River of Destiny (25 page)

Edith had swept the house, and hung their bedding out to air. Her pots and pans were scrubbed and shining, and Eric’s clothes had been brushed and mended. She was waiting for him when he returned from the hall, her long hair hanging loose down her back, combed and scented with the herbs that hung in bunches from the rafters. Tonight she would tell him that she was with child.

When he came at last he was full of excitement and desire. He fell on her with a mock growl, his arms embracing her, his mouth on hers, his happiness overwhelming. He had thrown the leather bag of coins on the table. Later they would count them but for now all he wanted was to make love to his beautiful wife.

Outside, the village was in a state of excitement. The Lord Egbert was to hold a feast. People were running to and fro, meat was cooking on the spits, the women from the village were helping with the baking, the men practising for a tournament of sword play and mock fighting. The lord’s brother, Oswald, was coming back from King Edmund’s court and it was to celebrate his arrival that Egbert had decreed that it was time for feasting and fun. Winter would soon be upon the land, and in the spring the village would be denuded of its men as the call went out that the fyrd was to prepare for war.

Deep in their pillows Eric and Edith snuggled together, oblivious of the bustle outside. Only one man knew where they were and was watching their door. Hrotgar had walked down from the hall to seek out the swordsmith, but the closed door which greeted him made him fall back. He scowled. He would wait.

It was long dark by the time the door opened again. Eric walked out stretching and whistling, reached for the water scoop beside the barrel outside their door. He was the happiest man alive. Edith had told him that he was to be a father at last. After all these years of waiting. As he poured some water over his head Hrotgar came forward.

‘You are to go back to the hall.’

‘Why?’ Eric started. He had not seen the man arrive. ‘My job is done. The sword is finished.’

Hrotgar shrugged. ‘Perhaps to acknowledge the plaudits of the company. The Lord Egbert has sent for you. I’ve waited here for you long enough, my friend. We should go now. Put on some clothes and follow me.’

Edith waited until they were out of sight, then, following them, she too made her way up the hill. The air was rich with the smell of roasting meat, thick with the blue smoke from the fat as it splattered onto the cooking fires. The sound of music and merriment could be heard clear down to the river.

The hall was packed, the long tables buckling under the weight of great platters of food. As Eric and Hrotgar went in a singer was picking up his lyre. Almost at once the noise began to die away and as soon as he started his song there was silence in the great room. Edith made her way in amongst the women who were helping to serve the food and peered round. There was no sign of the Lord Egbert. In his place in the seat of honour was a younger man, his brother. So where were his two sons? Had they stayed in Thetford with the king? She felt the sting of smoke in her eyes and turned back towards the door as Hrotgar threaded his way towards the high table with Eric behind him.

She was hesitating, not knowing whether to wait or go, when suddenly she found herself facing a stranger. She knew without being told this was the heathen sorcerer, Anlaf, from the forest. A space was opening round him in the crowd, people falling back on every side to get away from him as he stood in the entrance to the hall, but she found herself unable to move. He was staring at her, holding her gaze with fierce brown eyes, his wild hair blowing in the wind which was tearing into the hall through the open doors. Two servants rushed forward to push them shut and drop the heavy bar in place to hold them closed. They saw him, stopped and backed away. He gave a humourless smile, ignoring them. ‘Come.’ He beckoned Edith. ‘Follow me.’

She was frozen to the spot with fear, her hands protectively folded over her belly but somehow she couldn’t disobey him. As he turned and made his way through the hall she followed, as if mesmerised.

They were halfway up to the high table when the singer finished his song and bowed to the tumultuous applause. As he sat down Oswald, the Lord Egbert’s brother, stood up and banged his knife hilt on the table, calling for silence.

‘As many of you know, this is a special day. Today Eric our champion swordsmith completed the great new sword which my brother had commanded of him. The sword is called Destiny Maker and it will be the greatest sword in the whole of the Kingdom of the Angles.’ He paused as cheers erupted from all around. Edith searched for Eric, who was standing with Hrotgar near the speaker. He met her eye and the two exchanged a secret smile.

‘As you all know, my brother is grievously sick,’ Oswald went on, ‘and so he has asked me to take the sword when we go to battle in the spring and blood it honourably in the defence of this land.’ He reached under the table and produced the sword, waving it in the air above his head. The reflections from a hundred candles seemed to catch its blade as it swung back and forth.

There was another great roar of approval. Someone slapped Eric on the back and he raised his right arm in salute to the sword.

Oswald beckoned a serving man over and held out his drinking horn. ‘Fill it, my friend, so I can drink health and success to this great weapon, to the man who made it, and to everyone here!’

He was raising the horn to his lips when the sorcerer at last reached the top table, a clear path almost miraculously appearing before him. He raised his hand and turned to face the assembly. ‘That is not going to be possible,’ he shouted. ‘This night the Lord Egbert has gone to meet Woden in the place of heroes.’

A sudden shocked silence fell on the hall, followed by cries of denial.

‘Go and see for yourselves,’ the man went on. ‘At this moment the harbingers of death sit on the roof of this hall. The Lord Egbert’s corpse is lying in the arms of his wife, who sobs over his body.’

Oswald had subsided into his chair, his face white with shock as he stared at the wild-eyed man standing in front of him. Eric seemed to have been turned to stone.

Anlaf stepped forward and seized the sword hilt. With almost superhuman strength for such a slightly built man he raised it in his turn, but now it was in total silence. ‘This sword will not be blooded in battle. It was made for one purpose alone. It will be buried with the Lord Egbert and go with him into the Otherworld,’ he shouted.

‘No!’ Eric was finally galvanised into life. ‘No, this sword was made to do battle!’

‘And so it shall.’ Oswald hauled himself out of his chair. ‘I will not hear such pagan nonsense! My brother can’t be dead. I saw him just a short while ago. How does this man know he is dead? He lies!’ He thumped the table again. ‘We will ask Lord Egbert himself!’ He turned towards the curtained doorway behind him. Then he paused and turned back. ‘My brother will tell you this sword was made for fighting. And when the time comes for him to die, when it is God’s will, we must remember that Christians are not buried with their swords. This sword will be passed on to Egbert’s sons, my nephews, when they are old enough, and until they are ready to carry it into battle it will be blooded by me!’

The shocked silence in the hall was once more broken by cheers, but again the sorcerer raised his hand.

‘Death, my friend, has visited this place tonight. It is easy to prove, and you are forgetting,’ the man’s voice was silky suddenly, carrying like a snake’s hiss through the hall, ‘that the Lord Egbert was not a Christian. He was a follower of the ancient faith of his fathers and as such he is already on his way to the land of heroes. Listen! Do you not hear the sisters of Wyrd?’

In the silence that followed his words they all heard the scream of the wind.

There was a sudden commotion behind the high table. People turned to see what was happening, standing on their toes to get a better view. The curtain over the door had been pushed aside and the Lady Hilda was standing there, her face ravaged by tears. ‘My lord and husband has died,’ she cried. ‘He has gone.’

Edith suddenly realised she was standing almost alone beside the sorcerer and she stepped back, quickly. She was feeling sick. The man was quiet now, waiting and watching for the tumult to die down, but she could feel the power coming off him in waves. At the far end of the hall there was another stirring and fidgeting amongst the people as the men struggled to lift the bar and the great doors were pulled open. She turned. Father Wulfric had appeared. He was standing in the entrance staring up across the tables towards the sorcerer. There was a crucifix in his hand.

‘You have no place here,’ he called. His old voice did not carry well and it sounded feeble in the huge space beneath the crossbeams of the roof. He moved forward, however, steadfastly holding the man’s gaze, holding the crucifix before him. Perhaps only Edith could see that the man’s hand was shaking.

The sorcerer did not flinch. His face was hard as flint. ‘Do not dare to challenge me!’

‘I dare.’ Father Wulfric began to walk towards him. The crowds drew away, flattening themselves against the walls, leaving the centre of the hall empty. ‘This is a Christian hall and the men and women here are Christians. The soul of the Lord Egbert is crying out in pain because of your evil hold on it. But the Lord Jesus will prevail.’

Edith glanced from the old priest to the sorcerer, who was now standing with his back to the high table. He had not wavered. The Lady Hilda was sobbing quietly, clutching at the arm of her brother-in-law, who had gone white with fury.

It was Hrotgar who stepped forward and raised his hand. Wulfric stopped in his tracks. ‘I am as good a Christian as any man here,’ Hrotgar called out, ‘but I am, I was, the thegn’s reeve and my duty is still to him. It was his wish that this sword be commissioned especially for this eventuality. It was made so that in all its perfection and its purity it would accompany the thegn wherever he goes in the next world. I have his orders as to his burial and the ceremony which will be conducted, and that will be attended not by you, Father Wulfric, but by this man here.’ He pointed at the sorcerer, whose expression did not change. ‘That was Lord Egbert’s wish and I gave him my solemn promise that it would be obeyed.’ Seizing the sword, he turned and disappeared through the door behind the high table and into the night.

There was total silence in the room. It was the Lady Hilda who broke it at last. With a cry of pain she turned and fled back through the curtain. No one else moved. After a second Edith quietly backed away from the table and made her way round behind it. After a moment’s hesitation she followed Lady Hilda out of the hall, through the wind and rain towards the lord’s house. Even in the dark her nervous glance up towards the roofline showed the black silhouettes of two large birds perched there. Everyone knew that ravens were the heralds of death. With a whimper of fear she made for the door and let herself in.

There in the bed chamber Lord Egbert lay inert upon the bed.

‘Hrotgar is right.’ Lady Hilda’s voice was broken. ‘Those were his orders. He made me swear the oath as well.’ She walked towards the bed and stood looking down at the white, still face of her husband. Hrotgar was standing beside the bed. Quietly he stepped forward and, laying the sword on the fur coverlet, gently clasped the dead man’s hands around the hilt.

‘We can’t stay here, Ken. Surely you can understand that?’ Zoë was standing with her back to the huge window in the great room. Ken was sprawled in one of the armchairs.

He threw his newspaper down on the floor with an exasperated sigh. ‘Calm down, Zo. For goodness’ sake.’ He shook his head. ‘I know it hasn’t been all good for you, this move, but you have to give it time. It is wonderful here. Truly wonderful. It has taken me a bit of time to settle in too, but I’m getting there and you will as well. We can’t jack it in after only a few months. You’ve got to give it a chance.’

‘So all these bloody ghosts and the neighbours from hell don’t worry you at all?’

‘Wherever one goes there are going to be difficult neighbours. One just has to get to know them. And we know what the ghosts are now. Kids playing tricks. Look, I bought the bolts and I’ve fitted them to both the outside doors. They can’t get in at night. And anyway, their mother has bollocked them enough to put them off crime for ever and she’s taken them away, for goodness’ sake! And I’ll change the locks if you really think it’s necessary.’