by MD. Lachlan
It had been in the back of Leshii’s mind to lead the warriors to the trees and then give them the slip when he got the chance. At the pace Saerda was slapping him on he wondered whether he could even make the wood.
They raced up through the camp, Leshii’s boots slipping on the mud, children shouting and trying to trip him. Some even threw shit and stones until some hit the king and they all ran for it like rats down a riverbank. Leshii was a tough old man who’d lived his life walking beside caravans, perched on a mule or a camel, but the pace Sigfrid demanded would have tested someone half his age. He panted and heaved. The king brought the flank of his horse alongside him and barged him to the ground.
‘Get up, merchant. Your meeting with death is pressing and you wouldn’t want to be late.’
Leshii couldn’t reply. It was as if the air was too thick for his lungs, like he was trying to breathe soup. He lay face down and waited for the inevitable – the stamp of Sigfrid’s horse, the stab of a spear.
‘My lord, the merchant will be in no fit state to lead us anywhere if we continue like this.’ It was one of the king’s bodyguard, a hard-looking bald man with the tip of his nose missing.
‘Get him to his feet,’ said Sigfrid. The bodyguard got down off his horse and helped Leshii up. ‘Now cut his throat unless he tells us where the girl is in his next breath.’
Leshii bent over panting, shaking his head. The bodyguard unsheathed his knife and Leshii just sank to his knees, looking up at him.
‘No, no, no,’ said Sigfrid, tapping aside the blade with his spear. ‘Just get him on your horse and bring him on. Is it up here, merchant?’
Leshii nodded and coughed out a ‘Yes.’
The bodyguard mounted then helped the old man onto his horse behind him. They went forward at a slower pace, Leshii’s mount unwilling to go at anything faster than a walk with the extra weight of the merchant on its back.
They climbed the hill under a small, sharp moon, and went into the dark of the wood. Leshii was clinging now to desperate hopes. First he hoped they would encounter the Raven. He had no idea how that would help; he just knew it would be a difficulty for Sigfrid. Leshii had decided that he would lead the king to the lady but he thought she might see them coming and try to run, which might create a diversion. Leshii counted the ‘mights’. Three. He remembered his mother’s saying ‘two “mights” are as good as a “won’t”’. After that, what? Hope the confessor could call on the help of his god.
It was very dark beneath the trees and progress was slow. A scream, not a natural sound at all, more like a long scrape of steel on stone, came from their right.
‘What was that?’ Sigfrid turned to a bodyguard.
‘Could be anything, lord. One of our men with an unwilling woman, I should guess.’
‘I didn’t like the sound of it,’ said Sigfrid. ‘Let’s take a look.’ He turned his horse in the direction of the noise.
Another scream, equally as unnatural but from deeper in the woods, came from behind them. Then another, in front.
‘Is the lady in that direction, merchant?’ Sigfrid pointed straight ahead.
‘Yes, lord.’
All Leshii knew was that there lay a possible delay. Of course the lady was in that direction.
‘Come on. That sound has the mark of the Raven about it. We can’t let him get her,’ said Sigfrid, and spurred his horse off the track into the long grass and brambles.
The light beneath the trees had almost an underwater quality to it, the leaves mottling the moonlight and turning the ground to a shimmering seabed. A dull thump and the first throwing axe hit the horseman to Leshii’s right in the shoulder, bouncing off his byrnie and catching him in the face to smash his teeth. Five more followed. A horse caught one in the side of the neck and went into a crazy, screaming, spinning dance, crashing into the other animals. Leshii saw Saerda fall from his horse, his animal bolting into the trees.
‘Franks! Franks!’ It was Sigfrid’s voice.
The bodyguard sitting in front of Leshii on their shared horse drove the beast forward and his elbows back to rid himself of his passenger. Leshii fell heavily. He saw Sigfrid leap from his horse and go howling into the undergrowth with his sword; three of his men did likewise, ditching their horses to plough into the battle. Another, beset by two attackers, was trying to stab them with his spear. He was unused to fighting on horseback and in the end just threw the weapon and leaped off to fight on foot with his axe.
Something glinted on the ground in the moonlight. It was a throwing axe, a francisca, as the enemies of the Franks called them. Leshii picked it up and just ran, not even looking where he was going. He was exhausted but fear drove him on, up the wooded slope away from Paris, over a little brook and into the darkness. He willed himself forward. He knew he didn’t have long. He had glimpsed the Franks and there weren’t many of them. The one he had seen close was lightly armoured and his weapon no more than a big knife. Against Sigfrid’s men, he knew they wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d had their opportunity in the ambush and it had passed them by. So the king would be after him soon.
What to do? No new plan occurred to him, so his old one would have to suffice. At least if he found the lady he could use her to his advantage.
He felt himself laughing as he pushed through the woods. Hadn’t he taken this mission for the comfort it had promised him? And hadn’t he cheated death, at least so far? He muttered a word of thanks to Perun, the thunder god of his people, and pressed on.
From somewhere behind him, far but not so far, came another terrible scream. The voice before, thought Leshii, had been a woman’s. This was definitely a man’s.
He came to the edge of the woods at the top of the hill and looked down at the Seine, a metal ribbon under the moon. It was a long drop to the flood plain and he would be visible all the way. Still, once he had gone a few hundred paces he would be indistinguishable from any other drunken Norseman or vengeful Frank stalking the dark. Well, cling to that hope anyway. He looked up at the moon, for the first time in his life wanting to see cloud.
Then he saw them, down below. There were two figures carrying spears or staffs, another smaller person and, following behind, a bandy-legged mule carrying a large pack. He recognised the animal’s gait. It was his and so there was a good chance that the lady was with it.
There was a noise to his right. Sigfrid had regained his horse and had come out of the trees, the animal shaking and stamping away the underbrush from its coat. Leshii went flat to the ground as the king drove the horse up and down the edge of the wood. Another rider emerged further up the hill but halted, apparently watching Sigfrid, unnoticed by the king. Then Sigfrid gave a whoop and galloped down the hill. Leshii got to his feet, a tree trunk between him and the watching horseman. Who was it? Leshii saw the people with the mule turn and look towards Sigfrid. The two larger figures levelled their spears and stood against the king while the third ran with the mule down the hill.
Then he heard the scream again. This time it seemed close.
18 Royal Blood
Aelis heard the clash behind her but didn’t dare to turn to see how the monks were faring against Sigfrid. She knew it would be badly. The Viking king seemed cut from the same cloth as her brother Eudes, a man raised to arms from his earliest years. She knew the two monks were no more than armed scribes, more at home with ink than spears, and would not do well against him.
She hurried down the hill. It was a broad grassy expanse, eaten short by sheep, and there was no hiding anywhere. Her only hope was a collection of little farmsteads below her. The sound of the fighting stopped but still she rushed on, leading the mule. The confessor, she thought, might be dead. He hadn’t moved or made a noise since they had tied him to the mule, and although she had checked him regularly, it had been difficult to tell if he was breathing or not.
Down, down, down the slope towards the group of houses and tiny fields. She heard the horse behind her, coming on at the trot. Sigfrid had no need to
exhaust his mount by galloping, she thought; he had seen her and had all the time in the world. She gripped the knife she had taken from the monk. She was determined that Sigfrid wouldn’t take her without a fight but her hand was trembling. The king had just done for two young men, both armed with spears. What chance did she have? Next to none, but not none, she thought.
The sound of the horse came closer but still she didn’t turn, tugging the mule on through the moonlight.
Sigfrid shouted something in his own language and his words were harsh. She guessed he had lost men in the fight. That would have been her brother’s first thought.
‘Stop,’ he said in grating Roman. ‘Stop or die.’ She kept going, holding the knife by her side. The hoofbeats followed right behind and the horse drew alongside, the rider nudging its flank into her.
‘The saint is dead,’ said Sigfrid. ‘Stop and I might persuade my men to spare some of your monks. Come on.’
He leaned down from the saddle and slapped her fingers away from the mule’s reins with the flat of his sword.
‘I said stop.’
For the first time she turned to face him. ‘I am the daughter of Robert the Strong, scourge of the Norsemen and defender of the faith,’ she said. ‘My father was a second Maccabaeus to your heathen hordes. If you want me to stop, then stop me.’
‘You can walk back or I can punch you into unconsciousness and put you over the back of the mule with the saint. Your choice.’
It seemed as if Sigfrid’s physical self was not big enough to contain the strength of his soul. But there was something else too. He seemed to have a force emanating from him, which pushed others down, bullied and belittled them. Here was a man, she thought, who had only ever considered his own needs, his own glory, a man of violence and risk who was prepared to do anything to make the world see him as he saw himself. Aelis was used to such men and was not intimidated by them.
She brought up the knife. ‘I choose the second. It will be difficult to subdue me without taking a little damage yourself, I think.’
Sigfrid snorted and brought the flat of his sword against the back of her knife hand with a stinging rap. The weapon went spinning to the ground.
‘I’ve lost enough men today to darken my humour to pitch,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve given you enough chances. You are a virgin, lady, aren’t you?’
Aelis just spat at him.
‘Well, I think I’ll put you on your back and show you what you’ve been missing. If I have to break your jaw to do it, that suits me fine. After that I think you’ll come quietly enough.’
He began to swing himself out of the saddle. Aelis felt a great rage. She saw her brother’s city burning, her friends and subjects beset by Norsemen, the confessor tied and tortured, her father tricked by the Norse King Hastein into taking off his armour and then cruelly butchered. She was a woman and had never been able to take arms against the enemies of her people. She hated the Norsemen but she had never had an outlet for her hate. Now something gave it expression.
Again the shape came to her, the one that shone and stamped, breathed and sweated the idea horse. She had the shape in her mind and she saw it projected onto the form of Sigfrid’s animal. The king had one foot in the stirrup as he dismounted. He gave a slight shake to free it, but as he did so Aelis imagined the shape bursting into gallop. She saw wide plains of grass, felt her heart full and strong, and a sensation of effortless power swept over her as the horse symbol manifested inside her. Something between a word and an emotion leaped from her towards Sigfrid’s horse.
‘Go!’
The horse surged forward as though a wolf was on its back with Sigfrid’s foot still in the stirrup. His sword arm was flung back and he dropped the weapon, his body falling with a terrible twist. His head hit the ground hard, though he remained conscious, fighting to get his foot free. The horse pulled and bucked, dragging the king down the slope for ten paces before his foot came loose and he came to rest, lying panting on the ground.
Aelis wasn’t idle while this was happening. She ran to the sword, picked it up and rushed to where Sigfrid lay writhing. He had sat up to clutch his leg but his instinct had proved wrong. Aelis guessed the limb was broken and the pain of touching it had doubled the king over. She saw the fingers of his sword hand were shattered too, pushed back up into his palm.
Sigfrid nodded when he saw the sword and tried to stand, but it was impossible. He set his jaw and said, ‘I am to die. In battle, good. Will you let me say some fine words before the Valkyries come to take me? You will tell them to your skalds, your masters of song? Kill me but let me be remembered.’
Aelis looked down at the man in front of her, everything she despised made flesh. It was Sigfrid and his kin who had burned Chartres and taken her father’s lands in Neustria, they who controlled what should have been hers. It was Sigfrid who had put the sons of the Church to the sword and brought plague and starvation to her people.
‘I’ll tell them nothing and you will be forgotten,’ she said.
She went to push the sword into him two-handed, but Sigfrid caught the blade in his one good hand.
Blood poured from his fingers as he tried to force it back. Sigfrid smiled. ‘I regret having this sharpened, now,’ he said. His hand was shaking, blood streaming down the white of his arm. Aelis shoved as hard as she could, driving her full weight into the pommel of the sword. But Sigfrid, facing death, was still terribly strong and he held the blade.
‘Do you know what the prophecy says, Aelis, what the raven woman gave her eyes to discover? Do you know? You have a wolf on you, a wolf, and he hunts you eternally, through many lives. But the wolf knows only destruction, and when he finds you he will destroy you and all you care about. You are cursed, Aelis, for ever, tied to the destiny of the gods.’
The king could hold the sword no longer. He gave a great cry and threw the blade aside, but Aelis brought it back to his face and lunged again. He tried to turn away but was hampered by his injuries and the sword plunged into the side of his neck. Blood pulsed from the gaping wound. Sigfrid put his hand up to try to stop the flow but it was useless. He fell back, looked at Aelis and, with his last available strength, shook his head and smiled. ‘A woman, some sort of wolf, then. Perhaps I was Odin after all,’ he said, and died.
Aelis sat down, panting and shaking. She was covered in the king’s blood. She looked around her, back up the hill. No time to recover, no time for delay. She ran to where the monks were. Marellus was dead, a scarlet bloom of blood visible on his pale skin where his habit was open at his chest, but Abram was alive, if unconscious. He bore no obvious signs of a wound other than a hugely swollen jaw. The king must have punched or clubbed him down, she thought.
She went back to the king’s body. Quickly she stripped off his clothes and put them on. They buried her, as did his mail hauberk, but she wore it anyway. It felt very heavy on her shoulders, but once she had tied the king’s big belt around her, the weight was spread and more bearable. There was a comfort in the heaviness too, a feeling the armour might do some good. She strapped on Sigfrid’s sword and knife, threw on his swamping cloak and put the shield on her back as she had seen her brother do so many times. She almost hated to take it because it bore the loathed symbol of the wolf she had seen flying from the Vikings’ banners. The helmet was so big it was useless, but she put his boots on, glad to get something on her bare feet. The king had money with him – two dinars and three tremisis. He also had a fine arm ring in silver, a serpent eating its tail. She pushed the purse into the front of the hauberk and the ring after it.
She checked the confessor. He was breathing, but faintly. She needed to get him somewhere he could rest, but what about the unconcious monk? Sigfrid’s horse was too big for her to lift him on and the mule wouldn’t carry two men. She peered at the farm buildings near the river. They were burned, she could now see. There was the ford just beyond the buildings and, past that, the edge of another big wood. The trees offered the best cover and a place t
o weigh her options, she thought. She’d have to make two trips, one with the confessor and the other with Abram.
She looked up again. Up on the hill she could see someone moving. She had to go. She called to Sigfrid’s horse, almost too softly to be heard. The animal turned as if ridden and came to her. It was a big beast and she was encumbered by the cloak and her boots, but the horse was patient and eventually she got on, shaking her head in disgust at the saddle. It was made of turf, as many of the Viking saddles were. No seat for a king, she thought, nor even for a lady. Still, it was a saddle and it worked, so it would have to do.
Aelis turned the warhorse around and walked it to the mule, leaning down to gather up the pack animal’s halter. She glanced behind her. The figure on the hill was now running down the slope waving at her crazily. From the big baggy kaftan tucked into his stockings at the knee, his lopsided cap and pointy little grey beard, she could see it was the merchant, puffing and blowing towards her, flapping his arms to attract her attention but not making a sound, like a court fool conducting a mad mime.
She guessed that he must be pursued, or rather that he feared attracting the attention of pursuers – that explained his silence. She knew that the merchant would try to ransom her but, then again, wasn’t that what she wanted? She couldn’t risk capture by the Norsemen. The merchant might get past whatever enemy forces stalked the riverbank, reach her brother and send help to get her home. He could help with Brother Abram too.
She brought the horse around to face him. Leshii bent over, resting his elbows on his knees, and wheezing like a clapped-out hunting dog.
‘You kept your oath!’ he said, as if each word was the weight of an anvil and had to be heaved out of his breathless body.
‘Did you keep yours?’
‘I had business with the king. As I see you had. Did the monks do for him? I can’t believe that.’
‘He died by the sword,’ said Aelis, ‘just his own, and wielded by a woman.’
