Conqueror tt-2

by Stephen Baxter

  It was only when the monk's brains oozed grey through his split-open face that the villagers ran, and mothers tried to find their children, and fathers and sons hunted for weapons in their huts.

  The Vikings stood watching, amused, unhurried. Gudrid heard Askold, her husband, speculating with the others about the women: which were the best looking, which would put up a fight. Mothers were easier to catch because they were always slowed down by their children, but they were looser than virgins.

  Bjarni watched his daughter's reaction to this talk. 'I told you not to come.'

  One man came striding out of the village. He was tall, lean, with a streak of grey in his blond hair. Gudrid judged he was a few years younger than her father. He carried a crude woodcutter's axe. Other men of the village hung back, watching, weapons in hand. This was the challenge, then. The Vikings grinned.

  The man faced Bjarni. His tongue was unfamiliar, but it was sufficiently alike Gudrid's own that she thought she could make out the words. 'My name is Guthfrith. This is my home. All we have is a few cattle and sheep, and the fruits of the sea. You are welcome to eat with us, sleep in our homes. But if you intend to rob us-please, take what you want and leave us. We can do you no harm.'

  Bjarni eyed him, sighed, and turned to Askold. 'We're here for the monks, not this starveling lot. But we don't want trouble at our backs. If we make an example of this one it might be enough to scare off the rest.'

  Askold nodded.

  Guthfrith understood what was happening. Gudrid could see the hardness in his eyes, the realisation that his life was already over. With a roar he raised his weapon.

  The Vikings rushed him. He didn't land a single blow. The Vikings took his arms, easily removing his weapon. They threw him to the ground, face down, and four of them pinned his limbs, holding him spreadeagled. All this happened in a heartbeat.

  Then Askold bent over and plunged his knife into Guthfrith's tunic at the back of his neck and cut down to his backside. He worked briskly, like a butcher. Guthfrith howled, and blood spurted, for the knife had cut a groove into his flesh, but Askold's purpose was to cut through his clothes. He spread aside the woollen cloth, exposing a heaving back already slick with blood.

  Then Askold took his axe and hefted it, standing astride over Guthfrith's torso. One of his fellows called, 'One blow, Askold. Show this dirt-digger some skill.'

  Askold grinned. Then, his tongue protruding from his lips, he brought the axe down on Guthfrith, almost delicately, a single strike that chopped through flesh and muscle and bone with a firm, meaty, satisfying sound. Guthfrith's howls turned to a gurgle as blood spilled from his mouth.

  Askold and the others kneeled over Guthfrith. Hands dug into the bloody darkness of his body, and tore back Guthfrith's ribs with a crunch of splintering bone. Gudrid could actually see the heart pumping, surprisingly big, and lungs billowing. Here was a man, a living man, his inner workings so easily exposed. Askold rummaged in the cavity, grabbed the lungs with his big hands, ripped out their roots and spread them out over Guthfrith's shoulders. Then Askold stood up, his arms and chest bloodied as if he had been slaughtering a stubborn ox. Even now Guthfrith lived on, Gudrid saw to her horror. Askold laughed, and spat in the hole in Guthfrith's back.

  In that instant Gudrid knew she would never again lie with Askold, not as long as she lived.

  Bjarni said dismissively, 'Not bad, Askold. When he's dead, nail him to a wall. Now let's get on with it. If we move fast we'll hit the monastery before the monks have time to hide anything. We'll leave a couple of men to watch the boats, though. We don't want anybody getting clever and making a bonfire of them. And torch these hovels.' He glanced around the island. On the causeway that linked it to the mainland, two figures were struggling through rising water. 'We don't want anybody getting away either. You, Leif, Bjorn, go to the head of the causeway. Stop anybody leaving.'

  Leif, a big, slow-moving man, grumbled. 'And leave the treasure to you?'

  'You'll get your share,' Bjarni said patiently. He glanced at Gudrid. 'Daughter, go with them.'

  Gudrid tried to speak. 'Father-'

  Bjarni stood close to her, so his creased face filled her vision. 'Why did you come here? What did you expect to see? I tried to warn you.'

  'Does it have to be so – wanton?'

  Bjarni thought that over. 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, I think it does. It is easier to cut a man down if you think he is less than a man, not human at all. The wantonness isn't the point, but it helps.' He glanced down at Guthfrith. 'But I think you've seen enough. Do as I say.'

  She didn't have the will to disobey.

  XVIII

  As they reached the island Belisarius saw that the raiders were already at work in the village. The people fled, running north, men with bundles of belongings, women with children in their arms, others helping the frail and elderly, some even trying to drive livestock ahead of them. Two bright red splashes showed where people had already been killed. And as Belisarius watched, the modest square houses of the village blossomed into flame, one by one. When Guthfrith's big house burned down the gaunt outline of the sacred tree was revealed.

  Belisarius felt outraged that people who had treated him with such hospitality should be treated this way. Were human lives worth no more than this? But anger was useless. He tried to stay calm, to think.

  He beckoned to Macson. 'Come. If we hurry we can still reach the monastery before the raiders get there.'

  'Good plan,' Macson growled, sarcastic. But he followed Belisarius's lead.

  They reached the monastery. There was nobody to be seen. No doubt the monks were all in the church, engaged in one of their interminable services. They probably didn't even know that the raiders had come.

  For the first time Belisarius looked at the monastery as a warrior might. The low earthen bank which surrounded it would keep out stray cattle, but would not impede the raiders. The buildings, even the wooden church, would be no use as shelters. Only the monks' squat beehive cells, built of stone, might withstand a raiders' torching. And so unusual was their shape that perhaps there was a chance the raiders might dismiss them as food stores and ignore them altogether.

  He hurried to the cells, offering up a silent prayer that similar thoughts had occurred to the sensible Aelfric.

  At Boniface's cell he pushed at the wooden door. It felt as if it had been blocked from behind. He rapped on the wood. 'Aelfric, Boniface? Are you in there? It's me, Belisarius.'

  There was a scraping. Then the door opened, to reveal Aelfric's oval face. A lamp flickered in the darkness behind her, and she blinked in the bright daylight. 'Belisarius, thank God.'

  'Is Boniface with you?'

  'Yes. We went first to the library – we have the Menologium, the oldest copy.'

  A thin voice called querulously from the darkness. 'Is that you, Roman? Let me go to the church.'

  'There are men here,' Belisarius said heavily, 'intent on killing you, old man.'

  'That's no good reason to abandon God's worship.'

  Aelfric said unsteadily, 'I had to drag him in here, to stop him going to the service. God forgive me.'

  Belisarius touched her shoulder. 'You did the right thing.'

  Boniface came shuffling to the door. 'If you won't let me go to the church, then at least we must warn the abbot.'

  'No. The raiders will concentrate on the church, the library. They may not touch these cells at all. We will wait until the danger is past. And in the meantime-well, we will pray for deliverance. We are different breeds of Christian, but we must all seek the mercy of the same God. Aelfric, show me how you blocked the door-'

  'No,' Boniface cried. Aelfric tried to soothe him, but he shrugged her off. 'We have to warn the abbot.'

  'Please, Domnus,' Belisarius said. 'Stay and lead us in prayer-'

  'Let me go.'

  Belisarius had rarely heard such authority.

  Macson shrugged. 'Let the old fool go. What does it matter? One more dead monk-'

&
nbsp; 'I will go,' Belisarius snapped. Nobody spoke. Macson looked away. Aelfric's eyes, adapted to the dark, were huge and fearful. 'Aelfric, keep them here. And block the door after me.' He turned away, not looking back, ignoring Boniface's cries of protest.

  Trying to spy out the raiders, he crept to a scrap of high ground, ducking behind buildings and walls to keep out of sight.

  They were already all over the monastery, he saw, tall, muscular men in leather tunics, like vicious, destroying angels. He was too late to warn the monks, even supposing they might have listened to him any more than Boniface had.

  And as he watched, helpless, the raiders broke open the library and the scriptorium. They didn't bother with the doors; they just smashed in the flimsy walls of wood and daub with their axes. There was little to interest them in the scriptorium, and the workbenches and vellum frames, the pots of ink, the jars of quills were thrown into the dirt.

  In the library they pulled down shelves piled high with books, scattering their loads on the ground. With an aching heart Belisarius saw his own trunk broken open by a barbarian's blade, his precious stock dumped out and filleted. The raiders stripped out the more obviously precious items, like the glorious gospels with their leather bindings crusted with jewels. But there were books in there, Belisarius knew, of far greater value than such baubles: ancient literature, some of it dating back to the days of Britannia, and more recent literature from the British provincial states – some of it the only copies in existence. But the raiders simply kicked the books they didn't want on to a rough bonfire, and black smoke rose as skin pages crisped and curled. It was the end of the work of centuries. How fragile were the products of civilisation, before these men with their iron and their fire and their dark ignorance.

  Now the raiders closed in on the church. Again they simply bludgeoned down the walls. The monks, shocked, came swarming out like black-robed termites, and the raiders waded among them, their shining axe blades swinging like scythes. As blood splashed, a brilliant, terrible red, the monks' squeals of terror turned to pain. Many of the monks died in their church, unwilling to leave the sacred ground. Others fled the closing circle of axes, only to be pursued and cut down in turn.

  After a time, when it was clear there would be no organised resistance, the raiders began to play. They stripped off the monks' habits, exposing bodies white as grubs, and made them run for their lives. They chased others into the sea, where they would surely drown. Some of the younger monks were rounded up like cattle. Perhaps they would be carted away into slavery, their days of calm and order in the monastery a distant dream. There were crueller games yet. One raider forced a novice to bend forward over the altar, and briskly raped him. The raider slit the novice's throat in the very moment he spent himself. Another held down an old man and forced a crucifix down his throat, until he choked. Belisarius thought that was the end of the abbot, that brisk, commanding, cynical manager of men.

  While this went on the looting of the church proceeded systematically. The raiders stripped out chandeliers and lanterns and the jewel-encrusted shrine, the altar services of silver and gold, and heaped it all up on the dirt outside.

  One frail monk sprawled over a wooden box, hugging it. This was the coffin containing the relics of Saint Cuthbert – and the monk who was spending his life to save it was Dom Wilfrid, the weak and foolish lover of Elfgar. Of course his efforts only served to draw the attention of the raiders, and an axe removed his head as casually as Belisarius might pluck a leaf from a tree. But when the raiders opened the blood-splashed box to find it contained nothing but dusty old bones, they abandoned it. Perhaps the saint who had already weathered centuries would survive this day of terrible destruction.

  There was nothing Belisarius could do here. Even to watch this desecration and slaughter shamed him. As the wreckage of the church's walls leapt eagerly into flames, he turned away to make his way back to the cells.

  XIX

  Aelfric waited in the gloom of the cell, with Macson and Boniface. The walls were thick, but they could hear the screams, and smell the smoke that seeped under the door.

  There was a rap at the door, making them all jump. 'It's me. Belisarius.'

  'Help me,' Aelfric whispered to Macson. The two of them shifted the heavy bed that blocked the door.

  Belisarius stumbled in. He sat on the floor, pressing his back to the stone wall. His handsome face was empty, soot-streaked. Aelfric thought he was trembling. He asked, 'Have you any water?'

  'I'm sorry,' Boniface murmured.

  'I was too late. They were there, the raiders. They burned the church, the scriptorium, the library.'

  Boniface's eyes were closed. 'The books?'

  'Robbed or burned. They destroyed mine too,' he added with a bleak humour.

  'And the monks?' Aelfric asked, dreading the answer.

  Belisarius looked at her with eyes that had seen too much today. 'Dead. Some spared, the younger ones, the strong.'

  'Slaves,' Macson said grimly. 'German monks become wealisc.'

  Aelfric stared at him, disbelieving. 'Is that triumph in your voice? Are you enjoying this?'

  Macson made to answer, but Belisarius raised a hand. 'Enough.' He turned to Boniface, who sat quietly on the bed, his eyes closed, his hands joined as if in prayer, the tumour on his face black in the uncertain light. 'Domnus. They died at prayer. That must count for something. And the bones of the saint – the raiders found them, but saw no value. I think they can be saved.'

  Boniface nodded. 'Thank you. That comforts me. But you must not be concerned for me, or the brothers. It is just as the prophecy foretold.'

  'Yes. And you knew it, didn't you, old man? You knew the raiders would come -you went through the calculation; you knew it would be this month.'

  Boniface whispered, 'Of course they would be Northmen in their dragon ships. What else could the Menologium refer to? And I knew that they would come this month. I've known it for years. I've been waiting for this day to come, this month, this year.'

  Aelfric said, 'Why didn't you warn us?'

  'Because the prophecy must be fulfilled. Because the Weaver willed it.'

  'And what about us? Don't we matter at all?'

  'Our work has been to preserve the document through the long dark ages of illiteracy and ignorance and pagan superstition. I told you that, Aelfric. That task has been completed – you've helped me do it-and so, no, we don't matter any more.'

  Belisarius shook his head, appalled. 'You're suggesting that the purpose of this monastery, of all your centuries of labour and devotion, perhaps the purpose of the whole monastic movement, was merely to protect one enigmatic scrap of prophecy? All those monks, all those dozens of generations?'

  Boniface smiled. 'The Weaver sees all. The Weaver controls all. But now our usefulness is done. One stanza is complete; the next is about to be read. The Northmen have come, just as was foretold in the prophecy, and we are to be discarded. All that remains for us to do is to deliver the prophecy into their hands…'

  Macson slammed his fist into the wall. 'What? Are you saying we should give the prophecy to the raiders? Has that tumour sucked the brains out of your head, old man?'

  Belisarius held him back with a hand on his arm.

  Boniface kept his eyes closed. 'But that is what the verse instructs. "Old claw of dragon/pierces silence, steals words." Steals words! The Northmen have come to take the prophecy-even if they don't know it.

  'And as to why, you've all seen the text. The purpose of the Menologium is to ensure the coming of the Aryan empire of the future. And it will be an empire of the sea. "Across ocean to east/And ocean to west/Men of new Rome sail/from the womb of the boar./Empire of Aryans/blood pure from the north…" Who but the Northmen and their dragon ships could knit together an empire of oceans? And, can you not hear, the Menologium is telling us that we of the north, we Germans and Northmen-we Aryans-we have the purest blood, the better stock. Rome and Greece and Baghdad flame brightly today, but the world will belong
to us in the future, not the Greeks or the Romans or the Saracens or any of that lot, for we are the superior race…'

  Aelfric remembered how Boniface had spoken of his own people as poor, illiterate, pagan barbarians, how Bede had been wrong to look back to the Romans. Perhaps the Menologium's cruel poetry of race and blood was a consolation to him for his own poor birth – a confirmation that if the past had belonged to the south, the north would own the future.

  Belisarius said coldly, 'And for this dream you have betrayed your brethren? Do you really imagine you are carrying out God's will, Domnus, by allowing your monastery to bum?'

  'My brothers have been released from the prison of their lives,' Boniface murmured. 'And besides, our lives don't matter. Not to the Weaver. To him, we are mere figures embedded in the past, locked in history as firmly as Romulus and Remus, Julius and Augustus. In a sense we are already dead, nothing more than ghosts invoked by the master of the future.'

  Macson lunged. He grabbed the old monk's habit and shook him. Boniface flopped, limp as a doll. Macson shouted, 'Enough of this rubbish. The prophecy was robbed from my ancestor, Sulpicia. I'm damned if I will allow it to be robbed again!' He thrust his hand inside the monk's habit, searching.

  Boniface tried feebly to resist. 'Leave me be! You shouldn't be here. You British are irrelevant – the prophecy doesn't concern you – leave me be!'

  Macson dragged the Menologium out of his habit. It was a slim scroll.

  Boniface, slumped against the wall, lifted his head and began to scream, high-pitched but strongly. 'Help me! You Northmen, help me! In here!'

  Macson jumped on him again. 'They'll hear! Shut up, you old fool!' But he couldn't quell Boniface's yelling.

  Belisarius took Aelfric's arm. 'The game is played out. Aelfric – go now, quickly. There is no need for you to suffer, to die.'

  'But the Domnus, the prophecy-'

  'Boniface wants to die, and God will soon grant that wish. As for the prophecy -' He extracted a slim scroll from his sleeve and passed it to her. It was the Menologium; she had not seen how he took it from Macson as he struggled with Boniface. 'I'm not sure I want these "Aryans" to own the future of the world.'