The Red And Savage Tongue (Historical Fiction Action Adventure Book, set in Dark Age post Roman Britain) (19 page)

     Egbert had spent most of his time in the alehouse, drunken or sleeping, and occasionally whoring.
His condition had deteriorated. Dark rings encircling eyes that were set in a grey face—a face almost entirely obscured by a filthy mat of stiff beard.

     It was in this condition that Osric found him. He had left one of his many women asleep on the
cot in his quarters, and ventured through the blizzard to retrieve firewood from the stockpile in the main square. Noticing the usual dull orange glow coming from the alehouse, he decided to sup ale and check on Egbert.

     Surrounded by a swirling of
snow, he entered the gloomy room. He spotted Egbert, slumped facedown and snoring with an empty, upturned flagon beside him. A grunting from behind a nearby curtain told him that the barkeeper was busy with one of his whores, so Osric helped himself to bread and cheese, and two jugs of ale.

     One of these he poured over Egbert’s head, causing the comatose debauchee to splutter to a semi-conscious awareness.
‘Bastard! … fuck!’ he shouted, as he fished for his knife in vain. He blinked away his blurry vision until the awareness that his leader had awoken him, slowly dawned upon him. ‘What…what…are you doing here?’ he spluttered. ‘Why do you disturb me?’

     Osric took a swig of ale and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Believe it or not sow-gut, but you’re to be fit for a campaign next year, and I seriously doubt that you’ll even be alive for it.’    

    
‘Don’t worry about me,’ slurred Egbert, ‘my winter pleasure has always been the alehouse, and it has never…it has NEVER! stopped me from killing Britons in the springtime.’

     Osric sliced a hunk off the loaf and eyed Egbert disdainfully.
‘You still managed to lose many of your men, not to mention the slave boy and the woman. Maybe I should leave you here eh? Maybe you’re more trouble than I can endure. Maybe you take too many risks.’

    The barkeepers grunting from behind the nearby curtain got louder, and before Egbert could respond, Osric continued.
‘Speaking of risk taking, I once took a risk. Do you know how I got this mark Egbert?’ He pointed to the scar on his face.

     Egbert shook his head, although he had indeed heard rumours of the origin of Osric’s scar.
‘I got it from a wench on a raid,’ continued Osric, ‘… a wench who struggled much and grabbed my knife. For her insolence, I gave her another mouth—a wide, red mouth underneath her chin. Risky eh? It’s a heavy burden to hear a maiden’s mouth scolding, and I risked doubling the noise. That’s what I call taking a risk!’

     Egbert stared at Osric, his drunken mind taking its time to comprehend
. As Osric’s anecdote finally sank in, he slapped the table and exploded into hysterical laughter. Spittle flew from his mouth as he lurched to his feet and walked over to the closed curtain, pausing to turn and point his appreciation to Osric as his guffawing intensified.

     Egbert snatched the curtain back, as Osric smiled, knowing he was about to witness the entertainment he had incited. Egbert kicked the barkeeper’s bare buttocks, abruptly ending their gyration, and grabbing the man by his hair, threw him out of the cubicle. The barkeeper hastily hitched up his hose, jumped over the beer table,
and crouched behind it.

     Egbert looked back to Osric for approval, and encouraged by his leader’s mirth, grabbed the abandoned whore
under her arm. He dragged her out of the booth, and towards Osric’s table.

     Furious at the curtailment of her business with the barke
eper, the girl turned on Egbert, and gifted him a hefty slap. She screamed at him, ‘Get your stinking hands off me you fat turd!’ and landed another series of stinging slaps around his head and shoulders.

     This time it was Osric’s turn to succumb to hysterics, as Egbert swept the table clean with a swipe of his arm, and threw the wench upon it and made to mount her. His efforts met with a gobbet of spit ejected with force from the girl, hitting Egbert square in the face. She followed this with a strong kick to
his groin.

     Osric, by now, was red faced and crying with laughter.
‘My…you’ve a lively one there…a spirited wench… that’s for sure!’

     Egbert
’s face had clouded and he punched the girl in the face, knocking her back onto the table. ‘Spirited she is indeed,’ he said as he picked his knife up off the floor. ‘And she’s going to meet the
spirits
, that’s for sure.’

     Osric seeing what was about to happen, sobered and made to stop Egbert.
‘No … no, don’t kill her, she provides entertainment for the men, she—’

     Egbert slid the knife across the girl’s throat, cutting deep. A fountain of blood erupted, showering the table and Osric.

     Egbert dragged her off the table as the fountain abated. ‘Another wench with two mouths,’ he said, ‘but both mute … strangely.’

    
He took a slab of Osric’s cheese from his plate and dipped it in the fresh blood on the table, before stuffing it into his mouth.

     As Egbert grinned and chewed open mouthed
at him, even Osric wondered if there was any limit to Egbert’s depravity.

The blizzard had been blowing for three days, producing snowdrifts that curved up to the thatches of the village buildings.

     Murdoc shared a circular hut with Martha, Tomas and Ceola, and they had spent the last days sat around a fire in a struggle to keep warm. An icy breeze whispered around them constantly, even though they had stuffed straw into any gap they could find.

     Tomas and Ceola huddled under the same blanket, as Murdoc hobbled to the pile of firewood he had dragged in from outside. He fed the fire with a dry branch,
which began to crackle and spit as the flames got hold, sending a myriad of sparks into the room. Martha sat beside Murdoc, a blanket draped around their shoulders as he poked the fire with a stick.

     Dominic entered, bearing a dead rabbit, and quickly shut the door to preserve the heat. His wolf hat was snow-covered and his deep-set eyes peered out from under the wolf’s snout like black coals.
‘Curse this storm,’ he muttered, as he threw the rabbit onto a crude wooden table at the side of the room. ‘Never have I seen such a winter.’

     Martha smiled and beckoned Dominic to sit beside her as Murdoc stared sullenly into the fire.
‘Thanks for the coney,’ she said, ‘though how you manage to catch fresh meat is beyond my imaginings.’

     Dominic shrugged modestly.
‘They burrow through the snow, so it’s easy to spot their runs—the snares do the rest.’

    
‘Yes thanks, we’ll have a stew later, it’ll give us strength for the fight,’ said Murdoc, still staring into the fire, ‘though I think we needn’t worry about any attack from the savages this year.’

     Dominic held his palms to the fire.
‘I wish they
would
try to come,’ he said. This weather would see them off if they did.’

   
‘The damned snow prevents you and Withred training the men of the village…training
me
,’ said Murdoc, tetchily. ‘The sooner we’re shown the ways of the spear and ax, the easier I’ll feel.’

     Dominic nodded.
‘Withred knows how they fight and I’ve ideas on how to engage them, even though we’re outnumbered. Our knowledge combined should give us an edge, even though our men are more used to the plough than the spear or ax.’

    
‘How goes it with you and Withred?’ asked Martha, ‘I believe you share the same hut.’

     
‘We talk tactics constantly,’ said Dominic, ‘so for us, this forced exile has been useful. We also share the hut with Simon and Darga.’ On mentioning the youth’s name, he whistled and shook his head in dismay. ‘Give me a hut full of boar before one Darga. The boy argues over everything, and I’m sure he’d try to tell me how to hunt and trap if I let him. He also has a thing about Withred’s background—blames him for the invasion. Withred does well to keep his temper, but he knows he would be playing into Darga’s hands if he lost his self-control.’

    
Martha smiled. ‘That bad eh, why not stay with us then until the storm is over?’

    
‘Thanks,’ said Dominic, ‘but I think it wouldn’t lie well with Withred and Simon. They would then have all of Darga’s attention, and beside, I keep things calm in there.’

     Tomas came over and sat shivering next to Dominic as Ceola slipped under Martha’s blanket.
‘How’s my forest companion this evening?’ asked Dominic, smiling and ruffling the boy’s hair.

    
‘Cold,’ said Tomas, his teeth chattering. ‘I can’t wait for the snow to stop so we can go out again and hunt and trap.’

    
‘I’ll show you how to set snares tomorrow Tom,’ said Dominic. ‘It’s time I had my best hunting companion back with me.’

     Tomas smiled and rubbed his runny nose.
‘And I’ll cook the rabbit, when we return,’ he said.

The bad weather continued for two more weeks, until finally the wind died and the air became still and cold.

     Upon leaving their huts, the villagers marvelled at the white world that lay before them. T
he snow covered everything—gentle, white bumps being the only indication of any objects, such as carts and ploughs, left outdoors.

     Remarkably, the breeding stock of cows, pigs and goats had survived. They lived in the village longhouse, alongside the ponies and three families of Britons. Here, they had been fed hay and scraps, and were considerably less troubled by the cold than their human bedfellows.

     The villagers combined their efforts to remove snow from the open square. When they had cleared a frozen, level space, Withred gathered the men, including Murdoc, and the older boys, and immediately started basic training with the weapons that had been stored in the longhouse.

     Dominic took Tomas with him to beat a track to the edge of the forest and examine the traps they had set weeks before. It took many trips and three days of hard work before they completed the task
. They found that the interior of the silent forest resembled the sparkling, white nave of a vast cathedral—its aisles lined by towering white columns. Nothing, be it the smallest twig or frozen, frosted leaf, stirred in its still interior.

     Disorientated by the transformation that had taken place since their earlier foray, Dominic searched around in vain, seeking out anything recognisable. Tomas finally spotted a gnarled and stunted oak where
they had laid one of the traps—the tree now resembling an ice sculpture. They walked thigh deep to the tree and began to remove snow from where they guessed the trap to be.

     A spike of frozen, grey fur appeared, and Tomas was immediately excited as more of the shape became apparent. Further excavation proved difficult through the compact snow, but eventually their scrabbling revealed a huge timber wolf.

     Dominic looked at Tomas and smiled. ‘I see a fine hat there for a young hunter. When the enemy sees two wolves snarling at them, they’ll surely bugger off back to their rat holes.’ He prised the stiff carcass from the frozen ground and walked back to the village with his arm around the delighted Tomas.   

Brinley had arranged a meeting in the longhouse, where a hearty fire blazed on the compacted soil floor. Grey smoke billowed above the fire, before finding its way out through the thatched roof. Extra torches, set along the side of the building, sent shadows dancing around the glowing room. Two long benches, crammed with men, ran alongside a long oak table. Brinley sat at the head of the table.

     There was a general murmur of conversation as Brinley’s wife, Anna, along with some of the other women, set down tankards of mulled ale for the m
en. Brinley cleared his throat, his strong timbre cutting through the chatter. ‘Your attention my friends.’ The chattering in the room died to silence as all looked towards him. ‘The time’s come to discuss the problem of the invaders, who we expect to return next year.’

     Darga immediately piped up.
‘A talk that’s long overdue if you ask me. Who knows
when
they’ll arrive.’ He looked at Withred. ‘What say
you
… Saxon, or whatever you are?’

    Before Withred could reply, Brinley interposed.
‘The discussion was delayed because we were too busy surviving the worst winter storm in my lifetime. I’m sure that Withred will confirm that we’re under no immediate danger.’

     Withred nodded, and fixed Darga with a steady stare.
‘Don’t worry yourself about an early attack, Darga. It’s not done to venture out campaigning in
mild
winters, let alone one such as this. I’m confident that we’ve at least three months to prepare for the assault that will surely come.’

    
‘And in this preparation you’ll be most useful to us,’ said Brinley, ‘knowing as you do their tactics and method of combat.’

     Darga again interjected.
‘No doubt you personally used such methods with keenness when riding with them.’