by James Wilde
‘You fell in love with her.’
‘Yes. I am a fool. It should be me out there, made king of this feast.’
Hereward saw the remorse in the monk’s face. ‘And you murdered her because she gave you ungodly thoughts.’
‘No!’ Alric brushed the tears from his eyes. ‘I… I followed the wishes of my father and mother. I had given myself to God. I was content with my path, dedicated. I wanted nothing else. But then the daughter and I talked about my mission, and God’s plan, and she paid more heed to my teaching than her brother. And we laughed, and we walked together, and from nowhere feelings rose. Love, a pure love, of the kind I had never felt before for any human, only for my…’ The word choked in his throat, and he almost spat it out. ‘God.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Sunnild.’ The monk swallowed. ‘The force of that passion, it almost drove my wits from me. Something that powerful could only come from God.’ He looked to the warrior for approval, and then hung his head again when he saw none. ‘I fought against my feelings. Time and again I could have taken advantage of her. She made her own feelings for me clear. But I resisted, even though my heart was breaking. And then, one evening before the snows came, we walked in the woods and I became consumed by madness. I could hold my feelings in check no longer. And I kissed her.’
‘That is all?’
‘Yes, I swear. And, Hereward, though God strike me down, I felt as though I had been transported to heaven.’
‘From one kiss?’ the warrior asked with wry disbelief.
‘But then her brother found us in the midst of our embrace.’ Alric’s face darkened. ‘He flew into a rage, accusing me of deceiving him and his father. He acted as though all I had done in that place had only been a ploy to steal Sunnild’s honour. And he drew the knife he used for carving toys for the children, and attacked me to defend that honour.’
Hereward listened to the squeals of delight from the women and the drunken bellows echoing from the church. Time was short. Soon the ritual would be over and the people would rush back into Eoferwic to continue their celebrations.
‘We fought,’ the monk continued in a flat tone. The warrior guessed Alric had played the moment over so many times that all life and emotion had been sucked from it. ‘There was no time to reason. I was struggling for my life. Sunnild was in tears, pleading with her brother to spare me. She claimed that she was to blame. Even then, when other women would have protected themselves, her love for me was clear. As the brother and I fell around the wood, she came between us to try to separate us. Somehow I had the knife in my hands. And I struck out, in panic, and the blade plunged into her heart.’
Alric held out his hands as if he could still see the blood upon them.
‘She died instantly. In shock, I ran, with her brother’s cries of vengeance ringing in my ears.’
‘And her kin set those Viking pirates upon your trail. A blood-feud.’
‘Believe me or not, Hereward, but in that moment I wanted to die too, so I could be with Sunnild, and for a while I considered taking my own life, to my shame.’ The monk began to cry silently. After some moments, he steadied himself and added, ‘But I would never reach heaven or Sunnild’s side if I wasted what God had given me. I have to make amends in this world if I am ever to scrub the stain from my soul.’
‘And you thought I was your path to salvation.’ The warrior laughed bitterly.
‘I must save a soul to balance the one I released from this world too soon.’
‘You are a fool,’ Hereward said, adding after a moment’s thought, ‘as are we all.’ The warrior almost felt pity for the young monk, but a vision of the woman stabbed to death in the wood jarred too sharply with his own memory of Tidhild, and his mother. Three women dead, all stained in blood. And then he recalled with a flash of unease what the wise woman had told him in her smoky hut about hidden patterns.
The jubilant cries grew louder. The crowd was ebbing from the church.
His raw emotions receding, the monk started. ‘Hereward, I am a fool. Forgive me. You are in great danger. I thought I would never have the chance to warn you and I had driven it from my mind-’
The warrior knelt and thrust his fist into the neck of the monk’s habit, hauling him up. ‘Then speak and stop your babbling. What danger?’
‘I am rotting here because Harald Redteeth revealed my crime to the archbishop-’
‘He lives?’
‘The Viking was saved from your rope by four men who had been in pursuit of you. And so our destinies continue to be bound together.’
Hereward shook the monk roughly to quiet him, and then thought for a moment. ‘And those four are here in Eoferwic?’
Alric nodded. ‘Redteeth told me that for some reason, what I do not know, they would not confront you in public, only in stealth.’
‘They fear drawing attention to me, or to themselves,’ the warrior replied after a moment’s reflection. ‘You saw their faces?’
Alric described the four men. ‘They are from the south. You will know them easily when they speak,’ he added.
Hereward returned to the door and glanced back at the pitiful figure. ‘Men are like wolves in the woods. Worse, for they have the capacity to deceive and betray as well as kill for base motives. But the life of a woman is a prized thing, and you have taken one. Whether accident or not, you must pay a price for that crime.’
The monk nodded, his face etched with grief. ‘I know.’
And with that the warrior nodded in parting and slipped outside to join all the other fools.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Merging with the throng, Hereward hid in the shadows of his hood until he was deep in the filthy streets of Eoferwic. He felt the blood already starting to beat in his head. His four pursuers were linked not only to the plot that had thrown his life off course, but also to Tidhild’s murder. They hunted him. But now he would hunt them.
When he reached the earl’s hall, he kept out of sight of the other huscarls until he could get Acha on her own. ‘You may be in danger,’ he warned her. ‘Kraki saw us together, and now my enemies are close at hand they may attack you to reach me. I would not have another dead woman lying on my mind.’
‘And do you expect me to hide like some frightened rabbit?’ Acha bristled. ‘I will cut off any hand laid upon me.’
The warrior felt a burst of affection for her. He would never forget Tidhild, but here was someone who could live in his heart. ‘Then take care,’ he said, ‘for the peace of this Christmastime may soon be left broken upon the floor.’
As soon as he was certain no one was watching him, Hereward reclaimed his axe, his shield and his knife from his hut. Comforted by his weapons, he faded into the smoky streets, losing himself among the performers, the tumblers, the pie-sellers and the ale-addled crowds. When he was sure he was not being followed, he made his way to the house where Wulfhere and his family were in hiding.
The one-eyed, one-handed man emerged from behind a willow screen at the back. He greeted Hereward with respect, recalling how warmly the monk had spoken of the warrior. Hereward listened to the words without comment, and then asked the man for aid. For the outspoken protests that placed his life at risk, Wulfhere had found his own degree of respect among the over-taxed, hard-working people of Eoferwic, the warrior knew. He passed on Alric’s descriptions of the four men who had pursued him and asked the one-handed man to spread word among everyone he knew. Whoever returns with knowledge of the men will be rewarded, he said, tapping one of his gold rings. When Wulfhere agreed, Hereward accepted the invitation to wait by the hearth, gnawing on a portion of the man’s meagre supply of bread.
The day passed. Night fell, with the wind coming in cold and hard across the river flood-plain. Heavy clouds swept in from the north-east and soon the snow was falling fast once again. Large flakes covered the brown slush and a peaceful stillness descended on Eoferwic. Hereward stirred from his brooding at the sound of muttering outside the door. When Wu
lfhere returned to the glow of the fire, the warrior saw that the man’s features were grave.
‘You were right to be concerned.’ Wulfhere squatted by the hearth, using the fingers of his good hand to balance himself. ‘Your enemies have the protection of the earl. He has sheltered them in a house not far from his hall, where they have been hiding by day but emerge when dark falls. You fear some plot against your life?’
Hereward grunted. Rising to his feet, he took directions to the house and thanked Wulfhere for his help, stripping one of the golden rings from his arm to be given to his informant.
Beneath the howl of the icy gale, drunken singing rolled out from the doorways of the houses he passed. The Feast of Fools would continue until sleep came. Grim-faced in the depths of his hood, the warrior wondered why Tostig was sheltering his four enemies. There was no love lost between the Godwins and the Earl of Mercia and his kin. Perhaps Tostig was simply being cunning, he mused. Good hospitality after the long trek could lower the four men’s guard. The earl could be hoping to draw out of them more information about the plot. Or he could be holding them as a bargaining tool once news of the conspiracy came into the open. Hereward felt unsure, but he could not risk his pursuers persuading the earl that he alone was the true enemy.
When he reached the earl’s enclosure, the snow was swirling in a wall of white. He could barely see a sword-length ahead of him. Wild music and drunken singing boomed from the hall. The huscarls were in full throat, the ale flowing freely. Tostig knew how to buy his men’s loyalty, Hereward thought. Head down, he forged into the gale through the calf-deep snow. The house Wulfhere had identified lay on the edge of the enclosure. It stood silent, a trail of grey smoke from the roof-hole whipped away in the wind.
He gripped his axe, enjoying the comforting weight in his hand. In response, his body flickered alight, every fibre burning, the blood thundering in his head. He was alive. He was the lightning and the oak. He was the feeder of ravens.
Hereward pushed into the house.
The howl of the snowstorm faded and for a moment there was only silence. The four men sat around the hearth staring at him, held fast by surprise. Hereward saw that his enemies were rough men, with faces like the cliffs of the Northumbrian coast and patchworks of scars that told long tales of lives lived in violence. Their hair was lank and greasy, their tunics stained with the road.
When they grasped who had burst into their midst, the four men lunged for their weapons. With a lupine grin, Hereward strode across the timber floor in four swift paces and swung his axe. The blade severed the top of the nearest opponent’s head midway down his nose. As the skull-cap flew through the air, a gush of scarlet sizzled in the fire. A cloud of acrid smoke whooshed up. The second man half rose on one knee, his fingers closing round the hilt of his scabbarded sword. Hereward’s axe came down again, lopping off his arm at the shoulder. The victim screamed and pitched forward, clutching at the stump.
The warrior felt as though he were floating across the face of the earth, untouchable, immaculate. He watched the blood drain from the faces of the two remaining men, noted the familiar shift of expressions like moonshadows on snow: shock, disbelief, dread. The world was silent, the air swathing him with the sumptuous muffling of goose-down. His grin broadened. Joy filled him. Euphoria. He floated across the timber boards and swung his axe a third time. To him, the weapon flowed like honey, but the third man moved even slower. The blade sliced through the chest and down towards the right hip, opening up his innards. And hard as the horrified man tried to hold them in, he could not.
And then there was only the fourth.
The ruddy-faced man threw away his sword and pressed his palms together in a prayer for mercy, as if that could turn back time. But in Hereward’s mind, the man was already dead.
Yet the warrior dropped his axe, while still striding forward, and the relief in the fourth man’s face was almost comical. A fist, driven hard, into bone and gristle. A resounding crack. And spatters of blood, a miserable amount.
Hereward caught one hand in his victim’s tunic before the unconscious man hit the boards. Dragging him away from the spreading pool of gore and the dimly heard cries of the dying, the warrior stripped him and bound his wrists and ankles. Then he strung him up by the feet with a rope looped over a beam as he had done many a deer.
Hereward waited patiently, feeling the glow diminish and his wits return. The man came round soon enough, a reedy cry rising from his lips when he realized his predicament. The warrior pricked his knife beneath his victim’s eye and whispered, ‘Quiet.’
The man looked into his captor’s face and fell silent.
‘We will talk like men,’ Hereward continued, ‘and you will tell me all you know.’
‘I cannot,’ the man whimpered. ‘I am sworn to silence, and God will damn me to hell if I break my vow.’
‘You are a godly man. I admire that.’ The warrior turned his knife so it glinted in the firelight. ‘But we have different aims, you and I. We must see whose will is stronger.’
Hereward proceeded to cut the man’s torso. The screams rang out, but the warrior knew they would be drowned by the storm and the revelry in the earl’s hall. Their back and forth continued for a while, but Hereward whittled down his victim’s resistance by degrees. Soon they were both so sticky with blood it was nigh-on impossible to tell them apart.
‘Now.’ Hereward leaned in close and whispered in the man’s ear like a priest hearing the final confession. ‘It is hell in this world or hell in the next. You may find peace, and a quick end, by answering me.’
The man muttered something unintelligible, his eyes rolling.
‘What do you know of Edwin’s plot against the king?’ the warrior asked one final time.
‘Edwin?’ Blood bubbled over the dying man’s lips. ‘Not… not Edwin. I was sent by Harold Godwinson, who would have you dead and the memory of you defamed so that all who speak your name will curse you to hell.’
Hereward felt as if he had been speared through the stomach.
Harold Godwinson, the great protector, the brave warrior, admired by all Englishmen, who prayed he would take the throne once Edward was gone and lead them to an age of prosperity and peace.
Leader, protector… betrayer.
The warrior’s blood burned. He had been betrayed once again, first by his father, now by the man who had the ear of Edward, the man who would be king. Betrayed and despised by all the powers above him. He was alone, as he always had been, and he would no longer bow down to any man. ‘Then warn the Devil that I am on my way,’ he growled, ‘for you will be in hell afore me.’
CHAPTER TWENTY — ONE
Far from Eoferwic’s streets, in the south-west, the night was just as cold, and just as bloody. The torches roared in the bitter wind. Song floated out from the king’s hall where the Christmas court had gathered, yet beyond the palisade the dark over Gloucester was deeper and more threatening than it ever had been in London, Redwald thought.
Pressing his hand against his mouth in horror, he watched Harold Godwinson grab the Mercian’s hair from behind and yank the head back. With one fluid move, the Earl of Wessex ripped the tip of his knife across the exposed neck. Drunken laughter from the hall drowned out the victim’s bubbling cry. As the terrified man’s hands went to stem the flood of blood, Harold rammed the head down to the ground and held the face against the frozen earth until the snow was stained crimson and the body had stopped convulsing.
‘A lesson for you. This is how you survive, and grasp hold of power: by not being afraid to do the dirty tasks with your own hands,’ the older man said with an unsettling calmness. In that one moment when Harold had held life in his hands, Redwald had seen his employer’s face alter; the humour, the nobility, the wisdom, all of it fell away as if it were a mask. The young man felt chilled by what he saw rise up to replace it in the cold face and glittering black eyes. ‘Do you see?’ Harold’s voice cracked with anger. ‘ Do you see? ’
Re
dwald nodded furiously.
‘Good. Learn. Now help me.’ Harold rolled the bloody body on to its back and wrapped it in its grey woollen cloak. For a moment, Redwald froze. The man’s death might as well have been by his hand. At the Palace of Westminster, he had observed this Mercian, one of Edwin’s men, following Harold as he rode out into London with his attendants. The young man had feared an attempt would be made upon his master’s life and had informed the earl of his concerns. Nothing more of the matter had been mentioned on the long journey from London to the palace at Kingsholm. But earlier this night, while Edward was at prayer and the earls and thegns were in the middle of their feast, Harold had summoned Redwald out into the bitter night. Together the two of them had lured the Mercian away from the hall to this isolated place on the edge of the marsh beside the stream, and then Harold had struck.
When he saw his master glaring at him, the young man ducked down and grabbed the corpse’s shoulders. Together they carried the remains to a small copse. Harold threw the Mercian down as if he were a sack of barley.
‘What… what will you say when the body is found tomorrow?’ Redwald ventured. ‘Edwin will suspect-’
‘Let Edwin suspect. He knows nothing and can make no accusations,’ the earl snapped. ‘But look…’ He pointed to a mess of pawprints in the snow. ‘In this cold weather, the wolves come out of the woods in search of food. They will smell the blood, and there will be no body here tomorrow, or none that is recognizable.’
When Redwald stared at the crumpled form in the snow, he flashed back to the sight of Tidhild sprawled amid the thickening pool of her blood. She had always been kind to him. He knew she felt sorry for him for losing his father and mother so young and she had stolen honey cakes for him when he had first arrived at the Palace of Westminster with Asketil and Hereward. So much misery, so much pain.
