Hereward 03 - End of Days (37 page)

Sighard stepped over, his face and hair streaked with blood and dirt. ‘Hereward is right. We have lost so many this day. If we can save even one life, it is a thing of value. And Alric is as much a brother as …’ He choked on his words and looked away.

‘The king’s war-bands will be everywhere, hunting us down,’ Kraki growled. ‘They will never allow the leader of the English to escape. They will chase us to the ends of the earth, if need be, and they will only stop when they have our heads.’ He paused, eyeing the monk’s fluttering eyes. ‘I know him. If he were awake now, he would tell you to leave him. His weight will only slow you down. We cannot risk your capture, not at any cost. The king will make a show of your death, and the English will be broken for all time once they have seen it.’

Hereward felt his frustration simmer. Kraki was right, he knew. But his heart told him that his friend’s life held more value than all the things for which he had fought. He could not understand why that should be so; the notion seemed to make no sense. But he felt it none the less.

‘My life means nothing now,’ he said in a low, strained voice. ‘I have given my all to this war, and we have gained naught. This …’ He held out Alric’s still form. ‘This, here, is something I can save. I would have a victory today, just one, however small. And if we are to talk of another fight against the Bastard, then let it be tomorrow.’

After a moment’s reflection, Kraki whistled through his teeth. ‘Then save the monk we shall, or die trying,’ he said with passion, shaking a fist at the fates. He stood up and began to walk among the other men, jerking the flat of his hand up to urge movement. ‘Time is short, you lazy curs. We have a life to save and the hounds of the Norman bastards at our
backs. There is no rest for us.’ The men clambered to their feet, pushing aside their despondency.

Kraki beckoned to Herrig the Rat, and sent him ahead. When Hereward had cleaned the monk’s wound, he lifted him in his arms once more and loped off through the woods. Keeping low, the others followed, eyes darting this way and that.

Barely had they travelled more than a few spear-lengths when they heard the sound of branches breaking underfoot. They whirled, levelling their spears. A cloaked and hooded figure swept through the trees towards them.

Kraki gaped. ‘Are you mad?’

Acha threw back her hood, glancing over her shoulder. ‘You must hurry. The king has already sent out men searching for you, and they are close behind.’

‘You should be safe with the women in the Camp of Refuge,’ Kraki said, throwing his hands in the air. ‘They would have hidden you well. We made our plans—’

‘And now they have changed.’ She set her jaw in defiance. ‘I will come with you.’

‘There is too much danger here,’ the Viking began.

‘There is danger everywhere,’ she interrupted. ‘You waste time. Or would you rather stand here arguing and die?’

Hereward watched worry carve lines in Kraki’s face. ‘Let her come,’ he urged. ‘We will watch out for each other.’

Kraki let out a roar of frustration, then spun on his heel and marched ahead. Acha shrugged and followed. As he set off behind them, Hereward hoped he had not made the wrong decision.

As the light began to thin, it grew colder. A harsh wind rushed through the trees. Winter was not far off now, he knew, and they had no home and no food. But he had suffered through worse and lived. He glanced down at Alric. In his stupor, the monk mouthed words that appeared to be in the Roman tongue, some prayer, perhaps, that he learned when he first joined the monastery at Jarrow. Hereward hoped God
would hear. But worry had made his chest tight and he had started to fear the worst. ‘Stay strong, monk,’ he muttered as he ran.

As the shadows pooled beneath the willows, the Rat came scampering back. His grin told them all they needed to know. ‘The track north is free of Norman bastards,’ he called. ‘There is a wise woman’s hut not far from here. We can reach it before full dark, if we are quick.’

C
HAPTER
F
IFTY
-S
IX

GLEAMING IN THE
light of the burning barns, the axe hung in the air. A silence fell across the vast crowd gathered inside Ely’s gaping walls. They could not tear their eyes away from that weapon and all that it signalled. No more feasting. No more hope of a time free of the yoke of the Normans. All had become ashes.

William the Bastard looked across the raised, despairing faces and smiled. His face was smeared with smuts and sweat and his hauberk was brown with dried blood. Under his arm, he cupped his helm, now dented by the blows of numerous axes and spears. But his eyes shone with joy, and perhaps no little relief. Five long years after he had slaughtered a king at Senlac Ridge and stolen the crown for himself, England had finally succumbed to his will.

Perched upon a heap of bodies, both Norman and English, Harald Redteeth hummed to himself. He could see the king’s jubilation as if the monarch were bellowing it to the heavens. He shrugged. If William thought the struggle would ever end he was deluding himself. The Viking chewed slowly on his dry, bitter mushrooms and uttered his prayer that their magic would not take his life this day. Death had been close
throughout this long battle and he had been forced to fight hard for his days yet to come. There had been no respite from the thrusting spears and swinging axes, from the bodies falling around him in showers of crimson, not a moment to seek out Hereward in the carnage. Once the English had fled, he had searched all the corpses and examined every man the Normans had captured beyond the walls, but there was no sign of the Mercian. His quest would continue.

He grinned, listening to the first whispers of the
alfar
drifting on the breeze. He watched their messengers, the ravens, pluck at eyes and lips on the fallen littered across the hillside. And he knew that now he was closer than he had been in nine long years. Somewhere in the desolate wetlands, Hereward was taking flight like a wounded deer. No allies, no fortress to protect him, as lost as the wild youth he had first encountered in the Northumbrian hills.

The king raised one arm and swept it down. The axe fell. The scream of the warrior tore across the hillside as his right hand flew from his wrist. The Normans who had been pinning him to the block stepped back and the man fell to the mud, convulsing. Pulling an iron rod from the red heart of one of the burning barns, the axeman’s helper gripped the wounded man’s forearm and pressed the glowing tip against the bloody stump. The warrior howled once more as his flesh sizzled.

Once the prisoner had been dragged away, the axeman plucked up the fallen hand and tossed it on to a pile of ten more. Six bloody feet were heaped beside it.

Redteeth looked along the line snaking across the slopes. Not only broken-spirited English warriors waited for their fate, but men who had been leaders of the Ely folk, wise ones who had given counsel and comfort to Hereward and had maintained the support of the common men and women. The day would be long.

Two Norman soldiers grabbed the next in line, a grey-haired man who held his head high. They forced him to his knees in front of the monarch.

‘Ordric of Ely,’ one of the soldiers announced. ‘He would speak on Hereward’s behalf to the folk and pass on his demands.’

William made a show of fingering his chin as he weighed his response. ‘Take his eye,’ he said.

The man blanched, but tried to keep his trembling chin raised. Yet when the axeman took out his knife and dug it into the eye socket, Ordric screamed like all the others. They always screamed, Redteeth mused. For a moment, he closed his eyes and drifted with the music he heard in that sound. When he opened them again, the axeman held the orb, slippery with blood, and tossed it towards the pile of body parts. A raven swooped down and tried to snatch the choice morsel from the air. The eye bounced and rolled and the bird set about it with its beak.

‘The king is merciful.’ Deda had appeared at the Viking’s shoulder and was watching the next prisoner yell and fight as he was dragged to the block. Blood caked the corner of his mouth and mud streaked his forehead. A gash marred his cheek. ‘There was a time when this hill would have run red. Every man, woman and child here would have been slaughtered.’

‘He knows the time for killing is done,’ Redteeth grunted. ‘He has made the English fear him. Now he needs to make them love him if he wants a few years of peace to enjoy his spoils. He is no fool, your Norman king.’

The knight shrugged. ‘Still, this is strange to my eyes. I do not recognize the man I know.’

‘He is not changed. He makes his deals with the one inside him. And the one beside him.’ The Viking nodded towards Abbot Thurstan, who stood behind the monarch. ‘The churchman pleaded for mercy for the mass of common folk. They have suffered enough under the cruelty of Hereward’s rule, he says.’ Redteeth spat. ‘Good Christian men. Lies spring as easily to their tongue as prayers.’

Deda scanned the fires blazing across the devastated
settlement, then looked towards the minster, shrouded in a thick pall of smoke. ‘God has turned his back upon this place, that is certain.’

His voice sounded weary, Redteeth thought. ‘What now for you?’

The knight shrugged. ‘I foresee long miles of riding, perhaps a sea journey.’

‘What about that woman who has caught your eye?’

Deda shook his head, feigning ignorance. He glanced askance at the king. ‘I killed the old man, Asketil. William will demand a high price for that crime. My life, I would think.’

Redteeth snorted. ‘The old man was a bastard. He had it coming.’ With his foot, he rocked the head of one of the bodies underneath him so that it looked to be nodding assent. ‘Once we are done here, I have a trail to follow and an English warrior to kill. I will need good men to watch my back. Join me. There will no doubt be coin and adventures along the way, a good life for a Norman bastard like yourself.’ He shrugged. ‘Though just as likely hardship, suffering and death.’

The other man smiled. ‘You have inflamed me with your honeyed words.’ After a moment, though, his face grew serious. ‘And there is nothing for me here.’

The pile of hands, feet and eyes grew larger. The screams seemed to roll on for ever. But finally the king was done with his judgement. While the soldiers collected the bodies of their fallen brothers for burial, William, the abbot and a few other knights strode up the slope to the minster. Curious, Deda and Redteeth followed.

‘My men will take from Ely anything of value,’ the monarch said. ‘That will go some way towards paying for the horses I have lost, and the time I have wasted bringing peace to the east.’

‘But the church will keep its treasure, of course,’ the Viking heard Thurstan reply. The cleric looked anxious.

‘That is the agreement we reached,’ the king said as he walked into the minster enclosure. He paused in front of the
church and looked up the length of the tower to where the smoke swirled around the top. A shadow crossed his face. ‘I would pray,’ he said, his voice hard. He nodded to the abbot. ‘You will stay outside while I am speaking to God.’ He called to two soldiers and ordered them to stand guard at the church door. ‘Keep the monks out,’ he demanded. ‘I will not be disturbed by churchmen processing with crosses and relics.’

He marched inside, followed by the Norman knights. Redteeth slipped in at the back. If there was any gold in the church, he would have it. The king’s footsteps echoed across the nave. He glanced at the pile of offerings surrounded by lit candles. ‘That is the tomb of the holy virgin Etheldreda,’ he said, seemingly to himself. ‘I have heard much of it, and the glory it contains.’ He took a few steps towards the shrine and then shuffled to a halt. The Viking watched him knit his brow in apprehension, then raise a hand to the side of his head as if to shield himself. He spun away from the shrine and hurried towards the altar. Dipping into his pouch, he found a gold mark and flipped it on to God’s table. With undue haste, he dropped to his knees, clasped his hands together and bowed his head, muttering his prayers in a drone that seemed to go on for ever.

Redteeth grinned. The king feared God’s judgement after all.

Once he was done, William seemed to have grown angry. He marched along the nave and threw open the door with a crash, bellowing for the abbot. ‘Where are your monks?’ he demanded.

‘They eat their stew in the refectory,’ Thurstan stuttered.

William’s face blackened. ‘They would rather eat than bow their heads to their king,’ he roared. The abbot shook. ‘This insult demands a price. Only a payment of seven hundred marks will suffice.’

Thurstan gaped in shock. ‘That is much of the church’s treasure,’ he stammered.

‘Take your plate and chalices and bowls to Grentabrige and have them weighed,’ the king said. ‘And if you are short, my
wrath will be great indeed. You will pay another three hundred marks to make peace with me. So count well.’

The abbot hurried away. His face was creased with anger at this betrayal but he could not say a word. Redteeth had no doubt that the moneyers in Grentabrige would find the church offering short, no matter how much treasure was piled high on their scales.

‘Thurstan would have done better to throw in his lot with Hereward,’ Deda whispered. ‘The English were never as grasping as William. Wherever the abbot has hidden the church’s gold, it would still remain.’

‘Betrayal always earns betrayal,’ the Viking replied, laughing to himself. ‘That is the way of men without honour. Now, let us be away. I have warriors to buy and food to steal for the road.’

As they made their way towards the enclosure gate, a messenger ran up and headed straight to the king. They paused and watched as the man whispered. The monarch listened intently, then furrowed his brow as he looked around the minster. When his gaze alighted on Deda, he grinned. Redteeth needed to know no more. Glancing at his friend’s grim expression, he could see the knight felt the same.

‘There is no time to waste,’ the Viking whispered as they walked away through the billowing smoke. ‘Go from here now. Do not look back. I will meet you at the quay with my men.’