Hereward 03 - End of Days (30 page)

‘Rain is on the way,’ Guthrinc mused to himself, cracking the knuckles of his large hands. ‘And a lot of it, I would wager. But better that than an early snow.’

Hereward glanced back along the secret path through the wetlands. The waters lapped at the edges of the track and soon, as the tidal flow changed, they would submerge huge lengths of it. Little surprise that the Norman bastards had not been able to discover it.

Ahead of him, Madulf came to a halt and put down his basket of eels. He stretched his arms, frowning. ‘This will not last long,’ he said, eyeing his catch. ‘There are many hungry mouths in Ely.’

‘If God smiles on us, we will not be hunting for food for much longer,’ Hereward replied. ‘We can eke out our meagre
supplies until the messengers return. And then …’ He grinned.

Madulf looked up as a flock of rooks took wing from the stark ash trees lining the finger of solid ground to the west. As they blackened the sky, their harsh shrieks rang out. Guthrinc followed their flight, his features darkening. He turned to peer back along the path.

‘What do those good eyes of yours see?’ Hereward asked.

The tall man cocked his head. ‘These good ears hear someone coming.’

At first the Mercian could only hear the wind rushing through the reeds, but then the beat of running feet came to him and he felt his neck prickle. He spun round and hissed to Madulf, ‘Find your brother. Tell him to lead the men back to Ely as fast as he can.’

The sullen man screwed up his nose. ‘Why? No one can find us here.’

‘Wait,’ Guthrinc rumbled. ‘It is Herrig the Rat.’

Relieved, Hereward peered into the grey distance. A dark smudge loped into view. At first he could barely tell if it was man or beast. It kept low, bounding along the winding cause-way, head twisting and turning. As it neared, he smiled. It was Herrig – Guthrinc’s eyes never failed him. The rat-faced scout’s tunic was filthy with the mud of the ditches that were his beds; his face was streaked with it and his hair matted.

‘He is fast,’ Madulf marvelled.

‘Hungry to tell us what he has learned,’ the Mercian replied. His brow knitted. Herrig
was
running fast, and something in his gait was troubling. The Rat glanced back, again, and again, almost tumbling off the edge of the track. When he was only two spear-throws away, Hereward saw that his eyes were wide with fear. He whirled. ‘Run,’ he barked at Madulf. ‘Find your brother.’

Wind whistled past his ear. He jerked to one side instinctively.

A crossbow bolt slammed into the centre of Madulf’s forehead. He reeled back from the force of the impact, his eyes
rolling up until only the whites were visible. Blood trickled down his pale face, and he fell, dead.

‘Run,’ the Mercian yelled. ‘The Normans are coming.’

Rabbit and fowl carcasses splashed into the dark water as the men sprinted along the narrow causeway. Hereward snatched up Madulf’s body and flung it over his shoulder. Herrig scrambled at his heels.

‘An army,’ the scout gasped. ‘The Normans have sent their whole army to close off the path.’

Blood thundered through Hereward’s head. He pushed aside all thoughts of how their hated enemy could have found the sole route out of Ely, and his grief at Madulf’s death. Survival was all that mattered. He waved Herrig ahead of him, knowing the weight of the body would slow him, but he could not leave their fallen brother behind.

Another bolt whisked by.

Hereward glanced back. A stream of Normans rushed along the flint track. He could see no end to the line. Yet their heavy armour would hinder them, he knew, and whenever the crossbow men stopped to load and fire they would grind to a halt.

The causeway curled through dense reed-beds and across a rot-reeking bog. At times, the stones were lost beneath the mud and the sluice, so high was the water-line. He felt as if he were skimming across the surface of the marsh itself. Behind him, the pounding of feet and the rattle of mail shirts never let up for a moment. When he reached the isle of Ely, his breath was burning in his chest. He hauled his aching legs up the winding road to the gates. Rows of anxious faces waited.

Once he was inside, the gates trundled shut behind him. The oaken bar crashed into place. Around him, the crowd pressed close, but all he could hear was a susurration of fearful mutterings. No one would dare give true voice to what they knew was coming.

‘Make room,’ he shouted as he laid Madulf upon the ground and snatched out the bolt. Sighard thrust his way through the crowd and fell to his knees beside his brother. At first, he could
only stare in shock, and then grief tore through his features.

‘It is true,’ he cried. ‘Oh, Madulf. Madulf.’

Hereward bowed his head. They had lost so many since the war against the Normans began, but he felt this brother’s grief touch him more than most. After a moment, he tore himself away. From beyond the walls the sound of thunder echoed, a steady beat as the Normans clashed their swords against their shields. They were hungry for the fight, and for revenge for their humbling.

The Mercian clambered up the ladder to the walkway along the walls. Fat drops of icy rain began to fall. Guthrinc hauled his towering form up beside him and said, ‘How did they find the path? Morcar?’

Hereward shook his head. ‘He never learned its twists and turns, and I would never teach him. I knew he could not be trusted.’

‘Then how?’

‘The same one who stole the arm of St Oswald.’ As heavy cloud lowered overhead and the light grew thin, he peered down the slope. The Normans were still out of sight, but the war-beat drew closer by the moment. If the enemy could keep the English contained, they could bring up their siege machines and supplies without fear of being attacked.

He stared out, trying to comprehend how their fortunes had turned so quickly. Victory had been so close. Now they were under siege in Ely, with a fractured army, little food and no way out.

The day of judgement was upon them.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY
-F
IVE

HARD RAIN LASHED
the fenlands. Under a slate-grey sky, the icy water sluiced off helms and rattled against mail shirts as the iron army thundered out of the west. Each man was hunched into the storm that had turned day into night. Their black cloaks hung sodden, their pale faces ghosts in the gloom, their pace as relentless as the onset of winter. Through a sea of mud they tramped, the ground throbbing beneath them. The clash of swords against shields rang out even louder than the howling wind that tore through the leafless trees.

War was coming. Nothing could turn it aside now, not prayer, not plea. Days would end, for many.

Riders flanked the marching men. One thousand knights, there were, the most seasoned warriors in all Europe. Fighting men from Flanders and France, axes-for-hire from Rome and the hot lands beyond. The full force of the king’s might bore down upon Ely.

Redwald wiped away the rain streaming down his face. When he looked across the sea of men, he felt a shiver of awe. He had ridden beside the old king, Harold Godwinson, to victorious battle at Stamford Bridge. That army had greater
numbers, but most of the men were filthy ceorls wielding sticks and rocks. It had been nothing like this.

‘Do you tremble to see the power I have?’ The king’s voice rumbled out above the blasting wind. He was a mountain of iron upon his chestnut stallion, his broad chest and shoulders straining at his hauberk. His mail gleamed in the half-light. His boy must have spent the entire night cleaning the rust and blood off it with sand and a cloth.

‘It is great indeed. The English will surely throw down their arms the moment they see this army.’

William laughed without humour. ‘If you believe that, I know your brother better than you.’

Glancing out at the desolate woods and bogs, Redwald shuddered from the cold. This world felt as though it was dying. All the colour was gone. Only dark browns and muddy greens and shadows remained, and all of it drenched. He should not be there. He wanted to feel the warmth of a hearth-fire and to sip wine and make his plans.

When he had woken to the confusion of snorting horses and many feet and competing voices, he had thought that Hereward had come for him. He still felt the weight of that moment of panic. Perhaps he had been caught up in the last of a nightmare. But no one could have been more surprised when he peered out of his door at Branduna and saw the army readying itself in the field beyond the king’s lodge, with more reinforcements arriving by the moment. He had convinced himself that the king had been broken by his defeat at the causeway. The days brooding alone in his hall, refusing to speak to Redwald, or Asketil, or any of his other advisers. Redwald remembered worrying that all his dreams of advancement might be dashed. He had allied himself with yet another man of straw.

But when he had dressed and stumbled out into the cold to investigate, he had seen a different monarch. That morning William had been roaring orders across the enclosure, and laughing with dark amusement, filled with a vitality that had not been evident since the retreat from Belsar’s Hill. What
could have transformed him? He had tried to get close to him, but the king was too engrossed in his preparations, and he had been forced to return to Edoma’s fussing and chattering. When she had demanded to know the king’s plans, he had laid his hand across her face. She did not cry, though he had raised blood. She took the blow, as she always did, and she would be waiting for him in bed when he returned. But her questions had stung him. He hated not knowing what was happening. It made him feel weak.

He glanced back. The trail of soldiers reached as far as he could see, perhaps all the way back to Cotingelade. As he took in the numbers, he realized these new recruits could not have been brought up overnight.

‘This plan has been long in the making,’ he said, nodding to himself.

The king laughed. ‘You are like a little spider, or you believe yourself to be. Sitting in your web, waiting for the flies to crawl closer as you watch all that transpires. But you do not see everything, little man.’

Little man.
Redwald felt the heat rise in his cheeks. The king had never spoken to him that way before.

William eyed him, a faint smile on his lips. ‘Clever men always think they have more wits than those around them. It has been the downfall of more than one who aspires to scramble to great heights upon the shoulders of others.’

Redwald felt a prickle of unease. He did not recognize the odd tone in the king’s voice, but he felt there was a weight there.

‘Do you think me clever?’ the monarch continued.

Redwald squirmed. He could see the trap in those words. ‘Your skills are many and great, my lord.’

‘And you are as slippery as an eel. It has served you well, so far.’ Shielding his eyes from the driving rain, William searched the landscape, for what, Redwald did not know. ‘Here is a lesson for you,’ he continued. ‘Power is not won by armies alone, nor held by swords and axes. If that were true, Ivo the
Butcher would be king. Shake a fist in the air and all will look at it. But it is the hand behind the back that they should be watching.’

‘Then at Branduna you were—’

‘Waiting. Bartering. Some men must be led by honeyed words to the place where you want them to be.’

Redwald frowned. He could not understand what the monarch was saying.

‘The walls of the English fortress at Ely were built by God. Water and wood, treacherous bogs. As long as those walls stood, the dogs were safe. I tried to break them down with a ram. But a man cannot bring down God’s works.’ He raised his hands, making a show of whatever was amusing him so. ‘Only God can do that.’

‘And God has shown you the way?’

William laughed long and hard. Unable to see the joke, Redwald felt his cheeks colour.

‘Ely is no longer secure,’ the king said when he had calmed.

The road petered out on the edge of the fens. Ahead lay only a vast expanse of perilous bogs and dark water reaching to the very shores of the whale road. Surely William did not plan to take his army along the old straight track and the causeway to Ely. Hereward had long since protected that route. The Normans would be picked off before they could get within an arrow’s shot of the English stronghold.

The king urged his horse on, beckoning for Redwald to follow. Heads were raised as the two men rode by to the front of the column. Redwald looked away when he saw Harald Redteeth eyeing him. He hated the Viking without quite knowing why. When the king slid down from his mount and strode to where Ivo Taillebois waited, Redwald followed.

‘Here?’ William asked.

The Butcher pointed to a dense copse of ash trees. ‘One war-band has already gone ahead. The secret path is narrow and dangerous, but it is as we were told.’

A murmur ran through the men and Redwald realized they
were looking out across the waters and pointing. He turned and peered through the downpour into the gloom. Torches flickered. A huge, dark shape was floating by. He squinted and saw it was one of the siege machines on a raft of hollowed-out logs.

The king nodded, pleased. ‘You will reach Ely before the ballistae,’ he said to Taillebois. ‘Make sure they are well protected.’

Ivo grunted his assent.

William turned to Redwald and said, ‘Go with him.’

Shocked, Redwald stuttered, ‘I am no fighting man.’

‘Would you not give up your life for me?’ the monarch taunted.

Redwald gaped.

‘Did you think you would find your way to the comforts of my court at Wincestre while all the hard work was being done?’ the king enquired with a cold smile. ‘No. I would think you would want to look in the eye of the brother you have betrayed and make your peace with him.’

Redwald felt a deep cold settle upon him.

‘If God wills that you survive the coming battle, then so be it,’ the monarch continued. ‘And if not, your sacrifice will not be forgotten.’

Laughter rippled around. Redwald felt his cheeks colour once more. As the king was summoned away by one of his commanders, the Englishman turned and looked straight into the face of Harald Redteeth.