by Justin Hill
Fenris was gaining on Godwin and there was no way Hemming could reach him in time. Fenris was the king’s finest pit-fighter, trained to stand his ground and lock his jaws upon his opponent, and crunch bone and life from his prey. He weighed as much as a full-grown man, could take down a deer unaided.
Hemming lost his sword in the scramble to catch the dog’s chain snaking through the barley. He hurled his spear. It was a good throw and arced towards the animal. The blade did not strike true, and Fenris let out a furious yowl, half surprise and half anger.
Godwin risked a glimpse over his shoulder. ‘Fly!’ Hemming shouted. ‘To the woods!’
Just then, Fenris turned on Hemming and there was pure evil in his eyes.
‘I cannot leave you!’ Godwin cried, but Hemming again shouted at him, ‘Fly!’
Hemming crouched down. He glanced behind and knew he could not hope to reach his sword in time. Fenris turned upon him. King Ethelred’s hound was like a demon in dog’s shape. Hemming did not flinch.
Fenris leapt. Hemming pushed the first jump back, but Fenris was a fighting dog: pure and terrible and simple. A second bound knocked the man back, the third made him stumble and then Fenris was upon him. He tore off Hemming’s ear and cheek, clamped the crown of his head in a vicious vice. His neck muscles bulged as his jaw locked and beast shook his head.
Hemming did not cry out, but he let out a low groan, as a brave man will endure his pain. Godwin ran then and Hemming’s muffled moans followed after.
The terrible noise stopped when the copse was still thirty feet off. Godwin turned and saw with horror that Fenris powered towards him. At the same moment horsemen appeared from the edge of the wood. They had falcons with them. Godwin heaved in great breaths as he ran on a few more steps, even though there was no chance of escape. He did not care about capture now so much as saving himself from Hemming’s fate.
‘It’s a fugitive!’ he heard one of them say. ‘You!’ the same voice said as Godwin stumbled forward. ‘You – come here!’
Godwin turned away from riders and hound and made futilely for the trees.
‘Hold!’ the voice shouted, and the horse was kicked forward. Godwin could feel the hooves pounding towards him. A blow knocked him to the ground and the rider swung down. ‘Stand up!’
Godwin acted stupid and kept his head down.
‘Lift your head!’
Godwin lifted his head, but kept his eyes down.
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’
Godwin said nothing.
‘It’s him. Wulfnoth’s son. Hold that dog back!’
Prince Edmund held out a friendly hand to Godwin and smiled. ‘Greetings, Godwin. Do you still play football?’
Edmund and Athelstan were cocky, arrogant and impatient for power. They held a rival court around their grandmother’s manor of Athelingedean, in Sudsexe, and spirited Godwin away, gave him fine calfskin shoes, a lambswool kirtle with an embroidered hem, and a brass and silver brooch to clasp his cloak tight about his shoulders.
In her youth, their grandmother, King Ethelred’s mother, had been the most beautiful woman in England. She had bewitched the old king, and tales were told of how the old man put his first wife aside for her. But her hair was rime-white now, her cheeks were hairy, and she had a slight hunch and a stoop to her shoulders, but otherwise Godwin thought of her as a stern and handsome lady, and she took him in without question.
The old lady had a weakness for honey cakes. They were piled up on a wooden platter. She shared them with ‘the boys’, shamelessly spoilt her grandsons as she listened to their tales of Ethelred and Eadric, and the ruin of the fleet.
‘And now Father has returned to Lundenburh and sent the fleet home,’ Athelstan said.
The old lady took another honey cake and held it between her fingers. She paused, mid-bite, shook her head and looked up at Heaven, in both a gesture of despair and witness, as if checking Christ had noticed the foolishness of her son. ‘And this is Wulfnoth’s son?’ she said.
Godwin bowed and the lady scrutinised him with clear and hard blue eyes.
‘I have heard of your father,’ she said, and she seemed satisfied with what she saw. ‘He has escaped Brihtric, I have heard.’
‘Has he? I am glad.’
‘You are glad? Why? That’s ridiculous. He abandoned you, child.’
‘He did not. My father would not do that.’
She turned full on him. ‘No?’
‘He sent one of his men for me.’
‘Did he? One man? And where is he now?’
‘The king’s bandog killed him.’
She raised her eyes in an exasperated look as if that explained everything. She did not approve of bear-baiting, had seen too much of the world to believe in goodness. Did not believe in being contradicted.
‘He abandoned you, child. Men these days are obsessed with power. They think of nothing more than themselves. It is an evil I have seen too many times. Your father escapes, Brihtric loses a hundred ships in the storm, and now my son has sent the rest of the fleet home. Even now he returns to Lundenburh, and what a farce has been played out for all men’s vanities. What sense is there in that? My husband, Edgar, would never have tolerated it. In those days men were more stern. They imposed peace on the nobles. In those days kings were real kings!’
*
A month after the English fleet had departed in dribs and drabs to their homes, a new fleet landed. The ships were sleek, the accents harsh; the feet landed with a heavy tread.
England had spent her last reserves of hope on the ships of the navy, and with the fleet’s destruction and dispersal there was no will to resist. They did not even look to their king any more, but each to their own safety. The Danish Army marched on Canturburie, and the men of Cantware paid them three thousand pounds of silver for peace, then the Army passed on into Sudsexe and Hamtunscir and Berroscire and burnt and pillaged, and no one stood against them.
At Athelingedean the princes spoke treachery against their own father. Their grandmother encouraged them. ‘Raise a banner and declare yourselves kings. Your grandfather had to fight his own brother for the throne. Men thanked him for it. “Edgar the Peaceful”, they named him. And not because he was a meek or gentle man, but because he was tough and ruthless and he imposed peace on the land. Peace and law and order!’
Edmund was all for civil war but Athelstan was against it. ‘I will not go against the king,’ he said, ‘but I will fight. Send word out that I will lead men against the Danes. It is time men had faith in the prowess of the royal line.’
The princes and their comitatus – their armed companions – were wolf-hungry for battle. The princes gathered steady coursers from the land about. They were stout horses that could cover vast distances without tiring. There was much excitement as young men gathered. They named themselves ‘the Wild Hunt’.
‘We’ll show those old bastards!’ Edmund said as he gave Godwin one of his horses. It was a magnificent bay born of the mare Freya by the stallion West Wind. Godwin named it Strider. He loved that horse. It was steady and reliable, and snorted with pleasure each morning they swung up into the saddle. They slept in royal manors, devoured all the ale and meat, and rode again next morning, looking for their quarry.
A year later, on Godwin’s twelfth birthday, he waited in the eaves of a beech wood in Oxenefordscire, watched a Danish party dismount at a village of four longhouses. Shouts of alarm drifted across the open and harvested strip fields. The buzz of a bumblebee drew slowly louder and then faded as it passed by. One of the horses snorted and pawed the earth. The sun came out for a moment as the clouds passed overhead. The shadow crossed over them and drifted towards the hills in the distance.
‘There are ten of them,’ Edmund whispered. It was good odds. Three to one. The Danes were a poor band, such as tagged along after great warlords like carrion. There were two thin men with scraggly beards, a couple of young lads who must have been on their first trip to England, a one-handed man and
a fat Dane who had stripped to the waist. He had a hairy back, striped with old whip scars.
‘Look at them,’ Edmund spat. ‘They don’t even bother looking for armed men.’
‘The fat one, he’s the leader,’ Athelstan said.
The fat man was first into the largest longhouse. He came out a few minutes later dragging a girl by the shoulder.
‘He is mine.’ Athelstan turned so that all of them knew.
‘I’ll take the redhead,’ Edmund said.
There were three lads to each Dane and more. The raiders did not stand a chance. Godwin knew his job. It was to ride behind Edmund and protect him with his own body, if necessary.
At Athelstan’s waist was the ancient sword of King Offa. For two hundred years each eldest son had carried it in battle. It gleamed as Athelstan drew it and kicked his horse forward.
Edmund carried a silver worked horn. He put it to his lips and blew a great blast as they kicked their horses forward.
The Danes looked up. They turned in surprise. A thunder of hooves broke from the autumn forest. Anger turned to horror as the Danes saw the furious faces riding down on them. They showed themselves to be cowards and craven as they screamed and turned and ran.
The princes and their company were hunters; their prey were the Danes, and any who helped them. Their number was too few to oppose the Danes openly, but they fought secretly against them and destroyed foragers who strayed too far from the main trail. It was dangerous and exciting, sleeping in woods, eating berries and fresh meat, going for weeks in the field. They were tireless and determined, arrogant as well – and after each trip they swaggered into court and the halls of the older thegns with ill-disguised contempt.
‘They disgust me!’ Edmund said. ‘These grey beards and fat-guts who roll over for the Danes.’
For the next three years the world was simple. Edmund was his one and only lord. Eadric and his wife, Queen Emma, their enemy. They hunted and sparred by day, listened to tales of murder and vengeance, and learnt to hold a gutful of beer. At night keen falcons swooped between the rafters, swift horses stamped in the yard outside, and Edmund’s grandmother encouraged them by asking the tale-tellers to put on fabulous tales of the elder days. They passed the harp from hand to hand. They sang of matchless heroes and their greatest deeds, glad voices laughing in the hall; the giver of gold on the benches before them. They were young and angry. When Ethelred died Eadric would be the first to hang from their gibbet.
Edmund flaunted his followers, even took Godwin to court. ‘No one will touch you,’ he said to Godwin. ‘You are my man now.’
And it was true.
Eadric twitched at the sight; Ethelred seemed oblivious and irritated Edmund by saying nothing; it was only Queen Emma who drew attention to the fact.
‘What is he doing here?’ she asked.
No one answered.
‘He is a traitor.’
‘I am no traitor,’ Godwin told her.
The queen’s cheeks coloured.
‘Will no one send this traitor’s son away?’
The men looked at her but did not move. Her mouth opened and then closed without making a noise.
He was Edmund’s man. Who could contradict the king’s second son except the king himself? They all looked to Ethelred. He laughed at them. ‘Look at my warlike little boys! You cannot wait for me to die!’
‘Your time is coming,’ the princes’ grandmother reassured them, but each autumn they kicked through the piles of fallen leaves and cursed the king and his council, and brooded.
More young men arrived at Athelingedean. One of them was a handsome young boy who stood a little apart: unsure and nervous and bewildered. He caught Godwin’s attention. It seemed that he must have once looked like that.
When they rode out that morning, Godwin made sure the boy had a gentle mount. As they set off, the boy rode at the back. Godwin pulled his horse to the side and fell in with him.
‘My name is Godwin,’ he said.
‘Blecca,’ the boy said. ‘I am from Defenascir.’
‘I am from Sudsexe.’
Godwin and Blecca shook hands.
Blecca seemed overawed to be talking to Godwin Wulfnothson.
‘What does your father think of you coming with the prince?’ Godwin asked.
The boy’s face fell. ‘Oh, he is dead.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Blecca did not smile. ‘My father failed to pay the taxes and our neighbour paid the tax for him and took all our land and livestock.’
Godwin listened to the boy tell his tale. It was a common enough story, for the taxes had done as much damage as the Danes. ‘My father killed the man who had taken our land and the man’s three sons set on my father one day in the field.’
There was something in the way that Blecca spoke. ‘Were you there?’ Godwin asked.
Blecca nodded.
‘I bet you feel guilty,’ he said.
‘I tried to help.’
Godwin drew in a deep breath. He turned and looked over the fields until he could compose himself.
‘My father gave me as hostage,’ Godwin explained. ‘Then he fled and left me to the king’s dogs.’
Blecca didn’t know what to say.
‘I do not know what I did to be left like that.’
Blecca was stumped. He looked up at Godwin and he seemed old and hard and angry.
‘Where is he now?’
‘In exile.’ Godwin looked at Blecca. ‘Listen, we are your family now.’
*
In those years Eadric grew only stronger; England more weak. The princes guarded their power against the day the king died. They seemed idyllic times to Godwin. When Edmund gave his word, he did not break it. Edmund was the rock upon which the drowning man clambers, and wind or storm will not shake his grip.
But he also learnt love of a different kind, for Blecca was like a little brother. He looked up to Godwin and at first Godwin felt uncomfortable with the responsibility.
‘He wants to be like you,’ Edmund said.
Godwin laughed at the idea.
‘What? Look at you. You are a good and brave man. And loyal. And how many men can say that these days?’
The words surprised Godwin, because like many men, his own qualities were less clear to him than his weaknesses.
‘You are Edmund’s closest friend,’ Blecca said to him.
‘I do not think so,’ Godwin said, but Blecca nodded.
‘I have watched. In council he always waits until you have spoken.’
Godwin laughed. Perhaps it was true. He did not know. He did not care so much. He was Edmund’s man. And that was enough.
One day word came from the south that Gytha, wife of Wulfnoth, had died.
Edmund broke the news to Godwin, and it came to him like an echo from long ago. My mother is dead, he told himself, but he could not feel it. He was numb, like the man who stands too long in the cold. My mother is dead.
Everyone knew when Godwin strode into the hall, but only Blecca came to sit with him. Godwin sat by the fire and Blecca drew up a three-legged stool.
‘I heard,’ he said.
Godwin said nothing.
Blecca put a hand on Godwin’s arm.
Godwin did not show any emotion, but at long last he looked up and Blecca saw that tears were brimming in his eyes.
‘What did I do to deserve this?’ Godwin said. ‘What did I do that they would abandon me like this?’
Blecca didn’t know. He had no answers that day.
‘She went back to her people when my father was exiled. I could have gone to her.’ Godwin stopped speaking, and Blecca sat for a long time.
‘Shall I leave?’
‘No,’ Godwin said, and stood abruptly up. ‘Come – shall we ride? I feel the need for the wind on my face. I cannot stay inside all day.’
It seemed news of Gytha’s death had reached Godwin’s father, for not long after that a messenger came to Athelingedean. ‘The man who arri
ved this morning at first watch,’ Blecca said, ‘brings word from your father.’
Godwin looked across the fire. The light of the flames was on his face and flickered in his dark eyes. ‘And what did he say?’
‘I do not know. He spoke to Edmund.’
Edmund walked in. His face was serious, and he stood behind Blecca and looked at Godwin. ‘He wants you to go back to him.’
‘Does he?’ Godwin laughed. ‘Where is he?’
‘Dyflin.’
Godwin laughed again, but that laughter masked much.
‘He asked for news of you.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘Nothing,’ Edmund said. He knew Godwin’s mind and Godwin nodded.
‘Good,’ he said.
‘He also brought news,’ Edmund said. ‘Blecca, go and check on the horses.’
Blecca understood and ran outside. Godwin caught the note in Edmund’s voice and waited till the prince sat down. ‘Swein Forkbeard is gathering another Army.’
Another Army: battle, death, tax, famine, disgrace. The thought made Godwin feel ill, but his expression did not change, and he made no visible reaction.
‘This time,’ Edmund said, ‘he claims he will take the throne itself.’
‘Does your father know?’
Edmund nodded. ‘But he will not do anything.’
‘I will not leave you,’ Godwin said.
‘And I will not leave England.’
‘We will fight?’
Edmund nodded. ‘And die if necessary. Men will sing of Edmund Atheling and how he met the Danes in battle and did not flee.’
They were young and ambitious and a glorious death seemed a fine thing to them both.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Forkbeard
In the summer of 1013 Swein Forkbeard, King of Danemark, sailed into the wide mouth of the Hymbre. It was the largest fleet that anyone could remember.
‘Where is your king?’ Swein demanded. ‘Where is your feeble king? Is there no one in this country who will fight me!’
Swein landed only fifteen miles from Morcar’s hall.
Sigeferth burst into Morcar’s hall, but Morcar had already heard of the arrival of the Army on his doorstep and he paced up and down like a trapped wolf.
