The Conquest

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  The Draca rode out the storm and with the coming of dawn, battered and bruised, but still intact, rolled at anchor on the swell of an iron-hued, sullen sea. Over their heads the clouds still churned, driven like the gulls by the directionless, boisterous wind. Feeling as stiff as an old woman, Julitta clambered in ungainly fashion to her feet and went in search of a cup of water and a crust of bread to calm her quailing stomach. Beltran was sitting on a rowing bench near the steersman and chewing on bread and smoked herring. His eyes were pouched with weariness and there was a troubled frown between his brows.

  'Good morrow, my lady,' he greeted Julitta and offered her a share of his breakfast. She declined the herring, but accepted the bread and a cup of watered wine.

  'Have we seen out the worst of it now?' she asked as she made to return to Mauger.

  'I hope so, my lady. We took a fair battering last night. Sail's stretched beyond good use. It'll be slower progress from now on.' He sucked his teeth and shook his head. 'I'm sorry it could not have been a smoother passage.'

  Julitta managed a weak smile. 'So am I.'

  Mauger sat up groggily and with a groan, took the cup that Julitta handed to him, having sipped her share. He drank thirstily, his body in desperate need of moisture after the terrible purging of yesterday. Red-eyed, rumpled, stained, he looked at Julitta over the rim of the cup. She had bound up her hair in a tightly knotted kerchief, her cheeks were scarlet, her lips salt-dried. Her shoes and the hem of her gown were sea-stained too. She looked like a fishwife. It was in her blood, a product of her tough, Norse heritage. Thus the women of her forefathers who had crossed the seas in open boats must have looked. Mauger acknowledged to himself that he would have been one of the farmers who stayed at home and never went a-viking.

  Cynwulf was a sea-raider, a pirate, whose home for the past twenty years had been the deck of a longship and the high seas between Dublin and Ushant. He was an English exile, a huscarl who had survived to flee the battle of Hastings, and found sanctuary in the Norse pirate port of Dublin. Robbed of his homeland, he now robbed the Normans who had stolen it from him, exacting his revenge on their traders and merchant vessels.

  His ship, the Fenrir, had seen better days, so had its crew, and the recent storm had done little to make them any more presentable. They had sailed out from Dublin on a promising wind together with three other raiders, but the squalls of the last two days had scattered the longships and each had now to make his own way. Cynwulf was irritated. Prey was easier when hunting in a pack. One to one could be dangerous, and although he had never shrunk from peril, he was aware of his encroaching years and the slowing of his body.

  Cynwulf scanned the horizon with weather-creased eyes. The jagged coastline of Brittany rose out of the mist on the Fenrifs larboard bow. A sailor dropped a knotted sounding line and drawing it back up, shouted the depth to the steersman. Gulls screamed overhead and a watery sun pierced the clouds. Cynwulf had contemplated putting about and returning to Dublin, but now he squared his shoulders and took the decision to remain at sea. Storm-battered they might be, but there would be other vessels in similar case, probably up from Biscay, and if he chose carefully, the Fenrir could yet earn her keep with a hold full of booty to replace her ballast of common rock.

  It was midday when the sail was sighted on the horizon. The muscles stood rigid in Cynwulf's jaw. He strode to the raised deck on the prow and followed the sailor's pointing finger to the tiny red and yellow patch off the starboard gunwale. It was almost beyond vision, but in the fullness of time, unless it altered direction and sailed out to sea, it would cross their path… or they would cross its path.

  'Break out the oars,' Cynwulf commanded. 'Let's take a closer look.'

  'Sail to port!' bellowed the Draw's lookout. 'Coming up fast!' Beltran cupped his eyes and squinted across the glittering heave of the sea. He saw a rig similar to the Draca's own, the sail a plain, cream-coloured canvas. She was using both wind and oar power. He counted the number of rowing ports — a dozen either side, dipping and rising in smooth, powerful motion. Beltran cursed under his breath and began shouting rapid commands.

  'What's wrong, what's happening?' Mauger came to Beltran's side and narrowed his lids in the direction of the captain's scrutiny.

  Beltran shook his head. 'I may be wrong, but I'm not about to wait around and find out. Yonder vessel, she's bearing down on us too fast to be friendly.'

  'You mean she's a raider?' Mauger looked appalled. His recovering complexion turned green again.

  'We're in the right waters. They usually hunt in packs, but there are always lone wolves out on their own.' He glanced at Mauger from beneath his brows as he went to help trim the sail. 'Best look to that beast of yours; make sure he's well tied. There's some spears stacked at the side of the rowing benches. Arm yourself… and Lady Julitta too.'

  'We can outrun them, surely,' Mauger said, a swallow in his voice.

  'I hope so. Depends how much ballast she's carrying against the weight of our cargo.'

  Mauger took two spears and retreated to the hold. Julitta was leaning over the painted gunwale, staring at the oncoming vessel. Red strands of hair had escaped her kerchief and were whipping against her face. 'Beltran says they could be raiders. You've to arm yourself,' he said.

  She turned round. Her eyes had widened at his words, but she nodded sensibly, and took the weapon from him as if it was something that she did every day. 'What will they do if they are raiders and they catch us?'

  Mauger thought of all the tales he had heard about the viciousness of Dublin pirates. 'I don't know,' he answered. 'Ransom us, I hope.'

  Julitta hefted the spear the way she had seen the soldiers do at battle practices. She wondered whether it should be thrown, used as a stabbing weapon, or as a stave to keep the other vessel from grinding up sufficiently close for a boarding party. Like Beltran, she had counted twenty-four oars. Their own crew numbered a dozen, plus themselves. Odds of two to one at least.

  It quickly became clear that the pursuing vessel had far from friendly intentions. As she approached, tacking to meet the Draca, Julitta saw the glint of sunlight on spear tips and shield bosses. She was a low-slung dragon-ship, built for speed, otter-sleek in pursuit.

  Beltran ran the Draca as close to the wind as he dared, her sail trimmed as best could be managed after the stretching of the storm, and the heaviest members of the crew leaning out on her windward gunwale. She cut through the ocean swell with a smooth, hissing force, the waves parting beneath her knife-blade hull. But despite her surging progress, the sea-raider closed in, grapnels and spears at the ready.

  Julitta could see the men on the longship now – salt-bearded warriors, some in armour, some in plain tunics, all of them bearing weapons. She could hear their shouts too. In a mingling of Anglo—Saxon and Irish—Norse, they bellowed their intentions across the diminishing gap of sea between themselves and the Draca, none of them remotely honourable.

  A spear curved through the air. Its sharp iron tip ripped its way down the Draca's sail and rested, embedded in the cloth. Another flew, shaving past Beltran and thrumming into a wine barrel in the hold. Red liquid spouted like a slashed artery. Mauger's stallion struggled against his restraints, and whinnied. Despite the cold sea breeze, sweat creamed his dark hide.

  A grapnel struck the Draca's straking and splashed back into the sea. A second and third were thrown, both clawing fast in the gunwale. Crew members strove to free their ship of the barbs. Spear-silver flashed and a sailor staggered backwards and collapsed, his task incomplete, his chest pierced. Mauger stepped over him to take his place, but it was already too late. The two hulls ground together, and a helmeted warrior hauled himself aboard the Draca.

  Mauger thrust with the spear and the man died. He wrenched the shaft from the body with a snarl and leaped to tackle the next raider. But although Mauger held his own ground, he could not hold the entire length of the ship, and the pirates swarmed aboard.

  The Draca lost her momentum and
began to pitch and roll beneath the onslaught of violent activity and an untended sail. Julitta staggered and fell against the wine casks, losing the spear with which she had been keeping an amused raider at bay. He straddled her, and hauled her to her feet by a fistful of her gown.

  'What have we here?' he said in Saxon, and dragged off her head covering. Her bright hair blazed free, and he whistled in admiration. 'Irish red,' he said.

  'Take your hands off me!' she spat, using her mother's native tongue to reply rather than the Norman French of her daily usage.

  For a moment, surprise blinked in the hard eyes. 'English,' he said. 'You should not be on a Norman trader.' The gaze narrowed. 'I will put my hands where I want upon my captives.'

  She kicked him in his unprotected shins and swooped to bite his hand. He yelled and snatched it away, cursing; his sword came up. A spear thrust from behind gouged his side. Impaled he staggered on the pointed tip, swivelled, tried to beat it away, but Mauger leaned into the shaft and pushed the point in deeper. The raider screamed and swung his sword in a wild arc, catching the black stallion's halter rope and severing it in two. Mauger wrenched out the spear with a grunt of effort, and as the raider fell across the wine casks, clambered across him to secure the horse.

  Her belly a vast, empty pit, Julitta swooped upon the dead man's sword. The weight hurt the tendons in her wrist and it felt unwieldy in her hand, but she braced it, holding it across her body in defence.

  Mauger had reached the stallion, but he could not grasp the shorter, loose end of the halter rope attached to the headstall. The black whipped his head from side to side and snapped and fought. Such were his struggles that the rope hobbling his forelegs broke, and suddenly he was free to rear. Mauger dived to one side, but was not fast enough, and a red gash opened along the line of his temple. Julitta screamed her husband's name and leaped onto the wine casks to try and help him. He sat up, blood pouring from the wound.

  'No, stay back!' he roared. 'Julitta, in Christ's name… ' His words were never completed, for a gust of wind slammed into the untended sail, sending it hard aback and, with the same slow grace as a diving whale, the Draca curved over into the water.

  Julitta was thrown backwards onto the canvas-covered wine barrels. The raider Mauger had downed was still alive. She heard the air rattling and sucking in his lungs, before the rush of cold, green sea took away every other sound. Too dazed to scream, she was rolled under with the ship. The water was as icy as the fingers of death and it invaded her clothing, weighting her down. She kicked violently for the surface and broke through the heaving barrier to draw the pain of air into her starving lungs. Sea water slapped into her mouth, making her choke and gulp. Her garments dragged at her legs. Death smiled, biding its time.

  Other heads bobbed in the water, shouting and choking, members of both crews now victim to the sea. She could not see Mauger and screamed his name. Wine barrels, sea chests, oars floated past her. Before her eyes a raider gave up the struggle to swim in his armour and sank. 'Mauger!' Julitta shrieked, casting desperately around. Sea water filled her open mouth and she choked violently. A wave slapped over her head, and when she broke surface again, struggling for air, scarcely able to draw it in for coughing, she knew that she was going to drown. Waves pushed at her in rapid succession. Her eyes were so salt-stung that she could not keep them open. Nor did it matter. The forces of wind and tide carried her away from the Draca and the raiding vessel. Death opened its arms and said Welcome.

  She was drifting towards oblivion when a hairy tentacle slapped against her arm, and she heard a shout. For a moment, disoriented, she thought she was being dragged down to hell, and thrust out her arms, trying to beat the beast away, only to realise that far from being a sea-monster or a denizen of the underworld, it was a hemp rope. To have hit her so strongly and from such an angle, it could not possibly be a part of the capsized Draca. She seized upon it, clinging to a last hope of rescue upon death's open threshold, and felt the line go taut.

  Squinting, almost blind, through the heave of the sea she saw the hull of another vessel, and spidering out from her gunwales, a dozen such ropes, with crew members leaning to pull survivors in to the spread of fishing net against her sides.

  Julitta turned her back on death's door, but it did not close behind her. She was weak, more than half-drowned, and the insidious cold of the water was chilling her body beyond functioning. Although she reached the side of the rescue vessel, she had not the strength to let go of the rope and set her hand to the netting. And the climb was so far, the vessel much deeper in draught than the Draca. It was a mountain, and it was a mile too high.

  'Julitta, don't let go!' an anguished voice yelled. 'In the name of Christ, hold tight! I'm coming down to you!'

  'Ben?' The word croaked out of her, and brought on a paroxysm of coughing. For a moment the world spun into darkness and her fingers loosened on the rope. Then she tightened them with a convulsive jerk, obeying a command that was stronger than death itself.

  He seemed to take an age, but it could not have been more than a matter of minutes before she felt his weight on the net above her. Then he was in the sea beside her. She shook her head, she dared not speak lest she begin coughing again.

  'Christ, Julitta, don't fail me, don't let go!' he commanded again. 'Not until I tell you. Look, I'm going to put this around you to stop these other ropes cutting in. It's a spare horse sling. We're going to pull you up. Just nod if you understand.'

  Julitta nodded and compressed her lips. There was so much she wanted to say, and all of it jailed inside her head. Nor were her thoughts coherent, for she was barely conscious.

  Aware that he had very little time, Benedict worked rapidly, passing the sling around her body, tossing the loop to another crew member halfway up the netting, who then threw it to another man on deck. He could tell that Julitta was almost spent. Her face was ice-white, her lips bloodless, and there were blue shadows beneath her closed eyes. It was God's mercy that theConstantine had been close to the Draca. Whether it was God's mercy too that the Draca had been attacked instead of the Constantine, Benedict did not want to explore. God's will, perhaps. A shout floated down from the deck. Benedict acknowledged it with a wave. 'You can let go of the rope now,' he said to her, and laid his hand over hers, where her fingers were clutched in spasm on the dark hemp. She did not respond, and he had to prise away her grip gently.

  Carefully, they lifted her from the water, and laid her down upon the deck. A strand of hair lay over her face like a ribbon of dark-red kelp, and emphasised the white coldness of her skin. Her eyelids fluttered.

  'Ben?' she whispered.

  'I'm here, Julitta, you're safe, you're safe. Nothing can touch you. The raiders haven't the strength to take us on too. In a moment you'll be warm and dry.'

  'Mauger, he…' With the last of her strength she rolled over and vomited sea water. The deck came up to meet her, heaving and tilting on the swell of the waves. 'Mauger…' she croaked again, trying to stay conscious.

  'Hush, Julitta, it's all right.' A warm, coarse blanket was wrapped around her and she felt herself being raised and carried. The daylight behind her lids darkened and a heavy stable scent filled her nostrils, removing the deadly sea-tang. She was deposited on a pile of hay and a flask was pressed to her lips.

  'Drink,' Benedict commanded. 'It's strong mead.'

  Obediently she took a swallow and felt the fiery sweetness slip down her throat and burn in her hollow stomach. She opened her eyes and saw that she was in the Constantine port hold among Benedict's horses. The only light was provided by a single horn-sided lantern suspended from a hook – it was too dangerous to have more. She took another sip of the mead and returned the flask to Benedict. 'Mauger… he – I lost him when we went over. He was wounded. The horse; it broke free and struck his head.' She looked up at him with haunted eyes. 'I fear for him.'

  Benedict uttered neither platitude nor reassurance. There was no use in either. Given the speed at which the Draca
had capsized, Mauger was not likely to be the only victim. 'I'll go back on deck and help look out for survivors,' he said, and hesitated, awkward before her now that the immediate crisis of her rescue was over. 'That blanket's soaking now, and so are your clothes. If you want to take them off, I'll lend you my spare clothes.'

  Julitta nodded her thanks, wary of using her voice. The urge to retch was still strong. Behind her eyes, there was a hot, swollen ache, as if the sea had poured in there too, and was now seeking to flood out.

  Benedict handed her a fresh blanket, disappeared into the gloom among the horses, and returned with a pile of garments. 'Here. Are you strong enough to put them on?'

  Again she nodded.

  Benedict hesitated, stooped to stroke her cold cheek, and went to the hatch ladder.

  Julitta listened to his footsteps recede on deck and realised that he had not changed his own wet tunic, probably because he had given his only dry clothes to her. She clutched them for a moment, buried her face in their familiar smell and fought the scalding tide behind her lids. Her spirit struggled against the wave of self-pity and exhaustion engulfing her. She wiped the heel of her hand across her eyes, and set about exchanging her saturated garments for Benedict's dry ones. It seemed to take forever to remove her gown and shift, her clammy hose and loin cloth. Chills shuddered through her body, and her fingers were clumsy. Trying to attach Benedict's hose to the dry loin cloth seemed impossible, and by the time she finally succeeded, she was sobbing with frustration and fury at her own impotence. Once started, she could not stop, and the more she tried to hold back, the harder she cried. She lay on her stomach in the pile of straw, her face buried in her arms, and wept herself dry. From there, she drifted into an exhausted doze, her limbs twitching and jerking in the aftermath of hard, physical effort. But although her body was exhausted, her mind would not rest. A vision of Mauger's drowned, bloated face swam across her mind. And then she saw him astride the black stallion, swimming through the depths beneath the Constantine, seeking a way in through the pitched-caulked hull doors.