The Splintered Kingdom c-2

by James Aitcheson

  The past year had been more or less peaceful. Now, however, it seemed as though that peace was coming to an end.

  Five

  Before leaving there was one last thing I needed to do. Waking early, I went while it was still dark and I went alone, leaving the warmth of my bed where Leofrun still slept, slipping out of the gates with hardly a word to the sentry on watch. With night as my shroud I rode west, splashing across the ford and past the scattered houses on the other bank, hooves pounding the narrow track that led from the village into the woods, towards the forbidding shadow that was Read Dun.

  Few of the village folk dared to even approach the hill, let alone climb it. Long ago a great battle had been fought there, or so it was said: a brutal encounter between rival princes in which many hundreds of men had fallen, their corpses littering the field like leaves in autumn. So much blood was spilt that day that it ran in crimson streams, staining the earth itself, and that was what gave the hill its name. Since then no crops had ever grown there, or so it was claimed. Indeed the folk of Earnford considered it unlucky to drink from its springs or so much as set foot on its slopes.

  The ground was uneven and in places had slipped away entirely, leaving severe precipices with only rocks below. After a while I had to lead my mare on foot, for the way had grown too steep to ride up, the paths uneven and strewn with loose pebbles, but as I emerged on the other side of the woods it seemed to level off again, and after that it was but a short ride along the ridge to the summit and the upright stone which stood there, like a sentinel keeping watch over the land.

  The first grey light was beginning to bleed over the eastern horizon, and in the gloom I could just about make out Earnford and the fields about it. And there was my hall, ringed by its timber walls, standing within the loop formed by the river, rising ghost-like out of the mist that hung in the valley. White tendrils wrapped themselves around the willows, around the church and the mill, veiling the hay-meadows and the pasturelands. How small it all looked, I thought, and how insignificant.

  After what had happened to?dda only the day before, it was probably not the wisest idea to venture out alone. From up here, though, I had a clear view in every direction; even in the half-light I could easily see anyone approaching, friendly or otherwise. Besides, I had both my sword and my knife, and so even if somehow the enemy did stumble upon me, I had no doubt that they would find me more than a match for them.

  Down amongst the trees the world was already waking: the branches were alive with birdsong, heralding the new day. Up here it was silent. It was still too early for most people to have risen and not a single spire of smoke could yet be seen. Nothing moved, not even the wind. In every direction the country lay deathly still.

  I dismounted and dug into my saddlebag, where I found a carrot to feed my mount. After hobbling her to prevent her wandering, I approached the standing stone, which towered above me, nine or ten feet tall, like a column supporting some invisible roof. It had been erected here by the ancient folk, it was said: the ones who had lived in these parts before even the Romans, the first conquerors of this island, had arrived. Perhaps it was meant as a boundary marker, or perhaps this had been a place of gathering, where they had come to feast and dance, to perform strange ceremonies in the manner of the old religion. Father Erchembald said this place was the Devil’s work and disapproved of my coming here, where the servants of evil supposedly dwelt and where by night the spectres of the dead fed upon the souls of unwitting travellers they had waylaid. But in all the times I’d come here I’d never sensed any malevolence. Instead what I felt that morning was a stillness of a kind I had not known in some time, and wonder too at the men who had toiled to bear such a massive thing all the way up this hillside.

  I ran my hand over the stone’s surface. Cold to the touch, it had been worn smooth by the elements over so many years. And yet as I explored it further, my fingers found small pits and other blemishes, and as I moved around it I saw that down one side ran a deep cleft, like a wound, and out of that wound green lichen was growing like pus, feeding off the rigid corpse. Not even stone could survive unbroken for ever. Some day this would fall, as the halls and the cities of the Romans had already done; just as our castles with their towers and ditches and walls would too, and the great vaults of the minster churches that we were building across this land.

  Everything came to an end eventually; there was no greater truth than that. After a year and more, my time in Earnford was likewise drawing to a close. Today I would have to leave this place I had grown to know so well, and I didn’t know when I might be back.

  A shiver ran through me, but this was not the time to feel sorry for myself. Drawing my cloak closer around my shoulders, I returned to my mount to unhitch the two saddlebags I had brought: the reason for my coming up here. Inside was silver and gold: some of which had come from the raiding-party we had pursued only a month before; the rest from other expeditions, from the grain and fish and fleeces that were sometimes sold at market or to passing travellers and traders. In all it amounted to a few pounds: not a large hoard, but too much to take with me. If the Welsh did come while we were gone I couldn’t let it fall into their hands. And so I had no option other than to bury it.

  Around the standing stone was a ring of smaller boulders, each of them a different shape and none taller than my knee, though they were all as firmly rooted in the ground as the central pillar. All, that was, except for one. Smaller and flatter than the rest, it was almost hidden in the long grass. I searched around its base for the crevice I knew was there, where I could slide my hand under the rock. It took all my strength, but I managed to prise it free of the soft ground, using one edge as a pivot and rolling it to one side, revealing the hollow beneath. At the bottom lay a leather pouch filled with coins that I had placed there some months before, together with a pair of gilded brooches for fastening one’s cloak, and three silver arm-rings inscribed with pagan symbols that no one could decipher, not even the priest, who was able to read the letters of many languages. In addition to that treasure there were also three seaxes, long-bladed English knives that I had taken in another battle, as well as another sword that I had no use for. Finely wrought, it had served me well on campaigns previous, but now I had better-balanced, quicker blades, both of which I was taking with me.

  Into that hollow I lowered the two bags, though not before stuffing a handful of the coins into my purse. I had kept some back already, but it was always better to have a little too much silver than not enough; besides, one never knew when it might prove useful. Then I hauled the boulder back over the space so that it was left exactly as I had found it, or as near as I could manage, so that the hoard was completely hidden from sight.

  Already the skies were growing lighter; day was fast approaching and I could not linger here. Earnford would soon be waking, and Robert and his men would be ready to ride. I returned to the mare, untied the hobble from around her legs and vaulted up into the saddle.

  ‘Come on,’ I murmured to her as I kicked on. ‘Time to go.’

  Father Erchembald found me as I was returning along the cart-track which ran beside the church. He did not show any surprise that I was out so early, since he knew of my hoard, though he knew better than to ask exactly where it was hidden.

  ‘He’s awake, for the present at least,’ he said, and I guessed he meant?dda. ‘He’s been asking for you. He’s weak and in great pain, but if you want to speak to him before you leave, this is your chance.’

  The priest showed me inside his house to where the Englishman was lying on the bed, so quiet and still that at first I thought Erchembald was mistaken.?dda must have heard me come in, though, since his eye opened. At first he stared blankly, as if he couldn’t quite work out who I was or how he had come to be here. Whether he was just tired, or whether it was due to the wine and infusion of poppy that Father Erchembald had been giving him, I couldn’t tell. But then after a few moments he recognised me.

  ‘Lord.’ He lifted
one arm from the fleece covering him and offered his hand.

  I clasped it in mine and crouched down at his side. ‘?dda,’ I replied. ‘I’m glad to see you’re still with us.’

  ‘And I, lord.’ His voice was quiet, little more than a croak. ‘And I.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Better.’ He tried to smile, and I caught a flash of his crooked and yellow teeth. ‘Give me a spear and shield and I’ll ride with you.’

  His humour caught me by surprise, for?dda rarely joked, if ever. I didn’t know if it was a good sign that he was recovering, or if it meant he had been struck on the head as well as in the side.

  I smiled back at him. ‘We’d only slow you down.’

  He made a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. The effort of speaking was taking its toll on him. I would not stay for long.

  ‘The priest says you’re going away to fight the Welsh,’ he said.

  ‘We are,’ I replied, wondering how much Erchembald had told him. Did he know that we were leaving to join Fitz Osbern’s army, or did he think we were going after the ones who had attacked him?

  ‘Kill a couple of the bastards for me,’ he said. ‘Show them no mercy.’

  His face creased in discomfort and he began to cough. I helped him to sit up. There was a wine-cup standing on the stool beside his head, and I raised it to his lips while he sipped at it. He nodded when he’d had enough, then lay back down again, drawing the blanket up over his shivering shoulders, clutching at the hem as he closed his eyes.

  ‘No mercy,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

  But he was already asleep, his chest rising and falling in even rhythm. I heard movement behind me and glanced over my shoulder to find the priest standing in the doorway.

  ‘He’ll sleep through most of the day, I should expect,’ he said. ‘You did well to get so much from him. He woke a few times during the night but he was far from lucid.’

  To see such a bear of a man lying so still, as fragile as a child, sent a shudder of discomfort through me. If someone like?dda could be so easily laid low, what did that say about the rest of us?

  ‘He kept murmuring something in his sleep,’ Erchembald continued. ‘The same few words again and again. At first I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but as he repeated it I started to write it down.’

  He went to his writing-desk, on which rested a sheet of parchment with a single line of neat script in black ink at its head. I got to my feet and he handed it to me. The sheet was dry as bone and curling at the edges.

  ‘This at least is what I made out, though I can only guess what he meant by it.’

  Ten words. That was all there were, though they were not ones that I recognised. From having seen similar writings before I supposed that it was English.

  ‘“Crungon walo wide; cwoman woldagas, swylt eall fornom secgrofra wera,”’ I read aloud, pronouncing the strange combinations of letters as best I could, at the same time trying to work out what they meant in French.

  ‘“Far and wide men were slaughtered; days of pestilence came, and death took all the brave men away,”’ said the priest. ‘That is the best translation I have been able to manage.’

  I glanced first at him, then at?dda, unconscious on the bed. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Erchembald. ‘To begin with I thought it was probably just the effects of the poppy; its juice can do strange things to a man’s mind. The more that he repeated it, though, the more I wondered if there might be something else in what he was saying.’

  Far and wide men were slaughtered; days of pestilence came, and death took all the brave men away. Merely repeating the words in my own mind sent a chill through me. Indeed they had a portentous note to them that seemed to me could only bode ill. I touched the cross which hung around my neck, as if doing so would somehow shield me from them.

  ‘Is it from Scripture?’ I asked.

  ‘Not from any verse that I have heard before. But I concede that there are several books that even I have not read, so it is not impossible.’

  ‘Do you think he was trying to warn us of something?’

  ‘Who can tell?’ Erchembald sighed. ‘He clearly did not know where he was even when he came to, and we cannot hope to know what he was seeing in his dreams. Perhaps it is only nonsense, and we should not take anything more from it than that.’

  It did not sound like nonsense to me. But I couldn’t think what the Englishman might have meant by it. Who were the brave men he had spoken of? Did he mean myself and my knights?

  ‘In any case I shouldn’t delay you any longer,’ the priest said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘I know you have a long way to travel if you are to reach Scrobbesburh by nightfall.’

  ‘Before I go there is one more thing,’ I said. ‘I want you to act as my steward while I’m away. To take care of Earnford, and of Leofrun.’

  ‘I will.’ He did not seem surprised; he had probably been expecting this. But then he was the obvious choice: I could think of no one better suited to taking on such a responsibility, and he had not only my trust but also that of the people too, which was all-important.

  ‘Post men on lookout day and night,’ I instructed him. ‘If you see the enemy, don’t try to fight them but get everyone inside the fastness.’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  I clasped his hand, and hoped that it would not be for the last time. I hoped too that when all this was over and the Welsh were defeated, there would still be an Earnford to come back to.

  ‘I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘There’s something I wish you to take with you.’

  He led me inside the church and to the strongbox that was kept beneath the altar, from which he produced the bronze relic-pendant with the gold cross that we had purchased from Byrhtwald.

  ‘May St Ignatius guard you through everything to come,’ he said firmly, pressing the cold metal into my palm and closing my fingers around it.

  I swallowed, knowing how much power the priest ascribed to the bone contained inside, even if I could not quite bring myself to believe in its authenticity. He wore an earnest expression: the kind that I knew meant that he had made his decision, and would not be swayed.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, passing the leather thong by which the pendant hung over my head. ‘I’ll take good care of it, and will bring it back safely.’

  He nodded, and after he had locked the chest once more we stepped out into the breaking dawn, where at last we made our farewells.

  ‘Be safe, father,’ I said.

  ‘And you,’ he called after me. ‘God be with you, Tancred.’

  I turned and tried to smile, but my heart was not truly in it, and with that I left him.

  The skies were aflame with the morning light when I arrived back at the hall. Robert’s men were striking the camp they had made in the bailey and the paddock, tying blankets into rolls and making ready to leave, while my own knights were at the stables saddling their horses. We were each taking two: our destriers, which were our war-mounts, vigorous and lightning-footed, trained to the melee and the charge; and also rounceys, hardy and dependable animals which would carry our packs, our tents and our provisions, as well as cloaks and spare tunics, lances and spare knives, flint and steel and bunches of kindling for making campfires, and pots and spoons with which to cook.

  I let the two stable-hands, Snocca and his twin brother Cnebba, take care of my mare, while I donned my gambeson and my mail, buckling up my hauberk and tying the laces which bound my chausses around my thighs. My saddlebags were packed and waiting, and they attached them to her harness. Both boys would be coming with us, for we needed someone to look after the animals and make sure that they were fed and groomed, to help polish mail and sharpen blades. Neither of them said a word. Perhaps they sensed my mood, or perhaps they were lost in their own thoughts. This was their home, after all, as much as it was mine.

  My destrier, Nihtfeax, was already saddled. His name meant night-mane or shadow-hair, I w
as told by the owner of the stud where I had purchased him, and it was fitting, for his coat and his mane were as black as pitch, a white star between his eyes being the only marking. Strong-willed and hot in temper, he had been with me for the better part of a year. He would have the chance to prove himself before long.

  That was when I spotted Leofrun watching from the entrance to the hall. Forgetting about the horses for a moment, I ran to her. She threw her hands around me and, sobbing, buried her face in my shoulder.

  I held her close, knowing that it would be my last chance to do so for a good while. ‘You know that if I could stay, I would.’

  ‘I understand,’ she replied in a quiet voice. ‘How long will it be before you return?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It might be weeks or it might be months, depending on how long it takes for the Welsh to show themselves.’

  ‘When you do come back, you will have a newborn son to hold in your arms.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ I said, smiling gently as I placed a hand upon her belly. Of course whether it was a boy or girl only God could know. She was hoping for the latter, whereas I wanted a son whom I could one day teach swordcraft and horsemanship and the pleasures of the hunt.

  ‘I wish I could ride with you,’ Leofrun said.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ I said, and laughed gently. ‘If you’d ever seen a marching-camp you would know that it’s not a safe place for a woman. Spirits run high, tempers flare and men will not hesitate in killing to get what they want, to slake their desires. If you came with me, I wouldn’t be able to sleep since I would forever be fighting off all the others lusting after you. You wouldn’t enjoy it.’

  She blushed at that and, in spite of her tears, even managed a smile. ‘I wouldn’t be afraid,’ she said. ‘I would bear it if it meant I could stay with you.’

  Even had she been fit enough to ride with us, I wouldn’t have wanted her to come. Only too well did I remember what had happened the last time I’d taken my woman with me on campaign, and I was determined not to let the same thing happen again. I would not risk losing Leofrun as I had lost Oswynn.