Knights of the Hawk c-3

by James Aitcheson

  We entered the Saverna early that afternoon, hugging close to the Wessex shore while the grey waters grew ever choppier and the wind whipped the waves into white stallions. No storm came that evening either, though, and so the following day we crossed to the Welsh side, making port on an island where stood a small stone chapel dedicated to a certain St Barruc, of whom none of us had ever heard. We were just in time, too, for no sooner had we dragged the boat up the shingle on that island’s sheltered shore than we were pelted with hail, and a gale rose from the west and the sea foamed and crashed against the cliffs. There we were forced to wait until the wind turned again and the seas calmed.

  Still England lay in sight to our larboard side, although it was no more than the faintest sliver of green and brown and grey on the horizon. Only then did I realise that in the five years since the invasion, not once had I left its shores. I had ventured on brief forays into Wales and marched into the far corners of the kingdom, close to the borderlands where King Guillaume’s realm ended and that of the Scots began, but never in all that time had I made the voyage back across the seas, as so many others had done. The Breton had become a Norman, had become bound to England. And now I would leave that land behind me. The land where I’d made my reputation, where I had lived and loved and lost. The kingdom I’d given everything short of my life to defend, and all, it seemed now, for nothing.

  I stood by the stern, looking out across the white-tipped waters towards those vanishing cliffs as Hrithdyr rose and dipped in the swell and the wind filled its sails, until a sudden squall blew in and cloud veiled that land, and I could see it no longer.

  It took more than a week for us to reach Dyflin. Even I, who knew little of the sea, knew that the autumn was ever a difficult time to set sail. The winds were changeable, storms could arrive with little warning, and pirates lurked, looking for easy plunder, knowing that shipmasters were eager to make it home in time for Christmas or Yule or whatever other name they gave to the winter feast, their holds filled and their coin-purses bursting with whatever they had earned from that year’s dealing. God must have been with us, for we saw no sign of them, despite all the warnings of the folk who lived on those shores, who said that their low-hulled, dragon-prowed longships had been spotted roving further along the coast. Nevertheless we proceeded with care.

  The journey could probably have been made in better time, but Snorri was a cautious man, and one who clung to his superstitions, too. He refused to leave sight of land unless the signs were wholly favourable, and even then only after he had cast the runesticks to assure himself that a watery fate did not await us. Not that I blamed him. Far better to be cautious than dead. Besides, the open sea was already rough enough for my liking. As we left the Welsh coast behind us and, with a following breeze filling our sails, struck a course west towards Yrland, I remembered one of the reasons I’d never made the journey back across the Narrow Sea in the past five years. The horizon rose and fell and rolled and pitched from one side to another, and my belly churned, and I huddled down by the stern, my eyes closed, as I tried to hold back the sickness swelling within. To no avail.

  ‘I thought you Flemings were well used to the sea,’ Snorri said after what must have been the third time I’d spewed over the ship’s side. He slapped me on the back as I heaved up what I hoped were the last of my stomach’s contents, wiped away some that had seeped down my chin, and spat in an effort to rid my mouth of the taste.

  ‘Not this Fleming.’ Another swell of bile rose up my throat, and I readied myself to retch once again, but it subsided.

  ‘The last time I was in Saint-Omer, it was still being rebuilt after the great storm, the one that struck that midsummer’s night. Were you there then?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I wasn’t.’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘I was there. I saw the winds bring down the monastery’s bell-tower, saw rain such as you have never seen turn the streets into rivers, wash whole houses away. Ships were torn from their moorings, cast downriver and out to sea, though not Hrithdyr. She alone weathered the tempest. That’s how she got her name. Stormbeast, I suppose you would call her in your tongue. A terrible night, that was.’

  ‘I heard the tales,’ I lied. This was the first I’d heard of any such storm. If only he would stop harassing me with these questions about a place I’d never so much as visited.

  ‘That tavern is almost the only part of the old town that still stands.’ He gave a laugh. ‘The Monk’s Pisspot, everyone called it, on account of that’s what the ale there used to taste like. You know the place I’m talking about, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘Who could forget it?’

  But Snorri was not laughing any more, and that was when I realised my mistake. Saint-Omer was among the richest ports in Flanders. Had there been any such disaster, news of it would surely have reached our ears. There had been no midsummer’s storm, and neither, I realised now, was there any tavern by that name. He was testing me.

  If he’d had his suspicious before, he knew for certain now that I was not who I claimed to be.

  ‘So what are you?’ he asked. ‘An outlaw? An oath-breaker, maybe?’

  ‘I’ve broken no oath.’

  ‘Then what? You’re obviously fleeing something. Old Snorri has wits as well as beauty, you know. He can tell these things.’

  I returned his stare but did not speak.

  ‘You’re entitled to your secrets, I suppose, if that’s the way you want to keep it. Your gold’s good and that’s all that concerns me. I’m not one to pry into another man’s business. I knew you were no Fleming, though, from the moment we met.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The way you speak, for a start. Did you think you could trick someone who’s travelled as widely as I have? Anyone who lives his life on the whale-road can easily tell a Fleming from a Norman from a Gascon from a Ponthievin by the sound of their voice.’ He sighed the heavy sigh of one who had seen his share of fools over the years, and had grown tired of their games. ‘If you want my advice-’

  ‘I don’t,’ I muttered, but he went on, unperturbed.

  ‘-it’s that you should tread carefully, Goscelin of Saint-Omer, or whatever you’re really called. Count yourself lucky that I’m not the sort who’s easily offended, but there are many that won’t take kindly to men who try to deceive them. If there’s one place you don’t want to start making enemies, it’s in Dyflin.’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ I answered, though the conviction in my words was undermined somewhat as I felt another heave coming. Grabbing the gunwale to steady myself, I leant over the side, but by now I had nothing left to give and only the slightest dribble came out.

  ‘Onions,’ Snorri said.

  ‘What?’ I asked, after I’d wiped a sleeve across my mouth.

  ‘Onions. I always recommend them for anyone who suffers from ship-sickness. Raw is best, but if you can’t stomach that then boiled will do. Also rosemary and ginger, if you can acquire them. Grind them into a powder and mix them with water. Better still would be to add the juice of a quince, although you’ll be lucky if you find any this side of the Narrow Sea.’

  I thanked him for his suggestion, though I’d tried many a remedy for various ailments in my years, few of which I could honestly say had ever seemed to do much good.

  ‘Why Dyflin?’ he asked. ‘Of all the places to choose exile, why there?’

  ‘I’m looking for someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  I hesitated, wondering whether or not I should tell Snorri. But I supposed he had shown faith in me, despite the fact that I had lied to him, and that was worth something. The least I could do was return the favour.

  ‘A man called Haakon Thorolfsson,’ I said at last. ‘Have you heard of him?’

  ‘Haakon Thorolfsson?’ he asked, as if testing the name on his lips to see if it brought forth any memory. ‘I can’t say the name is familiar, but then there aren’t many of us Danes still living in Dyflin the
se days; it’s an Irish town now, mostly. What is he, a merchant?’

  ‘A warlord.’

  ‘A warlord?’ He nodded towards my scabbard. ‘Looking to sell your sword to him, are you?’

  I glared at him in warning and he raised his palms to show that he meant no offence. ‘As I said, your business is your own. But I might be able to help you. I know a man who lives in the city, who hears many things and knows many people. Magnus, his name is. I’ll take you to him, if you want. He might have heard of this Haakon, and if he has, there’s a good chance he’ll know where you can find him, too.’

  His generosity surprised me, considering that I was but a stranger to him, but I wasn’t about to refuse such an offer. Sometimes fate is harsh and at others it is kind, and all a man can do is take advantage of its kindness while it lasts.

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I’d like to meet your friend.’

  ‘I didn’t say he was my friend. Although that’s not to say he’s my enemy, either. Truth be told, he’s not the friendly sort. He keeps himself to himself. Around your age, he is, probably a few winters younger, fond of his secrets. A brooding kind of man, with a temper hotter than hell’s fires.’ He gave me a gap-toothed grin. ‘In many ways you remind me of him.’

  I was about to protest, but at that moment a shout came from the lookout by the prow, who had spied land in the distance, ahead and a little to our steerboard side. At once Snorri left me and began barking orders to his crew in their own tongue. The lookout’s eyes were better than mine, and it was a while longer before I was able to see it: at first only a rocky headland rising high above the savage, white-foaming waves, then further along wide beaches of dark sand and shingle, with green meadows and gold-bronze woodlands beyond, and faint wisps of rising hearth-smoke marking out villages and farmsteads, though we were too far away to make out any houses. Cormorants and other seabirds soared in their hundreds, occasionally breaking away from the flock to dive beneath the waves, only to resurface moments later with glistening, writhing fish in their bills.

  At last we had come to the land beyond the sea. To Yrland, and, I hoped, one step closer to finding Oswynn, whatever fate had befallen her and wherever she happened to be.

  To my eyes Yrland seemed a quiet country, with few villages and halls that I could make out, but such appearances, Snorri told us, belied its true nature. A seething cauldron of violence, he described it, and spoke ill of its people, too, calling them as cunning and rapacious as wolves. This was a land, he said, in which no man’s holdings were safe, where chieftains and princelings led marauding bands, despoiling everything in their paths in pursuit of their bloody feuds. Every other man called himself a king, but only one held any real claim to overlordship, and that was Diarmait, who ruled the southern half of the island, including Dyflin and the other ports, and had received the submission of the north. But he was old and frail now, and said to be in poor health besides, and the authority that once he had held over the many squabbling families was waning.

  ‘Already this year there has been open war between them,’ Snorri said. ‘He nearly lost his kingdom because of it. There will be worse to come when he dies, too. His last surviving son and heir perished last year, so what will happen no one knows, except that there’ll be all manner of adventurers and sellswords flocking to these shores, looking to ply their trade. Probably this Haakon you mentioned will be among them.’

  Not if I found him first, I thought, though I did not say it.

  It took another three days from first spying Yrland’s coast before finally we made port in Dyflin. We travelled slowly, hugging as near as Snorri dared to the spray-battered cliffs and stacks where guillemots gathered. He did this, he said, for two reasons: firstly so as to be less easily spotted, and secondly to deter any raiders who might be on the prowl for trading ships like ours. Open water was where we were most vulnerable, for whereas Hrithdyr was wide and slow, the ships the pirates favoured tended to be sleek and fast, with slender beams, high prows, and oars as well as sails. Close to land, however, the risks were greater where raiders were concerned. Floating masses of seaweed might become tangled in their oars, while there were sheltered creeks and inlets in which their prey could easily hide. Instead, Snorri explained, they usually preferred to attack when the prey was easy. And so it proved, for although on two occasions we spied sails on the horizon that we suspected might belong to such sea wolves, both kept their distance, obviously deciding that we were not worth the effort of a pursuit, and thus we were spared.

  A biting easterly wind was gusting at our backs, piercing our spray-soaked tunics, its chill working its way into my very bones, when we sailed around yet another headland and at long last spotted Dyflin in the distance. Winter was on its way, it seemed. I wrapped my cloak tightly around me. We had to wait a few more hours for the flood tide, and so we anchored in the estuary in the meantime, furled the sail and gazed upon the sprawling city with its crumbling timber palisades, its wharves and slipways and beaches and landing stages where ships both large and small had been dragged high above the tideline and were being caulked in preparation for their last voyages before the snows.

  My sickness had at last abated, and it was Eithne who now looked ill. Indeed I’d heard hardly a word from her throughout the entire voyage, the brashness that I recalled in her from our first meeting having ebbed away over the last few days.

  ‘Please, lord,’ she said now, and there was fear in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to go back there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She hesitated, glanced around to check that no one else was watching, and then turned around and pulled at the collar of her dress, revealing a black symbol, roughly as long as my thumb and shaped something like a letter R except more jagged, which had been branded on to her chest, just below her shoulder-bone. At once I understood.

  ‘You’re a slave?’ I asked.

  ‘Was, lord. I ran away two years ago. There’s another, if you want to see it.’ She lifted up her skirt to show me her thigh.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I don’t need to see.’ Some of Snorri’s crewmen were beginning to take an interest, nudging each other and pointing in our direction, particularly the younger ones, some of whom were barely more than pups and would probably have counted themselves lucky to glimpse the merest flash of a woman’s bared ankle. ‘Is that your master’s mark?’

  She nodded. ‘His name is Ravn. He’s a merchant. He lives in Dyflin, or used to, anyway.’

  ‘Why did you run away? Did he beat you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He was a good master, in that sense. Not cruel. He gave us warm clothes and fed us well, us Irish ones, anyway. He was fond of us, though some of the others he treated less well. The work he gave us wasn’t hard, and he looked after my mother when she was sick-’

  ‘Why, then?’

  ‘I saw the way he looked at me sometimes when I was churning the butter or building the fire. I saw the hunger in his eyes and I was afraid that when I came of age he’d want me to help warm his bed, as my mother did while she still lived.’

  ‘So you fled.’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  As reasons went, that was far from the worst I had heard, and it was hard not to feel sorry for her. We Normans tended not to keep or trade slaves, the bishops having preached that both practices were sinful, though as always there were a few noblemen who disagreed with the Church’s judgement and kept them to help with the running of their households. As we had found in the years since coming to Britain, however, slavery was common among the folk who lived in these isles, as it was among the Danes and the Moors, who perhaps once a year would venture north to these shores, bringing boatloads of dark-skinned, black-haired women and children from distant, sun-parched lands, who spoke in tongues no one could decipher and whose strange beauty entranced all who set eyes upon them.

  Eithne was no beauty, but she was young, and to many men that was more important.

  ‘How did you end up at Elyg?’ I asked.


  ‘Does it matter, lord?’

  I supposed it didn’t, not really, but I was curious, and when she saw that my interest was genuine, she sighed and told me the whole story. In fleeing Dyflin with the few coins she’d been able to scrape together, she had been able to find passage with a trader, only for their ship to be ambushed when they were less than a day out of port. The captain of the raiders had seen Eithne and taken a fancy to her at first sight, and rather than resist him she had pretended to love him in return.

  ‘I thought it would be easier that way,’ Eithne said sadly. ‘I didn’t realise I’d thrown off one yoke only to place another around my neck.’

  He had taken her back to his hall in Kathenessia, and had married soon after. From what she told me it seemed he had been kind enough, treating her well and clothing her in the richest fabrics he could afford and bestowing her with silver bracelets and brooches, and she had kept up the pretence, realising that she was unlikely to find greater happiness anywhere else. Then this year, hearing that there might be glory and fortune to be won in the Fens, he had ventured south, and since he could not bear to be apart from Eithne for long, he had taken her with him.

  ‘And now everything has come full circle and I find myself back here,’ she said bitterly. ‘The last place I wanted to be. If Ravn sees me-’

  ‘He won’t,’ I replied confidently. Even if he still lived in these parts, this Ravn might not even remember her after so long.

  ‘But if he does-’

  ‘Even if he does, you’re safe with me.’

  ‘You promise you won’t take me back to him?’

  I was about to say, only half in jest, that that depended on how much he was willing to pay to see her returned, for, though it shames me to say so, I was briefly tempted. I remained desperately poor, and the reward for dragging a fugitive slave back to her master would go some way to replenishing my coin-purse. Yet I had vowed myself to her protection, and I was not one to go back on my pledges, especially given that I’d already tricked her the once, into coming with me. She trusted me, and I would not betray that trust.