by K T Findlay
It was a striking face. Elfin in structure, framed with straight mousey brown hair. Even more striking was a very similar face standing next to her.
‘Identical twins!’ thought Thomas.
‘Good day to you my friend, from Prince Wulfstan of Mercia.’ he said to the man at the brazier. ‘What is happening here?’
‘I know who you are Your Highness.’ said the man bowing low. ‘Welcome to my home.’
‘Thank you.’ said Thomas. ‘And what home entertainments are you performing here?’ indicating the bound girl.
‘She is a thief! Or her sister is.’ he said pointing to her unbound companion. ‘We can’t tell them apart, but we know one of them stole a whole roast goose last night! She was seen! But each blames the other.’
‘So how do you know you are punishing the right one?’ asked Thomas.
‘We don’t Your Highness. They are both slaves. They are jointly lying to avoid punishment, so we are going to make sure we can tell them apart in future. This one is going to be branded on her right shoulder.’
‘Won’t that affect her work?’
‘Only for a week Your Highness. And if she’s the one we think she is, she doesn’t do very good work anyway, so we won’t notice much difference.’
Thomas nodded. ‘And their work is?’
‘Weavers Your Highness. One does wonderful work, always laughing and smiling. The other, this one, does mediocre work, always being punished, always scowling.’
‘And how do you know they don’t swap roles all the time just to tease you?’ laughed Thomas.
The man smirked. ‘Well if they do that Your Highness, they are very good at keeping up the game! Anyway, this girl was the surly, rude one when questioned about the theft, so she’s the one getting marked. If they are swapping roles, the branding will tell us that too!’
He turned back to the brazier, took out the poker and checked the colour. ‘Not hot enough yet. Another couple of minutes I think.’
‘Or perhaps I can offer you an alternative solution.’ said Thomas. ‘I am looking for slaves to take part in my battle with Lord Grimketil in a year’s time, and these two might be suitable.’
The man raised his eyebrows. ‘You want to buy them Your Highness?’
‘Only if they want to come. They have to know what will be asked of them, what they are risking, and what will be the reward. I can pick only slaves, yet I will choose only volunteers. May I ask them?’
‘Of course Your Highness!’ replied the man, who recognised a good opportunity to get rid of a troublesome slave for good money when he saw it.
Thomas dismounted and went over to the frame, beckoning the other girl closer. Huddling together, there was much low voiced muttering. Thomas returned to the man, took out his money bag and counted out a more than fair value for the two girls. ‘Would that meet with your approbation?’
The man beamed. ‘Yes Your Highness! It’s an honour doing business with you.’
Thomas laughed. ‘You mean it’s an honour getting more than you were expecting for them! In this matter I want you to feel you have been treated honourably, and that’s part of the price I pay. I want no complaints later on.’
‘There will be none from me Your Highness, I swear on my mother’s grave.’ said the man.
An old lady came up quietly behind him. ‘May I remind you Egbert, that I am not yet dead.’
He grinned ‘Just practising mother!’
Thomas laughed and waved to Rowena and Berthilda, who leapt from their horses, strode over to the frame and cut the girl free. Half an hour later Deana, the girl on the frame, and her sister Deena, were being taught by Berthilda how to get on a horse. The villagers’ jabbering had reached a level where Thomas had to raise his voice to be heard above it. It was only once the group had reached the main road again that the endless chatter finally faded away.
The girls had clearly never ridden before, but they seemed relatively comfortable on horseback. Thomas looked back at them over his shoulder.
‘Welcome aboard ladies. You’ll have a lot of fun with us. A lot of work too, but mainly fun. And don’t worry about the battle at the end of the year. I am certain we’ll win, and you’ll be free.’
They nodded, one smiling impishly, the other impassive.
‘Deana?’ he asked.
They both looked keenly at him.
He shook his head. ‘Don’t even think of playing that game with me. I like the fact you look the same. We might be able to use that to our advantage, but I won’t have you playing silly beggars with me.’
He looked pointedly at the real Deana. ‘I know you are Deana, and always will. You’ll never catch me out, so don’t even try!’
She stared back at him, giving nothing away.
‘I mean it girls.’ he said. ‘This is deadly serious what we’re doing, and I don’t have time to muck about. You can play this game with anyone else you want, but don’t play it with us or I’ll sell you on to someone else.’ and he turned back to the front.
What he didn’t say was how he knew. Deana had a small scar, just above the right knee, on her inner thigh. He couldn’t see it below her skirt. But Wulfstan could.
What Wulfstan didn’t spot was Deena saying to her sister. ‘How do you think he knew that?’
And Deana saying back ‘Maybe he was bluffing?’
Nobody else in the troupe heard it either, because neither girl had made the slightest sound.
There was great curiosity in Tamworth. After all, everyone knew the story of Wulfstan and his bet with the King, and here he was already with three more followers than he’d had only a week ago. The news of his arrival spread ahead of him, and throngs of people flanked their route to the palace.
Thomas, Rowena and Berthilda took it all in their stride, but to Deana, Deena and Sherelda, it came as a bit of a shock. Whenever they had been the centre of attention in the past, it had meant something bad was happening. So they were naturally nervous about the whole thing.
Thomas gave the three of them an encouraging grin, and waved happily to the onlookers. Some of them waved back cheerfully, some were silent, and others laughed and joked and pointed. Just like any group of people anywhere really.
When they arrived at the palace, the first priority was looking after the horses. Only then did Thomas see to their own living arrangements.
In most manor houses of the time, everyone slept in a single room, the main hall, but the palace was different. It had multiple rooms, including the one which Thomas and Wulfstan had used after the accident, and there was a separate kitchen because the fire in the main hall couldn’t cook enough food for a full banquet.
The four men accompanying them slept in the main hall, but Thomas took over the room he’d recovered in, as it was amply big enough for himself and the five women. It gave them privacy, a rare thing in this world.
The following morning, Berthilda took Thomas, Rowena, Sherelda, Deena and Deana out to the butts to give them an archery lesson.
Berthilda herself was exceptional. Ninety nine percent of her shots hit the bullseye.
Rowena had good strength, and was quite good at working out the range, but tended to shoot to the left. They were both doing instinctive shooting, without sights, simply looking down the arrow at the target. Berthilda spotted that Rowena was looking too much at the tip of the arrow and not the target, but once she got her sufficiently relaxed, Rowena’s shots moved more to the centre.
Deena was nowhere near as strong as Rowena, and couldn’t fully draw the bow.
‘I can’t do it!’ she complained. ‘It’s too strong for me!’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ said Berthilda. ‘The strength will come with practice. Just pull it back as far as you can until your arms start to shake, then back off a little. We’ll get you accurate first, and the power will come on its own later on.’
Deena tried again, but still tried too hard and the arrow went well wide of the entire target. Berthilda stood behind her, and re
sted a finger gently on Deena’s right shoulder.
‘Try again, but this time stop drawing the bow when I tell you to.’
The instant Berthilda felt Deena’s muscles begin to quiver, she told her to stop pulling and focus on the target. To Deena’s astonishment, the arrow hit the target this time.
‘Well done!’ said Berthilda. ‘Okay, let’s do it again.’
It took another five arrows before Berthilda could remove her telltale finger, but after that Deena hit the thirty yard target every time on her own. By the end, she was positively glowing with satisfaction.
Deana was next, and having listened carefully to her sister’s lessons, didn’t try to pull the string harder than she comfortably could. She took careful aim, and shot the arrow clean over the top of the target. The second missed it on the left, and the third on the right.
Berthilda soothed her nerves.
‘Relax. You’re not keeping your left arm straight, so you’re having to use its muscles to keep the bow drawn while you aim. Lock your elbow next time, and look exactly at which bit of the target you want to hit.
This time the arrow was comfortably in the target, something she managed to repeat for most of her remaining shots.
‘Not bad at all Deana, not bad at all for a first go.’ said Berthilda. ‘Prince Wulfstan, would you care to go next?’
Thomas had the problem that he was still a boy, with a boy’s body. He had even less strength than Deena, but he paid attention, and managed to develop into quite an accurate shot by the end of his turn.
Thomas noted that in fact all of them had range issues compared with a fully trained male bowman. They would never be able to pull the top strength bows, so they’d never get the same combination of range and hitting power of an English longbow archer at Agincourt. So accuracy was really going to matter, as would the ability to close quickly to within their own range during a fight.
Sherelda was walking around, tidying up clothes, quivers, spilled arrows etc. but Thomas noticed her watching everything carefully, paying great attention to all the instructions and guidance being given.
She hadn’t asked if she could be one of his warriors. She was happy just being where she was. Thomas hadn’t asked her to be one either, because he couldn’t see the strength of will in her that he knew would be required. Cuthbert had ground her down most thoroughly. Could she recover from that?
More out of politeness than anything else, and to bring her closer into the group, he asked if she would like to try her hand at a bow. Initially she demurred, but Rowena and Berthilda laughingly coaxed her into having a go.
She took the lowest power bow, as her body was still quite weak from Cuthbert’s brutal regime. Holding it lightly in her left hand, she picked up an arrow and effortlessly nocked it, correctly, against the string. Nobody said a word as she drew the bow, rotating back her right shoulder and opening her chest as Thomas had taught the others to do in order to maximise the power in the bow. It was a quite different technique to the normal practice of the time, and Berthilda had immediately seen the benefits of it.
Sherelda sighted carefully at a target 20 yards away, and released the arrow. It missed the whole target, off to the left. There was light laughter from the others, especially the twins.
‘Well, we all have to start somewhere!’ called out Rowena.
A blush suffused Sherelda’s shy smile, but she picked up another arrow, and nocked it as if she’d been doing it all her life. This time she was on line, but hit the very top of the target.
Calmly she picked up her third arrow, ignoring the gently ribald comments. She was dead in the centre of the bullseye. The others all cheered in delight, making her blush again.
Berthilda grinned, and offered her another arrow. ‘See if you can do it twice!’
She could, and she did.
Berthilda, nodded, a bit bemused, and offered her another arrow. She indicated the thirty yard target.
Bullseye again.
Wordlessly another arrow was proffered, but this time the farthest target was pointed to, a full fifty yards away.
Five shots, five bullseyes, at all ranges.
Everyone was stunned, Sherelda included.
Berthilda was the first to rediscover her voice. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ she asked.
‘Just by watching, and listening to you and Prince Wulfstan.’ said Sherelda.
‘But that’s not possible!’ frowned Berthilda. ‘Nobody can do that straight away! You have to have done this before, surely?’ she asked, her eyes pleading for the truth.
Sherelda backed away, alarmed, and shot a fearful sidelong glance at the Prince. ‘No! I swear! This is my very first time.’ Tears began to flow. ‘Please, I meant no offence. I only did as you asked me to. Please don’t think I am lying. Please don’t sell me again!’ the last sentence rising to a wail.
Thomas stepped forward and gently rested his hand on her bow arm. ‘Relax. Nobody thinks you are a liar. And,’ he smiled, ‘nobody is going to sell you, not now, not ever. You’re home now. We are your family now. So relax.’
Some of the tension left her face, but it was still full of fear.
So Thomas went on. ‘Berthilda is just surprised. In fact we’re all surprised! What you have just done would be thought impossible for anyone to do. None of us could have done that with our first shots, not even Berthilda, and she’s the best I’ve ever seen.’
He indicated the twins. ‘What these two managed to do today on their first attempt was really, really good. Better than most people would do on their first attempt. I’m extremely pleased with them.’
At this the twins perked up a bit. They had been somewhat shocked at Sherelda’s instant expertise, and had wondered if they were now a bit of a disappointment.
‘You, are simply astonishing. Here try some more.’ and he pointed to a new quiver of arrows.
She shot twenty more shots, ranging back and forth between the targets. All but two were right in the centre of the bullseye.
After this virtuoso display, they practised individually until another full hour had passed. Thomas called a halt, and took them to the armoury.
Each of them took out a wooden sword, and a real shield. As they were swinging their practice swords about the place, Wulfstan floated down to have a word.
‘If you’re going to practice sword play, you should ask Kelsey to train you all.’
‘Who’s Kelsey?’ asked Thomas.
‘He’s the one Hengist was sparring with when he hit me. Kelsey’s the best fighting mentor in the Kingdom, but father has pushed him to the side after the accident.’
‘Where is he now then?’
‘He’s down by the water mill on guard duty, bored out of his mind.’
‘Guarding the mill? But why? An invader would have to get past lots of other guards before they could get to the mill, surely?’
‘Punishment duty. The King wanted him to be bored so he would have nothing to do but reflect on the accident.’
Thomas shook his head. ‘Your father likes to hold a grudge, I can see that. Right. Let’s go and get him.’
An hour later, a somewhat nervous Kelsey was up at the palace teaching them all how to use a sword.
One of the first things he stopped them doing was the kind of play all children engage in when they pretend to sword fight. They were all hitting each other’s swords, but that’s not the point. When you sword fight someone it’s them you try to hit, not their weapon. If you hit their sword, all you do is carve great big notches into your own carefully sharpened blade. Not helpful at all!
Once he’d got that sorted out, Kelsey started to teach them the Anglo Saxon ways of sword fighting. These swords were more for slashing and hacking than anything else, and only the upper classes had one. Swords were very expensive, and you had to be either very well off yourself, or you had to be provided with one by someone who was very well off. For a group of slave women to have swords was unheard of. Come to that it was also illeg
al. Only access to Offa’s bottomless coffers, opened to Thomas by the bet, was making it possible.
Kelsey had never taught a woman to swing a sword before, but it wasn’t long before the penny dropped. This wasn’t going to work.
To demonstrate his concern, Kelsey arranged for a pig carcass to be brought in, and had it suspended by chains from the rafters. One by one he got them all to take their hardest swing at the body, with their own real sword.
None of them made much of an impact, but worst of all was Thomas’s pretty sword from the King. Kelsey was surprised, but Thomas wasn’t. He’d always suspected that it was for show, not for use. So he brought out the one he’d bought from the market the day they had first left Tamworth. It was a lot better, but still didn’t make that much of an impact.
Then Kelsey brought out his own sword, which Offa had let him keep. He swung it firmly, but clearly not at his hardest. The blade cut easily through the complete side of the carcass, through the spinal column, and came to rest half way through the rest of the body. All that kept it together was the remaining skin and muscle. If the body had been a man’s, Kelsey would have cleaved it in two.
There was no way that any of them were going to be able to do that. They just didn’t have the strength. They’d have to think again.
Which they did at dinner that night, serving themselves in their room, because Thomas had given the servants the night off. He wanted total privacy for the discussion he was going to have.
‘There are two things to note ladies.’ he began. ‘First of all, none of us is going to be able to do what Kelsey did so easily this afternoon.’ He looked around their worried faces. He took a deep breath and continued. ‘Secondly, what Kelsey did to the dinner we are all enjoying right now, Grimketil and his men can do to us if they get a clear swing. Even if we carry shields, their great strength will simply sweep us away. A single blow and we’re gone.’
Nobody disagreed. Nor was anyone eating. He carried on.
‘Grimketil knows this already. He knew it the moment the King laid down the challenge. And so did I. So why you might well ask did I accept the challenge? And more importantly to you as individuals, why am I taking you all with me on what seems like a death ride?’
