Hereward 02 - The Devil's Army (35 page)

‘Soon you will be dead,’ Turfrida croaked, ‘and no one will mourn for you. The
vættir
have said this is so.’

Her words seemed to drive the churchman into a rage for he swung the poker up as if to strike her. The Mercian flinched, too far from the cleric to strike. The poker hung in the air for a moment, before Emeric lowered it and said with a smile, ‘I pity you, but this is in God’s hands now.’

Hereward felt sickened by what he saw. Other men might be destroyed by seeing their wife in such torment, but not him. He turned his pain deep inside him, as he had all his life. In reply, his rage called to him from the dark chambers of his soul. He could not, would not, contain it any longer.

With a snarl, he bounded across the undercroft like a wolf. His thoughts fled. His vision closed in. He swung the axe. The guard barely had time to raise a defensive arm as the blade came down, cutting through flesh and bone and almost severing the
head. Blood splashed into the fire, sizzling. The man fell without a sound escaping his throat and Hereward was already turning on the witchfinder.

Emeric swung up the hot poker instinctively, but it was a half-hearted defence. With the back of his hand, Hereward swatted it out of the cleric’s grip. It bounced across the floor into a puddle, hissing and steaming.

The churchman stooped and snatched a knife from the ground, no doubt one he had planned to use on his captive. He was fast, like a snake. Hereward saw Emeric might even have drawn blood, but Turfrida slammed her feet into the back of the witchfinder’s legs. The knife tumbled from his grip, and as he sprawled on the ground, she snarled, ‘Let God save you now.’

Hereward grinned at his wife’s defiance. Here was the woman he had married, filled with fire despite the agonies that had near sapped the life from her. Yet when his gaze fell upon the witchfinder once more, he forgot Turfrida. Only one thought burned in his mind. ‘Kneel,’ he growled.

The churchman must have glimpsed some terrible thing in his captor’s face, for he began to shake uncontrollably as all resistance drained from him. Falling to his knees, he bowed his head and clasped his hands together, pleading, ‘Mercy.’

‘I will show mercy,’ Hereward replied. Emeric pushed his head back and closed his eyes with relief. ‘Mercy for all those who might have suffered under your cruel hand.’

And he brought the axe down.

How long passed, he did not know. Blood hammered in his head, and his heart burned like a smith’s forge. When he was done, he looked down, but he could not tell what lay before him. His tunic was stained black, his hands and arms dripping. Setting the axe aside, he fell to his knees and pulled Turfrida into an embrace. Relief flooded him.

‘My husband,’ she murmured. ‘I knew you would save me.’

Yet in truth it was she who had saved him. Lifting her up in his arms, he whispered, ‘I will never let harm come to you again. This I vow.’

He carried her to the steps, and out into the deluge. As the rain rinsed the blood off him, he thought how pale she looked. The horse was tethered where Harald Redteeth had said it would be. Within moments, they were riding through the castle gates, down the winding streets of Lincylene and out into the rain-drenched country. All was well, he told himself. All was well. His wife and unborn child were safe. He had survived to take the battle to the king, finally. And yet, as he looked towards the grey horizon, one thought seared through his mind: the beast inside him had thrown off its shackles and he was afraid it would never again be chained.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTY
-O
NE

GULLS WHEELED ACROSS
the blue sky. Aft, in the distance, the last of the roiling storm-clouds swept away. Alric clawed his way upright with the aid of the mast and attempted to wring out the hem of his sodden tunic as he peered out over calm seas. He smiled to himself. Peace had returned to the world, and with it a sense of purpose.

Diamonds of light glinted off the waves. Ahead he could see a brown smudge of land lit by the full glory of the afternoon sun. He crossed himself and muttered a prayer of thanks. Nasi strode by. ‘That was no storm,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It was only a sneeze.’

Yet as Alric looked around, he saw that of the vast fleet that had set sail from England, only three ships now accompanied them. The Dane followed his gaze and added, ‘Perhaps more than a sneeze.’

‘All lost?’

‘Some will be at the bottom,’ he agreed, his mouth tightening. ‘The others could have been blown anywhere from Normandy to Ireland. On this journey, God has not smiled on us.’ His eyes flickered towards the relic box. Aethelwold and the monks knelt around it, still at prayer. Nasi moved on, passing among
his men at their oars. He muttered something in the flinty Danish tongue and they all laughed loudly in response.

As the rocky cliffs drew near, Aethelwold stumbled along the brine-slick deck, shaking from the chill breeze. His soaking tunic dripped a trail behind him. ‘Sometimes I think these Danes are mad,’ he whispered, watching the crew throw their heads back and sing of the sea and women and blood. ‘Death almost takes them by the hand and yet they treat it as nothing. And you … you seem untroubled by how close we came to leaving this world behind,’ the prior added suspiciously.

‘God saved us. He did not smile upon the Danes. They have lost much of their treasure and have little to show for all their fighting in our land. There is a reason for all things, so we are told, and I think I now see with clearer eyes.’ When he had thought he was going to die, sucked down to the cold, black depths where the serpents swam, a calm had descended on him. What if God had divined a path for him, but he had been too busy peering into the dark to see the light ahead? He believed he knew why he had been stolen from his home, why he was there heading to a strange land, why he had been carried past death when so many others had been taken. He had great work to do, and it would test him to the limit, but he would not fail.

Aethelwold looked to the three ships sailing close behind. ‘What if the king is dead? Who will hear our pleas?’

‘You waste your breath,’ Alric replied, a little more harshly than he intended. ‘Even if Sweyn Estrithson lives, he will never let you take St Oswald’s arm back to Burgh. It is worth more than gold itself to a king. It is power, God’s power. Wars have been fought over less. You know these things.’

Aethelwold raised his head in defiance. ‘We have been charged with protecting the holy relic. God will see this thing done.’

‘You sail to your deaths.’ The prior flinched, but refused to meet Alric’s eyes. ‘Sweyn Estrithson slaughtered a church full of men at prayer because they said one word against him. These Danes knew what would happen the moment they agreed for you and your brothers to sail with them. Do you think these
warriors who spend their days spilling blood for gold have hearts filled with kindness?’ He watched the cliffs loom ever closer, grey slabs of rock that seemed to suck the light from the air. ‘Once the king is in his hall, he will listen to your pleas, and nod, and then take your heads. When you have been burned, he will count his gold and pray over his new bone and tell the world that God now aids the Danes.’

‘Then you will die too,’ Aethelwold snapped.

‘Whoever set me on this ship knew what my fate would be.’

‘Yet you look towards the land of your fate as if it were a home-fire. You are as mad as these Danes,’ the prior raged, stalking back towards his monks. Alric nodded; he had long believed that to be true.

The light was fading as the four ships reached land. Warriors splashed into the surf and hauled on oak-fibre ropes to beach their vessels on the stones. Once the drain-plugs had been knocked out of the hull to empty the water from each vessel, the men collected their shields and spears and sea-chests and gathered on the beach. Pitch-covered torches hissed into life in the gloom.

Alric watched the Danes eyeing their ship furtively as they gathered in the circles of light. Only when Nasi said to the prior, ‘Fetch your box of bones,’ did he understand why. They had carried the reliquary aboard with barely a second thought, just another piece of plunder. Now they were afraid to touch it.

Once three monks had clambered back into the vessel to retrieve the relic chest, Nasi led the way up a winding path to the top of the cliffs. A track wide enough for a cart plunged through dark woods. Night had fallen by the time they were wading through the thigh-high grass of rolling heathland. Soon woodsmoke drifted on the breeze and Alric could see more torches burning ahead. Behind ramparts and a palisade stood the king’s royal manor: a vast hall and a stone church with many smaller halls and houses surrounding it. Inside the wall, on three sides, narrow streets lined with smaller houses and huts ran off into the dark.

As they passed through the gates, folk swarmed around to hear the news. Faces paled in the dancing light, and the mutterings of the crowd turned into anguished cries: a reaction, Alric assumed, to an account of the storm, and the possible loss of the royal ship. Within the hour scouts were galloping out to spread the word that the search for Sweyn Estrithson must begin immediately.

‘Stay in the church until our king returns,’ Nasi said to the English clerics as they waited, weary and cold, by the gates. ‘And take your bone-chest with you. Do not wander freely. My men are quick with their spears and ask questions later.’

Inside the cold church, they lit candles and said prayers at the altar before making beds of clean straw in the tower. The brothers quickly slumped into a deep sleep after their ordeal, but Aethelwold sat in the shadows of one corner, brooding. Alric thought he had fallen asleep too, until a voice rustled out of the gloom. ‘I see now that you were right. They will never let us leave with St Oswald’s arm. I have sacrificed all these lives because of my foolishness.’

‘We are not dead yet,’ Alric replied.

‘There is nothing we can do,’ the prior said with a note of hopelessness. ‘We cannot fight our way out. You heard the truth buried in Nasi’s words. They are holding us here against our will until the king passes his judgement. We are already doomed.’

Alric knew he could not argue. Once he heard Aethelwold’s snores, he muttered a quiet prayer for guidance. This was the reason why he was here, he was sure of it. The first hints of a way out had come to him aboard the ship in the aftermath of the storm, yet it was a road he was afraid to travel. Sleep would not come easily, he knew.

The next morning, he prayed until his knees ached. The Danes brought stew and bread and ale and the monks picked at the meal with little enthusiasm. Alric chewed a few mouthfuls, but the apprehension that nagged at him stole his appetite. As he watched the prior slip into a black mood that seemed to
infect all the brothers, he felt the burden upon his shoulders grow heavier still.

Two more days were passed in prayer, then on the following morning Nasi slipped into the church and announced, ‘We have received word. The king has survived and will be in his hall within three days.’

And then our time is done
, Alric thought.

As darkness fell, he crept up to the altar while the other monks ate and raised his head to the heavens. He had no choice, he knew that now. Across the royal manor, the Danes would be swilling mead and slipping into the drunkenness that seemed to claim them every night. The time was right.

Soon after the night was torn by cries of alarm. Smoke billowed through the church and the roar of the fire echoed off the stone walls. Through the haze, Alric could see the glimmer of the flames consuming the altar and soaring up the king’s luxurious tapestries towards the wooden roof.

‘Help me,’ he yelled through the billowing cloud as he heard the monks stumble down from their roost in the tower, coughing and choking. He lumbered around blindly, the relic chest clutched in his arms. His lungs were raw from the smoke and the heat and his eyes watered so much he could no longer see the way out. A burning roofbeam crashed only a spear’s-length away, and for a moment he felt sure that he had doomed himself.

But then Aethelwold and another man staggered up through the dense smog. They grabbed his arms and dragged him towards the door. Relief swept through Alric and he murmured his thanks to the Lord. Outside in the night, the monks gathered around him, throwing their arms in the air in joy. ‘We feared the holy relic lost,’ the prior said, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘Praise be to God on high for guiding your hand.’

Danes flooded out of the halls, pointing in horror at the flames licking through the church roof. Nasi strode up with a face like thunder. ‘What foul deed is this?’ he accused, looking across the monks.

‘This is God’s work,’ Alric proclaimed, sweeping one hand towards the blazing church.

‘Blasphemy,’ Aethelwold gasped.

Alric set the reliquary down and showed a face filled with wonder. ‘As I prayed at the altar, God spoke to me. His light shone forth from this box, blinding me, and His voice shook the very walls.’ The monk bowed his head and pressed his palms together in supplication. ‘Those who stole this holy relic from its home will feel the full force of His wrath, unless this matter is ended now and the arm of the saint is returned to its resting place.’

‘This is God’s word?’ the prior demanded, his eyes wide.

‘This is His true word, I so vow.’ Alric flinched as the words left his mouth. Would God strike him dead there and then?

But the moment passed. Nasi looked from Alric’s face to the reliquary and, after a moment, he took one step away. In that simple movement, the monk saw his victory.

Slowly the Danes edged backwards, casting uneasy glances towards the circle of monks. Alric turned and watched the church roof collapse with a rumbling thunder that sent a whirl of sparks soaring high into the air. As the flames licked through the crumbling place of worship, he felt sickened by his lies and his blasphemy: what a crime he had committed against God. He prayed that he would be forgiven. He let his thoughts fly across the dark ocean to England and Hereward. Once, life had been simpler, torn between the dark and the light. Now, for the first time, he truly understood his friend.