Hereward 03 - End of Days (14 page)

‘So even Abbot Thurstan is afraid,’ Rowena said.

The priest grew gimlet-eyed. ‘We can take no risks.’

‘And she will be killed?’

‘She will be tested. And, if that is God’s will—’

‘Then know this woman has the protection of Hereward.’ Rowena ignored the cautioning hand of Acha on her back. She watched hesitation cross the firelit faces of the men, then confusion. Rowena restrained a smile. They feared the End-Times, death and the Devil, but it seemed they were just as afraid of Hereward.

‘I have heard no such thing,’ the priest said. He sounded unsure.

‘It is true,’ Acha said in a clear voice. She stepped beside Rowena and pointed at each man in turn. ‘Cause harm here and you will all pay the price. You know what that will be.’

The priest blanched. The man holding the wise woman prisoner half raised his spear and looked around for guidance. Seizing her moment, Brigid scrabbled away and leapt to her
feet. But she did not dart into the dark. She threw herself at the priest and raked one hand across his face. As the wise woman pulled away, Rowena realized she had scraped some of the black paste from the bowl into the churchman’s eyes. He fell to the ground, screaming.

All the other men there recoiled, crossing themselves. Brigid loped across the clearing like a wolf, spitting epithets. At the tree-line, she exchanged a fleeting look with Rowena, though whether of gratitude or warning Rowena was not sure. And then she plunged into the woods.

The priest howled for a long moment, and then his voice drained away and he began to babble. He raised both hands to the sky and cried out, ‘He is coming.’

‘She has made him see visions,’ Acha whispered.

‘He is coming. He is coming.’ The gathered men began to smile, thinking the priest was speaking of the Christ. But then his voice broke, and he coughed and choked and sobbed, and finally he cried, ‘The Devil is coming, on the wings of ravens. And there is thunder … my ears ring. This thunder! And there is fire …’ His words drained away into an incoherent mumbling.

Blood drained from the face of every man there. One of the other churchmen turned and yelled, ‘Burn this place to the ground.’

As the frightened men plunged through the door to kick the hot coals in the hearth on to the straw, Acha pulled Rowena away. They hurried into the dark, fearing retribution. Behind them, the flames roared up. Sparks swirled over the stark trees. Rowena felt cold reach deep inside her. She had not found her husband, and with each day the world was turning further from the light.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

THE SHADOW OF
the axe carved across the bared neck of the man hunched on his knees. There, on the edge of the black mere, the world seemed to hold its breath. No breeze, no sound at all disturbed the weighted moment. In a circle, the English watched the tableau. They smelled of sweat and peat and smoke. Some licked their dry lips. Others swallowed. No one blinked. Every man wondered how the Norman knight could bear the waiting. They imagined his thoughts, the knowledge that it would take three, perhaps four strokes to separate his head from his shoulders. The agonies that would have to be endured before the end. The despair that must surely engulf him as he realized there was no hope. No escape.

Death waited at his shoulder.

Kraki’s hand trembled. He itched to bring the axe down. His eyes flickered towards Hereward. But the Mercian frowned as he studied Deda’s profile. Not even a glimmer of fear lay there. The knight looked at peace, as if he prayed at the altar of one of the Normans’ vast, cold churches.

Hereward nodded to Kraki.

‘Speak now if you would,’ the Northman growled.

‘I have made my peace with God,’ Deda replied in a clear voice.

‘No pleas for mercy?’ Kraki shifted his feet to brace himself. ‘Once more: tell us what you know of the king’s plans and we will spare your miserable life.’

‘I will not betray my king.’

‘Aye, all cut from the same cloth, you Normans,’ Kraki snarled. ‘Bastards, the lot of you.’

‘Wait.’ Hengist danced forward, his eyes shining. He rubbed his twitchy hands together and knelt so he could peer into the knight’s eyes. ‘There is a better path.’

‘Speak, Hengist,’ Hereward commanded.

‘Do it the Norman way.’ Hengist lay flat so that he looked like an eager child. ‘Cut off a foot. Then a hand. An ear, an eye, his nose. Whittle him down, bit by bit. His lips will be loose long before he loses them.’

‘What do you say, Norman?’ Hereward squatted so he could make eye contact with the knight. ‘Speak now and have a clean death. Or suffer the agonies of hell before you talk. And still die.’

Deda held the Mercian’s gaze. A hint of a smile crossed his lips. ‘A choice like that, I would need time to think on it.’

Hereward studied the strong face, the clear eyes. He saw no cruelty there. He felt troubled, for this made little sense to him. He had been watching Deda from the moment they had fished him out of the rushing waters of the Ouse. The knight had sat calmly by while the English had set about destroying the causeway, burning the peat defences and scattering the sand and the flint to the four corners of the earth. By nightfall, the king’s plan, a feeble one at best, lay in tatters. And still Deda showed no fear of what was to come for him.

‘Raise him up,’ Hereward commanded.

Hengist looked puzzled, but with Kraki’s help he lifted the knight to his feet. The Norman warrior stood erect, still holding his captor’s gaze.

‘I see now there is little to gain by holding the threat of death against this foe,’ the Mercian said.

‘Kill him then and be done with it,’ Hengist pressed, rubbing his palms together.

Hereward looked around his men. ‘Are we afraid of one poor Norman? Are we afraid of
any
Normans?’ He grinned. His men nodded, their mutterings of defiance rising to loud assent. ‘We are English. We show kindness to all guests. That is our way. And is Deda the knight not a guest? Then let us treat him as one. Let us take him to Ely and give him a feast greater than any he would have had under the bastard king.’

The men looked at each other, unsure. But when they glimpsed Kraki’s sly grin, they cheered. ‘Aye. Let us show him the English way.’

Deda cocked one eyebrow. ‘Mercy, then? And a full belly too.’ His tone was wry.

‘If we were Normans we would have strung you up alive, cut off your cock and pulled out your guts so you could watch the ravens feeding on them,’ Hereward replied. ‘Even taking your head would have been a mercy. You are our guest now. No more worry, or fear. You will see us as we are. But not just yet.’ He nodded and Madulf and Sighard tied a strip of cloth across the Norman’s eyes. Once their captive could not see, Kraki nodded to Hereward. All had gone as planned.

Grinning, Hengist and Guthrinc prodded their spears into the knight to guide him towards the secret path back to Ely. He strode ahead of them, at his own pace.

Before Hereward could follow his war-band, he heard a familiar voice hailing his name. Alric was pushing his way through the sea of bracken with Herrig the Rat at his side. Herrig was the best scout they had. The folk across the fens called the rebels the wild men of the woods, and Herrig was the wildest of all. Like his namesake, he was lean and lithe and ferocious. His long hair was lank and greasy and his front teeth had been knocked out in a fight, creating the illusion that he had fangs at the edge of his mouth. Hereward had seen him scale a soaring ash tree in a flash and then leap to the next tree from a bouncing branch. He could crawl through ditches half filled with brackish water for miles on end, and live in the woods on berries and rabbits longer than any man in Ely.
Round his neck, on a leather thong, he carried the finger bones of men he had killed, and there were now so many he rattled when he walked.

‘Herrig has important news that could not wait. And a strange sight to show you,’ Alric said, flushed from the haste of his journey from Ely.

The scout gave a gap-toothed grin and waved three bloody severed digits. ‘The blood of good men would run cold at the screams. But now there is only silence.’ He ended his words with a snicker that sounded like a pig rooting in the mud.

‘Aye, there are no good men in these parts,’ Hereward said. ‘Speak, Rat.’

Herrig’s eyes flickered from side to side. He could not help searching the trees for enemies, even when he was with friends. ‘There is much to tell.’ He raised a finger, choosing. ‘The king is to set up camp at Belsar’s Hill—’

‘Close enough to strike at Ely,’ Alric interjected.

‘He may as well be in Wincestre,’ Hereward said. ‘We have destroyed the causeway which would have carried his men to our gates. He cannot cross the waters and bogs.’

‘Worse news for the Bastard,’ the scout said with a crooked grin. ‘He tries to raise a levy, away to the west, but few men are joining him.’

‘If he searches for new men,’ the monk ventured, ‘his army must be poor indeed.’

‘It would seem,’ Hereward said.

‘In the villages, they are waiting for your call,’ Herrig added. ‘They will rise up with the English.’

‘Then we should strike soon, while the king is at his weakest.’ Alric looked eager. Glad to be done with all this strife, the Mercian thought. And who could blame him?

‘What else do you have?’ he asked.

Herrig waved a filthy, broken-nailed finger. ‘Would you hear of your brother?’

Hereward stiffened. ‘What do you know?’

‘He travels south from Lincylene, with your father, and the
Butcher and William de Warenne and some other Norman nobles. They go to see the king.’

‘How near?’

‘A day away from Belsar’s Hill.’

Hereward peered through the trees towards the west. He felt the flames of his anger lick up inside him. He imagined his hands round Redwald’s throat, choking the life from him. He envisioned blood, to wash away the memory of Turfrida’s suffering, blood spilled in front of his father. How easy it would be to give in to the devil inside him. He sensed Alric’s eyes upon him and could almost read the other man’s thoughts.
Do not turn your back upon the English for your own needs. You will never forgive yourself if you follow this path of vengeance.
With a struggle, he damped down his fury and said, ‘There will be time enough for my brother.’

Alric flashed a smile of relief. ‘One other thing,’ the scout added. ‘Another riddle. Come.’

Hereward and Alric followed Herrig into the trees. They skirted a lake the colour of iron and forged across a narrow cause-way through a stinking marsh. All the time, they kept their ears cocked, listening for the sound of birds taking flight. The day grew warmer. Crows called from the treetops. They smelled rotting leaves and stagnant water, but nothing of men. Finally, Herrig pushed through a line of trees snarled by bramble and came to a halt. Hereward frowned as he looked ahead.

Acres of the wooded land now lay bare. Stumps of trees dotted the land, creamy ridges revealing the axe cuts that had brought them down. Furrows led off to the west where the trunks had been dragged away.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Alric asked. ‘This has all been newly cut. There are no farms in these parts, no homes.’

‘A riddle,’ Herrig repeated.

Hereward walked to the centre of the cleared land and knelt down. He traced his fingers across hoofprints and footprints made deep by men weighted down with armour. ‘The Normans did this,’ he murmured.

The sight weighed heavily on him as they made their way back to Ely. Too many riddles circled, like ravens over a battle-field. He felt certain some meaning was attached to these things, but he could not find it, and that troubled him. A thought haunted him: if he did not find the connections soon, all would be lost.

At Ely, the sounds of carousing echoed over the walls. The men had returned home with news of the blow struck against the king. They drank in the afternoon sun, and sang, and stole kisses from the women. They deserved their joy, Hereward thought. He would not steal that from them. But he could not be a part of it. He strode up to the minster, hoping to be alone with his thoughts in the tranquillity of the church. But at the gate to the enclosure, Abbot Thurstan waited for him. From the cleric’s grim face, he could see the conversation would not be good.

‘You have given your protection to the witch Brigid?’ Thurstan demanded.

Weary, Hereward waved a hand to brush aside this inconsequential matter. ‘I have done no such thing.’

The abbot beckoned to a monk, who brought the new woman, Rowena, from the side of one of the halls. The warrior sighed. Trouble seemed to follow her like a shadow.

‘This woman,’ Thurstan began, his voice trembling, ‘this woman has worked against God’s will. She has deceived us. She has taken your name and used it to save the life of that heathen.’

Hereward narrowed his eyes at the woman. She bit her lip, then held her head up in defiance. ‘Is this true?’ he asked.

‘Your wife was a wise woman. You have no argument with them,’ she said.

‘That is not the issue here,’ he snapped. ‘I will not have my name used without my consent. My name, and what it means in these parts, is all I have.’

Thurstan glowered. ‘She must be punished.’

The Mercian hesitated. ‘No more,’ he said to her.

Her cheeks flushed. ‘I will not be told what to do. I am not a Norman woman. And I care naught for your fight. Who wears the crown in Wincestre …’ She sneered, then spat. ‘Kings are kings. My husband is
my
world. Without him, there is nothing for me. That is all that matters to me.’ She walked away a few paces and then turned back. ‘Pick up your spears and axes and play your games of blood and power, if it pleases you. If you will not help me find Elwin, I will do it alone. Aye, even if it means attacking the king myself.’

Hereward watched her march away and thought how much she reminded him of his wife. He ignored Thurstan’s insistence that Rowena should be imprisoned in one of the church halls, for her own good, the abbot said, and for the good of them all. Instead, he walked down to the tavern and found Kraki and Guthrinc roaring with laughter as they swilled back ale.