Conquest 03 - Knights of the Hawk

by James Aitcheson

  ‘You lie,’ Wace said. ‘You have no friends coming to lend their swords in your support.’

  ‘Believe what you will,’ Haakon said, ‘so long as you’re prepared to wager your life on it. I have given you my advice, for whatever it might be worth. I leave it to you to decide whether or not you heed it.’

  With that once more he smiled that humourless smile, then turned and spurred his steed into a canter, followed by his retainers, and by Oswynn, who cast a desperate glance over her shoulder, holding my gaze for as long as she was able as they led her away, back across the bridge, across the valley, up towards the gates of the iron fortress.

  ‘I’ll come for you,’ I called after her, using the English tongue. ‘I swear it, Oswynn, I’ll come for you!’

  I didn’t know whether, above the wind and the thudding of hooves upon turf, she managed to hear me, but I hoped she did.

  ‘He’s bluffing,’ Wace said later, when we had returned to the beach where the crews of both ships had set up camp, and spoken to the others. ‘He must be.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Eudo asked as he tore off another hunk of bread and crammed it into his mouth. The sun was high and we hadn’t eaten since daybreak, but I couldn’t so much as think about food. Seeing Oswynn, only to have her taken away yet again, had left me feeling empty and despondent.

  ‘If Haakon knew he had help on the way, why would he care to warn us?’ Wace asked. ‘Why not let those allies of his come, and try to catch us by surprise?’

  ‘Because he has nothing to gain by attacking us,’ I said. ‘If he can make us leave without having to risk battle, so much the better as far as he’s concerned. He’s made it clear that whatever our quarrels with him, he has no interest in us. Unless we come assaulting Jarnborg’s walls, there’s no pressing reason why he or his friends need cross swords with us at all.’

  Like his countryman Snorri, Haakon was proving to be a cautious one, far from the reckless adventurer that I had expected. Undoubtedly I could have learnt much from his example, were I not so intent on killing him. As it was, I was wondering only how we might take advantage of that caution to bring about his downfall.

  ‘I think he’d prefer to destroy us if he can, rather than risk the possibility that we might return in the spring with an even larger fleet,’ said Magnus. ‘For that reason I’m inclined to agree with Wace.’

  That was the first he had said in a long while. No doubt he was still thinking about those crags and that palisade, and whether there was any way of scaling them, without any siege engines or ladders, that wouldn’t cost the lives of half our retinue. As too was I.

  ‘What I don’t understand’, Eudo said, ‘is why he should feel the need to bluff at all, assuming he has the strength in numbers that we think he has.’

  I mulled over that for a few moments, and then it came to me, and I gave a laugh. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘That’s it exactly.’

  For Eudo had as good as answered his own question. Haakon must be worried to some extent about his ability to defend his stronghold, or else surely he would not resort to such ruses. Did that mean his defences were perhaps not quite as sound as we had supposed?

  To begin with Eudo gave me a strange look, but then he too must have realised, since he began to smile, and Wace and Magnus and Ælfhelm as well.

  Four longships we had seen drawn up on the sand in the bay beneath Jarnborg at the north of this island. We’d assumed that meant he had four full ships’ crews at his disposal, but what if that weren’t the case? What if he didn’t have the ten score spears I’d hazarded, but only half that number?

  Naturally all this was guesswork, and didn’t mean that Jarnborg was ours for the taking, not at all. A mere thirty spears could probably hold its gates, so strong was its position upon the promontory. But it all helped add to my conviction that, providing we could only find a way inside, we could do this. We might have struggled to hold our own against two hundred, but against a hundred, anything was possible.

  Confidence. As so often, it came down to that. Haakon was trying to play on our doubts, to make us lose heart, but it hadn’t worked, and in so doing he had betrayed his own unease.

  ‘What do we do next, then?’ Magnus asked.

  I considered. ‘If he’s bluffing, then nothing has changed as far as we’re concerned, so there’s no reason why we should go anywhere.’

  ‘And if he’s telling the truth?’

  ‘Then we know we have only a few days in which to make our assault, if we’re to do it at all, before his allies arrive.’

  ‘A few days?’ Ælfhelm asked. ‘How can we possibly defeat him in that time?’

  He was right to have his misgivings, and yet a new sense of purpose had stirred within me, and I was not to be discouraged. ‘We’ll find a way,’ I answered.

  We had made it this far, after all: further than I would have dared imagine was possible even a couple of short months ago, during the struggle for the Isle. Back then I’d all but given up hope of finding Oswynn again in this life, and this morning I had seen her with my own eyes.

  ‘One thing’s for certain,’ said Aubert, who must have overheard our conversation. ‘We won’t be going anywhere this afternoon.’

  ‘Why not?’ Eudo asked.

  ‘The winds have been gusting hard all morning and I’ve watched the waves growing choppier by the hour. There’s a gale on its way. Trust someone who’s spent more years out on the sea than you’ve even lived.’

  ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘we’d better make use of the time we have, and see if we can find Jarnborg’s weakness.’

  Provided, that was, that it had one.

  As unlikely as an attack by Haakon seemed, we nevertheless took care to post sentries along the ridge that overlooked our landing place, as well as further inland, so that those back at the ships would have plenty of warning if indeed he came. Then, while Magnus took a handful of men with him to try to get closer to Jarnborg, I set off with Serlo and Pons and Godric to learn what we could from the folk who lived close at hand: those who did not flee at the first sight of us, and whose speech Eithne could understand. I’d brought her with us, thinking she might be familiar with whatever tongue was spoken in these parts, which she was, but only barely.

  ‘I can only understand half of what they’re saying,’ she explained to me after we’d managed to accost a grey-bearded cowherd, whose name we learnt was Tadc, and his trembling, bone-thin wife, Aife. ‘Some of the words they use are unknown to me, and they have a strange accent.’

  ‘What do they know about the fort?’ I asked.

  Eithne put the question to them, and I sensed her frustration both in her voice and in the set of her lips. Although I couldn’t understand her tongue, I nevertheless recognised the name of Haakon’s stronghold, at the mention of which Tadc and Aife suddenly froze, their eyes wide, before both began to babble at the same time, talking over one another, gesturing wildly with spindly fingers towards the north and all the while shaking their heads.

  ‘They dare not so much as set foot upon its slopes, or come within an arrow’s flight of the bay where he keeps his ships,’ Eithne said. ‘They are frightened of Haakon and his fellow warriors, with their pagan amulets and their foreign speech. He asks them for payment and they give him what he demands, but otherwise he ignores them, and they are happy enough at that. They have no reason to venture anywhere near his stronghold.’

  ‘So they rarely meet Haakon or his men?’

  I waited, trying my hardest to remain patient while Eithne attempted first to make herself understood and then in turn to understand the answers they gave.

  ‘The only time they ever speak to them is when they come to collect each month’s tribute,’ she said. ‘Most days a party comes down from the fort to collect water from the spring, although no one dares disturb them.’

  ‘What spring?’ I asked.

  Eithne translated for me, and after a few moments both husband and wife pointed towards a copse that stood
on a rise some distance to the north, which I reckoned could be little more than half a mile from Jarnborg’s gates, if that.

  ‘Amidst those trees,’ Eithne said. ‘They come twice every day, perhaps an hour or so after first light, while the fog still lingers, and again at dusk, and lately a third time as well, around midday.’

  ‘Always at the same times?’

  Eithne nodded. ‘It seems so.’

  ‘How many?’

  Again she conferred with the couple, and again I waited for the answer to come back.

  ‘Three slave-girls, usually, sometimes four, with pails that they carry on poles across their shoulders, together with the same number of guards to stop them from running away.’

  ‘Danish girls?’ I asked.

  Eithne shook her head. ‘Irish, Aife thinks. He brings them back when he returns from his travels, from places across the water. She believes they are badly beaten, since she’s sometimes heard them crying.’

  From Dyflin, I’d wager, like Eithne herself. Was it possible that the girls were kinswomen of hers?

  And suddenly the beginnings of an idea began to form in my mind. Clearly there was no ready supply of water on the promontory, save for what they could harvest from the rain. But whatever army Haakon was hiding behind those palisades would need plenty, not just to drink and to brew into ale, but to wash and to cook with as well.

  ‘How old are these girls?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’ Eithne asked, confused.

  I was in no mood to explain at that moment. ‘Just ask them.’

  After some discussion between the cowherd and his wife, the answer came back that, although they couldn’t say whether it was always the same ones who came, they tended to be young, somewhere between twelve and eighteen summers, by their reckoning. Around Eithne’s age, in other words.

  ‘What are you thinking, lord?’ she asked.

  I only smiled in what I trusted was an enigmatic fashion, waved my thanks to Tadc and Aife and beckoned for the others to follow as I set off back in the direction of camp. I didn’t want to say, not just yet. Not until I’d had the chance to consider exactly how this might work.

  Even so, a shiver of exhilaration ran through me. Exhilaration at the thought of the battle to come. Exhilaration because I sensed that vengeance, justice and honour were at hand.

  Because I knew how we would get inside Jarnborg.

  ‘There has to be another way,’ said Wace, shaking his head, once I’d begun to tell them all of my plan. ‘A simpler way.’

  The day was growing old, and dark clouds once more hung over us, threatening rain at any moment. We were gathered by the campfire, sharing bread and passing around flagons of ale: Magnus and Ælfhelm, Eudo and Wace, Aubert and myself.

  ‘Is there no other way in or out of Jarnborg?’ Eudo asked Magnus, who had been scouting the surrounding land that afternoon.

  ‘None,’ Ælfhelm growled.

  ‘We ventured as close as we dared to its walls,’ Magnus offered more helpfully. ‘We spied what looked like a doorway on the north-western side, with a path leading down to a sandy cove where they could unload supplies, but it’s been blocked up, while the cliff-face below it has crumbled away, and most of the path with it. The approach might still be climbable, for someone with sufficient knowledge and experience, but not in mail and with a shield strapped to one’s back. The only other way in or out that we could see remains through the gatehouse.’

  ‘You’re certain of that, are you?’ Wace asked, regarding him dubiously.

  ‘As certain as I can be,’ Magnus replied. ‘Would you rather go scouting those slopes yourself?’

  To that Wace made no reply.

  ‘If we’re to have any chance of victory, we need to bring him out from behind the protection of his palisades,’ I said. ‘As I see it, there’s only one certain way of doing that.’

  ‘Attacking his ships,’ Eudo murmured.

  I nodded. ‘What are Danes known for, if not their love of their boats? Without them Haakon can’t very well go raiding in the spring, can he? So if we make an attack on them, I’ll wager that he’ll come running to defend them.’

  ‘They’re well guarded,’ Magnus said. ‘He already has forty-one sword- and spear-Danes posted there. We counted them.’

  ‘That won’t be enough to fend off two boatloads of battle-hungry warriors,’ I replied. ‘For that he’ll need to send the larger part of his host down from Jarnborg.’

  ‘Which he’ll do as soon as he guesses what we’re up to,’ Aubert said. ‘And from atop that promontory, he’ll be able to see us coming from miles away. Even before we’ve entered the bay, he’ll have gathered enough spearmen to make a landing all but impossible.’

  ‘So long as we can scare him into coming out from his fortress, nothing else matters,’ I said. ‘The point is not to bring him to battle, at least not at first.’

  Aubert frowned. ‘If the point isn’t to bring him to battle, then what is?’

  ‘To distract him.’

  ‘Distract him from what?’ Wace asked.

  I grinned. ‘From the second prong of our attack.’ And I told them of my plan to slip unnoticed, together with a handful of men, inside Jarnborg.

  ‘You’ll never manage this,’ Wace said when I’d finished. ‘This is reckless beyond belief.’

  Reckless it was, certainly. I’d be the first to admit that much. Nor could I remember having ever devised a more elaborate plan than this. Not one that had worked, anyway. But if there was ever any strategy that guaranteed success without involving some measure of danger, I was yet to hear of it.

  Eudo stared at me in disbelief. ‘And what would be the purpose of this? To capture it?’

  I shook my head, aware that I was grinning like a fool.

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘To burn it.’

  I would do to his hall what he had done to the fastness at Dunholm three winters ago. Or try, at least, knowing that if it worked, it would surely shatter the spirit of Haakon and his host. For if what Magnus had told me was right, everything he held dear was contained within those walls. It was his home, where his treasure hoard was kept, and it was his pride, too.

  And I would be the one to destroy it.

  Eudo gave a chuckle as a grin spread across his face. Like me, he had always possessed something of a rash streak, and revelled in causing chaos where he could. Of the rest, only Wace did not look entirely convinced, and I supposed that was only to be expected. He had ever been the most level-headed of all my friends.

  ‘This can’t work,’ he told me. ‘You’re a fool if you think it can. How long do you think you can survive inside the enemy camp? You don’t look like a Dane, nor do you speak even a word of their tongue. How will you even get past the sentries on the gate?’

  ‘I’ll take with me someone who does,’ I replied, ‘and make sure to keep my own mouth shut. I’m not asking any of you to come with me, not if you don’t want. I’ll do my part, providing that you do yours. Speak now if you have anything better in mind. Otherwise this, as I see it, is our best chance of victory.’

  Wace breathed a tired sigh. ‘I won’t even try to sway you, Tancred, not this time. But you must understand that if anything goes wrong and Haakon’s men discover you, you’re all dead men. You and whatever band of fools you can convince to accompany you.’

  ‘I know that,’ I replied tersely. ‘Don’t think I don’t.’

  I glanced at Eudo and Magnus, willing them to challenge me, but neither uttered a word. How long we remained there in silence, I couldn’t say, but it felt like an eternity. For the first time doubt began to creep into my mind. Perhaps Wace was right. What if Haakon refused to be drawn out? What if he had enough spears at his disposal to defend his ships and his stronghold both?

  ‘How many men would you need for this?’ Magnus asked after a while.

  ‘Six or seven at most,’ I answered. ‘The smaller the party, the better.’

  He seemed to consider this fo
r a moment. ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll join you.’

  ‘Lord—’ Ælfhelm protested.

  But Magnus’s eyes were gleaming with the prospect of adventure, and he ignored his countryman. ‘You said yourself that you’ll need someone who speaks Danish. If this is our one chance to destroy Haakon, then we might as well give it our all. If nothing else, at least we’ll die knowing that we did everything we could. There is honour in that.’

  There was indeed. I grinned back at him and held out my hand. He clasped it firmly, and so it was settled. Our destinies were bound, and we would go to Jarnborg, Haakon’s stronghold, the iron fortress, together.

  Fate can lead a man upon many strange and unexpected paths, and I confess that this was one of the strangest I’d ever embarked upon. Before me was someone who not so long ago I’d have counted among my enemies, whom I wouldn’t have hesitated in killing, and no doubt the feeling was mutual. However, just as a storm will scatter ships to the wind and carry them far from their intended courses, so fate had carried us both far from the places we called home and into this alliance, with circumstance and common cause the only things binding us. Now as sword-brothers we were going to war.

  I only hoped I was not making a grievous mistake.

  And so it was agreed. Magnus and I would stay behind to lead the raid on Jarnborg itself, while the others, led by Wace and Eudo and Ælfhelm, would mount the feint on Haakon’s ships. The next morning, then, we parted ways. We would make it look as though we had heeded the Dane’s warning after all, decided against trying to fight him, and thus quit the island.

  ‘As soon as the fog starts to lift tomorrow morning and it becomes safe to sail, that’s when you’ll need to begin your approach,’ I told Eudo and Wace. We stood on the beach above the tideline while Wyvern’s crew pushed her out on to the water. ‘By that time we’ll either be inside Jarnborg, or we’ll all be dead. Haakon’s men always come to the spring in the morning, an hour or so after first light, or so we’ve been told, anyway.’