Knights of the Hawk c-3

by James Aitcheson

  ‘They’re looking for me,’ I said, after we’d arrived at Magnus’s hall and I’d explained to him what had happened and what we’d seen. ‘They’ve already driven me from England, and now they’ll scour this town until they find me.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Ælfhelm growled. He and a number of his brothers in arms whose names I hadn’t yet learnt sat along the benches, passing between them a leather flask from which they filled clay drinking pots.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we get away from here, and as soon as possible.’

  Many pairs of eyes had noticed us walking Dyflin’s streets in recent days, coming and going from Magnus’s hall, and there would be plenty of rumours passing from tongue to tongue, some of them accurate and others less so, about who we were and what our business was here in the city. Armed with a little silver, it wouldn’t take all that long for Robert’s men to learn where we were. When that happened, I could give up all hope of finding Oswynn soon.

  ‘You want us to sail now, simply to protect your wretched hides?’ Ælfhelm asked. ‘Why should your fate concern us?’

  ‘Ælfhelm,’ said Magnus warningly.

  But the huscarl was not to be deterred. ‘I smell a trick, lord. First these Frenchmen come here claiming to seek your help, and now suddenly a horde of their countrymen arrive in their wake. This seems to me no accident.’

  ‘What are you implying?’ I asked.

  Another of the Englishmen, a thin-faced, long-haired man by the name of Uhtferth, who was Nihtegesa’s steersman, had been nodding in agreement for some time, and he spoke up now.

  ‘You, lord,’ he said, addressing Magnus, ‘are the one who the Frenchmen are after. They want to finish what they have been unable to do for five years, which is to make sure that no heir of Harold lives to challenge them. Having first rooted you out, this man’ — he pointed at me — ‘has clearly sent word to his friends, and now they’ve come to kill you.’

  I could only laugh at how ridiculous that sounded. ‘If that were true, why would I come to warn you in advance that my countrymen are here?’

  Uhtferth and Ælfhelm glanced at each other, but neither appeared to have any answer. I turned to Magnus, for the decision in the end belonged to him. My safety rested in the hands of an Englishman, and not merely any Englishman at that, but no less than a son of the usurper, who owed me nothing and had every reason to hate me. If he decided he was better off fighting Haakon without us, or even if he chose to give us up to Robert’s men, I wouldn’t have blamed him, or even been surprised.

  It was a long while before Magnus spoke, or perhaps it only seemed that way because I knew how much rested on the next words that came out from his mouth.

  ‘We sail tonight,’ he said at last, much to my relief.

  ‘Tonight?’ Ælfhelm echoed, amidst a roar of disapproval from his comrades.

  ‘That’s right. I will not force you to come if you do not wish. So either make your peace with this alliance I’ve made, or else stay here in Dyflin. I leave that choice to you.’

  The huscarl grimaced, but it was clear that the desire for adventure and for glory still burnt bright in his heart, despite his years. He would not abandon his lord, would not refuse this challenge.

  ‘What about the others?’ Uhtferth said. ‘I thought we were going to wait another few days in case Halfdan and Beorhtred and Ecgric showed themselves.’

  ‘If they were eager enough, they would have made the effort to come sooner, as you have all done,’ Magnus said. ‘We can’t wait for ever. No, providing that the skies are clear, we leave tonight. At least then we’ll have a full moon to light our way.’ He turned to address the rest of his men. ‘Are you with me?’

  A murmur of less than hearty agreement went around the hall.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Find those who aren’t here and pass word on to them. We’ll meet at the eastern gate an hour after full dark. Be ready. If you’re not there, we won’t wait.’

  Reluctantly and with not a little grumbling, they raised themselves from the benches, leaving their drinking pots still half full as they buckled on sword-belts, donned cloaks and ventured out into the stiff breeze. Ælfhelm lingered a moment, regarding me with suspicion in his eyes, but then his comrades shouted his name and he followed. The sun was already low; they didn’t have long to gather their friends and everything they needed.

  ‘For this,’ Magnus said to me after they’d left, ‘you owe me.’

  And I knew he was right.

  We did not venture outside Magnus’s hall until night had settled completely. Fortunately the skies were clear, as hoped for, with only the faintest wisp of cloud veiling the stars to the west. God was clearly with us, and the light of His favour shone milky-pale upon us.

  It couldn’t have been three hours since we’d spied Robert’s men, but it had felt like an age. The streets were quiet now. Gone were the merchants shouting out the prices of their wares, the calls of the goats and pigs and cattle and geese. The stalls had been dismantled, the goods taken away, and the sellers had returned to their cottages to sup by their hearth-fires and count out whatever meagre coins they’d been able to reap that day. Few men and even fewer women were about at this hour, but nevertheless we pulled our hoods up over our heads lest anyone should recognise us.

  Thankfully no one challenged us, and we reached the east gate without trouble. The rest of Magnus’s company were already there by the time we arrived, and assured us that everyone was present, but nevertheless he counted them out: twenty huscarls, most accompanied by retainers of their own; and ourselves. The wives and mistresses that some of the Englishmen had brought with them were to stay in Dyflin or return home, Magnus having forbidden any women on this expedition, for their presence on board a warship was said to invite ill fortune. At my insistence he had made an exception for Eithne, but I could tell from the glances he gave her that the thought of bringing her with us unnerved him.

  The sentries looked strangely at us when we presented ourselves at the gate, and at first they refused to let us pass, but then Magnus drew back his hood to reveal his face, and I suppose he must have been known to them, since they quickly changed their minds and allowed us through.

  Nihtegesa was drawn up on to the muddy beach above the creek that ran into the river mouth, one of many vessels that lay at rest there. The tide was already high, almost on the turn. The waves lapped at her stern, and the mud sucked beneath her. Magnus had left Uhtferth the steersman and another half a dozen of his hearth-troops to guard her, as was usual. Ships, and especially warships, were greatly prized, not just for the goods that were often to be found in their holds but also for the power they represented, and for that reason they were the favoured targets of many a thief.

  We passed our packs up over the gunwale to the boat guards, taking care not to make too much noise as we did so. It was not unknown for ships to leave port in the middle of the night, but it wasn’t commonplace either, and we didn’t want to attract more attention than was necessary. Already some of those keeping watch by the other ships were calling to us, asking what we were doing about at this hour, and their shouts were waking other crews, who yelled back in their various tongues for them to be quiet. We ignored them all as we went to work pushing Nihtegesa down the mud and the shingle, her keel scraping against stone, towards the blackness of the creek, until she was fully afloat. We waded out to her and those already on board held out their hands to help haul us up and on to the deck, where we shook free strands of wrack that had become stuck to our sopping trews and boots, and then set about raising the mast and the rigging, pulling on ropes according to Magnus’s and Uhtferth’s instructions, and tying them off where needed.

  The rowers took their places on the sea chests that served as their benches, lowering their oars into the water with a soft murmur of splashes. As the incoming tide continued to surge up the inlet, they steadied Nihtegesa, taking care that the swell didn’t take her and run her aground. It wasn’t l
ong before the waters began to ebb, Magnus gave the signal and we slipped down the creek, past the landing stages and hythes, the slipways and coves where river-barges, wide-beamed traders, rowing boats and fishing craft lay at rest, and a handful of longships, too, most around the same size as Nihtegesa, but one larger.

  Much larger, in fact, I saw as we grew nearer. Outlined by the moon’s light, she was a fearsome and magnificent sight. Probably thirty benches in length, she dwarfed every other vessel beached or at anchor in that creek; indeed she would have dwarfed most vessels in all of Britain.

  To eyes untrained as mine were, there was little to tell one ship from another, especially in the dark and from such a distance. Nevertheless I realised in that moment that I recognised her, for I’d sailed on her once before. This was Wyvern, the ship that once had been the pride of Guillaume Malet and that now belonged to his son. Which only confirmed that the Normans we’d seen in the city earlier had indeed been Robert’s men. And if his ship was here, did that mean that he himself was too?

  I glimpsed a flurry of movement on her deck as men were roused and lanterns lit. Voices carried across the water, hailing us, and a shiver ran through me, for those shouts came in French. The men pulled on shoes and, leaping down on to the shingle, came running down to the shore, waving their arms at the same time. No doubt they’d worked out by then what was happening, and that we were getting away, but they were too late. We were already past them, and gathering speed, Nihtegesa’s prow carving through the star-glistening waters towards where the narrow creek emptied into the river mouth, and I was laughing, whooping with the thrill of the chase, of having eluded them.

  ‘You’ll have to try harder if you want to catch us!’ I yelled at them, into the breeze gusting from astern, and Serlo and Pons were quick to join in, hurling insults at the Frenchmen, who could only watch, powerless to do anything, as we pulled away. They shouted something in reply, but whatever it was they said, I couldn’t make out. I saw some of their comrades labouring to float Wyvern, but she was easily half as large again as Nihtegesa, and they were clearly struggling.

  That was the last I saw of them. A moment later the creek opened out into the bay, we rounded a headland and they were lost from sight. Breakers foamed as they met the shore, whilst Nihtegesa rode the swell, the salt spray crashing into her bows and her gunwales, luminous in the moonlight. With one hand Magnus beat a small drum that hung by a leather strap around his neck, keeping the oarsmen in time, while Uhtferth kept a steady head on the steering-oar, his thin face drawn in concentration.

  Ahead the open sea beckoned, stretching as far as the eye could make out. Somewhere out there, among the islands known as the Suthreyjar, was Haakon, the man whom I had been seeking for a year and more.

  I hoped for his sake that he slumbered soundly while he still had the chance. For all too soon we would be descending upon his halls, wreaking our own night terror, inflicting upon him the same despair as he had inflicted upon me. He had taken something that did not belong to him, something precious to me. Now I would take it back, and make sure that he paid for the suffering he’d inflicted.

  He had no way of knowing it, but we were coming for him.

  Twenty-two

  Whether I truly believed that was the last we would see of our pursuers, and that we had shaken them off our trail for good, I can no longer remember. If I did, however, then I was not only foolish but also gravely mistaken.

  In those hours after our flight from Dyflin, though, I found no place in my thoughts for worry or doubt. The seas were calm that night, which meant that for once my gut was not churning, and so instead of sickness swelling in my stomach, there was hunger. My heart was filled with delight, my head giddy not just with the salt air but with the prospect of adventure and the feeling of freedom: a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a long time. Tancred a Dinant, the Breton, the lord of Earnford, was once more going to war, but this time it was different, for this was a war of my own choosing.

  Under the cover of night, we ran north for a couple of hours or more, taking advantage of the stiff breeze that blew athwart our course, until the clouds began to veil the stars, when Magnus at last took us in towards shore, where a wide beach stretched between two high cliffs. We pushed Nihtegesa high up the sand, then took down her mast and made a tent over her deck with an oilskin sheet to keep out the thin rain which by then was beginning to fall, and bedded down under it for shelter, with our cloaks rolled up as pillows. By morning the skies had cleared, and with the sun glistening off the wave-tips and a favourable wind filling our sail, we set off again, following the whale-road north.

  The sun was past its highest when first we glimpsed the ship on the horizon. It lay some way off our stern, and a little out to sea, on our steerboard side. The keenest eyes among us could not make out whether she was trader or longship, however, and we soon lost sight of her. Still, it served to put me on edge all that afternoon and the evening too, which was probably why I was in such a foul mood as we sat around the campfire, where Ælfhelm and his comrades were cooking some kind of stew made from fish and beans that was apparently a favourite dish in Defnascir, the place many of them hailed from.

  ‘What was it that Haakon stole from you?’ Magnus asked me later that evening, when the last light of day was all but gone. I was sitting upon a boulder high up on the beach, above the tideline, running a whetstone up the edge of my sword, the one I’d brought from Earnford. It was not as well balanced as I would have liked, and I was still getting used to its weight, but the least I could do was keep it sharp and free of rust.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What business is it of yours?’

  ‘It’s my business because it’s my ship.’

  I didn’t answer straightaway, but simply took an oilcloth from my pack and worked at polishing the flat of the blade until the coiling, smoke-like pattern ingrained in the steel glimmered in the moon’s wan light.

  ‘Well?’ Magnus asked.

  ‘He took my woman.’

  At first he must have thought I was joking, for he gave me a strange look. ‘Your woman?’ he asked with a snort. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘If you had ever seen her,’ I said, ‘you wouldn’t be laughing.’

  ‘It’s not my place to judge, I suppose,’ said Magnus. ‘All I can say is that she must be a precious jewel indeed if you’re travelling to the ends of Britain just to find her.’

  ‘She is,’ I answered, closing my eyes, recalling her face, just as I had many times during the dark, lonely nights since she’d been taken from me. I remembered the wild gleam in her eyes that spoke of her mischievous, restless spirit, the feel of her skin upon my fingertips, her round, firm breasts that I had caressed so many times in those short months that we had been together.

  How I missed her.

  It was often said that only for the sake of reputation will a man risk everything, but now I realised that wasn’t true. For here I was. What fame I’d earned myself was all but squandered, and my name tarnished, perhaps for ever. But if it wasn’t riches or land or duty or honour that had set me on this path, then what? Love? That was one name for it, I supposed, although this didn’t feel to me like the love that the poets often sang of: overpowering, obsessive and jealous. No, this was different. Even though we had not been together long, somehow with Oswynn I had sensed a kinship of souls, a closeness that I had never been able to forge with any other. Not even with Leofrun, for all that she had been dear to me. That closeness was what I yearned for above everything. All my striving for fame and glory had not made me happy. Now I went in search of the one thing that would.

  The boulder on which I perched was wide enough for two, and Magnus sat down beside me. ‘I got into a fight over a girl once myself,’ he said as he gazed out across the cove at the breakers lapping gently upon the sand. ‘I didn’t know she was married until her husband stumbled upon us while we were tumbling together. I was fortunate to get away without a scratch upon me. He wasn’t.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘
It always seems to end badly when there are women involved. And yet we never learn, for we’re always fighting over them, aren’t we?’

  I thought back to that summer’s day, long years ago. The day when I had claimed my first kill. That fight had been over a woman, too.

  I was nearly twice the age now that I’d been then, but clearly the last twelve years had taught me nothing, nothing at all. For I was back where my journey along the sword-path had begun, as reckless and as dim-witted now as ever, and with barely anything to show for all my struggles.

  ‘How did Haakon take her from you?’ Magnus asked.

  I sighed, and told him about the ambush that night at Dunholm, and how my friends and I had barely managed to escape with our lives, and how that had been the last I’d seen of her for a year and a half, until she had appeared at Beferlic. ‘How she came to end up in his company, I don’t know. Possibly one of Eadgar’s men captured her during the ambush, and later sold her on as a slave.’

  ‘I can think of a simpler explanation than that,’ Magnus said. ‘Haakon was at Dunholm.’

  I shot him a glare. ‘What?’

  ‘He was there. He was pledged to Eadgar at that time, as were many other sword-Danes from Orkaneya and the Suthreyjar. He was one of those leading the attack. Or at least so he’s now claiming.’

  ‘Whoever told you that obviously wasn’t there. It was Eadgar and the Northumbrians who led the attack that night. I saw his purple-and-yellow banner.’

  ‘I’m not denying that Eadgar was there, but he wasn’t the one who broke down the gates of the stronghold and torched the mead-hall. That was Haakon’s doing.’

  I stared at him, confused. ‘No,’ I said, surprised that Magnus could have heard it so wrong. ‘It was Eadgar who stormed the gates. He burnt the mead-hall.’

  With Robert de Commines, my lord, inside. Had I not, weeks later, stood face to face with the ætheling whilst he bragged of how he had murdered him? Had all that been but a dream?