Time of the Wolf (10 page)

Tostig allowed himself a tight smile. “A great game unfolds around us, and we barely see the pieces, never mind the moves.” He held a hand out to Hereward. “You have done a great thing this day, at risk to your own life. The King will forever be in your debt. There is a place for you to lay your head here in my hall, and I will do whatever is in my power to protect you from your enemies. For now, my huscarls could benefit from your sword-arm. Join them and help me bring order to Eoferwic. And let us both pray that we can stave off disaster on every front.”

CHAPTER TEN

B
LACK SMOKE BILLOWED
. H
EREWARD STOOD STARK AGAINST
a wall of flame, his body streaked with blood. Light glinted off axes slicing the air, and the clamor of battle thundered all around, and the screams of dying men, and futile prayers rattling in Christian throats, and he knew he was the cause of it. And he laughed loudly, his voice cracking with madness, as if his only joy came from the suffering of others.

“Where is the God I was promised?” he bellowed into the howling wind.

And then all sound and fury drained away, and he was lying by his own hearth, in the fenland, and his mother was stroking his head. But, as always, he could not discern her face, and her voice came as if from the depths of a dark cave, and he felt unbearably alone. He asked her when he would find peace, but she didn't answer. She never answered.

Hereward woke with a start. New logs crackled on the fire, and servants bustled into Tostig's hall with ale and bread, and wooden and clay bowls for the night's feast. The dreams tormented him. Would they ever fade away, he wondered?

Easing into the shadows along the edge of the hall, he watched the guests arrive. In the mill of bodies, he glimpsed many he recognized from court, among them Archbishop Ealdred, a longtime ally of the Godwins and adviser to the King, in his gray linen tunic; and several thegns with gold rings on their arms and gold on the hilts of their swords. Once the most important guests were seated, the commanders of the huscarls blew in, a whirl of coarse laughter and glowering looks and loud demands for mead. It was always wise to indulge the ones who were your strong right arm, Hereward knew. Finally, the earl and Judith took the seats on the small dais at the head of the tables.

As the echoes of the dream faded, Hereward felt his stomach rumble and made his way to a seat at the end of the bench. All eyes turned toward him.

“Bid welcome to my guest, Hereward of Mercia,” Tostig boomed.

“I thank you for your hospitality,” the warrior called back. “I will try not to sup all your ale, but I have a fierce thirst.”

Laughter rippled around the hall, but Hereward could feel their scrutiny as they sized him up: threat, rival, fool, ally? He expected suspicion at first, but he had no quarrel with any of them and they would soon understand that. After the hard journey, he felt only the desire to fill his belly and lose himself in drink.

As he anticipated, the men around him soon joined him in laughter and tall tales. He devoured bowls of fish and pork, cheese, bread, and honey cakes, rarely loosening his grip on the wooden cup that was always kept brimful with ale. In the hot, smoky confines, the shouted conversation throbbed to the rafters, growing louder with each cup that was swilled. A man with dyed red and yellow scarves tied to his head and wrists juggled with balls of linen stuffed with straw. Scops played the harp and sang of battles and blood and the sea, and in the lull between entertainments the wisest men weaved riddles that the table competed to answer first.

“My nose is downward. I go on my belly and dig into the ground, moving as directed by the gray enemy of the forest and my master and protector who walks stooping at my tail.”

“A plow. And that gray enemy is the ox. An old one, but good.”

After a while, Hereward felt the words become the low, constant drone of a wasp in the back of his head. He weighed every face he glimpsed, studying the subtle shift of shadows, the curve of mouth and squint of eye, the adjustment of head and arm. As in the wild, he saw faint hints that could mean life or death to him: who was a potential threat, where danger might lie, who might betray him, who held power and who desired it. The warrior watched the easy relationship between Tostig and the archbishop. There was an alliance there. He expected no less, for they both wielded power in Eoferwic, and they had traveled together to Rome to see Pope Nicholas only two years earlier.

But time and again, Hereward found his attention coming back to the scarred leader of the huscarls. His name, Hereward had learned, was Kraki, another of the many Viking mercenaries offering brutal services to anyone wishing to hire them. As the man gnawed on a goose leg, his gaze flickered back to Hereward, suspicious, cautioning.

“Hereward. Will you play the harp for us?” On the low dais, Judith leaned forward in her chair, smiling. All eyes in the hall turned toward Hereward. “Our guest revealed his great skill at one of the King's feasts. His look may be fierce, but he has the soul of an angel,” she added warmly.

With a grin, Hereward pushed away from the table and strode to the center of the hall to take the harp. The first note he plucked propelled him back through the years. A moment of peace, caught in the pale light reflected off the still waters of the fens, his mother listening to his early attempts at making music, nodding appreciatively. Drifting in that rarely visited place, Hereward played by instinct. He summoned an achingly beautiful melody, and sang a wistful lyric of a time before dissent, when all was peaceful and hope and joy held firm. Many of the battle-hardened men developed moist eyes and lowered their heads to hide them.

Embarrassed by the emotion he had accidentally revealed, Hereward ended his song. A long moment of silence was broken by applause. “To wield a sword with one hand and music with the other is a sign of greatness indeed,” Judith proclaimed. “You hide your talents well.”

“I am rarely accused of such a crime,” he said, raising more laughter.

When he returned to the bench, most of the guests' attention was upon the juggler who performed by the glow from the hearth, but Hereward noticed several pairs of eyes remaining on him. Archbishop Ealdred watched slyly. Judith smiled at him, like a mother to a son, he thought. Kraki glowered from behind the remnants of his goose leg. And one other cast brooding looks colored with resentment, one of the huscarls, a squat man with thick lips and flaring nostrils.

The raven-haired slave woman who had greeted him in the hall carried in a large wooden pitcher of beer and deferentially refilled Tostig's cup before moving along the table in his direction. Although she did not look up, Hereward sensed she knew where he was and was pretending disinterest. He grinned to himself, and nudged the drunken Dane beside him. “Who is she?”

“Acha,” the Dane slurred when his eyes finally settled on the woman. “Take no interest in her. She is filled with fire and poison, and will cut you with her tongue if she has no blade to hand.”

“She is not from Eoferwic?”

“She is Cymri. Tostig brought her back with his other slaves from his battles in the west. Acha is not her true name, but she will tell no one what her father named her. She has found some favor here, from the earl's wife, mainly, though what Judith sees in her I cannot tell.”

From the corner of his eye, Hereward glimpsed the squat huscarl shift his gaze toward Acha; the man had noted the warrior's attention. Sensing trouble, Hereward was not surprised when the Viking grasped Acha aroughly round the waist and dragged her into his lap. The woman fought back, but her captor cuffed her hard around the head.

“Leave her,” Hereward called, and the drunken man at his side became instantly sober.

“Do not anger Thangbrand. He fights like a cornered stoat. And Earl Tostig values his sword-arm,” he whispered.

Thangbrand grinned, gap-toothed. Hereward knew he was being provoked, a familiar ritual that followed him wherever he went. Positions in the hierarchy of strength needed to be defined. But he felt the blood begin to beat steadily in his head at the violence the other man had shown toward a woman.

“I need no protector,” Acha spat, her eyes flashing toward Hereward. Thangbrand laughed and cuffed her again for good measure.

Hereward rose from the bench. His head throbbed with a powerful beat that stripped away his awareness of Judith's troubled expression or Tostig's intense scrutiny. “Only cowards harm women.” He heard his own words as if they had been spoken by another. His full attention was riveted upon Thangbrand, seeing in the Viking's eyes contempt for both Acha and himself. The cold loathing he felt was lost beneath the thunderous pulse now filling his skull. His devil was riding him, as it had since he had first picked up a sword and felt the edge bite through flesh and bone and gristle, when he had first seen the light die in an opponent's eyes and heard the whisper of the escaping soul. “Do not raise your hand to her again.”

Dimly, he heard a roar run along the great tables, urging the two of them on to battle. He half-glimpsed the fists shaking in the air and the cups raised high. More entertainment for a cold night. They did not know what terrible thing they were wishing upon that hall.

Thangbrand stepped away from the table. His eyes flared in the firelight, and his lips moved. To Hereward, the sound that issued forth was the dull drone of lazy summer bees, but it mattered little; the words would be familiar. Of slights, imagined or created, of honor, of glory and hurt and blood.

Hereward rounded the end of the table and faced his opponent. “I wish you no harm,” he said, the words ringing clearly in his head, though the expressions on the faces all around held a startled look, as if he had made an animal noise. “Return to your bench and apologize to the one you have injured and there will be an end to this.”

The Viking's shoulders dropped, his stout legs braced. Fingers twitched toward his axe, but he would not dare raise his weapon in the earl's hall, Hereward knew. His mouth torn wide in a battle cry, the huscarl thundered forward, broad arms wide and fingers crooked.

The warrior met his opponent like an oak resisting a gale. Bone and muscle clashed like hammers. Digging his filthy, broken nails deep into Hereward's upper arms, the huscarl attempted to fling the warrior toward the hearth and was surprised when his rival, taller but slighter, resisted. The two men threw each other around the hall in a wild dance. Thangbrand was strong, but in his blood-driven state Hereward felt no pain, only burning rage; no exhaustion, only a single-minded will to crush the man before him.

Attempting to cripple, the Viking kicked at the tendons at the back of Hereward's ankles. The Mercian shifted his weight to avoid the strikes and butted his head into Thangbrand's face. The huscarl's nose exploded. Hereward scented blood, and his head thrummed in response. He butted again, shattering teeth.

As the Viking reeled back, he raked his nails across Hereward's face, attempting to hook out an eye. The Mercian caught a finger and snapped it. Howling, Thangbrand crashed into the bench, grasped a cup, and flung mead at his opponent's head. Blinded, Hereward staggered back. The cup rammed against his skull. Stars flashed behind his eyes.

Spitting like a wildcat, Acha threw herself onto Thangbrand. The Viking shook her off, punching her in the jaw for good measure, and Hereward felt the last of his control drain from him. With a roar, he leaped.

Impressions flashed through his mind, like the sun through branches on a woodland gallop. Thangbrand's face torn in horror. Blood spraying, blows raining down. Hereward's silent world spun, for how long he did not know, flashes of fists whipping through his head in a blur until the stink of searing flesh in his nose brought him to his senses.

One hand was gripping Thangbrand's throat, while the other was holding the Viking's face, side on, in the blazing fire. Screams were tearing out through shattered teeth and ragged lips, sounding, Hereward thought, almost like a gull's cry. The huscarl's features were almost unrecognizable, so badly beaten were they. And now the right side of his face sizzled and charred.

Rough hands dragged Hereward back. The reedy screams died to a whimper as the Viking mercifully lost consciousness in the arms of his rescuers.

Whatever had transpired during the time that was lost to him, Hereward could see that it had affected every man and woman in the room. Eyes flashed toward him, filled with fear or loathing, but those gazes never lay upon him for more than a fleeting moment for fear they would draw his attention. Nothing he saw there surprised him. Such looks had followed him since he'd been a child. Alone as ever, he had survived, and that was all that counted.

“Animal.”

“Devil.”

The same words repeated, as they always had been, as they always would be. The pulse of blood in Hereward's head faded away. He didn't struggle against the strong arms holding him fast, or flinch when axes rose to his chest. He ignored the curses and the threats and the hate-filled stares. Raising his head, he looked for Acha, but she was nowhere to be seen, and Judith too appeared to have fled the hall. Even those he wanted to please could not bear to see him. As always.

No matter. He had survived.

“Wait.”

The bodies surrounding Hereward parted. Tostig strode up to the warrior, his sharp blue eyes searching his guest's face. In a low, emotionless voice, he said, “You have stained my hall with blood. You came here seeking my aid, yet you have done all within your power to give offense. What do you truly wish, Hereward Asketilson? To destroy yourself? If so, the road you have chosen leads that way.”

“He must be punished for what he has done to Thangbrand,” someone muttered.

Tostig searched for the speaker. All heads bowed, and the earl returned his attention to Hereward. “These are hard times, and there are harder times ahead. Everywhere I turn, I hear talk of portents and omens. You have deprived me of one of my strongest men when my huscarls are pressed to their limits. Here is your punishment, man of Mercia. You will replace Thangbrand in my warband, and we will see how you survive in the simmering cauldron that is Eoferwic. Pay back your debt, with your life if need be.”