by Jason Born
We walked out into the waving grass of the pasture and jogged across to the next woods where Aoife had just disappeared. “Did the gods tell you where to find Godfrey a treasure and boats?”
“No,” Leif answered in a manner that said that the spirits had, in fact, revealed to him an even better way forward.
“What then?”
“I can tell Godfrey only when he is ready.” Leif paused just before we plunged into the woods. He cocked his ear to the wind. “While you were all toiling at the futile excavation,” he began.
“Futile? It was all your idea.”
“Yes, but the thrall told you what was in the grave before the lot of you had moved an ounce of rock. Godfrey spared her for something. I bought her for you for something. We ought to have listened to the girl rather than waste strength and time.” He cupped his hand to his ear and closed his eyes, listening. “I heard sounds brought on the still air last night while you worked. They are the sounds of an army searching for us. And that army will be the means to victory for our king.”
Leif raised his eyebrows mischievously and jumped into the woods, trotting to catch up with the rest of our raiding band. I swore about the lad. What did he know? He was the son of a murderer who was also the son of a murderer. Leif wasn’t even the oldest son. He was the second son. How much more worthless could he be? He was like the fifth, dry teat on a newly freshened heifer. If the newborn calf found the dry teat as its favorite, the foolish beast would starve in a day. How much would I be like the calf if I listened to the boy’s idiotic pronouncements?
I moved a step into the forest and then swore again. I cocked my ear into the wind and listened as I had seen Leif. He was crazy, I thought. There was no sound.
Until, there was a sound. In the distance, though out of my line of sight, was the faint sound of men’s voices shouting and calling to one another. Their voices interrupted and pierced the constant low rumbling of another sound. Hooves, hundreds of them, growled their way over a nearby road or hard-packed meadow.
Maredubb’s army was approaching. They searched for a group of Norse raiders, seen by the farmer’s fellow workers.
They hunted, bent on killing us.
. . .
Yet, Leif had said that the wandering army would be our way to victory.
“Kill the farmer,” Godfrey barked.
“I’ll do it,” called Aoife.
Everyone ignored her as the humor of her eagerness was lost on the desperate nature of our situation. “It should be me,” said Killian. “It was I who helped get him into this situation and it was I who assured him of his safety.”
“Make it fast. We can’t have him calling to Maredubb’s army,” said the king. Ketil grinned while leaning against a tree. He casually picked at a hangnail. Horse Ketil appeared rested and fresh after avoiding all of last night’s labor. His confidence was peaking while Godfrey’s was waning.
“If that is his army we hear. We haven’t laid eyes on it yet,” said Randulfr. He stared back and forth at Leif and Ketil with accusing eyes. The hardened warrior of countless campaigns with Godfrey found that his future path was dictated by a slim, unproven young man who was on his side and, perhaps, by a slimy traitor who was decidedly against him. Randulfr was unhappy.
Killian walked to face the farmer who had heard the same ruckus from the horsemen and sensed our unease. The priest gave him a calming smile saying, “May you enter heaven at peace my son. May your sins be washed white by the perfect blood of Christ. May the same go for mine.” Killian drew a long knife. The blade was thinner and narrower than a saex like the one I carried. He plunged it into the farmer’s exposed throat, not stopping until his fist rammed into our captive’s wind pipe. A look of wide-eyed surprise appeared at once on the dying man’s face.
I could tell you it was the last time I saw such a sight, but that would be a lie. From that raid until now, I have watched all manners of men die in all manners. I’ve seen villains who deserved death and outstanding men who were noble and true meet their ends. To a man, each was shocked that it had come to them. You’d think they would expect it. Life is nothing but a runaway horse ride toward death’s cliff. I enter every battle with the expectation I’ll die. I’ve come close a dozen times. But if I’m honest with myself, I suppose that when those last moments come and if I find myself holding my innards in my hands and pissing in my pants, I imagine that I’ll have the same look. Though every man dies, its arrival is always most unexpected.
Killian stepped to the farmer and used an amazing amount of strength given his small stature to lower the captive to last year’s fallen leaves that still littered the forest floor. The priest crossed himself and rested a palm on the man’s forehead as the farmer’s legs jerked violently. Then the man was quiet while Killian withdrew his blade and cleaned it on his own robes.
Leif turned his attention from the dead man to answer Randulfr’s charge. “You and King Godfrey have raided here before and I dare say that you know there is no wealth on this island. Neither ealdorman nor thegn could afford to pay for the number of men we heard clamoring about and making that racket. It must be King Maredubb.”
Godfrey nodded and waved a hand to Randulfr. “The Greenlander is right. There is nothing here. We should never have come. Now we’ll die, hemmed inland like hogs. What is a sea king doing in a forest?”
“This is perfect,” giggled Ketil.
“Shut up, you conniving turd,” snarled Godfrey. It was like the praise the king heaped on Horse Ketil for rounding up the cows in the middle of the night had never occurred. “I know you’d like me to fall. It’s a game we all play while we say nothing of it. Shut up.”
“I’m happy to discuss the game we all play,” said Ketil.
“The way I figure it,” interrupted Leif, seemingly unaware of the confrontation going on around him, “is that we’ve got until the midday meal to assemble our own army. It makes no sense to face Maredubb without one.”
“My wife may find you enchanting, son of Erik, but your charms are quickly lost on me. Our best course is to skitter from woods to woods and return to our ships.” The king turned to Loki, Magnus, and Brandr. “You men run to the edges of the wood. See if you can lay eyes on Maredubb. Crawl. Do whatever it takes to avoid being seen.” The three ran off.
“If you depart here without treasure or other riches, you’ll be forced to leave your kingdom behind within the year, or worse,” surmised Leif.
“I will,” agreed Godfrey. That wasn’t a revelation to anyone. Ketil stood a little taller.
“And he’ll be king in your place,” said Leif, jerking a thumb at the Manx noble.
“Unless I kill him,” said Godfrey.
“Then it will just be someone else, another Manx or maybe a Dal Riatan,” continued Leif.
“Or, perhaps Maredubb will cross from here and take over,” said Ketil, goading the king.
Godfrey set a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Shut up.”
“So, King Godfrey, to avoid all that, we must leave here with wealth.” Leif was dogged in his pursuit of the plan rattling in his head.
“There is no wealth,” shouted Godfrey. “Their churches have nothing but wooden crosses and stale wine made from moldy grapes. I know because I’ve raided them, all of them. Other than the absent treasure there is nothing here!”
“Then why would Maredubb fight to protect it and make it his if there is nothing?” asked Leif.
It was a good question, I thought. Godfrey balled his fist and struck Leif on his cheek. Leif went down into a heap, rolled and sprang back up to his knees. He winced as he touched a quickly growing blue mark on his face. “King Godfrey, I mean no disrespect, but there must be some value on Anglesey.”
“I don’t know what they teach you, boy. Of course there’s value. They raise crops that go to the mainland. Do you propose that the sixty of us gather sacks of barley and haul it on our backs? Will sixty sacks of grain get me back my kingdom? Dolt!” he exclaimed.
&nbs
p; Leif was undaunted. “No. Where is Maredubb’s power? Where’s his capital?”
Godfrey scanned the woods for the quick return of his scouts. They didn’t come. “Aberffraw!” barked the king. “It’s on the southwestern side of the island, opposite where we landed yesterday.”
“Then instead of fleeing toward our ships, let us move in the opposite direction of that army out there. Let’s move on Aberffraw, take the village as ours and demand a ransom for her return.”
Magnus ran back into the circle that surrounded the king and Leif. “There must be five hundred horsemen. They didn’t spot me and they haven’t caught our track. I don’t know how they knew we were here.”
“The farmer’s lungs warned his family yesterday. Or, the trees have eyes,” answered the king, bitterly. “Which direction do they move?”
“North and east,” said Magnus. “Toward our ships. They move in the same direction we mean to go.”
The king was shaking his head in disgust. I knew he had made a decision with which his own mind didn’t agree. “No, they don’t. They run east. We move west to capture a capital and an island.”
. . .
Some poor traveler was going to be surprised. He would find a perfectly good horse, fit for our king, abandoned with saddle and bridle, seemingly forgotten. Perhaps even more surprising than such a fine beast, the traveler would also come across a mass of red, blonde, and brown hair tucked beneath a rotted log that sat next to a large smooth lake. The priest had insisted that we all get our long locks cut, something that, to a man, caused each of us to curse. It was mandatory, Killian said, if we were to look like helpless Welsh farmers that had fled ahead of a vicious Viking onslaught. I mumbled and grumbled while I watched the men grab a thick mat of their hair and cut it off with a saex. Just a small trim was all my hair had received in five years and now I was to lose it as part of a scheme dreamt up by Leif and an Irish priest. They were both mad as far as I was concerned. Yet, even the king sat down on the log and allowed Killian to cut off the longest portion of his hair. Godfrey stayed the priest’s hand, however, when he reached to swipe off the braids in his beard. “That will be good enough to get past the guards,” said the king.
“Why can’t we just tuck our hair in our helmets?” I whined as I plopped down on the log, the last one to go. I couldn’t bring myself to cut my own hair.
“Because it’s not common for a band of Welsh refugees to come wearing armor, even armor as dented and tarnished as yours. As for your hair, you get to keep it.” I immediately grinned and gave the now naked looking Magnus a mocking face. “You’ll be our Norse prisoner,” Killian said. My shoulders sunk.
They stood me up and bound my hands. Killian stepped back and studied my appearance. “We don’t have to do anything to your mail,” he said absent-mindedly. “It’s seen better days.” He ran to the edge of the lake and gathered a handful of mud and smeared it in my hair and face. My eyes flashed with anger and I stepped down hard on his foot. He withdrew it, yelping. “Would you rather I had Randulfr or Brandr beat you senseless so that it looked like you were captured in battle?”
“Try it,” I said.
“Shut up, you two,” scolded the king. He turned to address the men. “Keep your mail on under your cloaks. Helmets and even swords go into your packs. We have to look like we’ve just fled. As we draw closer, I want most of you to stagger and limp as if you’ve just barely escaped with your lives. And you,” Godfrey said to Ketil, “do this right or I will personally run you through before you utter even one word of treachery.” Godfrey turned to Killian, “Lead the way.”
Killian called, “Aoife! You’ll walk in plain sight next to me. Do nothing. Say nothing. Just walk. Cry if you like.”
The girl scurried next to the priest, who followed around the north side of the lake with the rest of us in tow. Leif, behind the priest, held a long rope that was tied loosely around my neck and led me like livestock to slaughter. Further back were the king and the rest of our bedraggled bunch. Godfrey was careful to keep Ketil within the reach of one quick sword stroke.
Killian found the River Ffraw. The lake emptied into the winding creek and if we followed its course, we would soon find ourselves at Aberffraw, the seat of power in Gwynedd, Maredubb’s capital city and port. Though we were all anxious, the priest and Aoife set a slow pace as we ambled out in the open along the north side of the river. He peered back and scolded us for not limping enough. Aoife repeated the priest’s scorn, but Killian cuffed the side of her head as a reminder that unless she cried, she was to stay silent.
After a short time, Killian dug through the pack at his waist and pulled out a large silver cross. He held it aloft and began chanting words in Latin that would somehow see us, the refugees, safely through the dangerous lands. Above his cross I could see the sky opening up wide and blue. The scent of the air changed from tilled earth and lush green growth to the freshness of salt. We approached the sea and Castle Aberffraw.
. . .
Despite the threat of our raid and subsequent dispatch of King Maredubb and his army, the inland gate remained yawning wide open. It was almost welcoming. “If a raid ever hit their fortress, they’d expect it from the sea,” whispered Killian between his Latin words. He crossed himself and murmured, “May their defenses be like clay.”
A lazy sentinel stood up on the watch platform surveying our approach. It was only when the priest’s voice rose to a new level that the guard was shaken from his brain-numbed slumber. He barked down to unseen men behind him. Soon those men approached the gate and stood at its center. Three wore helmets and mail in fit condition. Another three were less well-equipped. They still assembled their gear, tossing helmets atop their heads and cinching belts about their waists.
“Wait here,” muttered Killian. “Sit. You’re exhausted, remember,” he said as he shoved Aoife forward. The men, even King Godfrey, crumpled to the earth and panted. They put on a terrific show. Horse Ketil copied what the rest of the men did, but he also studied the guards on the wall as if he looked for someone familiar. He turned away, frowning.
I stood tall and proud, for I felt like I represented my entire race to these Welsh guards. A proper Norseman wouldn’t let a handful of peasants wear him out. Leif tugged down on the rope around my neck to get me off my feet. I kicked him. He cowered away, which was against his nature, but likely set the hook better than anything Killian would say.
“What have you caught yourself there, priest?” asked the leader of the Welsh soldiers. He had stepped out onto the short wooden bridge that crossed a man-made channel cut outside the fort’s earthen mound and wooden palisade. “He looks like a proud one.”
Killian brought the silver cross down to his side and rested a gentle hand on Aoife’s head. “He’s the worst creature I’ve ever seen.” The priest ran his hand down to the girl’s neck and pinched it so that she cried. “Do you see this dear one? As of last night, she and her mother were models of perfection; God’s bounty was in them. That beast raped and killed the mother and did the same to the father, I think. They took every woman of our village with them, but he stayed behind for his insatiable lust. That is the only way we were able to capture him.”
“Why not string him up in your village? Why have your brought him here?” asked the guard. He peeked around the priest to study our worn out band.
Killian crossed himself. “Because the entire island is covered with them! King Maredubb came to rescue us, but I’m afraid he was nearly routed. Hundreds, no thousands, of the pirates control the coasts and even inland. You must let us in and accept whatever other refugees come. King Maredubb may return and will need all able-bodied men to take back his kingdom.”
The soldiers behind the main sentinel crossed themselves and breathed out audibly. “So what do you want us to do with the Norseman?” asked the sentinel.
“We don’t have time for dallying. Let us in and close the gates. After that, allow one of my poor parishioners to put the first arrow into the h
eathen as a form of retribution. Then, do what you will.”
“Retribution?” asked the soldier. “I thought priests teach that is the work of God.”
“’Tis. ‘Tis. But I’m afraid we are a fallen lot,” answered Killian solemnly. “And everyone in this fort will be dead unless you close up these gates and await the king’s help.”
The soldier thought about the priest’s words for just a heartbeat before he began barking orders and waving us in.
We had breached the walls of a fortress, the capital of a kingdom, with nary a drop of blood spilt.
Now, the work would begin.
. . .
The nice thing about being perceived as Welsh peasants is that no one paid our men any mind as we slunk into the fort. It is the same the world over. Unarmed, weak men are disdained, nay, loathed, by other men with spear and sword. And rightfully so. A man who allows himself to be deprived of his own defense, granting that right to others, is offering up his manhood for castration. Our band was viewed thus. In twos and threes we limped and dragged feigned bum legs across the bridge and through the inland gate. And even if they had ventured a glance in our disguised men’s direction, what the soldiers who let us in would have seen were the mostly unhealed wounds from our rough and tumble game of knattleikr some days earlier, likely confirming in their eyes that the men Killian led had been attacked by Viking raiders.
I, not dressed as someone I was not, was the only one with whom the Welsh soldiers locked eyes. The leader in particular furrowed his brow at me. I met his stare and even barked like a dog, finishing with a rumbling growl. One of the man’s comrades swung a wooden club at me. It was only a harsh tug from Leif on the rope around my neck that spared me from receiving the blow. He jerked me on my leash deeper into the muddy streets of the town.
