell me how I should run affairs on my own lands.

  ‘You forget yourself, Tancred,’ Robert said, and there was a note of warning in his voice. As long as I had known him I had regarded him as a man of even temper, who was patient and rarely moved to anger. But every man had his limits, beyond which his patience ran out, and I sensed that I was testing those limits now.

  He was neither the tallest nor the most imposing of men, but he always had an air of confidence about him: a confidence which some would say came close to arrogance, and he could be every bit as stubborn as myself. He met my stare, but I was not about to back down.

  ‘Tell me, lord,’ I said. ‘Why have you come here?’

  At least two hundred miles lay between Suthfolc and here, and I doubted he would have travelled so far for any small reason. He hadn’t yet told me what news he bore, which worried me, for that probably meant I was not going to like it.

  For a moment he did nothing but stare back at me, but eventually he broke off.

  ‘Still as headstrong as ever,’ he said with a sigh of frustration or amusement: I didn’t know which. Perhaps it was a mixture of both. ‘Very well. You have to hear this anyway, and I suppose there is no better time than now.’

  He motioned to the stool I had been sitting on when he entered, while he brought across another from the dais at the far end of the hall. The seriousness of his manner unnerved me a little, but I did as he bade without argument, taking my seat beside the hearth-fire.

  ‘You ask me why I have come,’ Robert said. ‘And I will admit that I have not been entirely frank with you thus far.’

  That did not surprise me. Like many noblemen I had known, Robert rarely gave much away that he did not have to. In that respect, I thought, he was every bit his father’s son. Except that his father’s secrecy and half-truths had given rise to considerably worse consequences, for they had almost cost us the kingdom.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘I have told you about Eadgar and the rebels,’ Robert said. ‘All that I have said is true, at least so far as we can tell. The king has his spies in Northumbria, but they cannot be everywhere at once, and the news when it reaches us is often as much a week old, or more.’

  ‘You aren’t calling me away to fight in the north, then.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But there are matters more pressing that you must know about. Stirrings on the other side of the dyke.’

  This was what Byrhtwald had spoken of, although I’d dismissed it at the time.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘For countless years there has been enmity between the two peoples who dwell in this island. The Welsh have always hated the English, who they say overran Britain and stole it from them after the Romans departed centuries ago.’

  ‘I know this-’

  ‘Just listen for a moment,’ he said harshly. ‘Since that time they have forever been trying to win back this kingdom, and have often sent great hosts to try to conquer the lands they believe belong to them. It is why the great dyke that lies to the west of here was built in the first place: so that the Mercian kings could keep the Welsh out.’

  Some of this I hadn’t heard before, but a great deal of it I had, and in any case I was not sure what he meant by mentioning it.

  ‘Why is this important?’ I asked.

  ‘It is important so that you understand the significance of what I’m about to tell you,’ Robert said in an admonishing tone. ‘Since the invasion all this has changed. You know that the English thegns who fought alongside the usurper at H?stinges were all exiled, and their estates forfeited to King Guillaume. Well, it seems that many of those who used to hold land in these parts, rather than fleeing into the north or across the sea, went over the dyke instead. Now we learn that they are binding themselves with oaths to the Welsh kings in an effort to regain their lands. For the first time the two peoples are making common cause.’

  ‘Among these thegns,’ I asked, ‘is there one who goes by the name of Wild Eadric?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Robert replied with some surprise. ‘You have heard of him.’

  ‘Only recently.’

  ‘In that case you already understand what I have to say,’ he said. ‘We have an army gathering at Scrobbesburh ready to fight the enemy. You must leave Earnford and come with me.’

  His words hung like smoke in the air. For all the times in the past year that I had longed to lead my conroi into battle, I had never thought that when the summons came it would feel like this. Earnford was my home; it was everything I had fought for so many years to gain. A hall of my own, with retainers who swore their oaths to me: since my very first battle I had dreamt of
this.

  ‘No.’ I rose and turned towards the fire. ‘I can’t leave. Not now.’

  ‘This is not a matter of choice, Tancred.’

  This was exactly what?dda had feared when we had spoken only a few days ago. Now those fears had come true, though he might not live to know it.

  ‘A man has been grievously wounded today,’ I said. ‘The enemy are afield, and you expect me to leave my manor to their mercy?’

  ‘Would that things were different,’ Robert replied. ‘But unfortunately they are not. This summons comes from Guillaume fitz Osbern himself.’

  Fitz Osbern. The same man who had put down Wild Eadric’s rebellion three years ago. His writ carried more authority in the realm than that of anyone but the king himself. By any measure the most powerful of Guillaume’s vassals, Fitz Osbern had responsibility for governing the whole of the March. A seasoned warrior and an able commander of men, he had led the right wing of our army at H?stinges. I had met him more than once and knew he was not the sort of man whom one did well to defy. If the summons had come from him then I could not ignore it.

  I was silent for a moment while I considered what to say, but no words came to mind.

  ‘You will come, then,’ Robert said.

  He made it sound like a question, even though I knew it wasn’t. ‘To Scrobbesburh?’

  ‘That’s right. Even as we speak, word is going out to all the barons in the shires along the borderlands. They will muster there while Fitz Osbern decides what to do. Already he is moving north from his castle at Hereford, with an advance guard of more than one hundred knights.’

  Things were certainly moving fast. The fact that Fitz Osbern was marching so soon suggested that this latest threat was no small disturbance but a serious threat.

  ‘When do we leave?’ I asked.

  ‘As soon as possible. Tomorrow at sunrise.’

  Outside, the skies were growing dark; it was too late to set out that night. We would need time to provision ourselves for the road, and for battle. Food had to be packed, weapons sharpened, horses made ready and more besides.