Conquest 03 - Knights of the Hawk

by James Aitcheson

  In all that time we saw no more sign of our enemy, and none of the local folk dared approach when they saw us, instead running in from the fields to the safety of their homes. Probably they thought we were raiders, come to steal their flocks and their women. We left them alone, following Magnus as he led us half marching, half scrambling over that stony, broken land, until we descended towards a broad, flat plain that was crossed by countless tiny streams and hemmed in on both sides by high crags, and which ran for about a mile towards the sea. A few scattered barns and round wattle-and-thatch hovels lay close to the shore, where spindly-legged wading birds dug their bills into the mud in search of worms, and where a number of small fishing boats together with four longships were beached.

  ‘Those are Haakon’s ships, for certain,’ Magnus said, his expression darker than ever I had seen it. ‘I’d recognise them anywhere.’

  By my reckoning, four longships meant at least two hundred men, and possibly as many as two hundred and fifty. I guessed the true number was smaller rather than larger, since each one would be an additional burden on his storehouses, representing a mouth that had to be fed and kept well watered, but I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘We’ve been seen,’ Wace said, and pointed up towards the crags on the northern side of that valley, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, where the same rider on the same white horse had stopped and seemed to be gazing down towards us. At least, I assumed it was the same man.

  He must have known we were looking at him, but strangely he did not bolt at once as I might have expected. Instead he stayed where he was for a while longer, before once more galloping away, soon disappearing over the crest of the hill.

  ‘We ought to turn back, lord,’ Ælfhelm said to Magnus. ‘We’re too exposed here. If Haakon has a trap laid for us—’

  ‘He hasn’t,’ I interrupted him.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘What would be the point of sending us such a warning if he meant to ambush us?’ I countered.

  ‘A warning?’

  I sighed. ‘That horseman wasn’t trying to stay hidden. If he were, he’d have kept to the trees, and wouldn’t be riding anything as visible as a white steed. No, he wanted us to see him.’

  ‘Where’s the sense in that?’ Ælfhelm asked.

  For all his years, the huscarl still had much to learn, but I was too tired to explain it myself. ‘Wace?’ I asked. ‘Eudo?’

  It was Wace who spoke up first. ‘Haakon wants only to remind us that he’s still watching us and that he knows what we’re up to, and so make us a little more cautious.’

  And his warning was working, too, on Ælfhelm at least, for although he said nothing more on the matter, I could see from the look in his eyes that he remained less than convinced.

  So much in war comes down not to individual prowess of arms, or weight of numbers, or deftness of strategy, but to confidence. Confidence in one’s scouts and their information. Confidence in one’s ability to survive and succeed against the odds. Confidence in one’s friends and allies to stand firm in the shield-wall and protect one’s flanks in the charge. Even small raiding-bands can accomplish momentous deeds if they have sufficient nerve, while I’d heard tales of great hosts that in times past have been cowed into fleeing without so much as giving battle, merely because their commander lacked the stomach for the impending clash of arms, or because the enemy by their clever ruses had convinced him that victory was impossible.

  In the end, it is very often not the side that is largest or most experienced that gains possession of the field of slaughter, but the one that is most confident. For that reason we did not turn back, but chose to carry on, keeping to the open where the enemy could clearly see us and where, if they did show themselves, we would be easily able to spot them coming. In doing so, we were letting Haakon know in turn that we had no fear of him.

  We trudged on down that valley, across lush grassland made soft and heavy by the previous day’s rain. We watched the crags on both sides lest any more riders should appear, but they didn’t, and before long we glimpsed the forbidding slopes of the promontory rising to the north, just as Magnus had described it, ringed by steep scarps and crowned with a high stockade. A gatehouse looked out over the neck of land that lay to its south, and the golden, freshly laid thatch of the halls inside was just visible above the sharpened points of the walls’ timber posts.

  Jarnborg.

  This, then, was the iron fortress about which we had heard so much. I’d harboured half a hope that Magnus had been exaggerating, and that it would turn out to be little more than a simple ringwork of banks and ditches surmounted with stakes, like the refuges in which the folk who lived on the Marches sometimes sought shelter from the marauders who came across the dyke. But that half-hope was stifled the instant I set eyes on Jarnborg, and my heart sank, for it was every bit as impressive as its name suggested, as formidable a fastness as I had ever seen and easily a rival to any castle that we Normans, who were known and admired across the length and breadth of Christendom as master builders, had ever erected. Indeed it might as well have been wrought from iron, for it seemed like a place that could withstand the passing of ages and perhaps even the world’s end itself.

  ‘There it is,’ Magnus said. ‘Haakon’s winter stronghold.’

  Desperately I scanned its walls, searching for some weakness we might exploit, but could find none, not from this approach at least. A cart-track wound its way up the incline towards the gates, between the boulders that everywhere jutted up from the ground, but it was narrow, the land on either side falling away sharply towards the shore, where the waves pounded and the seabirds flocked to feast upon whatever the tide had washed up.

  And it was while we were all gazing, unspeaking, upon that fortress, that the gates opened, and from them issued forth seven horsemen. Too few to pose much threat to us, and so we waited to see what they would do, watching them carefully as they descended the track that led down towards the valley, until there could be no doubt that they were making towards us. They made no particular haste; even once they were on the level ground they rode merely at a gentle trot, as if enjoying a morning’s ride around their estates.

  They hadn’t come to fight, I realised, but to talk.

  ‘Keep your eyes open and your wits about you,’ I told the others nonetheless.

  ‘You think this might be a ruse?’ Eudo asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said as the wind flapped at our cloaks and buffeted our cheeks. ‘But keep your hand close by your sword-hilt just in case.’

  Six of the riders halted around two hundred paces away, close to where a wooden bridge crossed one of the many streams, leaving the seventh to ride on alone, giving flight to the banner in his hand. The black dragon, exactly as I remembered it, with eyes of fire and an axe gripped in its claws. The man who carried it was powerfully built and broad of shoulder; his greying hair was tied in a braid in the Danish style at the back of his head. A thick beard adorned his chin, his arms were decorated with rings made from rods of gold twisted around one another, and he wore a sealskin cloak over a mail shirt that looked in places to be missing a few links, but which nevertheless had been polished to a shine. His face was lined with the creases of age, but there was a wolfish keenness to the way his eyes darted about that somehow made him seem younger than his years.

  And I recognised that face, for it was the same one that had haunted my dreams for a year and more, ever since that night at Beferlic.

  Haakon Thorolfsson.

  How many nights had I lain awake, thinking of the ways in which I would wreak vengeance upon the one who had murdered our lord? And now at last here he was, brazenly riding towards us. He grinned broadly, although there was no humour in his eyes. He checked his mount about fifteen paces away: close enough to be able to converse without needing to shout, but far enough that if any of us charged him he would easily be able to turn and gallop safely away. He wasn’t stupid.

  ‘I was wondering when you’
d come,’ he said. There was a rasp to his voice that perhaps was a mark of the cold, wind-blasted lands from which he came. ‘Although I confess I’m disappointed. I thought that, between you, you might have been able to muster more of an army.’

  I think we all knew there was no point in answering that, for none among us spoke. Haakon was well aware how large was the army we had brought with us, and we weren’t in the mood for playing such games.

  ‘Magnus Haroldson, my friend,’ he said, spreading his open palms as if in greeting. ‘It’s good to see you again after so long. Come to break your army against Jarnborg’s walls once more, have you?’

  ‘What do you want, Haakon?’ Magnus asked. ‘Or have you left the comfort of your hearth merely to insult us?’

  ‘Insult you?’ the Dane asked, and managed somehow to laugh and look affronted at the same time. ‘Why should I want to insult you? We are old allies, are we not?’

  Magnus spat in his direction. ‘You stole everything from me. My brothers are dead because of you.’

  ‘If you thrust your hand into a wasps’ nest, then it is your own fault if you are stung. You and your brothers were foolish enough to leave your spoils unguarded, and so I took them. There is no more to it than that. I had nothing to do with their deaths. If anyone should bear the blame for that, it is these Frenchmen you call your friends. They were the ones who deprived your family of everything it had, and who drove you from England. Is that not true?’

  I glanced at Magnus, but couldn’t read his expression. I understood, of course, what the Dane was trying to do, and only hoped that the Englishman understood it too, and that his hatred for Haakon outweighed his hatred for our kind.

  ‘Very well,’ the elder man said when it was clear that Magnus had nothing more to say. ‘You ask me what I want, and this is my answer.’ He turned his gaze towards myself, Wace and Eudo. ‘I want to know which one of you is the Breton, Tancred of Earnford.’

  That surprised me, for I hadn’t expected him to have come by that information.

  ‘I am,’ I said curtly as I felt my sword-arm itch and imagined how, if I could only get close enough to him, I would slice my blade-edge across his steed’s neck, unhorsing him. Then, while he lay on the ground, I would drive the point down into his mailed chest, using all my strength to bury it deep. One strike was all it would take to puncture his heart. One strike, and we could end this now. But he was too watchful to allow that to happen. I only had to take a couple of paces towards him and he would turn and gallop away with ease.

  He smiled with the warmth of an old friend who had not seen me in years. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you are the one I have heard so much about. The one who gave Eadgar Ætheling his scar. A worthy warrior.’

  I wasn’t about to confirm or to deny it for him, and so instead I said, ‘How do you know my name?’

  At that Haakon gave a laugh. ‘You cannot send your spies, your knowledge-gatherers, all across Britain, and yet expect me not to hear that you’ve been seeking me out. I’ve suspected for months that you’d be coming. It was only a question of when. To tell the truth, I didn’t think it would take you this long.’

  ‘They told you I was paying them?’ Not only had those whoresons failed to bring me the information I wanted, but they had in turn sold what they knew about me to my enemies.

  The Dane breathed a sigh. ‘It tires me to relate how it all happened, so let us not waste our breath discussing it. Suffice it to say that you are not the only one who has his spies. I’ve heard the tales of your deeds. I know who you are, Tancred, and what brings you here.’

  I wondered how much he did know. Certainly I wasn’t about to let slip anything which might turn out being to his advantage. Did he think I had come because of the life he had taken, or because he had stolen my woman from me?

  ‘You killed our lord,’ I said, deciding that, of the two reasons, that was the one he was more likely to know about. ‘You killed Robert de Commines.’

  He stared at me for long moments, that wolfish look having returned. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.

  ‘You admit it, then?’ Eudo asked.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Haakon countered. ‘Yes, I killed him. I watched the mead-hall burn and I heard the screams of those inside. I remember how he stumbled out with the smoke billowing around him. I remember how easy it was for me to ram my sword home. I remember how he died with barely a whimper.’

  ‘You don’t deserve to live,’ Eudo said. The wind had dropped and in the stillness I heard the hiss of steel against his scabbard’s wool lining as he drew his sword.

  ‘Eudo,’ I said warningly. The Dane had clearly come to parley with us for a purpose, and I wanted to know what that was, not to scare him off.

  Wace laid a hand upon our friend’s shoulder. ‘Put your sword away.’

  Eudo hesitated, but eventually he must have realised that it was a useless gesture, for he slid the blade back whence it had come.

  ‘Even if you did kill me, it wouldn’t bring your lord back to you,’ Haakon said. He turned to Magnus. ‘Nor your brothers.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t enjoy watching you squirm while your lifeblood dripped away,’ Harold’s son retorted.

  The Dane smiled. ‘The young pup has a loud bark, I see. It’s a shame that he lacks the bite to match it.’

  ‘Enough of this,’ I said, growing impatient. ‘Have you come with anything worthwhile to say?’

  ‘There is one thing.’

  ‘Then spit it out.’

  A smirk was upon his face. ‘Vengeance isn’t the only reason that brought you here, is it?’

  So he knew. Knew why I had come here, what it was that had brought me on this journey in the first place.

  ‘Where is she?’ I demanded.

  Haakon didn’t answer, not in any words. Instead he merely raised a hand in what I took for a signal to his six companions waiting by the bridge. Still mounted, they advanced now. Suspecting a trick, I laid my hand upon my sword-hilt, and out of the corners of my eyes I saw the others doing the same. If the Dane was at all concerned, however, he didn’t let it show.

  I fixed my gaze on the six figures as they approached, realising as they did so that only five of them were men. For in the middle of them rode a woman, and not just any woman either. Long before she was close enough for me to make out her features, I knew who she was.

  As if it could have been anyone else.

  Oswynn.

  Twenty-five

  ‘OSWYNN,’ I SAID, under my breath at first, and then more loudly, so that she could hear: ‘Oswynn!’

  Her hands were tied in front of her and her mount was being led by one of the riders flanking her. She wore a cloak that might have been otter fur over a fine-spun woollen dress, but all that expensive garb did not disguise the bruises on her face, which was thinner and paler than I recalled. Her head was bowed as if in submission, and when she did look up her eyes were hollow. All the fire she’d once possessed seemed to have been extinguished. The summer when we met had been her sixteenth, and three more summers had come and gone since then, but she looked much older than her years might have suggested. And yet she was still as beautiful as ever. Her hair, black as the night when the moon is new and cloud veils the stars, which I had liked her to wear unbound, was braided like that of a married woman.

  ‘I presume she’s the one you came for,’ I heard Haakon say, but I was not paying him attention, not really, for I couldn’t tear my eyes from her.

  I willed her to say something, even just my name, but she did not utter any sound at all, nor so much as smile, which I ascribed to fear of what they might do to her if she did, rather than because she didn’t recognise me. She did, I was sure of it, just as I was sure that even in those hollow eyes I spied a glimmer of something like relief or hope. I tried not to imagine what the Dane had done with her in the years we had been apart, but it was impossible. The way she held herself told me all that I needed, or wanted, to know.

  ‘Striking, is
n’t she?’ Haakon went. ‘Prettier than any Danish girl, for sure, and I’ve known my share of them. I can well understand why you would want to come all this way to steal her from me.’

  ‘You’re the one who stole her,’ I said. ‘She’s my woman, not yours.’

  ‘Is that so? Where were you that night to lay claim to her?’ He gave a flick of a hand, beckoning her forward. Reluctantly, she came sidling up alongside him. ‘She belongs to me,’ he said, reaching over and untying the bonds around her wrists. A gasp of surprise or protest escaped her lips as he seized her forearm and held up her left hand. ‘Here is the proof.’

  A marriage-band glinted in the cold light of that winter’s day. Oswynn, in tears now, tried to snatch her hand away, but Haakon’s grip was firm and all her struggling was in vain.

  My blood boiled and I set my teeth in anger, but somehow I held myself back. I didn’t believe for a heartbeat that she had become his wife out of choice, nor do I think he expected me to. All he wanted was to taunt me, but I refused to rise to the bait. Losing my temper would achieve nothing, and indeed could end up costing me everything. Haakon’s men were close; if I came within five paces of their lord, they would strike me down without hesitation.

  ‘I don’t want to see blood spilt upon my lands any more than you wish to lose good hearth-troops,’ the Dane said as he released Oswynn’s wrist at last. ‘Better men than you have tried to take Jarnborg from me, and all have died by my sword-edge. For that reason, and because I am a generous man, I will give you one piece of advice. Do yourselves and your followers a favour, and leave these shores.’

  ‘What happens if we don’t?’ asked Magnus.

  ‘You aren’t the only one who has friends,’ Haakon replied mildly. ‘I sent word to mine three days ago. They will be here within the week, if not sooner, at which point we will not hesitate in crushing you and making drinking cups of your skulls. So you have a simple choice. If you value your lives then you’ll leave. Otherwise I can promise you only death.’