The Splintered Kingdom (51 page)

‘The Danes captured the town for us, and some of the pagans among them sacked the monastery. They killed the abbot and the monks and looted the church before anything could be done. When King Sweyn found out who was responsible he ordered their right hands cut off and their noses slit as penance, and their leader hanged as a warning.’

And yet Sweyn’s respect for this place hadn’t prevented him from occupying it and using it for his own ends. Oxen had been allowed to graze in what had once been the monks’ cemetery in one corner of the grounds, and there were goats foraging in the herb-garden. Empty ale-cups, flagons and leather flasks lay scattered all about and there was horse dung everywhere, while latrine pits had been dug outside the church, polluting the holy ground. I wondered that Eadgar and his followers, who were Christian, could stomach allying themselves with a people as rapacious and as inconstant in their piety as the Danes.

Nor did it seem as if this was the first time this house had suffered at the hands of the pagans. Most of the buildings looked as though they had been repaired and rebuilt at least once; a few of the walls were in stone but the larger part of the monastery was fashioned either in timber or even in wattle and cob more befitting a peasant’s hovel. There was nothing resembling the arches and columns and sheltered walkways of a cloister, but rather three long halls arranged in a rough square, with the nave of the church forming the fourth side, around a yard in the middle of which rose a yew tree.

From within that yard came voices and the softly flickering glow of lantern-light. So the enemy had left someone after all, which meant there had to be something worth guarding in those halls. Maybe I had been wrong to doubt Runstan. We would soon know. Moving as quickly but as silently as we could, taking care to keep to the shadows, we approached. How many there were I couldn’t say for sure. From the number of voices I guessed no more than ten, but that was still more than I had bargained on us fighting. Most likely they were Danes, since I didn’t recognise their speech.

That was when the barking began: deep-throated and loud enough to fill the night air.

‘Hide!’ I called, but it was too late, for they had found us. First one, then a second and a third of the animals came racing around the side of one of the halls towards us: large and long-muzzled with rows of fearsomely sharp teeth. They were closely followed by their masters, eight mailed and helmeted huscarls bearing shields that had the raven and the cross emblazoned upon them. They whistled and called to the hounds, and shouted out challenges that I did not understand.

I held up my hands to suggest that we meant no harm, hoping that they understood the meaning behind the gesture, as desperately I tried to think of a plan that would see us through this. We had the slight advantage of numbers, being nine against their eight, but they were much better armed, and I knew what fearsome fighters the Danes could be.

‘Call off your dogs,’ I shouted out in English above the barks and snarls, hoping they might be able to understand that tongue. ‘My name is Goscelin, from Saint-Omer in Flanders, adventurer, sea captain and loyal follower of Eadgar Ætheling, ally of your King Sweyn. I command the ship
Vertu
, the fastest twenty-bencher to weather the German Sea,’ I added, as if to make my story seem more credible. The names were invented, being merely the first that came to my mind.

Their leader stepped forward. A giant of a man, he had an axe slung upon his back as well as a sword upon his belt. His face and chin were hidden behind a fair and well-combed beard that clearly marked him out for a Dane. While renowned for their barbarity, as a people they were fastidious in their appearance.

‘I don’t know you and I’ve never heard of your ship,’ he said. There was a slight slur to his speech, as if he had been drinking. ‘What do you want?’

I shouldn’t have given a name to my made-up vessel, I thought. If these were Sweyn’s huscarls then it was probably their duty to know which ships’ crews were here in Beferlic.

I was still trying to think how to answer when Eudo spoke up: ‘The ætheling sent us to speak with the captives.’

Perhaps it was a risk to mention them, since we still didn’t
know they were necessarily here. But it was better than no answer at all.

‘Eadgar himself sent you?’ the Dane asked doubtfully, glancing first at myself, then at Eudo. His right eye gave a twitch that might have been comical had it not been for his size. ‘To speak to them about what?’

The warning bells had ceased tolling by then, although beyond the abbey walls I could still hear men shouting as they ran to defend the palisade and gates against their imagined foe. With all that happening, it was no wonder that the huscarl captain was suspicious. He wasn’t as stupid as I might have thought.

‘Do you think we’re going to tell you?’ Eudo countered. He was the tallest among us, but even when he drew himself to his full height he still did not match the Dane.

The three dogs were still growling, despite their masters’ hands on their necks trying to calm them, as if somehow they could see our lies for what they were and knew that we were dangerous. One of the huscarls had managed to attach a leash to the collar of the largest, but the animal was too strong, straining at the rope, and the man could barely hold him back.

‘Skallagrim! Gunni! Alfketil!’ the Dane called to the three men in charge of the dogs, including the one with the leash, then pointed to the animals and said something in his own tongue. He turned back to Eudo. ‘If you want to see the hostages then yes, you’ll tell me what you want with them, and why it needs ten of you.’ He glanced at Runstan. ‘And what about you, Englishman?’ he asked, clearly recognising him by his dress and his features to be different from the rest of us. ‘Are you with these Flemings?’

The Englishman began to open his mouth, and suddenly a cold feeling overcame me as I thought he was about to give us away, when Pons, who was standing not far behind, clouted him about the back of the head, sending him sprawling upon the dirt.

‘Keep your mouth shut, slave,’ he said. ‘Remember your place.’

That was quick thinking, I thought. It took me but a moment to recover my voice.

‘He belongs to me,’ I told the Dane. ‘He speaks only with my permission.’

Pons had obviously hit Runstan harder than I’d realised, for he was crying out in pain, shouting insults at us, calling us sons of whores and even worse. I nodded to Pons, who kicked him in the gut, and that discouraged him from saying anything further.

Still, the Dane seemed convinced by our story. Shouting now to make himself heard over the dogs’ barking, which I reckoned loud enough to wake the dead from their graves, he began: ‘Tell me what your business is with—’

He didn’t get the chance to finish, for at that moment the man holding the leash found himself dragged to the ground by the beast on the other end. Suddenly free, the animal hurled itself at one of Wace’s knights, who was not expecting it and fell backwards.

‘Harduin!’ Wace shouted, drawing his sword and rushing to his retainer’s aid even as the other two dogs broke free of their masters’ grips and charged, their teeth bared. One made for Wace himself, but he had enough time before it was upon him to raise his sword, plunging the tip of his blade into its breast as it leapt up at his chest. The other sank its teeth into Serlo’s ankle, and he swore violently as blood streamed from the wound, soaking into the hem of his trews.

The three huscarls who had been in charge of the hounds came forward, seeking at the same time to restrain them and to stop us from killing them. Most of the others were laughing, enjoying the spectacle as if it were some game, and among them was their captain.

Our ruse wouldn’t hold for long, and so this seemed to me as good an opportunity as any we would get.

Roaring through gritted teeth, I pulled my blade free of its scabbard and, with all the might I could muster, heaved it towards the chest of the big man, who all of a sudden was no longer laughing as he saw the sharpened steel glinting wickedly in the light of his men’s torches. He ducked just in time, and my strike only succeeded in glancing off his upper arm, failing to penetrate the chain links of his hauberk.

‘Kill them,’ I shouted. ‘Kill them!’

I had thought somehow we might manage to get in and out of this stronghold without having to fight. A hollow hope that seemed in hindsight, since a fight was exactly what we had found.

As I recovered my sword ready for another strike, the giant drew his long-handled axe from over his shoulder, hefting it in both hands, bellowing with fury as he swung it at my head. Having only a buckler with which to defend myself, it was all I could do to throw myself to one side, rolling away from the path of his blade as it clove the air inches from my ear. But he wielded no shield either, which meant he had no protection against the low blow. Even as I scrambled to my feet, I aimed a slice at his shins, hoping to take his feet out from under him or at the very least cripple him so that he would be easier to kill. But rather than cutting through flesh and smashing bone, instead my sword found something like steel, and I realised that under his trews he wore hidden greaves.

The Dane smirked at my surprise and swung his axe again, confident now that he had the better of me. This time, however, rather than stepping back or diving aside I lunged forward, inside the reach of his weapon, seeking an opening higher up as I thrust my knife towards his face. The weight of his weapon and the strength of his swing had drawn him off balance, and that was all the chance I needed as I drove the thin blade up and under his chin, into his throat. Blood bubbled and trickled down the Dane’s chest, over my hand, and in an instant his expression changed. The smirk vanished and it was his turn to look surprised as his eyes opened wide and he saw his death approaching. I twisted the knife hard and wrenched it free, and the force of that was enough to pull him off his feet and to the ground, where he lay heavy and still.

The rest of the enemy were by then in disarray. The suddenness of our attack had worked in our favour for I counted only four of them still standing and one of their dogs. Another Dane, who shared the same build and who might well have been a brother or a cousin of the first, rushed towards me, screaming, his eyes filled with hatred and thoughts of revenge. Like his countryman he was not quick, or perhaps it only felt that way because the battle-calm was
upon me, that peculiar sense of quietness that often descends during the mêlée. Time itself seemed to slow; suddenly everything seemed so easy, as if I knew even before it happened exactly how and when and where my foe would make his attack. Thus as the Dane lunged with sword drawn I was able to dance around and behind him, landing a kick upon his backside to send him flailing forwards. He rolled on to his back so as to face me, but no sooner had he done so than I laid my foot upon his chest and was thrusting my sword-point with both hands down through his ventail into his neck.

At the same time the last of the three dogs writhed upon the ground, giving a great howl of distress, so terrible as to rent the sky asunder, its lifeblood draining away before at last it was run through by Eudo’s hand. Having seen their leader and friends felled, the remaining three Danes preferred not to waste their lives in a hopeless cause and instead tried to flee. Burdened with shields and mail, they didn’t get far. One failed to spot a latrine pit in his path and tripped – Pons made short work of finishing him – while the other two threw down their arms, vainly pleading mercy before they were struck down by Eudo and the second of Wace’s two retainers, a broad and large-jowled Gascon whose name I had forgotten.

I glanced about to check upon the rest of our party. Wace had dropped his sword and was standing hunched over, clutching his side. Blood, dark and glistening, stuck to his fingers and his expression suggested he was in some pain, although at his feet lay the corpse of the man who must have struck him, so it couldn’t have been too grievous an injury.

‘Is it bad?’ I asked him.

‘I’ll live, if that’s what you mean,’ he replied breathlessly, a grimace upon his face. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes as he gestured towards his knight Harduin, who had not got up from where he lay, his face and neck crossed with savage bite marks where the dog had buried its teeth.

This was not the time to mourn him, however. Most of the others looked unhurt save for perhaps some scratches and bruises,
although Serlo was limping and cursing violently while one of Eudo’s men was nursing a wound to his arm below the sleeve of his hauberk. But still there were eight of us standing.

Eight, when there should have been nine. Our guide, Runstan, had gone. Sheathing my sword and my knife, I glanced about in all directions, hoping to spot him amongst the corpses, but it was a futile hope. He was nowhere to be seen.

‘Where’s the Englishman?’ Pons called as he and Eudo returned from their slaughter.

‘I thought you were watching him,’ I said, unable to restrain my anger. ‘If he’s gone—’

‘I killed three Danes!’ Pons protested, interrupting me. ‘How was I supposed to fight them and watch him at the same time?’

I swore. Runstan would take word to his countrymen; they would bring men before long and we would never get out of Beferlic alive. If we’d had little time before, we had even less now.

One of the Danish corpses twitched. At least, I’d assumed it was a corpse. He was lying on his back, his eyes closed and his limbs splayed out on both sides, but then I glimpsed the faintest cloud of mist forming in front of his half-open mouth, and the rise and fall of his chest, so slight as to be almost unnoticeable. I stood over him.

‘On your feet,’ I said, and when he didn’t respond I stamped down hard upon his groin.

That broke his pretence. Howling and shouting curses in his own tongue, he rolled over, clutching his nether regions with both hands.

‘Get up,’ I said, and with the help of both Eudo and Pons stripped the Dane of his helmet and dragged him to his feet, so that I could look him in the eyes and spit upon his wart-ridden face. ‘Where are the hostages?’ I asked him in both French and English.