The Splintered Kingdom c-2

by James Aitcheson

  ‘Forgive me, lord,’ the Englishman said again. ‘They kept beating me until I had nothing more to give. I never meant for this to happen. It is all my fault, all my fault. .’

  While he wept I sat in silence, cold and still, my eyes closed as a numb feeling spread through my body, working its way through my limbs and into my very bones. In a way I would have preferred it had my first suspicions been right and Berengar were the one responsible. To be betrayed by a hated rival was one thing, but to be given away by one I considered my friend was a far harder thing to swallow. Still, it would have been easy to lose my temper, to curse the Englishman and say that he shouldn’t have let himself fall into their hands. But what was the use in that? Nothing could undo what had already been done. We were here in this dank shit-hole, and somehow I had to think of a way that we might escape. That was all that mattered. Otherwise I would soon meet my fate at the hands of the man I had once sworn to kill. The same man who had murdered my lord and whose face had haunted my dreams for a year and more. I had no desire to see that happen.

  Nor, if I were being truthful, could I lay any blame upon Byrhtwald for talking. A man will say and do anything if it means he might keep his life, and what he had suffered at their hands I couldn’t begin to imagine. Never in the short while I’d known him had he given anything away cheaply, whether goods or knowledge. To have got so much from him they must have worked him hard.

  How long it was before either of us spoke again, I had no way of knowing. It might have been as much as an hour, and possibly more.

  In the end it was Byrhtwald who broke the silence. ‘If only I hadn’t sold you that pendant. Perhaps if I hadn’t done that, the saint’s favour would still shine upon me and none of this would have happened.’ He gave a hollow laugh that quickly descended into a choke. ‘Do you still have it, lord?’

  ‘They took it from me,’ I said bitterly. ‘Bleddyn has it now, for all the good it will do him. St Ignatius never helped me.’

  When I most needed his protection, where had he been?

  The pedlar was quiet for a moment before saying, ‘I might as well tell you now, lord. Perhaps I should have spoken of it earlier, but I was ashamed. .’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘My other sin. Those were never any sacred relics. What I sold you was nothing more than pig’s bone, the protection not of a saint but of an old sow. For that misdeed God now punishes me, by delivering me to my enemies.’

  Pig’s bone. I’d long suspected the truth would be something like that, and still I’d fallen for the lie. Such a fool I had been. Yet even in the darkness, in the cold and the damp and the putrid stink that surrounded us, I laughed.

  After a while spent feeling my way on my knees I found a patch of floor next to one of the walls that was a little firmer and drier, wide enough that a man could lie down. There I rested, or tried to at least. Every so often Byrhtwald would erupt into a series of coughs, waking me, and each time he sounded worse.

  Eventually tiredness must have caught up with me, for I fell into a deep and dreamful sleep, finding myself back in the monastery at Dinant where I had spent so much of my youth, although somehow it was a different place to the one I had fled. A thick fog had settled everywhere, lending everything a grey and ghostly appearance. The ancient oak tree had gone and the walls were higher and somehow more forbidding, the cloister filled with looming shadows that, when I got closer, turned into the dark habits of monks, who gathered around, their cold gazes passing judgment upon me as if I were guilty of something, though what that might be I struggled to recall. I turned, hoping to escape, only to find the prior standing over me. In his hands he held a rod of birch.

  ‘For leaving us,’ he said. ‘For shirking your duties and turning your back upon the Lord our God.’

  I wanted to protest, to tell him I had shirked no duties, that although the contemplative life was not for me, I had always remained a loyal servant of God. For some reason the words would not form and my tongue lay as if frozen in my head. The prior’s face was dark and drawn, lined with the marks of old age. From thin lips were issued two words, which he repeated over and over like an incantation while he lifted the rod: Deus vult. God wills it. Gradually the same chant was taken up by the rest of the brothers, whispered at first but steadily growing louder as they pressed so close that I could not move, until the words were ringing in my ears-

  I woke to the sound of voices and the creak of hinges as the trapdoor opened. Daylight flooded in, so bright after hours spent in full darkness that I had to squint and raise a hand to shield my eyes while they adjusted. I was still trying to remember where this place was and how I had come to be here when men descended the steps. I was hauled to my feet once more and dragged, blinking, out into the open. Behind me I could hear Byrhtwald spluttering as they struggled to lift his limp form up the steps.

  ‘He needs water,’ I said to the guards flanking me. ‘Have some mercy; let him drink.’

  Either they didn’t understand me, or they chose to ignore me. The pedlar looked worse than I had ever seen him. They had taken everything from him save for his braies, which were soaked through and marked with brown stains that were either mud or his own shit. Countless bruises and weals decorated his back and chest. He could barely stand without aid, but hunched forward like a man many years older, in danger it seemed of collapsing at any moment.

  They led us to what I supposed had once been the stable-yard behind the hall, except that the buildings had long since fallen into disrepair and everything was overgrown with nettles and thistles. Half a dozen horsemen awaited us, with spears that carried pennons in the pale yellow and blue of the house of Cynfyn. There the guards made Byrhtwald get down on his knees, while one of the horsemen, a bald-headed man of solid build, dismounted. Handing his spear to a retainer, he drew a long sword with polished blade and gleaming edge.

  And suddenly I understood why we were here.

  ‘No,’ I said, struggling against my captors, but their hands were firm upon my shoulders, holding me back. Hunger and thirst had weakened me and I was helpless to act. ‘You can’t do this!’

  ‘He is of no more use to us,’ said the one with the sword. ‘Now his life is forfeit.’

  Byrhtwald looked up at me. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and I saw the great sadness that lay behind them. Like the bravest of warriors he was doing his best to hold his nerve and show courage in the face of death, but he trembled nonetheless.

  ‘Remember me, lord,’ he said.

  The tears were in my eyes as they were in his. I had witnessed the blow that killed Turold and seen the twins Snocca and Cnebba cut down before my eyes. All three I had known well, far better than the pedlar, and yet for some reason the knowledge of what was about to happen troubled me much more than had any of their deaths.

  They forced him to bow his head, exposing the back of his neck. The bald man stepped forward, laying the flat of the steel upon it before raising the weapon high. Eyes closed and taking deep breaths, Byrhtwald first muttered a prayer in his own tongue that I could not make out, before reciting the familiar words of the Paternoster.

  ‘Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,’ he said, drawing the words out as he realised that with each one he spoke his end grew nearer, ‘sed libera nos a malo.’ Behind his back his fists clenched and he let out one final sigh. ‘Amen.’

  No sooner had he finished speaking than the blade came down.

  It took three blows to remove Byrhtwald’s head from his shoulders. Either the man who did it was unused to wielding a sword or else he was unskilled in such killings. The first stroke missed and sliced into the Englishman’s shoulder instead, causing him to pitch forward, screaming in agony. As he writhed on the ground, his hands clutching the place where he had been wounded, the blade struck again. This time it did find his neck, in an instant slicing through his throat and his spine. That was the stroke that killed him, though it needed one more to sever the head entirely.

  Thus it was
done, and Byrhtwald my friend was gone.

  ‘He was nothing to you,’ I yelled at the Welshmen, spitting in the direction of the one who had killed him. ‘He was nothing to you. He didn’t have to die!’

  But dead he was. With bloody fingers, the swordsman held Byrhtwald’s head up by the hair, displaying it proudly for all to see, before with a roar and a chorus of laughter and cheers from his comrades he hurled it over the walls of the yard.

  And as he wiped the sword on a patch of grass, I recognised the smoke-like pattern of the steel and the two blood-red stones embedded in the hilt, and saw that it was my own blade that had spilt his blood, that had taken his life.

  From the position of the sun I reckoned our route took us once more west and south, and that reckoning was proven right when later that day we crossed the dyke. Back into Wales, as if I hadn’t already seen enough of this godforsaken country.

  Bleddyn and his raiding-band did not ride with us. Where they were headed I was not sure, though I could make a guess: Scrobbesburh. Instead I was escorted by the same six horsemen who had been at Byrhtwald’s killing.

  ‘Are you taking me to Eadric?’ I asked them some time later, when that place was long behind us.

  ‘Eadric?’ snorted the bald-headed one, whose name I had learnt was Dyfnwal. From the way he had assumed charge I guessed he must be their leader. ‘If he wants you, he’ll have to come and fetch you. And when he does he’d better bring with him a cart full of silver. He’s a fool if he thinks he’s getting you for nothing.’

  This raised a snigger amongst the others.

  ‘Where are we going, then?’

  But Dyfnwal had grown tired of my questions, and the only answer I got was the customary nudge between the shoulder-blades: the sign to shut up and keep moving. I was confused, since from what I had heard Eadric and the Welsh were firmly aligned, their alliance founded upon a common cause and cemented with mutual oaths. Perhaps their ties were looser than any of us had suspected. Certainly the way that these men spoke of Eadric suggested they had little liking for him.

  Nor did Dyfnwal provide any more answers over the hours that followed. They did at least give me a small amount of bread and ale. In truth it did little to sate my hunger but it was better than nothing at all, and I accepted what was offered without complaint.

  We marched on for the better part of two days, across valleys and over thickly wooded hills, never seeing another soul. They had not returned my shoes, which were probably on the feet of some other man by now. My ankles were nettle-stung, my bare soles swollen, in places cut and beginning to bleed, so that with every step came a fresh jolt of pain. I was beginning to wonder how much further we had to travel when I realised that I recognised the shape of these gently sloping hills, that I knew where we were.

  And then as we crested one of those hills, in the distance I saw the place they were taking me to: a powerful stronghold ringed with high ramparts, along the top of which ran a sturdy stockade. The river lay on one side and it was girded on its other three flanks by a wide moat. As we grew closer I saw heads mounted on spears above the gatehouse: heads of what from their short hair and clean-shaven faces could only be Frenchmen. Nailed to the timbers were the tattered, blood-stained remains of the serpent flag that had once belonged to the brothers Maredudd and Ithel. Not so long ago they had dreamed of assaulting this fort, the ancient home of the men who had stolen their birthright, of claiming it for themselves and seeing that banner soar proudly in this valley. But no longer. And now I had returned, not at the head of an army but as a prisoner.

  To Mathrafal.

  Twenty-two

  They led me through a wide yard ringed with wattle and cob huts to an empty storehouse close by what I guessed from the smoke and the pungent smell of fish were the kitchens. There they left me, though not before manacling my wrists and shackling my ankles by means of a gyve and chain to an iron rung set into the stonework so that I could not escape.

  By now Robert and the others would be somewhere up in the high hills, I reckoned, with several days’ hard going ahead of them before they reached Eoferwic, unless they’d heard that the Northumbrians were marching and had decided to make for elsewhere. They must have thought me dead, and I supposed I might as well have been, since it would not be long before Eadric came for me and I was delivered to the?theling.

  Nor were Robert and the others the only people who came to mind over the dark days that followed. With not a little guilt I thought of Leofrun back in Earnford, and dreamt of holding her, of lying with her in our chamber upon our feather-filled mattress. I pictured her face in my mind: her soft pinkish cheeks that dimpled when she laughed, her ears that she thought too big, her auburn hair that tumbled in great waves across her shoulders when she unbound it from her braids. Already at only seventeen summers old she was as good and gentle a woman as I had ever known, devoted to me from the moment I had laid eyes upon her and purchased her freedom from the slave-seller who had previously owned her, and taken her away with me to Earnford.

  Earnford, my home. It wasn’t just the manor itself that I’d grown fond of but the folk who lived there too: wise Father Erchembald, who together with Leofrun had taught me the little English I knew;?dda, who despite his initial distrust of me had grown to become one of my staunchest allies and closest friends among the English. With each day that went by it looked ever more unlikely that I would see either of them again.

  My biggest regret was that I would not live to hold my child in my arms. Often over the past few months I had wondered what he or she might look like, how much of myself I would recognise in that face. Were it a boy, I would have looked forward to watching him grow up, until he was old enough that I might begin to train him in the skills of swordcraft, the art of horsemanship and the pleasures of the hunt. Indeed, were it a girl, I might well have done much the same, except that Leofrun would never have allowed me to teach her the sword. Instead I’d have found someone teach her how to use the bow, and enjoyed watching her practise at the butts until she was as good a shot as any man.

  These delights I would never know. All my hopes, my ambitions and my desires — everything I had striven for — had come to naught.

  Once in a while my captors would bring me something to eat and drink. Sometimes it would be a bowl of half-warm beans mixed with some kind of smoked fish, but on the whole I considered myself lucky to receive anything more than a miserly half-cup of ale and a scrap of mouldy bread. A pair of guards would release my hands so I could eat, and they would stand over me as I did so, waiting until I’d finished before snapping the manacles back around my wrists and leaving me alone once more. Occasionally I was asleep when they came, whereupon they would kick me hard in the ribs or spit in my face to rouse me, and when they found me awake they would often taunt me by passing the dishes beneath my nose repeatedly, torturing me with the smell and the promise of food until, after what seemed like hours, they would at last unchain my hands. Such were the games that they played.

  By night I bedded down upon piles of damp straw and huddled beneath the rough linen blanket they had given me. Clearly they had no wish for me to perish through cold any more than they wanted me to starve, although at the same time they weren’t going to make it comfortable for me either. The only time they freed me from my chains was when I needed to relieve myself, when they took me to the privy across the yard. Even then they kept me closely guarded, with an escort of two or sometimes three guards. Once I managed to evade them, making it as far as the stables before a pair of well-set men wrestled me to the ground. And in truth there was nowhere I could have gone. Most of the time the gates were kept closed and, so far as I could see, there was no other way in or out of the fort. Perhaps they were being over-cautious, since they did not take me to the privy after that. Instead they made me relieve myself in my small prison, so that when I lay down to sleep it was with the stench of my own piss and shit around me.

  Days slipped by, each one the same, so that I quickly lost co
unt of them. Weeks must have passed since I’d first arrived, I thought, although how many I could no longer say. I wondered if the enemy had begun their siege of Scrobbesburh, whether Fitz Osbern still held out in the castle, whether the Danish fleet had yet arrived upon these shores. From time to time I prayed, hoping that God had not forsaken me altogether, that He would still hear me and bring me some hope. In all that time, however, I never received an answer.

  And so I sought refuge in my dreams, where the faces of my friends and companions could return to me and for a while at least I could believe that I was elsewhere.

  I woke to the sound of raised voices outside. Men called to one another in urgent tones, though I had no way of knowing what they were saying. Mail chinked as heavy footsteps made their way around the side of the storehouse. Through the crack between the door and the frame shone the orange glow of a torch or lantern. I must have been asleep for some while, for the last I could remember it had still been day, but now it was full dark. What hour was it?

  I sat up, too fast as it turned out, since straightaway I felt light-headed. Until now Mathrafal had remained quiet. This was the first time that there had been any sign of anything happening. Had Bleddyn returned from Scrobbesburh, and if he had, did that mean he was victorious or defeated?

  These thoughts were running through my head when the door was flung open and a cold breeze flooded into the room. Dyfnwal stood in the doorway, his bald pate flickering with reflected torchlight. Buckled upon his waist as before was my sword-belt.

  ‘Time for you to go,’ he said. ‘Eadric has arrived.’

  ‘He’s here?’

  The Welshman grunted. ‘Sooner than expected, too. He’s waiting for you.’

  Wild Eadric. The man I had heard so much about in recent weeks.

  Dyfnwal made way for two other men. The taller of them had in his hand a ring of keys, from which he selected one and used it to release me from my chains. For the first time in what seemed like an age both my wrists and ankles were free, though they no longer had to worry about me struggling or being able to escape. My feet had by then recovered from their march across the dyke but were not nearly as steady as they should have been. A sharp ache ran through my neck, which felt barely able to support my head.