by K T Findlay
When they got to the bend in the track where the slavers had been killed, all that was left was the blood stained earth and red splashes on the grass. It looked as if the slavers had carried the bodies away with them, but Wulfstan told Thomas that they’d simply tossed them into the river, and they were lying under the surface a bit downstream. Not a lot of loyalty or compassion amongst slavers it seemed.
Thomas desperately wanted to ask Freawaru how she and the others had been able to execute their escape in total silence, and then with so little talking, manage to execute the attack that killed the two men. But of course it had been Wulfstan who’d witnessed everything, not him. With Melody already on the qui vive, he could hardly risk a question like that. He’d need to wait for another opportunity.
Wulfstan was doing his now customary scouting, but he spent quite a bit of time flitting back and forth along the column.
Most of all though, he watched Melody. That golden glow she’d had around her by the fire that night, was definitely back. And it seemed to him to be a lot stronger this time. Melody may be having questions around her Prince, but increasingly, there seemed to be questions around Melody herself. Wulfstan said nothing of this to Thomas. For now, it was his own little secret.
When they hit the main road, Thomas felt he needed to reopen the conversation with Melody. ‘That was excellent shooting today, just as good as you were in practice. The one does not always follow the other, and I was very impressed.’
Melody smiled. ‘Knowing they were there to possibly either kill or kidnap us, it wasn’t hard to do. I just pictured Cuthbert’s face on each of them, and it was easy.’
‘Well, it certainly worked. A word of advice though, try not to hate Cuthbert. Hate is very bad for your own soul, and it does him no damage at all. It only hurts yourself.’
She shook her head strongly. ‘I can’t not hate him. Not after all he did to me.’
Thomas nodded. ‘Understood. But what does it feel like in your body when the hate builds up?’
She thought for a moment. ‘My chest tightens. my face frowns or scowls, my shoulders tense up, my hands clench, and my stomach does back flips inside.’
‘And does that feel nice?’ he asked.
‘No. I feel like I’m not me anymore.’
He nodded again, and looking straight ahead said ‘Next time, try taking a deep breath, then breathe out slowly while relaxing your shoulders and making yourself smile.’
She shot him a look. ‘How can I smile when I feel so angry?!?’
‘I didn’t say to feel happy. I just said smile. Fake it.’
She frowned at him.
He grinned. ‘Right now you’re a little cross with me. Right? You think I’m asking you to do something impossible. True?’
She gave just a flicker of a nod.
‘So try it now. Take a deep breath. Seriously, take a deep breath.’
She did.
‘Now hold it in. Feel the tension in your chest and face. Now, relax your shoulders, slowly breathe out, and force your face to smile.’
She slumped her shoulders in an exaggerated way, pouted at him, then slowly breathed out.
He laughed at her expression. ‘What a lovely face!’
Enjoying that she’d made him laugh, Melody broke her pout and laughed properly herself. This caused him to laugh all the more, so she laughed harder again. Together they laughed for a full minute. Each time one of them almost stopped, a glance at the other would set them off again, until eventually the laughter died away.
Thomas wiped a tear from his eye. ‘Now how do you feel?’
‘Fantastic!’ she said.
‘And the great thing is, it always works.’ he said. ‘A laugh or a smile will always make you feel better, even if you’re faking it. It releases things inside that make you feel good, and that helps you deal with whatever is going on at the time. You can be crying, but force a smile onto your face and it will help you to feel better.’
Melody turned her face upwards, allowing the sun to soak into her skin, further relaxing her muscles. Turning to him once more she said softly, ‘Well I certainly feel good now!’
He extended his right hand towards her, which she took in her left. He gave it a gentle squeeze, and together they rode down the road together, hand in hand, the warmth of their expressions matching the warmth of the sun on their faces.
Freawaru, watching from behind, jerked her head towards the hands and murmured to Rowena. ‘I’ve never seen a man of rank treat his people like that. Not even a boy of rank. He’s not normal.’
‘True enough. He’s not, and thank God for it.’ said the redhead.
‘And if he faced a choice between your life and his, which way would he jump?’
Rowena cast an affectionate glance at the back of the Prince’s head. ‘He’s already stood in harm’s way for me. He’s physically protected Melody, and put his reputation on the line for her at the manor. And together he, Berthilda and me have stood side by side in a marketplace to face off five armed and angry men, including the thegn he told you about.’
‘So,’ she said, turning to Freawaru, ‘he would jump to my side. And I would jump to his. We all would.’
‘And in a year, you will all face this thegn once more in a fight to the death? And you expect to win?’ The woman’s voice was sceptical.
‘You don’t know him yet. The world seems to change around him. So yes, I expect to win. But even if I didn’t believe that, I would still be with him.’
‘And why is that?’ frowned Freawaru.
Rowena took her own deep satisfying breath of the warm summer air, and following the advice she had overheard, gently shook the residual tension out of her shoulders. ‘Because a year of freedom with such as he, is worth more than a lifetime of servitude under a cur with a whip, even if death lies at the end of it.’
She took her left hand and gently stroked Blade’s neck. ‘And death does not lie at the end of it. Only life, or freedom, or both.’ She smiled. “And you and your friends have the choice. He has to take slaves as part of the bet with his father the King, but he only wants those who choose to be at his side. So he means it when he says you have the choice to stay or go. You really do get to choose.’
‘And why would he not sell us at the slave market if we say no? We do not really have that much of a choice!’ Freawaru growled under her breath.
Rowena shook her head. ‘He would not do that. He has paid for you, and would probably keep you in a position you could use to earn your freedom. You would be well cared for and allowed to prosper, and to be happy. But you would never be forced to be one of us. If you don’t want to be with us, he won’t want you either.’
‘So why not just set us free?’
‘I’m sure if your people can pay him back what he paid for your freedom, he’d be happy to.’
‘And where is the justice in that?’
‘It is not his fault you were enslaved. Nor was it his fault that any of us were enslaved. What he offers is a way out, if you want it. That alone is a miracle. You cannot expect him to find the money to buy the freedom of every slave in the Kingdom. Perhaps it would be wise not to ask God for too much, or you may get nothing at all.’
Freawaru stared ahead for a few moments, thinking. And then nodded her head slowly in agreement.
The column walked on peacefully to Tamworth.
In the stables, the Freawaru family’s two horses were seen to by the grooms. They’d confirmed Berthilda’s diagnosis that apart from being a little stiff and sore from their exertions, there was little else wrong with them.
Thomas watched with great interest as the five newcomers set about fettling the horses. As in the fight, they worked with very little noise, and little conversation. Topaz’s head rose, glanced at Storm who nodded in reply and passed over a brush. Just past her, Jade pulled taut part of a horse’s mane so Scarlett could more easily spot the biddy bid that was eluding her brush.
Freawaru watched Thomas watch
ing them.
‘Amazing how working in a loud place like a smithy can make you able to pick up the visual cues as to what others need.’ he observed.
Obsidian turned his head, and gave Thomas a none too gentle nudge in the back, causing the boy to stumble forward.
‘Hoy! Have a care!’ he cried.
Obsidian looked at him, swung his head around to his hay net, then back to Thomas, who laughed. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know. But you’ll have to wait a minute.’ He stroked the horse’s nose softly.
Thomas thought for a second, then asked ‘How much work did you do in steel as opposed to iron?’
‘Making good steel is almost impossible.’ said Freawaru. ‘We can’t get the forge hot enough to make it properly, so we only get little pieces here and there.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘And that makes it hard to do anything good with it, because each little bit is different, and even the best always has slag left in it, and that makes it weaker than it should be. So yes, we put around the edges of our blades, but it’s not as good as we’d like.’
‘Would you like to work with really good quality steel?’
She looked at him cynically. ‘Do you have some?’
He laughed. ‘Not yet, but in a matter of weeks we will. The smithy is being built to my specifications as we speak, and yes, we will have steel. More to the point we will be able to make different kinds of steel at will, which means…’
She cut him off. ‘It means you’ll have better weapons than the thegn’s men.’
Thomas just smiled.
‘But,’ she frowned, ‘that’s still no good if your people are too weak to use them. Do you really think a group of young women can go hand to hand against a body of men who do nothing but fight?’
‘Who said anything about a normal fight?’ he asked.
‘But…’
‘The bet was that I couldn’t get a bunch of slave girls to beat the men in a fight. Nobody said anything about how the fight is to be run. Oh everyone expects we’ll fight in the way our people have always fought, in a shield wall with spears, shields, axes, and for the very rich few, a sword. But,’ he paused for effect, ‘we aren’t going to do that.’
Freawaru stuttered uncertainly. ‘But how?’
‘If you decide to join us, you’ll learn. If not, you’ll have to wait and see like everyone else. But in your case, there may be an extra motivation to join us, and that’s being able to work with really good steel. You can join my smith if you like.’
She shook her head. ‘We need to talk it through, the five of us. And what happens to the other three of us, and what happens if we say no?’
‘Are you kidding? A polisher and a sharpener are incredibly valuable to me, so no issues with Topaz and Jade. I’m trying to teach some people to read and write myself, so Scarlett is incredibly valuable to me, even more valuable than you in some ways. I’m not just about sharp edges you know.’
He smiled again. ‘As for you saying no, you can all work in the roles we’ve just discussed. You just won’t be my warriors. You can earn a good living, save up, and in a few years you can buy your freedom back and return to Northumbria. The catch for you is that although you will have learned to work with steel, you won’t have learned how to make it. In fact, you won’t know how to make it for a while yet either way.’
‘We get to work with the steel, whichever we choose?’ she asked.
Thomas nodded. ‘Uhuh. But you won’t learn how to make it unless you’re one of my warriors. I can’t afford that knowledge to get out of Mercia and back to Northumbria. If you choose the warrior path, you choose to be a Mercian. For life.’
‘You’re asking me to be a traitor!’ she cried.
‘No.’ he replied gently. ‘I’m just putting a condition on you learning one particular skill. Your own king wouldn’t even think of letting you work with the stuff. I’m offering you a chance you’ll never get any other way, but I’m not forcing any of you to do anything you don’t want to do.’
They left it at that.
Thomas gave Obsidian his hay, and made a fuss of him.
Freawaru and her kin went off for a walk on their own down to the river. There they sat, and for the next four hours talked, and walked, and talked, and walked, trying to come to a decision.
Every hour or so Thomas sent down a couple of serving girls with some food and drink.
Occasionally Freawaru would come up and ask him a question.
Just before the evening meal was due to be served, they all arrived back in the palace to meet with the Prince.
Thomas cocked his head questioningly.
Five grins shot back at him.
‘Welcome aboard.’ laughed Thomas. ‘Rowena!!! Five more for dinner please!!’
13 Steeling themselves
They spent the next four days in an extended shopping expedition, throughout the palace market and beyond.
Berthilda took on the responsibility of equipping the five newcomers with bows, and also bought a lot more arrows for the entire troop.
With the court away, there were no swords to be had in the market, but there were scramseaxes. The biggest of these very large knives was close to 75 cm long, a bit over two feet, but with just the one sharp edge. They weren’t particularly well balanced, being a bit point heavy like the swords, so Thomas took care they each got one they felt they could deal with. Kelsey got them to do a few exercises, just to double check.
Then came the standard equipment, two large iron headed spears, three leather covered, iron bound, lime wood shields, an axe and two throwing axes for each person.
The girls looked askance at the ever growing pile of equipment, and it didn’t even include any armour or helmets yet. Even Berthilda and Freawaru were concerned about being able to carry it all.
Thomas just said not to worry. They wouldn’t ever have to carry all of it at once. To make his point he hired two carts, to which he promptly added twelve large purchases of cloth, two pairs of leather shoes each, leather belts and straps, and three complete tanned cow hides.
Knowing the manor’s own stocks would not be able to cater for the additional mouths and horses, especially once winter hit, he placed orders with a number of merchants for foodstuffs, particularly oats and barley. He wanted far more than the market currently held, and so arranged for it to be delivered to the manor later. Wulfstan was a huge help here, as he’d been able to spy on the merchants earlier in the day to separate the honest from the scoundrels.
Thomas also placed orders with three different merchants for the turnips and beets he wanted from the land of the Franks for the four crop rotation. To try and make sure they got him the right ones, he gave them drawings and descriptions of both the plants and their seeds, asking them to send out their agents that very day.
This year he’d be making a huge loss in the manor’s accounts, and only the King’s gold was enabling him to do what he was doing, but he was hopeful of making something “magical” that might bring him back into profit. To that end he bought one hundred pounds of copper, twenty pounds of tin, several pints of mercury, and a hundred pounds of lead. With that little lot he ought to be able to make something!
He also visited all the blacksmiths in Tamworth, and bought half the iron they had in stock. This too was expensive, but he needed raw materials pretty much instantly back at the manor, and couldn’t afford the time to go through the smelting process from scratch.
To work it, Freawaru and Storm acquired a complete set of tools for their own smithy, including an anvil each. All this additional metal meant Thomas had to add another two carts to his shopping list.
Topaz and Jade were particularly thrilled at being given free reign to select whatever polishing and sharpening stones they wanted. It being Tamworth, the range and quality was quite unlike anything they’d ever come across before. Thomas then got them to choose a range of stones the others could use to help, because sharpening and polishing swords was a lengthy business. He’d need all hands on deck doing th
e donkey work to make them quickly enough.
The King was going to go ballistic at all the expense of course, but by the time he found out, it would be too late. Thomas was hoping his “magic” items would make it alright again.
They all spent the afternoon practising in public with their new blades, shields and spears, under Kelsey’s direction. Their struggles caused much mirth amongst the population, especially the slavers. Deena and Deana in particular were having difficulties with the scramseaxes, their own light builds struggling to deal with the heavy, badly balanced blades. It looked more as if the scramseaxes were throwing them around the place, rather than the other way around.
Polhard was paying particularly close attention, which pleased Thomas no end. He was certain that the slaver would be running off to Earl Grimketil, to try and exchange information for cash, and that suited Thomas just fine.
Rowena and Berthilda were of course the best at this stage, dancing around each other, feinting, striking, parrying. Good friends they may have been, but boy they were competitive too! Thomas had to buy another six shields for them as they’d each worn one out by dinner time.
The next day after a leisurely trip at cart speed, they arrived back at the manor. Thomas was pleased to find out that the watch system was working well, as there was a welcoming committee half a mile before the village.
The children came running towards them, hair flying, eyes sparkling with excitement.
‘You’re back so soon!’ gasped Grimhild.
‘Yes!’ shouted Gundy. ‘Only seven days! Why are you back so soon?’
Thomas laughed. ‘We were incredibly lucky. Meet Deena and Deana, who we chanced upon on the way to Tamworth, just down the road from here in fact.’
The little girls goggled at the twins.
‘But they’re the same!!’ gasped Gundy.
‘Yes they are!’ laughed Thomas. ‘There’s no fooling you is there?!’
The twins each nodded to the girls.
‘This is Gundy, a magician with numbers, and Grimhild, who’s fantastic with words. Two fine minds.’ said Thomas, before the twins asked him.
