The Splintered Kingdom

by James Aitcheson

  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 count 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.

  Out in the yard were gathered close to two dozen warriors, I reckoned, each with a spear in one hand and a round painted shield in the other. At their head were the men of Bleddyn’s teulu – the ones who had brought me here – mounted and armed as if ready for war. Dogs were barking; somewhere a cockerel had been woken by the commotion and was crowing, though there was no sign yet of the approaching dawn. Nor was there any sign of Eadric, though the gates to the fort lay open. Blackness lay beyond; cloud veiled the stars and the moon so that not even the river could be seen.

  Dyfnwal called to one of the watchmen upon the walls, who replied in what I took for a negative tone.

  ‘He waits for us outside,’ he told me in halting French. ‘He is afraid, you see. For all his posturing the Wild One knows that if he sets foot within Mathrafal he is relying on our kindness and placing himself at our mercy.’ His expression twisted in distaste, he gazed out beyond the gates into the country beyond, where tiny pinpricks of lantern-light now shone, glinting off spearpoints and mail hauberks. ‘King Bleddyn might have forgotten his past misdeeds, but many of us have not, nor have we forgiven him for the blood that he shed.’

  That was the most that I had ever heard the sour-faced Welshman speak; the most, indeed, that anyone had said to me in many days. I wondered what he meant by it. Of course if Eadric had held land out on the Marches under the old king then probably he had once fought many of the men with whom he was now allied. That was some years ago now, but clearly there were some among the Welsh who still bore a grudge against him.

  ‘Dilynwch fi,’ Dyfnwal shouted to his men, and to me said simply: ‘Move.’

  We passed beneath the gates, along the rutted track that followed the river to a marker stone perhaps two hundred paces from the fort. The furthest that an arrow-shot from the top of the gatehouse could reliably find its target, I supposed: there as a warning to any who approached that they were within the killing range. Eadric and his retinue had drawn to a halt a little way beyond it, although whether that was by mere happenstance or whether that was borne out of fear, as Dyfnwal had insinuated, I was not sure. With him were some thirty or more warriors, all with horses, together with a single cart drawn by a team of oxen, a man in dark robes who could have been a priest or a monk, and a huntsman with a pack of dogs. A sizeable company, all told: less a war-party than a noble entourage, but then perhaps that was the point, since Eadric had come here not looking to fight but to bargain.

  Though he had been there at Mechain, I had never seen the man at close hand before, and so at first I was taken by surprise. He was not as men had described him to me, nor how I had imagined him either. Despite his byname he seemed to me far from wild, either in appearance or in manner. In my mind he had been a hulking brute of impulsive nature, built like a blacksmith, stinking and unkempt, with a long, straggling beard and hair growing out of his nostrils. A young man, indeed, whereas the one stood here was in his middle years, well groomed, with a stiff bearing and small, hard eyes that possessed a gaze sharp enough to pierce the best mail. Surrounding him were his armed retainers, his hearth-troops, his huscarls: stout fighters with whom I would have thought twice before crossing swords, even were I fully awake and fit.

  The Welshmen dismounted, leaving their ponies by the marker stone and approaching on foot so as to meet the Englishmen on equal terms. The hunting dogs growled and strained at their leashes, but Dyfnwal ignored them.

  ‘Lord Eadric,’ he said. He spoke in the English tongue, presumably in mock deference, for his words were not respectful. ‘It is a while since I last laid eyes upon your ugly face. Should I assume that—’

  ‘Assume nothing,’ Eadric cut him off cleanly and sharply, like a butcher’s knife cleaving through a haunch of meat. He nodded towards me. ‘Is this him?’

  ‘It is.’

  He strode towards me, eyeing me closely, as if suspicious that I were not who Dyfnwal claimed. ‘Tancred a
Dinant?’

  ‘So they call me,’ I answered, doing my best to sound defiant, though I wasn’t sure that I succeeded.

  ‘You’re shorter than I expected,’ he said to me in French, though he was only slightly the taller of the two of us. ‘And thinner too. Hardly the famed warrior whose feats and prowess I have heard so much about.’ He turned to Dyfnwal. ‘I sincerely hope you have been feeding him, Welshman. If he dies of starvation or ill health before the ætheling sees him, I shall hold you to account and he will have your head.’

  ‘We have kept him fed.’

  Not very well, I would have added, but decided it was probably better that I kept my mouth shut, for now at least.

  ‘As for the price,’ Dyfnwal went on, ‘it has now increased. Twenty pounds in silver, or goods to the same worth.’

  ‘Twenty pounds?’ Eadric snorted with some indignation. ‘You think I carry twenty pounds of silver with me? No, the price remains as I agreed with your king. Twelve pounds is what I bring, and that is what you will receive.’

  The Welshman considered for a moment, and exchanged some words with his comrades. Either way it was a large sum. I supposed it was a tribute of sorts to the regard in which the enemy clearly held me, and perhaps in other circumstances I might have taken it as a compliment.

  Dyfnwal shrugged. ‘If that is all you offer, then you will not have him.’

  ‘Do not test my patience, Welshman. Believe me when I say it would be better if you took advantage of my beneficence, lest my humour should blacken further.’

  ‘You will not intimidate me, Eadric. I fear neither you nor your master the ætheling.’

  Eadric stood in front of him, so close that I thought he was about to strike him. ‘I don’t ask that you fear me,’ he said slowly, as one might if trying to explain something to a child. ‘I ask only that you give me what was promised to me by your king. Now hand him over.’

  ‘And if I refuse, then what?’ asked Dyfnwal, smirking.

  ‘Then this.’ As if from nowhere Eadric’s knife was in his hand. Without warning he plunged it into the other man’s unprotected thigh, driving it deep and leaving it there while he flourished his sword. ‘You will not stop me from taking what is rightfully mine!’

  Dyfnwal fell backwards, clutching at the wound and yelling out in agony as blood spurted forth. All at once Eadric and his huscarls were amongst the Welshmen: slashing, swinging, thrusting, driving shining steel into their bellies. For a moment I stood rooted to the ground in surprise, but as the ones guarding me bared their steel and threw themselves into the fray my senses returned. One of the huscarls, more alert than the rest, made a grab for me, but the weight of his mail made him slow. I ducked low and twisted away before he could lay hands upon me. Even as the Wild One bellowed the order to seize me, I was turning, running as I never had before, my bare soles pounding the damp grass as I summoned every last ounce of strength in my legs. Once or twice I stumbled upon the turf, nearly tripping, but somehow managed to stay on my feet and to keep moving. If I fell they would catch me and all would be lost. This was my one chance and I could not let it slip.

  Steel clashed against steel, ringing out through the darkness; the silence of the night was broken by shouts and screams as I rushed to the nearest of the Welshmen’s ponies and clambered ungainly up on to its back, kicking my bare heels into the animal’s flank almost before my arse had found the saddle. The wind buffeted my shoulders and my face as I clung to the reins and raced across the fields that surrounded the fort, following the course of the river as it wound up the valley away from Mathrafal. Before long, however, I heard Eadric’s men riding in pursuit, hooves pounding in rapid rhythm. I dared not look back to see how many they were, but with every stride that my pony made I could hear their cries growing louder and knew they were getting nearer. Their mounts were stronger and faster than mine and in open country they would soon be upon me if I did not do something.

  Leaving the main track and the river plain, I climbed the slope towards the woods, hoping to lose my pursuers in the trees, the undergrowth and the night. Relying on the nimbleness and sure-footedness of the Welsh horseflesh beneath me, I darted in and out of the trees, ducking to avoid the larger branches and crashing through some of the smaller ones, wincing as they made great scratches across my face and chest. I knew not where I was going, only that I could not stop. I climbed ever higher, pushing on until the shouts behind me had faded to nothing and my heart was no longer beating quite so hard, and even then I kept going, forcing myself to stay awake as I traversed ditches and streams and crossed grassy clearings where the ashes of old charcoal fires lay, venturing deeper and deeper, until at last I came out on the other side. A river ran before me; whether it was the same one or not I had no way of telling. Although we must have marched not far from here only a few weeks ago, I did not recall this country. Of course the night had a strange way of making even well-known places look new and unfamiliar, but that was only another way of saying what deep down I knew: as well as being hungry and cold, sweating yet shivering, I was now lost.

  The one thing that gave me some cheer was the thought that if I had no idea where I was or where I was going, neither probably would Eadric and his huscarls, since these lands beyond the dyke would be as new to them as they were to me. That was my hope, at least, and since it was only a hope and not anything I could be certain of, I rode on, following the valley upstream for want of any better direction to travel in, trying as much as possible to keep the river in sight.

  All too soon, though, my mount began to tire. I had pushed him hard and now his steps were growing ever slower and less steady, until he could go no further and I had to leave him and carry on alone. Somewhere in the distance dogs barked, or perhaps it was only my imagination. Still, I decided it was better not to wait to find out which, and so I forced my legs to carry me just a little further. Shortly I came to another tumbling brook, but this time instead of simply crossing it I splashed on up the slope that it came from. If Eadric’s hounds did have my scent, then I had to lose them somehow, and this was the only way that came to mind. Sharp pebbles dug into my soles as I splashed through the frothy, noisy waters; in some places the bed was so uneven that I had to use my hands to steady myself. To give up was to choose death at the hands of the English, and that thought kept me trudging onwards, one step at a time, gradually climbing, until eventually the stream grew too steep to follow and I left it, instead striking out across the hillside for another mile or more, hoping that I had done enough to evade them.

  Certainly I heard no more barking, and for that I was thankful. All my vigour was long spent and I could barely keep my eyes open. A thin rain was beginning to fall and I took shelter beneath the thick drooping branches of an old hornbeam. No sooner had I laid my head down upon the earth than I was lost in sleep.

  The next I knew the skies were grown light. My head was heavy and throbbing with pain, my throat dry and sore. Rain pattered upon the ground around me; my braies were wet and clinging to my skin and I was chilled to the bone. Something was jabbing into my back, once, twice, and again, each time harder than the last. Groaning, still not quite sure how I’d come to be here, I rolled over, straining my neck to see what it was. A man and a woman stood looking down upon me: the former in his middle years with greying hair, holding a crooked branch; his companion probably of an age with Leofrun, thin and with an ill-fed look about her, and guarded eyes.

  ‘Byw yw ynteu,’ the man said, whatever that meant. He exchanged a glance with the woman, who might have been his daughter or possibly his wife; it was hard to tell.

  I wanted to say something, but at the very moment I happened to open my mouth a burning sickness swelled in my stomach, rising up my throat, until in one great heave it all spilled out on to the damp ground. Exhausted, I closed my eyes and collapsed back, my neck no longer able to hold up my head.

  Dimly I was aware of them speaking, before I felt myself being moved. One taking my shoulders and arms and the oth
er my legs, together they managed to carry me a few paces at a time. I had barely enough strength to move my arms, let alone struggle; my whole body felt numb with cold and fatigue.

  How long it was before I realised that we were no longer in the woods, I couldn’t say. No longer when my eyes opened did I see branches swaying overhead; no longer could I hear the wind rustling the leaves and birds calling to one another. Instead I saw soot-blackened timbers and thatch with a hole through which smoke was quickly rising. Kindling crackled in the fire-pit in the centre of the room; above it on a spit hung a small iron pot, inside which something was bubbling.

  A rough woollen blanket had been laid over me, but otherwise I was naked. I lay upon a mattress of dried ferns, which in turn was raised off the floor by planks of timber; close by my head stood a large ironbound chest while on the other side of the room, close by the doorway, was a stout bench, upon which sat the young woman, picking at her teeth with a twig while she watched me. Perhaps my eyes had been playing tricks on me before, for my first thought was that she seemed prettier now. Not as pretty as Leofrun, it had to be said, but attractive nonetheless. She smiled when I met her eyes, and rose from her stool to help me sit up.

  My braies, I saw, were drying over a stool beside the fire. While the woman attended to whatever was cooking, I held the blanket close around me, partly because I was cold and partly to keep my nether regions from her sight, though if she had been the one who undressed me then I was probably too late for that.

  She returned in short order with a wooden bowl into which she’d ladled some sort of broth. At the very smell of food I thought myself about to vomit again, but somehow I managed to hold it down.

  ‘Yf,’ she said, kneeling beside me and proffering it to me. I took it in shaky hands, clasping it firmly so as not to drop it or spill any over myself. In the thin mixture I saw cabbage and leek, and some other small vegetables chopped finely so that I could not say what they were.