by C. R. May
Einar’s head moved from side to side as his eyes stabbed the shadows, suspecting a trap, but finally satisfied that they were alone he spoke again to the anxious sounding woman. ‘Are you armed?’
A knife was tossed from the hole in response, and the Dane took a backwards step as he saw the blade was streaked with blood. Raising his eyes he noticed for the first time that the woman’s hands were also sticky with it, and he tensed again as his worries returned in a flash. Einar held the point of the spear towards the dark square on the woodland floor as he crept cautiously towards the lip. ‘Whose blood is on your hands?’
To his surprise the answer carried up from the depths of the hole, and the Viking recognised that the tearful voice belonged to a young girl. ‘Crackling’s — it is Crackling’s blood.’
The girl’s mother cut in quickly to clear up any confusion; the situation was dangerous enough without the Dane thinking they were killers. ‘Crackling was our swine. I killed him because he was too noisy and might give us away.’
Einar snorted as his mind slowly teased apart the weft and weave of the dialect. He understood the English used in the eastern parts of the country, the regions of the old Danelaw of East Anglia, the Midlands and York with ease and could speak it of a fashion. It was not, after all, so different from his own tongue. The words used in the Saxon lands south of the River Thames were more difficult, more like those used by their cousins in Saxony and Frisia; but they were familiar enough to a well-travelled man such as himself, and he shook his head and pulled a wry smile at the girl’s revelation. ‘You called your swine Crackling?’ He stole a quick look inside the hole and saw the girl cradling Crackling’s bloodstained body, pulling a face at the sorry sight which met his eyes. ‘I am sad for Crackling. To die in a hole is not the best of deaths.’
Einar’s lament was interrupted as a roar of laughter rolled up the hill, and a loud crash carried from the hall causing the Dane to flush with embarrassment. The sound had reminded him of the men who awaited them in the valley below, and he looked again at the pair through new eyes. The mother was a fine looking woman, plump in the right places with plaits of chestnut brown hair framing a comely face. Her daughter shared her features and was definitely old enough to interest Starkad, especially now that he had discovered the ale store. He indicated that the woman lower her hands from the lip of the den as he asked a question. ‘There are no men hereabouts?’ He could understand the fear he saw in the woman’s eyes, but he needed to be sure for his own safety and he tried again. ‘You must answer me truthfully if I am to help you. I give you my word that I will not harm either of you.’
The woman hesitated a moment longer as she weighed up her captor. Finally she came to the decision that trustworthy or not, she would have to take a chance. She shook her head. ‘No, my man is away.’ She paused again, fixing Einar with a stare as a note of defiance entered her voice. ‘There are Vikings in our land,’ she said, ‘and he is carrying spear and shield against them.’
He nodded that he understood. ‘I hope that he returns safely to you. These are not such good times.’ He cast a look back down the hill. ‘You are fortunate that I found you, if it had been one of the others….’ He shrugged as his voice trailed away. ‘Things would not have gone so well for you.’
Einar indicated that Hereswith duck back inside the refuge with a nod of his head. As he pulled the panel back across, the last the pair saw of him was the white of his smile. ‘Stay here, we will be moving off soon.’ He chuckled and spoke to nobody in particular as he began to back away. ‘I can feast on swine flesh another day.’
The Dane kicked a thick covering of leaves across until he was certain that they were well hidden; shouldering the spear he began to retrace his steps down the hillside. As the slope bottomed out and he regained the courtyard, he reflected on the people he had met here in Wessex during the course of Cnut’s invasion. He had just about amassed enough silver now to replace his stock, and he had no need to steal from other people, hard working families who looked and acted like his own. There were always men coming and going from the army, he would join one such band; make his way to the coast and take a ship for home as soon as they returned.
Einar filled his lungs as he walked. It was a fine day to be alive, and the good deed had raised his spirits after what had gone before. The sun was hot, and the English countryside lush with greenery. High above two ravens twisted and soared, tumbling earthwards in a ritual display, and he reached inside his shirt to finger the silver hammer of Thor which hung there. It had been a parting gift to him from Hild and Svein, his daughter and son back in Jutland, and the sight of Oðinn’s birds brought a smile to his face as it prompted an image of them waving their goodbyes in his mind.
Einar settled on the wall of Crackling’s old sty as he watched the antics of the dusky birds. The men back in camp were already calling this The Year of the Raven as the armies of Cnut and Erik of Hlathir rampaged across the English countryside, but they were acting curiously, weaving patterns in the summer sky, and he called out to them as he thought how his wife would attempt to interpret the movements as a message from the All-father himself. ‘You have missed him Huginn and Muninn,’ he said with a smile. ‘Young Crackling is already halfway across the rainbow bridge to Asgard.’
The smile slowly faded as his thoughts turned once again to home, but the flash of sunlight on polished steel drew his attention back to the roadway and the Dane’s heart sank as he realised that the birds had not come for the swine after all. As the boy with the bloodied shoulder led the fyrdmen into the yard, Einar tucked the silver pendant back inside his shirt as he rose and drew his sword.
Afterword
Although set fifty years before the Norman conquest, the inspiration for The Year of the Raven is a famous scene on the Bayeux Tapestry. A woman, one of only three depicted in the entire work along with Edward the Confessor’s wife Eadgyth and a mysterious woman known only as Ælfgyfa, flees her home clutching the hand of her young son as invading soldiers touch brands to the roof thatch.
Almost 230 feet in length, the size of three Olympic pools laid end to end, the tapestry (actually an embroidery) is generally accepted to have been stitched by English women in Canterbury very soon after the events they portray. Canterbury is less than fifty miles from the scene of fighting that October day and paid host to the victorious invaders a few weeks later, so I like to think that this particular episode was slipped into the narrative as a cry for recognition amid the yards of space taken up by their menfolk. Look here we are, your women and children. We suffered too! It is a part of warfare still overlooked to this day. We watch as tanks and troops advance past burning buildings with barely a thought for the inhabitants, people who will now have to fight their own desperate war against hunger and the elements as they attempt to survive the snowy steppes of Russia or the sun baked fields of the Middle East.
But armies, even early medieval ones, are not filled with unthinking automata however much their leaders may wish them to be, and I was keen to add a touch of humanity to one such raider at least. Sickened by the whole thing, Einar recognises the inhabitants of the villages and farms of England as indistinguishable from the family he left behind in Denmark and is keen to return; that fate decreed otherwise is another small tragedy, as a boy and girl grow up fatherless not even knowing where or how he died. It’s a vignette which must have played out in almost every campaign ever waged in every corner of the globe.
The Danish invasions which led to the conquest of Anglo-Saxon England in 1016 and the reign of Cnut the Great are the seed pod from which the later Norman takeover grew. The various characters and the parts they played during this sweep of history: Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Cnut; Queen Emma; Godwin and his Godwinsons; William of Normandy; Hardrada of Norway and the many others we have met in the preceding tales are well known to us, and I hope that you had as much enjoyment reading my alternative timelines for them as I did researching and writing them. If anything they show j
ust how easily, and in so many ways, what we all think of as the progression of history can dramatically change direction. There were many other drafts which missed the cut: William’s father Robert the Magnificent never undertakes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem or returns safely to take up rule again; neither Æthelræd of England nor Cnut the Dane marry and have children by Emma of Normandy; Osbearn, the son and heir of Earl Siward of Northumbria, survives the defeat of Macbeth of Alba in battle in 1054 thereby depriving Tostig Godwinson of the earldom when his father dies the following year are just a few.
Spear Havoc is the first time that I have written both a collection of short stories and alternative history. If this is the first time that you have read any of my work perhaps you would be interested in my full length novels? My first series, Sword of Woden is an imagining of the early life of the great northern hero Beowulf, from childhood to the fight with the monster Grendel and a little beyond. The timeline continues with King’s Bane which is set in the time of the Anglo-Saxon migrations to what is now England, while my Conqueror of Rome duo concern the Trans-Alpine migration of a Gaulish tribe under the war leader Brennus and the subsequent sack of Rome. My latest trilogy, Erik Haraldsson, tells the life story of the last king of an independent Northumbria, better known to history as Erik Bloodaxe. Details of all my books can be found at the end of this volume.
I am always grateful when readers recommend my books to others, it really does help independent authors such as myself gain visibility and recognition. I love to read reviews for my work on Amazon, Goodreads, social media or blogs, so if you can spare a few moments to write a line or two it is always appreciated. It is a vital source of feedback for me and you can help other readers at the same time. If you would like to contact me directly, please feel free to do so via the links at the bottom of the following ‘About the Author’ page. We all share a fondness for history, and I always enjoy the interaction.
Cliff May
East Anglia
September 2019
About the Author
Cliff May is a writer of historical fiction, working primarily in the early Middle Ages. He has always had a love of history which led to an early career in conservation work. Using the knowledge and expertise gained he moved with his family through a succession of dilapidated houses which he single-handedly renovated. These ranged from a Victorian townhouse to a Fourteenth Century hall, and he added childcare to his knowledge of medieval oak frame repair, wattle and daub and lime plastering. Cliff crewed the replica of Captain Cook’s ship, Endeavour, sleeping in a hammock and sweating in the sails and travelled the world, visiting such historic sites as the Little Big Horn, Leif Eriksson’s Icelandic birthplace and the bullet scarred walls of Berlin’s Reichstag.
Now he writes, only a stone’s throw from the Anglian ship burial site at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia.
[email protected]
Also by C. R. May
BLOODAXE
THE RAVEN AND THE CROSS
SORROW HILL
WRÆCCA
MONSTERS
DAYRAVEN
FIRE AND STEEL
GODS OF WAR
THE SCATHING
TERROR GALLICUS
NEMESIS
