by Justin Hill
Morcar put his hand to Godwin’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, but it did little to reassure. That night he did not sleep, but tossed and turned, his ears pricking at every sound. Footsteps set his heart racing; the sound of someone trying the latch made his palms sweat; and when he heard a door creak open, he sat straight up – and found himself in a morning hall and for a moment he was confused. Serving women piled the previous night’s embers with tightly twisted bundles of kindling. The kindling was slow to catch and for a long while – as long as it takes a man to saddle an unwilling horse – there were no flames, just smoke billowing silently up in great swirling clouds. The smoke swirled up between the raw oak rafters where hams and fish and sides of bacon hung. All his courage had departed. He felt cold and naked and he pulled the blankets about him. A distant cock crowed, almost inaudible through the thick wattle-anddaub walls.
On the hearth, flames began to appear, small and tentative as primroses; then suddenly fire sprang up, young and fresh and eager, and the cook nudged her freckle-faced helper. ‘Hurry!’ she said. ‘Fetch that pot!’
Someone shouted. Outside, men were talking in loud and excited voices. Fear prickled Godwin’s skin. The door burst open. Violent men strode in.
‘Where is he?’ one of them said. It was Brihtric.
Godwin wanted to run, but his legs shook and he was too terrified to move or squeal.
‘There he is!’ Brihtric said, and rushed forward and grabbed him.
Morcar was just rising, and he rushed at Brihtric. ‘What do you mean by this? This boy is in my care, on the king’s orders!’
‘And the king has ordered him brought to his hall.’
Morcar seemed dumbfounded by this news.
‘Don’t pretend you were not in on this,’ Brihtric said.
‘What?’
Brihtric stopped, and Godwin tried to pull away, but got a clip round the ear for his troubles. Brihtric’s hand clasped tight about his arm till it hurt so much Godwin paled and bit his teeth to stop himself from crying.
‘This morning twenty ships are missing. Wulfnoth has stolen them and fled to the Danes. The king is sorely displeased. I wouldn’t like to be this imp when the king vents his fury!’
‘So you are the traitor’s child?’ the man, grasped Godwin and his fingers were like claws. ‘Don’t give me any shit and I won’t give you any, but try and escape and I’ll set my dogs on you as if you were a common thief. Understand?’
A wave of foul breath washed over Godwin and he refused to answer.
‘Understand?’
Godwin nodded, though he didn’t know why the man should even ask him such a thing.
Gort, the king’s hounds-man, stepped forward and slapped his cheek. ‘Bastard!’ he said. ‘You’d better do as you’re told. You’ve not long left, little laddie! Brihtric’s taken a hundred ships. He’s going to catch your father. He’ll bring him to justice.’ The pleasure with which the man said ‘justice’ made Godwin shiver, but the stench from his mouth was fouler than a July midden. Gort leered down at him. ‘And if he doesn’t return …’ Gort winked at Godwin and gestured to the beasts that were chained up outside.
One was an enormous hound, with a neck as thick as a bull’s and a ridge of bristling brown fur along its spine. It had a vicious look and ugly scars across its short snout. As its keeper spoke, it stood full-square and growled menacingly.
‘See that one!’ he asked.
Godwin nodded. There was only one to see.
‘That’s Fenris. The king’s best pit-fighter!’
Gort growled at the beast and its lip curled in response. There was a horrible intelligence in those pebble-hard brown eyes. The mouth was more terrifying than any befanged Mouth of Hell Godwin had seen painted on church walls. It was real and hungry, and he was the next likely target.
Gort seemed pleased as he turned back to Godwin and Godwin flinched again at the stink of his breath.
‘If your father does not return, little laddie, I’ll feed you to him!’
Gort locked Godwin in the kennel next to Fenris and as soon as Gort had turned his back Fenris bit and clawed and tried to find a way through the wattle walls.
‘Not yet!’ Gort chuckled. ‘Not quite yet.’
Godwin waited till the monster had closed its eyes, but as soon as he moved it sat up and peered at him, ears alert. That afternoon was a long ordeal. The chained beast slept with eyes half lidded, and even when it twitched and growled and its lip curled in its violent and bone-crushing dreams, Godwin did not dare move or shut his eyes or do anything.
Only when the cloak of darkness had fallen did he dare to draw his eating knife and prise the wattle apart. He tugged for dear life. One of the hazel rods snapped. Hope rose in Godwin as he sawed and tugged.
I will make it, he told himself. I will flee.
The sound of the chain gave Godwin just enough warning to pull his fingers back through the small hole he had made – but only just, for Fenris’s bite tore the flesh on Godwin’s finger. The blood ran down his palm and the inside of his wrist. It enraged the dog.
Godwin sucked the blood away, but it was too late. A lantern swung out into the darkness, and Gort’s voice called out, ‘Don’t eat him yet, my laddie! You can feast on fresh marrow bones tomorrow!’
That night Godwin prayed. He prayed for his father, prayed the hundred ships that Brihtric had taken in pursuit would not catch him. Prayed that when the end came it would be quick.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Wolf Unfettered
Ethelred was livid at Wulfnoth’s escape. The king’s hall shook as he vented himself. It was not so much the missing ships, it was the temerity – the audacity – the insolence of a man he had honoured with arm-rings at the feast!
Brihtric took a hundred ships: their crews heaved their craft down the pale and rattling shingle, pushed them into the lapping water. They raised the masts and unfurled the square sails that stiffened to the breeze.
Wulfnoth saw the ships pushing off. ‘So the king thinks he has a better seaman than Wulfnoth Cild!’
Beorn clambered up the rigging, hooked a foot into the cleats at the bottom of the sail, and made a foothold for himself, and shielded his eyes. ‘At their head is a great ship with a blue cross on a while sail.’
‘That’s the St Hilda, King Ethelred’s own ship,’ Wulfnoth said. ‘She’s a great beast. She’ll never catch us.’
One man had the sense to keep his eyes on the weather.
‘Look!’ Caerl called out. ‘Behind us!’
Dark and looming against the horizon, the storm came like a sea beast crawling forward on tentacles of black rain, blotting out sea and sky, sent from the End Times to sweep away mankind in a torrent of flame and rain and thunder and lightning. It was easier for Wulfnoth to believe that right and reason had departed this world. How else could he have left his son behind, he berated himself. Shame battled with pride. Damn them to hell, he swore. Each coward who refused to stand for him.
Wulfnoth had gone from camp to camp, but no one wanted to risk themselves on his behalf. ‘I did what you all asked!’ Wulfnoth cursed them. They did not look him in the eye.
‘You went too far,’ one man spoke out. ‘You set yourself against Eadric.’
‘I went too far! You begged me to go to the king. We sat together and you all begged me!’
Wulfnoth looked through the crowd and saw fearful men. They had spoken bravely when the ale was flowing, now they were much less brave than their words. Who were they to say he had overreached himself, he swore. He was Wulfnoth Cild!
Wulfnoth Cild did not fear death, but he would not be dragged off in chains, like a convict, to be butchered like a slave. When the king’s men came for him he fought them off. He did not think. It was instinctive. He drew his sword and drove them off, seized horses and galloped to the ships. He expected to be cut down in the attempt. To find armed may waylaying him, his ships seized, a desperate fight on the shoreline where he was killed with his men
.
But the way lay open, the eager ships bobbing in the shallows, the wide seas promising freedom. Bravery was a fine thing, but not when it left the weak to suffer. He had not thought, and he had survived and now he looked to shore and the realisation of what he had done stunned him. It was like a dagger thrust into his gut. He clutched the rigging and cursed God as he wept. He had left his son to suffer while he sailed free. He would find a way, he told himself, his son would be taken care of.
Wulfnoth prayed as he had never prayed: desperately and silently.
He would explain, he thought. He would beg for forgiveness. He would be revenged on the king who had driven him to this end.
In an hour the day seemed to change ten times over: from sun and warmth to grey and cold and back again. Swanneck plunged into the growing waves. Surf flew like the spittle of thrashing sea monsters and the seas rose so high that the boats plunged down into valleys of dark, shifting and hungry water. A few men cried out in alarm; there was a chorus of voices pleading to the Lord: shouting prayers to St Anthony; making all manner of ostentatious offers of penance and barefooted pilgrimage to the furthest places they could imagine – the Mount of St Michel, Dunholme; Canturburie, even Ierusalem itself – if the Lord of Heaven would bring them safely from this wretched storm.
‘Taste it!’ Wulfnoth shouted as the salt dried on his skin. ‘The old gods are here! Fasten down your sea chests! Hold on to Swanneck’s precious timbers! Strike down our foes! Make peace with your Maker, this is the last sailing of Wulfnoth Cild.’
The rain lashed in great sheets that soaked Godwin to the skin. Fenris stood with his paws planted firmly in the mud, tail towards the storm, occasionally blinking the rain from his eyes as he stared at his charge.
If Godwin so much as moved, Fenris began to growl.
‘That’s it!’ Gort shouted through the rain. ‘Keep your eyes on that little lob! Hush your barking! I’ll feed him to you in the morning.’
When morning came, it was clear and still, and the sky was a pale scrubbed blue. Fenris was sound asleep. Godwin moved towards the hole he had worked on and the dog did not move. It snored gently, twitched a paw, snarled in his sleep.
Godwin hurriedly pulled out his eating knife. He sawed desperately at the hazel rods. His knife was too blunt. The wattle was too fresh and green and swollen with damp; it frayed like rope into pale fibres. He scrabbled at them with his hands, which were wet and numb from the night’s chill, and the skin split sooner than the rods did. His finger began to bleed again. Fenris growled and Godwin looked over his shoulder. The animal still slept. Godwin sucked the blood from his finger, and was more careful now. He worked as methodically as he could keeping his finger curled into his palm, lest the scent of fresh blood wake the hogbacked hound.
It took half an hour for Godwin to make a hole big enough to get his arm through. His heart began to beat with hope and excitement. He kept looking over his shoulder; Fenris still slept.
You’ll do it! a voice inside his head said, and he became giddy with hope. When his arm was through, he could unravel the woven strands. They whipped his face, sprang back into place. Almost through! Godwin thought. Almost there!
Suddenly the hole went dark.
Godwin froze, but it was not Fenris; it was a smaller yard dog, which had wandered over sniffing for food. It licked its lips, stuck its nose into the hole.
‘Heh!’ Godwin said, in what was his friendly-to-dogs voice. ‘Heh now, little laddie.’
The dog was brown and short-furred, with long whiskers. Its nose was black and wet. Godwin put his good hand up. The nose sniffed; a nervous sniff.
‘Hush!’ Godwin said. ‘Hush.’
The dog sniffed again. Warily this time. The nose pulled back and the dog barked. A short, shart yap.
‘Hush!’ Godwin hissed, but the dog barked again.
Fenris was awake in moments. He saw Godwin, pushed his head through the hole and bristled with anger. He nipped the tail of the other dog, which fled before him, thrust his thick snout further into the hole, pushed as far as the wattle would allow and strained to catch Godwin.
Godwin was pressed against the far wall of the kennel as the thick neck finally reached the limits of the hole. Fenris’s fangs were just inches from Godwin’s face. Hot and fetid breath warmed his cheeks. Godwin shrank back. Fenris snapped and his teeth grazed Godwin’s cheek.
Godwin cursed his luck. Footsteps came closer and Fenris pulled back from the hole. Gort’s face peered in.
‘You!’ he shouted. ‘You’re wanted.’
Godwin feet squelched as he hurried after the houndsman. All the faces seemed hostile now – the whole world was hostile, and the door ward was not Gamal this time but one of the king’s Danish mercenaries: a tall, freckled man with red-blond beard and hair.
‘So this is the traitor’s child,’ he said.
There was little love lost between English and Danish mercenaries and the man waved Gort through without a second glance.
Ethelred was a little drunk and laughed when Godwin came in. Godwin saw what he was laughing at: a bear that could dance to the sound of the pipe. Godwin drew himself up. He stood and shivered as the bear – held by a chain about its neck – stepped lightly on its brown paws.
Godwin was conscious of the grime on his clothes, and the lack of any members of the council. There were a few of the king’s retainers, and one of Eadric’s brothers.
At long last Ethelred turned to him. His drunkenness and arrogance and good looks made his manner more threatening. ‘Wulfnothson, your father has taken twenty of my ships!’ he said.
Godwin spoke bravely. ‘My father will return.’
‘He will. I’ve sent Brihtric after him. He will return and he will pay.’
Godwin started to speak, but Gort struck him and Godwin felt a chill on him and turned.
Eadric walked into the room. In a moment he took in the scene before him.
‘We have his son,’ Ethelred said.
‘So I see,’ Eadric said.
They all looked at the boy.
‘Your father has betrayed us,’ Eadric said, and strolled towards him.
Eadric filled his vision. Godwin stared stonily ahead. A hand took him by the chin and lifted his head, but Godwin turned his eyes away.
‘It is a shame for all of us,’ Eadric said. He spoke softly, almost gently. ‘Look at me. Look at me, child.’
He fixed his gaze on the corner of the rafters.
‘Look at me!’ Eadric said.
Godwin looked, and instantaneously felt as if he had let himself down.
‘Your father is in league with the Danes.’
‘I do not believe it,’ Godwin said, and tried to look away but Eadric still held him by the chin, and then abruptly let go.
‘Deal with him,’ Ethelred said.
Eadric nodded. ‘Bring him outside!’
At the door the two men stopped.
Eadric looked sadly at the boy.
‘How are your hounds?’ he asked Gort.
‘Well, master,’ the houndsman replied. ‘Feeling the need for a little sport.’
Eadric nodded. ‘Do they have enough fresh meat?’
‘It’s been a little lacking since we came here.’
Gort took hold of Godwin’s shoulder.
‘His father is a traitor,’ Eadric said. ‘Deal with him.’
*
Gort turned away from the manor, out towards the fields. They left the servants and stables behind. Gort walked a few paces behind Godwin, with Fenris pulling at his chain. The beast began to snarl.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Over there,’ Gort said.
‘Where?’
‘Never you mind.’
Gort kicked him. ‘That way,’ he said and pointed to a copse of trees a hundred and fifty yards across the unharvested field of barley. The king’s hall was already a few minutes behind them.
The corn was just starting to turn from green to gold. The no
dding barley had a bleak and ominous feel.
Godwin stopped. Gort shoved him. ‘Get on with you!’
Godwin saw nothing for him but a gruesome death. He shook his head. Gort shook Fenris’s chain and the pit-fighter lowered his head, ears and lips pulled back, his body ready to spring.
‘Get on with you or I’ll let Fenris go!’
Godwin’s mouth was dry. He drew in a slow breath, but his legs shook violently and refused to move.
Gort grinned. This was good sport.
‘You’d better run,’ he said, ‘before I let Fenris go.’
‘Don’t,’ Godwin said.
‘Start running!’
‘Please don’t!’ Godwin said, backing away.
He could never outrun the hound, but he could not die where he stood. The barley corns whipped across his legs as he turned and ran.
Fenris strained at the chain as Gort struggled to undo the collar.
‘Hold!’ a voice shouted.
Gort spun round. An armed warrior was striding towards him.
‘Who are you?’ Gort demanded.
The man was tall and strong, and his blue eyes smouldered as he took in the scene before him. ‘I am Hemming, and this boy is my charge. Stand aside. Stand aside!’ he said.
‘Hemming! How came you here?’ Godwin shouted, and looked for his father, but there was no one else. Only Hemming, Gort, Fenris and himself.
‘I came for you,’ Hemming shouted. ‘But run!’
Godwin saw the dog dragging at the chain. He turned and ran and did not look back. His lungs heaved, his fingers bled as he thrashed over a hedge, and the brambles clung to him like grasping hands.
‘Run!’ Hemming shouted again, but all Godwin could hear was Fenris snarling.
Godwin raced desperately towards the copse. He might clamber up a tree or hide in a hole or a hollow trunk. He could hear the hound behind him, and in his terror Godwin tripped and fell.
Hemming strode towards Gort like the Angel of Death. Gort ran off in terror, letting go of Fenris’s chain. Hemming did not give him a second glance. But instead of charging the armed warrior, the dog leapt after the fleeing boy, chain trailing like a convict that has escaped the slave market.
