Men of Sherwood AD1066New

Men of Sherwood AD1066

First Published by Sherwood Times 2013Copyright D.C.Ctrabtree

A saga of love, hate, treachery and courage involving ordinary people caught up in a conflict in 1066 when England is invaded.A saintly king leaves no heir; two brother Earls jostle for a throne; the King of Norway and the Duke of Normandy each claim to be King of England.The lives of a soldier escort who recites epic poetry and two of his friends from Edwinstowe, a Welsh harpist, a young servant from an abbey, and the mistress of an Earl, are irrevocably changed.

Chapter 1. The AffrayChapter 2. Hawk and HoundChapter 3. The BanquetChapter 4. High HopesChapter 5. Poetic OmenChapter 6. UprisingChapter 7. RebellionChapter 8. Death of a KingChapter 9. CoronationChapter 10. A WeddingChapter 11. Gate FulfordChapter 12. The BridgeChapter 13. South InvasionChapter 14. HastingsChapter 15. AftermathChapter 16. Epilogue

Chapter 1: The Affray

Eustace came from beyond the sea . . . he put on his byrnie, and so did his companions, they fared to Dover.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicles AD 1051

A foreboding came over her as soon as she heard the sound of the thudding horses’ hooves resounding through the open door. Her head came up from her embroidery and a troubled look came into her soft, caring, brown eyes - she foresaw disaster. The bone needle and embroidery were soon lost into a small box before she carried her small son, who had been sitting by her side, to the darker side of the cottage.

Her husband, his head almost lost in a bowl of stew, threw her a puzzled glance and asked: ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Horsemen . . . ‘ she said, unable to explain further.A short-haired, bullet-headed mail shirt stepped across the

threshold and barked something in French. The ringed metal of his knee-length mail shirt glinted red in the setting sun while a jewel-hilted sword hung offensively down the side of his right leg.

This invasion of his home brought the Saxon's face to a fiery pink beneath wiry, fair hair. Normally happy to offer hospitality to guests, he just didn't like Normans and had not every householder a right to defend his hearth and home?

The Saxon’s temper fired him towards the Norman and he never flinched till he felt the sharp pain from the Norman's sword jabbed into his midriff. The Saxon’s fury mounted and the drawing of his eating knife from his belt brought a scream from his wife.

The Norman, momentarily distracted, had his sword brushed aside and was unable to ward off the knife thrust into his throat. Blood spurted as the Norman sank with a gurgling croak to the floor. Desperate hands could not stem the flow of blood. Moments

later the blood stopped gushing and the Norman lay dead. Deathly silence brought home the consequences of this murderous action. Life for a life was usual justice, and fury abated, the Saxon’s face paled.’Only the saints can save us now!’ his wife cried, hanging tightly on to her small son, knowing that the Normans would exact ruthless retribution.

Just as the Saxon was picking up the Norman’s sword, two sword-wielding Normans burst in. One look at their dead comrade and they struck as one. The Saxon parried the first sword thrust but the second pierced his chest and the third jabbed into his throat. Slumping to the floor, the sword fell from his hand - the first and last time he had raised a sword in anger.

Checking for no signs of life in the Saxon, the Normans carried their own lifeless comrade outside and to their leader.

The wife squeezed and hugged her husband but all in vain. Intuitively foreseeing disaster she had been powerless in the hands of fate. Something on the floor glinted in the dying ray of sunlight. Her young son picked up the silver crucifix but it slipped through his small fingers into a pool of blood.

The Normans wreaked their revenge by riding up and down the streets, slashing their swords at townspeople. The burgesses were quickly summoned up and stabbed back at the Normans with spears and swords in a chaotic street battle.

The Normans eventually retreated from the town leaving behind a score of their own dead alongside an equal number of Saxons.

Eustace of Boulogne complained to King Edward and since he had grown up in Normandy the King took his side.

Earl Godwin of Wessex was ordered by the King to take action against the townspeople of Dover but the earl refused.

The Earls of Northumbria and Mercia backed King Edward in a confrontation and Earl Godwin had to go into exile with his sons. The Godwins returned a year later but resentment smouldered on, setting the scene for violent conflict that affected many souls in many different ways.

Chapter 2: Hawk and Hound

Earl Harold went after Christmas, from Gloucester to Rhuddlan, that was Gruffydd’s, and burnt the estate, his ships and the sails they carried, and put him to flight. Then towards Rogation, Harold went with ships from Bristol around Wales, and made peace with the people and exchanged hostages


Day dawned early at Ditchling, a village in the lordship of King Edward. Early to rise at first cock crow was Eric, a young man whose movements were quick and light, as though he had lots of living to do and little time to do it in.

Out of the dimness of the great hall, he stepped into the sunlight, gave a ‘good morning’ to a blackbird searching for a worm near his feet before his corn-flower blue eyes blinked into the sun rising above the great forest that stretched darkly away to the horizon. Weak as it was at that time of a morning, the sun warmed him into a glow of optimism.

Nineteen winters old, standing tall and straight, he was full of high spirited youthfulness where everything was still an adventure, not yet tempered by war. Dressed in fine clothes, sporting shiny rings and bracelets, he displayed all the bravado of a young warrior - for that was what he was, a housecarle paid to escort his lord Earl Harold around the earldom of Wessex and defend him from his enemies.

Jaunty strides soon took him across the open space of the green while singing birds brightened the air, and the golden haze cast

over the wide, calm cornfield ahead filled him with contentment. Today was the day when his feet would be set on the path of renown. This was the day he had looked forward to when he would rub shoulders with high and mighty kings and earls.

He crossed the rickyard into the long shadows cast by the stables and hay-barn. To his left a winding track rose steeply up to Beacon Hill and away to his right, crowding and shouldering together, lay the treeless Sussex downs.

Even in the shade Eric’s blue eyes remained puckered; and because his front teeth were visible from a naturally stretched upper lip, he appeared to be permanently grinning.

The grin did not belie his nature - he was always ready for a laugh and a joke, not to mention the touch of impudence that lurked within his eye.

Eric liked his life among the housecarles, liked their company, their loyalty, courage and generosity. ‘Who needs never-ending, back-breaking toil in the fields?’ he would say, though he often helped bring in the harvest when hard times demanded.

He had never known any other life, did not want to know any, though he had to admit that soldiering was dangerous; but then it was a dangerous world where your life often depended upon your sword arm.

He wasn’t the only one up and about as a harsh bellowing shout suddenly assailed his ears: ‘Get out of the way!’

It was Siward, a fellow housecarle, bawling from his saddle at a group of travelling players innocently crossing his path. One of the players, a dark-skinned, black-haired girl, attracted Eric’s admiring gaze before she disappeared with her companions into an out-building.

’Have you a problem, Siward?’ Eric questioned, striding across the courtyard, unable to pass up a chance to cross verbal swords with a man for whom he held an intense dislike.

Siward’s tone blended scorn with indifference: ‘Nothing ti con-cern ye, Minstrel’. Eric was nick-named the Minstrel because he regularly recited epic poems at banquets.

‘Are you getting in everyone’s way?’ Eric asked derisively, look-ing up into intimidating dark eyes glowering from beneath thick black eyebrows that knitted thickly above his nose.

’They are only Welsh acrobats and minstrels - the lowest o’ the low.’ Pointedly aimed at Eric, Siward had derisively spat out the word ‘minstrels’.

’I prefer the company of Welsh acrobats to Northumbrian wea-sels,’ Eric answered with a scornful twitch of his nose as if a disgusting smell hung underneath it.

Siward, a Northumbrian, looked Eric up and down in mock inspection, as disdainful as it was dismissive. ‘Are ye hunting or singing?’ he sneered, pointedly staring at Eric’s fancy leggings.

Overshadowed by Siward’s mounted, slightly stooped, broad shouldered figure, Eric felt disadvantaged. A big man, not gener-ous, Siward always gave others an uneasy feeling - someone everyone tried to avoid. Eric snapped back: ‘Your tongue is sharper than your sword, my friend, be careful not to cut yourself.’

’What di ye know o’ swords, Minstrel?’ Siward stretched the name ‘Minstrel’ between his teeth this time to emphasise his scorn.

Eric decided that this was not the day for an argie-bargie with Siward. This was a day to relish, the day when he would ride alongside the rulers of the kingdom, the day when he was going to be somebody. He could bandy insults with Siward any old time.

’Can’t you hear the birds singing, Siward?’ Eric appealed half-mockingly. ‘The dogs are straining at their leashes, the hawks are fretting in their jesses and heaven’s bliss is shining bright, so let’s enjoy the hunt, eh?’

Malignity never left Siward’s face as he snorted, flicked his reins and sullenly rode away. Eric had never, at any time, succeeded in unseating Siward’s arrogance. Everyone kept Siward at arm’s length to avoid his piercing black eyes and the trouble that went with them - except for Eric who took pleasure in goading him.

The Northumbrian mixed brute force with a wolfish mind; and aggression seemed to emanate from all parts of his body and he always ensured, often with violence, that no one ever took his advantage. Though Eric always thought it odd that Siward, who believed everyone else plotted to wrong him and do him down,

had this uncanny, reverential loyalty to Earl Tosti - Siward was employed by Earl Tosti as his personal escort.

Inside the stable, Eric threw two saddles with upright pommels and long stirrup leathers across two horses. As he began to buckle the red leather girths his lord’s voice greeted him through the stable door: ‘Morning Tidings, Minstrel!’

’Greetings, my lord Earl!’ Eric returned courteously.Earl Harold strode briskly in, moving quickly for a big man. Broad

shouldered and heavily built, he had a thick neck and thrusting head beneath a cap of sandy hair trimmed across his forehead. After giving his mare a friendly greeting, he stroked her neck before crisply ordering Eric: ‘Give her a drink of water and then bring her outside to the green where I’ll be inspecting the hounds.

’Yes, my lord,’ Eric readily answered.Eric liked his lord, Earl Harold, liked his sunny temperament, his

easy natural air of authority that was without recourse to ill temper. Eric felt in tune with him and allegiance to him came easily. As a fledgling warrior Eric would normally have little direct contact with his lord and it was only his poetic recitations, for which Earl Harold had a partiality, that brought him to his lord’s notice. Otherwise he was just another paid housecarle among three hundred others.

Eric watered both horses and cheerily shouted to two other housecarles who had begun to saddle their horses in the stable: ‘I’m going hunting!’

’Oh!’ replied the one with the biggest grin. ‘We thought you had lost a farthing and found a penny.’

Their leg-pulling Eric did not mind: he pulled the legs of other housecarles often enough - Eric had a well-earned reputation as a practical joker.

Leading the two saddled horses out of the stable, he crossed over the green to where Earl Harold was supposedly inspecting the dogs - playing with them more like. Earl Harold was stroking and patting their heads and fondling their ears as they wagged their tails, yapped and barked and jumped up at him while their handlers struggled to hang on to their leashes.

When his hawk-trainer arrived Earl Harold mounted his horse and took a female goshawk on his leather gloved fist, holding her

by leather jesses. Her temper seemed to be up as she screeched loudly, ferociously flashing her eyes.

Eric watched fascinated, luxuriating in a warm glow. He may be merely an escort but it was a great honour to be in the royal hunting party. Yes sir, he was on his way to renown. With his long stirrup leathers giving him a straight legged seat so that his feet almost touched the ground, he sat serenely on his horse, soaking up the atmosphere. His crinkled eyes shone and his long drooping moustache bristled as he relished the yelping of the dogs and the screeching of the hawks, stirred not only by the excitement of the forthcoming chase but dazzled by the imminent presence of the King.

’Bonjour!’ Earl Harold welcomed the two visiting Norman knights.’Bonjour!’ they echoed in unison. Both wore solemn expressions

to match their dark brown mantles. Eric’s admiration for the way they skilfully controlled their horses that were snorting and shying at the surrounding hullabaloo went no further than that - he didn’t much like Normans.

’We are looking forward to a good chase and kill,’ said the elder, shorter Norman whose greying temples could just be seen despite his short cropped hair.

Harold rejoined politely: ‘The forest is full of game: red deer, roe deer and boar, pigeons, partridges and hares -‘

“Though not the best time of the year for hawking?” the Norman questioned.

“That’s true - but do you wish to wait until October?” Harold queried with a raised eyebrow.

’No chance,‘ answered the Norman, ‘Duke William expects our imminent return.’

Eric thought to himself: ‘Well that’s that then! What William expects, William gets!’

Earl Tosti, Earl Harold’s younger brother, rode up with his falcon-ers in train. Cutting a fine figure with smartly cut chestnut hair, splendid moustache, be-ringed hands, and a necklet of gold peeping out from under his collar, he bestowed a swift smile and a ‘Good Tidings’ on everyone. His eyes only halted momentarily

on those he greeted as they scanned from side to side in a never ending search that took in everything and missed nothing.

Physically, Tosti was a smaller version of his elder brother Harold, but his quickness was born out of tension, a nervous restlessness. Third eldest of Earl Godwin’s six sons, he was married to a close relative of Count Baldwin of Flanders and as the Earl of Northumbria he was a man of power.

Eric knew, as everyone else knew, that Tosti was King Edward’s favourite, a substitute son for the one the King never sired. King Edward and Earl Tosti had formed a close friendship and although distance separated them - Tosti based himself at York while the King rarely travelled north of Oxford - they hunted together as often as they were able.

’How is my brother’s health?’ Earl Tosti politely asked Harold.’Fine and well apart from the occasional twinge of rheumatism in

my leg.’’Less time spent in the saddle would be a balm for that condition,

I swear,’ Tosti advised. ‘My advice is to cut down on your riding, though for myself, giving up hunting would be unthinkable.’ Tosti looked to the two Norman knights. ‘I’m sure our Norman friends would agree with that view.’

’Yes,’ the elder knight answered. ‘But hunting can be too much of a passion.’

Eric’s eyes focused keenly but not too respectfully on Earl Tosti, admiring his clothes but not so much the man. He had never had any direct contact with Harold’s brother and hoped he never would, sensing that he was a man obsessed by ambition and not to be trusted.

A comparison suddenly hit him. Tosti was like a rosy apple, all shiny on the outside but inside, bruised and bad. If Earl Tosti had said good morning to him, Eric confessed, he would say goodnight and go to bed.

As for Siward, who sat morosely astride his horse alongside Tosti, Eric had no respect at all. Nor could he find much for the two Norman knights - he found them far too serious and haughty. Eyeing the quartet from beneath his blond eyebrows, he could

hardly describe any of them as jolly as thrushes - wise as wolves was a more accurate description.

King Edward passionately loved hunting with hawk and hound but never failed to first attend mass, and so he arrived last of all accompanied by his entourage of thanes and falconers. His long streaming white hair beneath a white bonnet mingled with an equally white forked beard which merged into a white tunic stretch-ing down to grey-white woollen strips wrapped around his thin legs - all contrasting sharply against his sleek black horse.

Let’s hope the goshawk does not mistake him for a magpie, Eric mused, then quickly glanced at Earl Harold to check he had not read his thoughts. He hadn’t. His lord’s attention focused on the King, speaking directly to him: ‘My lord king, it’s most important that you sign the treaty with the Normans before the banquet.’

’Yes, yes, Harold,” the King answered petulantly, his gestured hand displaying irritancy. ‘Later - after prayers.’

The King turned a cordial eye toward the two Norman knights: ‘It is important that we entertain our Norman guests.’

Eric had never before been this close to the King and to his surprise found his voice sounding irritable and high pitched. It also had a French burr which should not have been so surprising since the King had spent twenty-five years of his early life in exile in Normandy.

’It’s a fine day for hunting, my lord,’ Earl Harold remarked.’Every day is a fine day for hunting: the falcons must be kept

flying to keep them in good mettle,’ the King answered.’Chance would be a fine thing,’ Harold said in mock lament.’Your problem, Harold, is that you are always in too much of a

hurry.’’My estates are scattered far and-‘’Tosti’s earldom stretches far to the north but he still finds time

for hunting,’ the King pointed out.Tosti smiled a perfect set of white teeth: ‘Enforce the law, ensure

wrongdoers are severely punished and all will run smoothly,’ he said smugly.

Harold pointedly replied: ‘Pull on your horse’s reins too tightly and the horse will throw you.’

Each brother’s eyes held the other’s for an instant and the realisation passed between them that they were both chasing the same prize - a kingdom. King Edward, with no heir apparent, had retired into a world of religion and hunting that left the day-to-day running of the kingdom in the hands of Earl Harold in the South and Earl Tosti in the North. Upon the King’s death, a thriving kingdom would be in the offing - a powerful temptation to the ambitious.

The King looked again to the two Norman knights: ‘Duke William loves to hunt, is that not true, Roger?’

Roger de Beaumont, the elder one, again answered: ‘He loves hunting - when he is not fighting his enemies - and attends mass every day. He abides by your example, my lord.’

’He has fought many enemies and defeated them all. God must be on his side’, answered the King.

Roger said: ‘’He founded the magnificent monastery of St Stephen at Caen.’

’Yes, similar in style to the abbey-church that I am building on Thorney Island. Have you seen my new church?’

’No, my lord king.’’You must come to the dedication later this year.’’That would be an honour, my lord,’ Roger accepted.Eric noted that the younger knight, hanging on every word,

looked disappointed not to be also invited.In a grand flourish, Earl Tosti took a falcon, almost as big as a

buzzard, from his falconer’s arm and offered it to the King: ‘I bring you a gift my lord king - a gyrfalcon from Norway.’

The King’s long, mournful, furrowed red face shortened into a smile.

‘What a generous gift! A thousand grateful thanks! There is no other gift which I could appreciate more highly!’ he exclaimed, gripping the big falcon by her leather jesses in his long translucent fingers. The long breast feathers of the slate-grey falcon reached down to her feet and her large head, fronted by a white face and dirty cheeks, bobbed up and down while a ‘Ge-he-he!’ screeched from her hooked beak.

’A royal bird, my lord,’ said Tosti, as much pleased at himself for presenting the gift as he was at the King’s delight in receiving it.

’Truly so, Tosti, a royal bird,’ agreed the King before his pleased expression changed to censorious and frowned its way to the goshawk on Harold’s wrist. ‘I see you have brought your favourite goshawk again, Harold.’

’We’ve become rather attached to each other,’ Harold answered, looking with regard at his goshawk which uttered a few odd peeps while wriggling her neck. Her eyes glowed like oranges from under her beetling brows. ‘She is the best filler of a cooking pot I know: partridges, hares-‘

’But not a royal bird,’ the King interrupted impatiently, ‘not a peregrine or gyrfalcon, a ruler of the sky, a king of birds and a bird for kings.’

’I agree the falcon is a superb acrobatic fighter but I prefer the strength of the goshawk. Just by tightening her toes she can crush a hare’s skull like an egg.’

’One man’s meat does not suit all,’ the King compromised. ‘But let’s not delay while the weather holds fine. Let’s fly the hawks!’

The party headed toward the forest, Eric riding in the heels of Earl Harold’s horse. The great forest of Andredsweald stretched forty miles north to London and a hundred miles east to west from Kent to Hampshire, so thickly wooded that a squirrel could travel from Dover to Southampton without touching the ground feeding on the fruit from its trees all the way.

Where the trees thinned a little the hunting party halted. A dog handler released a pointer that padded about sniffing at the ground and air till it stopped suddenly with its head up, one foot raised and tail straight out - it had scented game. At a high pitched whistle from its handler, the dog prowled forward.

Eric heard a flapping in the dark confusion of undergrowth before he saw a dumpy, buff coloured bird whir up on stiff wings. At that same instant, Harold’s thick arm threw his goshawk into the air. With a cracking burst of speed, flitting quietly but swiftly between the trees, the goshawk caught the partridge before it was even aware of her presence and brought it down to the ground, crushing its skull with her needle-like talons.

Eric marvelled. The goshawk, skilfully adept at using the lie of the land with her short broad wings and long tail, had snatched her prey as sure and as soundless as she had been swift.

The taller of the two Normans who had not yet spoken became excited and shouted: ‘Bel rameur!’

Harold threw a puzzled look at the knight who made a rowing motion with his arms to explain.

’Ah!’ exclaimed Harold. ‘The bird flies like a rower.’’Yes, a rower,’ the Norman said in good English.Eric, a little bemused, looked curiously at the Norman.The King led the party further into the clearing, upwind of some

tall sparse trees where the King released his gyrfalcon. Her fast flapping wings took her straight up in the air till she had climbed vertically above and twice the height of the trees. As she circled her long pointed wings and short tail gave a bow-shaped silhou-ette against the billowing white clouds.

The rooks in the trees spotted her and took flight. The falcon stooped, forcing the rooks upwind, but this was a feint and she rebounded higher. Another stoop and a feint and the rooks dropped lower in panic. Then came the falcon’s final stoop.

Diving at tremendous speed, purposeful and precise, twisting and turning then braking by throwing up her wings and fanning her tail, she hit one of the rooks with a loud crack that everybody heard. Struck dead by the falcon’s hind spur, the rook spun earthwards but the falcon retrieved it before it touched the ground.

The King’s long face creased into a florid smile. ‘What a delight to watch, sweeping, tumbling, diving through the sky - the fastest bird in the world.’

’Yes, my lord, in a dive,’ Harold argued, ‘but the goshawk is faster in level flight.’

’The falcon puts the fear of death into its prey before striking - and enjoys it’.

’A goshawk’s silent speed and surprise will always win its prey.’To Eric, this conversation sounded more like battle tactics for

warriors than birds and there was no better battle tactician than Earl Harold.

’The gyrfalcon is the noblest of all hawks,’ the King persisted, thrusting his long chin forward.

’Anything that runs or flies is grist to the goshawk’s mill,’ Harold argued in a calm assured voice.

The King retorted: ’Suitable for a thane!’ This smack of disap-proval at the goshawk’s social inferiority ended the argument and the King turned with a smile to Tosti: ‘Show us what your peregrine can do.’

A friendly chortling came from the throat of the peregrine on Tosti’s wrist despite the piercing dark eyes that threatened above a black moustache. Her black capped head and white and fawn breast were stillness itself in contrast to Tosti’s impatient fretting to show her off.

Tosti released her and she treated them all to a grand display of aerobatics. Climbing and then circling, she became a small bow-shape hovering in the blue above, focused in everyone’s intent and patient eye watching from below. Suddenly, with wings closed, she fell out of the sky in a plummeting dive at a pigeon that tried to evade her by twisting and turning sideways and skyways. The falcon followed the pigeon’s movements exactly and with speed and precision she snatched it and brought it to the ground.

Eric now expected the Norman knights to join in the hawking, but surprisingly, the elder one approached the King who in turn spoke to Earl Harold. First displaying surprise by raising his eyelids, Harold then beckoned to a puzzled Eric.

’Eric, this is Hugh Margot,’ said Earl Harold, introducing the younger Norman knight, same build as Eric and sitting just as tall in the saddle. ‘He wishes to see an iron smelter and you are to escort him to the one further west in the forest. As a guest of the King he is to be given every hospitality and answers to all his questions.’

’A smelter!’ Eric exclaimed incredulously but Harold’s hard look broached no argument and caused Eric’s face to slip into mortifi-cation. He stared bemusedly at the knight and the sharp eyes coldly returned gave him an impression of a bird of prey who had just selected its victim.

Hugh contrived a half-smile but Eric’s doleful eyes went heaven-ward in appeal against some grievous wrong of which he was innocent. Why should any sane person want to see a smelter in the middle of a hunt? Eric could only conclude that the knight’s wits had gone a’ bird’s nesting. A fool the knight might be, but it was Earl Harold’s order and Eric had to carry it out as he carried out all his orders without question.

’This way,’ Eric said sullenly, knowing it was the end of his hunting for the day and he turned his horse back in the direction they had come. The sight of Siward’s smirking face didn’t help. Housecarle and knight rode away together following the line of the forest due west.

Eric sulked. His opinion of Normans had sunk even lower. He had always thought of them as too proud and overbearing and now he added muddy-headed.

Hugh Margot broke a long silence, speaking graciously enough, his good English tinged with a Norman accent: ‘Have you been a housecarle for long?’

’Over two years,” Eric answered. It was an effort to be polite. ‘Since the death of my father, who had also been a housecarle.’ Vividly he recalled him now, waving his sword around his head, shouting: ‘I will die defending my lord with my ancient iron in my hand!’

Housecarles were an elite corps, expected to fight steadfastly to the last man around their lord. Fatefully, Eric’s father did not die heroically in battle but in bed from a wasting illness. His ancient iron was his Viking sword, a highly valued, sacred family heirloom handed down from father to son. The sword was buckled around Eric’s waist now, as it always was when he was awake and always within hand’s grasp when he was asleep.

‘My grandfather came to England with King Cnut,’ Eric proudly informed Hugh, trying to impress on the Norman that he was a somebody.

Eric’s ancestors were Viking Danes who had raided England garbed in trappings of leather and fur and gold bracelets, spread-ing terror with their two-handed battle-axes and silver-bound swords.

’But King Cnut was Danish and King Edward is West Saxon,’ Hugh said, raising one eyebrow.

’True, King Edward is Saxon - descended from warrior kings stretching back to King Alfred . . . and even further to Cerdic who conquered the Britons . . . and in the remoteness of time to the god Woden.’

’Did not the Saxon kings fight the Danes?’ Hugh asked, his expression sharpening with interest.

This is an inquisitive Norman, Eric thought and recalled, a little grudgingly, his lord’s order to answer all his questions. ‘Yes they did’, Eric admitted, and then decided to show off his poetic prow-ess. ‘I know many epic poems about great Saxon kings. Would you like to hear one about King Alfred?’

Hugh nodded agreement and Eric began in poetic style:‘Listen! King Alfred was a great king.With his brother Ethelred, he defeated a great Danish army in

Berkshire.Ethelred dallied at his prayers declaring that God must come first

but Alfred could not wait, and led his valiant Wessex men into battle.Like a wild boar with shield-walls clashing, chain-mail ringing and

ravens screeching overhead.Fierce and furious they fought till the Danes, worn down by

wounds, fled into the darkness leaving behind many dead includ-ing five Danish earls and a king.’

Eric loved reciting the old Saxon poems. Poems about epic battles that extolled heroic exploits of never yielding warriors who earned a fame that lived on through the retelling.

What Eric did not know was that Hugh’s interest was not so much in the drama of the poem but whether it gave any clue to King Edward’s successor.

The pair took a right turn at a crossroads with a Roman cemetery on one corner before following the old Roman road through the great forest. ‘This road takes you to London - as short as any crow can fly,’ Eric informed Hugh.

Hugh made a mental note before asking: ‘Is Edward the King of all Britons?’

’Yes, both the Scots and Welsh pay him allegiance.’

Hugh lapped up information in any form - story, gossip or ru-mour, it did not matter, whatever might be useful in determining King Edward’s successor; and most importantly, how it affected the future of Duke William of Normandy.

Duke William’s ambition was no secret. He had been putting it around the kingdoms of Europe for years that he was the rightful successor to King Edward, and that was where Hugh looked to advantage himself - the Duke would generously reward anyone who helped him gain the crown of England.

Housecarle and knight turned into a string-thin path before coming upon a clearing by a stream. Beside a heap of iron ore and an untidy pile of logs stood an iron smelter looking like a giant conical sandstone helmet. On the surrounding gravelled area stood two bare-chested men, both puffing hard and sweating as they operated two pairs of bellows with both hands and feet, pumping air into the smelter. The two men did not stop at the approach of two horsemen.

Eric explained: ‘Alternate layers of charcoal and iron are piled into the hearth and the whole heap covered in a thick coating of clay. Heated from underneath, the slag is drawn off the top by letting it run down these trough openings.’ Eric’s hand gestured to the top of the smelter.

‘The heat has to be kept up for several hours. It’s hard work.’ The two sweating men looked curiously at housecarle and knight but didn’t stop pumping.

’What is the iron used for?’ Hugh asked.’Mainly farming tools: hoes, shovels, sickles, pitchforks-‘’Is it used for making weapons?’ Hugh’s face still remained

impassive, eyes not reacting when Eric looked askance at him.Eric’s answer came slowly and warily: ‘Yes . . . small weapons.’

He peered at Hugh with a more searching eye. More to this Norman than he thought. He was getting an impression of a hound sniffing around, identifying smells and storing them away for future use.

Hugh noted Eric’s wary look but was not a man easily diverted from his purpose. Eric decided it was his turn to ask a question: ‘Did you not inherit an ancient iron?’

’Ancient iron?’’Yes, your battle-friend - your sword.’ Eric showingly gripped the

jewelled hilt of his own sword.’Yes, I have a sword. My equipment is not elaborate: a sword,

mace, helmet, leather boots, spurs, a saddle, reins, bridle and stirrups, a shield and a mail coat.

Hugh did not feel obliged to tell Eric that he was the youngest son of a lesser Norman family and unable to inherit. That at the age of ten he had become a page in Roger de Beaumont’s household, serving at his table, and at sixteen had become a squire attending on his master in any battles that were going.

By the age of twenty-one Hugh had become a fully-fledged knight, one of a cult who was expert at fighting from the saddle, laying siege to castles, trampling on any peasants who got in their way and ravaging the countryside around. When they were not fighting private wars, these knights sold their fighting talents as mercenaries for pay and plunder.

But where most knights had no ideals except to ride and hunt and fight, Hugh had ambition. He wanted to own land and enjoy all the advantages that went with it. And having learned early that information led to power, he scavenged every bit of information that came to his ears. What had happened in the past, what was happening now and likely to happen in the future, he knew was all useful in manoeuvring oneself into a position of power.

Unsure what Hugh was about and not renowned for his subtlety Eric directly asked him: ‘Have you some interest in King Edward’s succession?’

’Not particularly,’ Hugh lied.’Listen! The next King of England will be Edgar the Atheling,

grandson of Edmund Ironside, the King’s half brother,’ Eric in-formed him, and with no more ado, having put Hugh straight about Edward’s successor, Eric reined his horse in peremptory fashion back up the track.

The pair rode back to Ditchling in silence, Eric ruefully reflecting on his day so far. What should have been the highlight of his day, if not his life, had been given over to a silly Norman knight and an

iron smelter! His royal hunt had been ruined by a feather-brained Norman.

As they came closer to Ditchling, Eric tried to lift himself out of his depression by deciding that the day had not yet come to an end and there was still the evening banquet to come. He cheered a little at the prospect of indulging in fine food and plenty of clear ale amongst his hearth companions.

Expected to render a poem or two in the presence of royalty, his heart warmed to the chance of reciting in front of Queen Edith whom he had long admired from afar, and maybe a chance to meet the pretty, dark-haired girl, one of the travelling players he had glimpsed that very morning.

When knight and housecarle arrived back at Ditchling, Eric coldly, but politely, bid Hugh farewell, hopefully not expecting to meet him again.

In the stables Eric was unsaddling his horse when a sneering Siward confronted him: ‘Clever o’ ye to opt out of the boar hunt Minstrel; a feared o’ falling out of the saddle were ye?’

’Any of the hounds bite you?’ Eric retorted. ‘I’m sure they can’t tell the difference between you and a boar!’

’Methinks ye must be a dog yourself to know so much about them!’’All I see before me is a servile hound that runs with the pack.’The two-way invective ceased abruptly at the entrance of Hal-

dane, Captain of Earl Harold’s housecarles. Physically short in stature though high in authority, he issued his orders in a voice a little less loudly than thunder: ‘Eric! You are to act as host to Hugh Margot at this evening’s banquet. He has requested to dine with you and your companions. As a guest of the King you will make him welcome.’

’Yes, captain,’ Eric answered dully, trying to conceal a sinking heart, sure that the Norman would dampen his evening’s revelry just as he had ruined his hunt. Even so, he resolved to follow orders and try to be gracious.

Chapter 3: The Banquet

Before Lammas Earl Harold commanded building done in Wales at Portskewet, now that he had conquered it, and there brought many goods, and thought to have King Edward there for the matters of hunting.


The great hall of Ditchling, standing on stone foundations and built high of stout oak, had a thatched, timber-framed roof supported by three lines of aisle posts. It had seen better days, having once withstood a Viking attack - divots from Viking axes could still be seen in the iron-bound oak portal - though it now sat comfortably like a large farmhouse.

The central hearthstone focused the warmth and conviviality of the occasion. Splendid tapestries worked in gold adorned the walls and hanging under them were linden shields, like loyal companions standing shoulder to shoulder depending on the courage of each other.

King Edward and Queen Edith sat at the High Table by the hearth with their guests Roger de Beaumont, Earl Harold, Earl Tosti and his wife Judith. Cloth-covered feasting tables spread outwards from the hearth to the minstrel gallery - a low platform set at the side.

At an outer table, Eric was flourishing his arm around grandly as he politely introduced Hugh Margot to his table-companions, all housecarles from Earl Harold’s escort. Hugh politely nodded his head.

The housecarles’ flamboyance contrasted sharply with Hugh’s sober tunic, close cropped hair and solemn face. Their embroi-

dered tunics of varying blues and scarlet, well-displayed gold rings and bracelets, long flowing hair and moustaches, and pride puffed up to a swagger, left no one in any doubt as to why they were there - to revel in the feasting just as their ancestors had done on long winter nights in the halls of Scandinavia.

Not the least flamboyant was Eric, sporting a gold ring on his finger and dressed in a fine Flander’s cloth tunic taken in at the waist by a leather belt. Moulded leather shoes fitted neatly on his feet, and on a head filled with good intentions sat a jauntily, perched bonnet.

Eric gestured to his closest friend: ‘This is Thorkill the Tall - for obvious reasons.’

‘Good Tidings!’ greeted the tousle ginger-haired young man. Taller than Eric by several inches, Thorkill had unwavering very blue eyes and a magnificent moustache almost drooping past his chin. His appearance gave the air of a mischievous youth, not at all of a warrior.

Eric gestured a more grudging arm in the direction of his regular adversary: ‘The owner of this happy smiling face is Siward.’

From beneath his thick arched eyebrows Siward’s glare accom-panied a greeting that came more in the way of a grunt.

Eric assigned Hugh a seat beside himself at their table. No sooner had food and ale arrived than Hugh was back on his search of inquiry into King Edward’s successor: ‘Is Earl Harold the King’s chief counsellor?’

’Yes,’ Eric replied, his chin jutting out with pride at mention of his lord.

’How is that so when he is only the Earl of Wessex?’Always quick and ready to defend his lord, Eric bristled: ‘Only the

Earl of Wessex! Bah! Wessex is bigger than Normandy for a start and Earl Harold is the best general in the kingdom!’

’How is that so?’’Because he defeated the Welsh Prince Gruffydd two years ago.’’Who?’ Hugh asked, unimpressed.’Listen! Prince Gruffydd was ruler of all Wales and burned

Hereford town, leaving Earl Harold with no choice but to attack Wales.’

Eric paused to take a long sup of ale, and then continuing, brought himself into the story: ‘We sailed from Bristol, round the Welsh coast, landing at all the harbours and taking hostages till we reached the Conway estuary to cut off Prince Gruffydd’s escape.’

Eric once more lubricated his voice with another draught of amber liquid from his goblet - used to drinking from a round-bottomed glass that could not be set down, it was always at his mouth.

’Prince Gruffydd must have turned into a mountain goat because he disappeared with his men into the hills. But without supplies they began to starve and Earl Harold demanded that Prince Gruffydd surrender. When Prince Gruffydd refused, his own men killed him. All other Welsh princes then swore allegiance to King Edward.’

After this brilliant account of Earl Harold’s victory, a sober Hugh revealed a face devoid of any awed expression, goading Eric into extolling more of his lord’s virtues: ‘Earl Harold is firm in justice and fierce in war . . . and an expert horseman who can ride all day.’

Hugh barely flickered an eyelid, even when Thorkill the Tall nodded confirmation. In reality, Eric always complained about his lord’s long gruelling rides. Once Harold was in the saddle nothing could get him out of it, riding fast and hard without rest no matter how far the destination. Eric had nicknamed him ‘Leather-rump’, though he never uttered it within his earshot - after all, he was his lord.

Hugh asked: ‘Wasn’t Earl Tosti also a general in the war against the Welsh?’

Eric stared unblinkingly at Hugh as though paying great heed to a slow thinker: ‘He took part . . . yes.’

With distaste Eric shifted his gaze across the table to Earl Tosti’s escort Siward whom he had first crossed in the Welsh campaign: Earl Harold and Earl Tosti’s combined forces had been scouring the foothills of Penmaen-mawr for scavenging Welsh warriors when Eric stumbled across a young shepherd boy stabbed through the heart.

When Siward claimed he had killed the boy in self-defence, Eric contemptuously challenged him: ‘Self-defence! What did he attack

you with? A sheep’s bell?’ From that moment they became ene-mies with distaste for each other that burst into taunts and jibes whenever their paths crossed.

The banquet was interrupted by a horn blowing to signify the exchange of gifts to seal the trade treaty between King Edward and Duke William of the Normans.

The King’s face creased into a smile when Roger de Beaumont presented to him a two-edged sword with an elaborate gold pommel and a hilt embellished with garnets. ‘A gift from your cousin Duke William,’ Roger grandly pronounced.

In response, Queen Edith rose to her feet and presented to Roger an illuminated manuscript of St. Matthew’s gospel with an illustrious binding engraved with silver and skilfully inlaid with gems.

Eric eyed Queen Edith with admiration, close to adulation. A year earlier she had expressed her sympathies to Eric after his mother died - the Queen had remembered his mother’s fine singing on one of her visits away from court. It was the first and only time a royal person had ever spoken to Eric and he had never got over it.

’Eric,’ said Thorkill the Tall, watching him staring enraptured at the Queen. ‘Isn’t it time you got married?’

’Married! What for?’’You need someone to look after your needs and keep you warm

on cold winter nights.’’I’ve got a hot water bottle to keep me warm.’’Not the same as a woman’s love that helps you ride the turbu-

lent tide of life.’’There’s plenty of time,’ answered Eric, as though mulling it over.Winning honour on the battlefield was more Eric’s aim, though

he never broadcast any such ambitions to Thorkill, or anyone else. It always lay hidden under a laugh and a joke. His only concern at that moment was keeping ahead of the ale servers, his hollow legs seemingly unfillable.

Perhaps he ought to slow down his drinking if he was going to recite, he reflected, but resolve ebbed away with each goblet of ale.

’Will you be weaving your words to give us a fitting tale?’ Thorkill asked.

Eric. ’Oh, yes - the poem, ‘Battle of Maldon.’’What is the poem about?’ Hugh asked, showing sudden interest.’It tells how East Saxons stoutly fought against but were de-

feated by Vikings at a causeway in the Blackwater estuary,’ Eric explained.

’The East Saxons lost the battle?’ Hugh questioned, not im-pressed with the idea of praising defeat.

’Standing shoulder to shoulder ready to die with their lord rather than give up the fight is more important than defeat!’ Eric rebuked.

Eric loved the epic poems recited in the tradition of the gleemen of old - those that related heroic deeds against overwhelming odds, told and re-told to keep brave men’s names alive.

His poetic vein was inherited from the spindle side of his family for his grandmother and mother both sang lyrical poems. Their ancestors had arrived in England with the great Danish invasion two hundred years earlier. The invaders had first made peace with King Ethelred and his brother, the future King Alfred, at Notting-ham but later they defeated an army led by King Edmund of Anglia who was killed and later honoured as a saint.

His mother’s family later settled at Edwinstowe in Nottingham-shire where they ploughed and mowed, built a mill with a pond, grazed cattle in the fields, pigs in woodland pasture, and also kept bees.

It was when King Cnut was journeying north through Edwinstowe to visit his friend and adviser, Earl of Norway, who was also Earl of Northumbria, that he heard his grandmother’s fine singing voice. She was asked to join his court which already consisted of several poets and she even travelled with the King to Rome to attend the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad.

Her daughter, Eric’s mother, also inherited this excellent singing voice and married Eric’s father who became one of Earl Harold’s housecarles.

Eric was named after Eric of Norway who was probably the most famous warrior in the Scandinavian world. He was chief adviser to King Cnut and unusually for the time had a touch of humanity and unselfishness.

But a big influence on Eric’s outlook was an earlier king, King Edwin of Northumbria who had been killed in battle in 633, along-side his son, in a marshy area near Doncaster on the banks of the river Don, by an alliance of pagans - Gwynedd (North Wales), Cadwallon and Penda (Mercia). His other son was later captured and killed by Penda.

King Edwin had converted to Christianity in 625 when he married Athelberg of Kent, and promised to recognise his wife’s Christian religion. Edwin actually converted on the eve of Easter 627 when he was baptised at York in a wooden church, dedicated to St. Peter, which he had built for the occasion.

After the deadly battle King Edwin was temporarily buried at Edwinstowe, and a church was later built of Sherwood oak over his resting place. Stories of King Edwin were passed down over generations and Eric took them all in for Edwin belonged to the world depicted in Old English heroic poetry. A standard bearer rode before him on long journeys; he was in touch with the world outside Britain - his mother-in-law was Bertha of Paris. He had travelled far as an exile and made himself the lord of other kings. He was surrounded by retainers ready to give their lives for him - one of his thegns intercepted the blow aimed at his head by a murderer from Wessex.

In an epic ending, he fell in battle, one son falling before him; the other fleeing to his enemy, and a faithful thegn carried his remain-ing children into a distant land.

Eric loved these old heroic poems and his brilliant memory enabled him to learn short poems and retain them at a single hearing. The longer, stirring, epic poems took longer but once learned he never forgot them.

A horn sounded again and a group of acrobats began walking on their hands and cart-wheeling between tables, causing Eric to make a quick grab for his wheaten cakes and ale but the perfect timing of the acrobats and sure feet prevented any loss of ale.

The big man of the acrobats then threw the other two around as though tossing clubs in the air and when he stood still, legs wide apart, they clambered all over him forming different geometric

shapes. To appreciative shouts from the feasters, the acrobats cart-wheeled out of the hall.

In the ensuing lull, a low, fierce voice needled in Eric’s direction: ‘Is it half a feast ye are partaking, Minstrel, ti go with yer half a hunt?’ It was Siward complete with leering face from across the table.

’You seem to be getting more than your fair share,’ Eric retorted, though the focus of his own eye was becoming a little muzzy from too much ale. The insulting exchanges stopped when the minstrel singers entered the hall.

A minstrel girl led them in carrying a harp, followed by the big acrobat who carried on his back a male minstrel with crippled legs. Both minstrels had similar looks of dark skin and black hair but Eric devoted his eye to the girl who especially roused his curiosity, sure she was the same pretty girl he had seen earlier that day crossing Siward’s path.

Her noticeably dark eyes and jet-black hair softly falling past her shoulders contrasted with her bleached white gown loosely fitting her slim figure.

She held up the lower part of her gown with her long fingers to prevent it draping on the floor, but left it low enough to cover her feet such that she appeared to gracefully glide along. Attracted by her every line, her every movement, Eric leaned attentively for-ward and waited expectantly as she embraced the harp. It was not the soft tones of her harp strings that he heard but the contemptu-ous voice of Siward: ‘Welsh minstrels - lowest of the low!’

The insult was loud enough for Eric and his companions to hear, but as intended, not loud enough to carry to the other tables. Eric’s temperature rose. ‘I was not aware that you were of royal blood, Siward?’ he retorted with as much derision as his tongue could muster.

’How would ye know, Minstrel, ye’ve ne’er spilt any.’ Siward’s voice was again low and edged with hate.

Eric’s moustache bristled furiously: ‘Your problem is that your sword is too big for your arm.’

’I could play a tune on ye ribs wi’ it right now!’

Even through his ale-blearied eyes, Eric saw the hate in Siward’s face and the mirrored scorn staring back at him through narrowed slits of eyes. Both men jumped to their feet, their eyes glowering, each barely holding on to their self-control.

The hall fell into an unnatural, incredulous silence at this inter-ruption, the hostility between the two of them filling the hall like an imminent thunderstorm. Only then did Eric realise that they had attracted all the other feasters’ attention, and looking bemusedly around at the other tables he caught sight of Haldane’s grave face of disapproval cutting through the embarrassed hush.

Flushed with shame and humiliation, Eric slowly sank down to his seat. Siward also slinked back down and another awkward silence ensued before the minstrels began to play.

Harp and voice blended in perfect harmony. The girl’s long fingers caressed and plucked at the harp strings in accompani-ment to the singing of the crippled minstrel who sat on a stool provided by the big acrobat.

Sometimes the girl sang while the other minstrel played a reed pipe and once they sang an unaccompanied duet. The feasters listened attentively, and the King and Queen smiled approvingly at each of their mainly joyful, though sometimes sorrowful songs.

Eric’s anger at Siward’s insults drifted away on the melodious air as he became enthralled by the misty vision of the harpist and the dulcet tones she was producing. In the diminishing shades of light, the hall seemed filled by her radiance.

The flickering rush lights from the iron brackets on the walls cast silhouettes across her face, creating dancing shadows that played upon his intoxicated senses, stirring him in a mixture of curiosity and fascination.

Applause broke out from the benches at the end of their rendition and as the minstrels left the hall Eric’s gaze followed the harpist all the way to the portal, his gladdened eye never leaving her face. When she had disappeared from view he lent voice to his senti-ments: ‘As beautiful as the songs she sings.’

’What’s that?’ Thorkill exclaimed, catching Eric’s words.A grin accompanied Thorkill’s next question: ‘Have you lost your

heart to another minstrel?’

Before Eric could find a suitable reply, the other housecarles shouted: ‘Come on, Minstrel, it’s time for your recitation!’

Having politely listened to the minstrels’ sweet song, the house-carles now wanted to hear something more akin to their own tastes and they clamoured for Eric to recite the ‘Battle of Maldon’. Eric knew that the King liked that particular poem and his eye searched the top table for guidance. When Earl Harold nodded his approval, he wended his way toward the minstrel gallery, some-what flushed with ale and struck by love - a potent mixture.

Epic poetry, neither restful nor relaxing, demanded audience participation. It gave voice to the deepest loyalties of sacrificial friendship and the binding together of lord and retainers. Eric would need to concentrate on stressing the right syllables, for the verse did not rhyme. Each line had four stressed or loud syllables split into two groups by a mid-line pause.

As soon as Eric began the audience involved themselves in its spirit and action: keen silence met some parts of the poem but shouting and the banging of drinking vessels on the table greeted others. At the point where the invading Vikings urge the Saxons to buy them off with a tribute of gold, Eric heavily weighed the Saxon reply:

‘Now listen sea-rovers - what my side says?They want a tribute - of spears to send you .;Poisonous spear points - and ancient irons;The tax that you - are welcome to collect!’A reflective silence met the lines:

‘Aelfwine was his name - and he spoke with spirit.I can recall those times - often talking at mead .

There on the benches - boasting our valourAs heroes in the hall - about hard fighting. Now we can discover - who is really brave!’

Strong feelings of pride were epitomised by the lines:

‘Mind must be resolute - heart the stouter;

Courage the greater - as our strength grows less.Here lies our leader - lethally wounded;Good man on the ground - forever he will grieve .

Who from this war-work - is minded to withdraw!’

At the end of the recitation applause echoed round the hall. The poem had stirred the blood of the housecarles who were moved to raucous shouting. Their enthusiasm lifted Eric into a state of euphoria. The breeze of praise wafted him up on an alcoholic cloud into a state of exuberance, and whilst his memory was in perfect working order, that part of his brain that signalled prudence ceased to function.

He recited a double-meaning vulgar poem:

‘I’m a strange creature - for I satisfy women .;I am sat well up - stand in a bedWith a roguish root. - rarely a churl’s daughter.More daring than most - and lovelierLays hold of me, - rushes my red top; Wrenches at my head - and lays me in the larder.She learns soon enough - the curly headed creature .

Who clamps me so, - of my meeting with her;Moist is her eye! - What am I?’

‘Onion!’ came the shouted reply, mainly from the housecarles who all convulsed with laughter.

A condemning hush fell over the King’s table. Queen Edith frowned disapprovingly, her cheeks aflame, and the King’s red face stretched even longer. Earl Tosti and his wife Judith just appeared bored while Roger de Beaumont did not understand what the laughter was about. Earl Harold arched his eyebrows in surprise and smiled condescendingly.

The reprimanding look from the Queen caused Eric’s beaming smile to die on his face. His heart sank further as his eye, search-ing for support, caught his captain Haldane’s stern, reproachful glare that was pained in sorely-tried forbearance.

Like a slap in the face, the shame of what he had done returned him to reality. O my good Lord, he silently lamented, he had offended the Queen - the very last thing he intended. Slowly turning with head bowed, he made his way back to his table where Thorkill and the other housecarles greeted him with broad grins, mischievous winks and loud chuckles.

Too aware of his disgrace, he ignored the ring of laughing faces and sat in melancholy fashion, head in hands, shoulders slumped inside his tunic, staring into an empty goblet that simply returned a smile of victory. All he saw before him was the Queen’s face and her look of disgust. He felt dishonoured.

What had started as a golden day had turned into black disap-pointment. And the shame weighed like an ox yoke about his shoulders. For a long time he stared into his goblet and when he eventually looked up, he found Siward had disappeared. And so had Hugh, supposedly his guest for the evening - he had also failed as a host.

Thorkill was trying to gain his attention: ‘What’s the trouble, Eric?’’I offended the Queen with my Onion poem.’’It’s a harmless poem, Eric, I shouldn’t worry.’Thorkill’s consoling had little effect and Eric imagined how Hal-

dane was going to react to his explanation: ‘I didn’t mean to disrupt the banquet, didn’t mean to offend the Queen and couldn’t help it if my guest wanted to leave early - I just had one goblet of ale too many, that’s all.’

Haldane’s rebuke was not going to be his usual: ‘Get your head out of the clouds, Eric, and you might someday make a housecar-le.’ No, it was going to be something far stronger, and louder!

Thorkill pushed his own goblet towards Eric’s drooping head: ‘It’s no good sitting full of sorrow waiting for trouble, Eric. Have another drink.’

Eric protested: ‘No, no! If I hadn’t had too much to drink in the first place I wouldn’t be in trouble.’ He stared at the shadows cast against the wall formed from the glow of rush lights. Gradually he saw a face beginning to form, a shadowy face, shifting and full of murky motives that he recognised as Siward’s. Now he knew where to place the blame; here was the culprit - the bane of Eric’s

life. This was the man at the root of all his troubles. ‘Siward started the trouble in the first place,’ he argued with himself, ‘disrupting the banquet with his malicious insults.’

Shifting the blame on to Siward made Eric feel better. Mind, Siward had got the better of him - he didn’t like to admit that. And nagging at the back of his mind was the mistaken belief that he was always in control when confronting him - he would have to think again.

Deep down though, he knew that it was not just Siward, there was something more, some greater force at work - fate itself. ‘Wyrd has weaved its web of destiny,’ he muttered. ‘The way of the world is unchangeable. I was in the hands of fate and there was nothing I could have done about it.’

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became: ‘Perhaps I did have too much to drink but let’s be fair - isn’t drink a blessing? Doesn’t it let you forget your troubles? Doesn’t it open up people’s hearts and strengthen friendship?’

Having shifted the blame first on to Siward, then on to fate and finally on to drink, Eric’s own responsibility faded away. Shame subsiding, his spirits began to rise. Disgrace at offending the Queen still lingered but he would do penance for that . . . some-time.

The world began to brighten again. A reprimand would arrow its way to him from Haldane tomorrow, but tomorrow was another day; this day had not ended; he could still salvage some remnant from the day’s disaster; the dark beguiling minstrel girl whose hands had caressed the glee-wood, whose intriguing dark fea-tures had so attracted him - perhaps he could still find her.

His spirits rose with every hopeful stride toward the portal in the belief that he may yet wring some good from an ill-fated day. Outside the great hall, rain dribbled down and through the black dripping damp he strained his eyes. Just able to distinguish the contours of buildings, he could see no human shapes, no acro-bats, no minstrels and no harpist.

Bumping around in the darkness it was only his shins that painfully found a few obstacles.

Shrugging his shoulders, he ran his fingers through his damp hair - even his cap had deserted him - and stared heavenward. There was always tomorrow and the prospect of meeting the enchanting minstrel girl. He consoled himself: ‘Fate may bring a brighter cheer tomorrow.’

The early quince coloured sun bursting through puffy clouds that

drifted across the sky, began to dry the soggy ground around Ditchling. Cosily dry inside one of the outbuildings that had a thatched roof and a sunken floor were three acrobats and two minstrels who had just finished their breakfast of leftovers from the banquet - scraps of pork and a few lumps of cheese. Travelling players were entirely dependent upon the generosity of their host for their food and lodging.

The girl harpist stood up and began to run a comb made of antler bone through her long black tresses when a tallish man, appar-ently smiling, appeared at the door. Recognising him as the housecarle who had recited the epic poem - the vulgar one - at the evening banquet, she caught her breath as he under-estimated the steep step down and stumbled.

Quickly recovering, he strode toward her and introduced himself: ‘Morning Tidings! I am called Eric the Minstrel. What a pleasure to meet you!’

Eric felt not the slightest disappointment. The clearer morning light revealed what had so attracted him in the half light of the banqueting hall the evening before: a darkly sunburned oval face, long thin eyebrows, a short straight nose above an expressive mouth, all seemingly designed to delight his eye. The same vision, not a touch less comely than what he had actually seen, not what he had imagined through intoxicated eyes. Not so transparent were her liquid black eyes, and to further obscure her innermost thoughts, her eyelashes lowered like a veil.

Despite the iron-smith hammering away inside his head, Eric showed every politeness: ‘I bring my admiration . . . I greatly

enjoyed the singing and harp playing . . . and the acrobatic display,’ he praised, turning his head to include the acrobats.

’Gracious o’ you to say so . . . I am called Gwener,’ she answered in a Welsh dialect before gesturing toward the other slimly built, swarthy-faced minstrel: ‘This is my brother - he is called Bleddyn.’

’Excuse me if I don’t rise,’ her brother said, smiling with dark pensive eyes seemingly incapable of concealing subtlety, ‘My legs will not allow me.’ His legs had obviously not supported their owner for a long time.

’Ah! That is why you blend so well in your singing - you are brother and sister,’ Eric complimented, pleased to learn that they were not husband and wife. His eyes drifted back to the girl while the acrobats still sat gawking at him.

Gwener looked a little unsure. She did not like housecarles and was disconcerted by Eric’s careless, relaxed manner, not what she expected from a housecarle. And he seemed to be constantly smiling.

Almost a foot shorter, she looked up into his crinkled blue eyes searching for some evil intent but saw only a mischievous glint.

’I recite epic poetry,’ Eric said.’Yes, I heard you at the banquet.’’Oh!’ he said, detecting disapproval in her tone. ‘Well, I’d like to

learn some different poems and hoped you might help me?’’If you want to learn some new riddle poems then you better ask

my brother,’ she answered brusquely. ’No! Not riddles, but songs,’ Eric said, feeling a twinge of embar-

rassment at the thought that she had heard all of his recitation.’I mostly play accompaniment.’’But you do know some songs?’’Yes . . . one or two.’’Then you’ll help me?’She looked at Bleddyn for approval who slowly nodded his head

in agreement - only a foolish man crossed a housecarle.’I have to check the beacon on top of the hill,’ Eric told her.

‘Would you like to walk with me and we can talk along the way.’ The beacon, originally fired to warn of Viking invaders, had not

been used for years but it made an excuse for Eric to get her away from her brother.

She hesitated: ‘As long as Big Wynne comes too.’’Big Wynne?’’The strongman o’ the acrobats.’’Of course!’ Eric’s easy answer hid his disappointment and for

the first time he took in the enormous size of Big Wynne.Spread over and around the strained bench that he sat on, his

thick neck and massive body seemed to emanate power, though strangely without menace. His plain blunt face with constantly surprised eyebrows held a kindly aspect.

’Come along, big man, if you wish to escort an escort!’ Eric told him with a wide grin.

The trio stopped briefly at the village well where the long cold drink barely touched Eric's throat before splashing and gurgling around in his stomach - he hadn’t felt up to any breakfast.

With the southerly wind in their faces and Big Wynne bringing up a rearguard, the two minstrels steadily climbed the steep over-grown path up to the beacon. Clad in a simple tight gown, Gwener quick-stepped two strides to Eric’s long one, and although each had to watch their footsteps on the uneven ground they constantly glanced at each other in youthful curiosity.

Eric observed that she was naturally olive skinned and that the sun had further darkened her to the shade of dark honey. He guessed her age to be about seventeen winters, admiring the graceful lines of her figure and nimbleness of motion as she moved lightly despite the steep climb.

She appeared unconcerned that an out of breath Wynne lagged behind - it certainly did not bother Eric.

’How long have you been a travelling minstrel?’ Eric asked.’Two winters . . . since our village was burned by English soldiers

and our mam and dad were killed.’ Her breathlessness could not hide the bitter edge to her voice.

Her answer took Eric a little aback and he cast his mind back two winters to when he fought in the Welsh campaign. With rising discomfort he realised he may have taken part in the burning of Gwener’s village: ‘What was the name of your village?’

’Rhodnad.’The name meant nothing to him but then he never did bother to

learn the names of the villages that he ravaged through. The chaotic battle amongst some old Roman ruins by the river Conway he distinctly remembered. In their last desperate attack at the dead of night, the Welsh had come at them from all directions.

Lightly armoured, nimble as sparrows, they were difficult to see with their black painted faces and he had to be even lighter-legged to survive. Not too proud of his burning of Welsh villages - he had been dismayed to discover that there was more to war than fighting battles. Subconsciously he had forgotten that part of the campaign.

’I’m sorry, how did your parents die?’ he asked sympathetically.’The English set fire to our cottage. My parents thought Bleddyn

was trapped inside and they rushed inside to rescue him and got trapped themselves by the flames.’

’I am sorry . . . what about Bleddyn?’’He was fishing at the nearby stream.’For one awful moment, seeing the ridiculous side of the tragedy,

Eric thought he might laugh, but the intense grief displayed in Gwener’s face deeply stirred his sympathy.

In the awkward silence that followed he realised that she blamed him, as a housecarle, for her parent’s death. Though he felt shame at the burning of the villages, he reasoned that he was doing his duty, what Earl Harold paid him to do. In war, there was no time to think right or wrong, whether this way or that way was the best, you did it before someone did it to you. You were either quick or dead.

Could he explain it to Gwener? Perhaps, but speaking had to surrender to hard breathing as the path steepened further and suddenly they were on top of the hill. Eric tidied up some pieces of brushwood as a token gesture before they sat down as a couple on a boulder conveniently left by the Romans who had built a fort here many centuries earlier.

The sun in its splendour warmed their backs as they gazed toward the great forest stretching away beyond their sight though their eyes focused no further than themselves. They seemed to be

in a spell, the curiosity of each silently aroused in the other. The Sussex breeze did occasionally blow Gwener’s hair softly about her temples, her stillness and caution hiding a curiosity and an excitement. She felt attracted to Eric but her resentment against housecarles got in the way.

Eric indulged in the smell of the light flowery perfume coming from her hair. Something mysterious and beguiling about her attracted him.

Feeling that she might have some interest in him even if he was a housecarle, he mused that perhaps they had something in common - two travellers, two minstrels, two souls thrown together in a turbulent world.

The spell broke when Big Wynne arrived, puffing and blowing and flopping down on an adjacent boulder like a stranded whale, his face crimson.

’With the breeze blowing so hard up here, you’ll soon get your second wind,’ Eric quipped.

Wynne merely turned his protective gaze toward Gwener who now looked Eric straight in the face, her manner sharpening: ‘Look! What sort o’ songs are you interested in? I know some hymns about the apostles and saints. You are a Christian, aren’t you?’

’Of course I am a Christian, why do you ask?’’I’ve heard tell that housecarles believe that heaven is the Hall of

Valhalla where Odin rules . . . where he welcomes warriors who have died heroically on the battlefield. Each night they feast on joints o’ pork from a ne’er ending boar, and drink from bottomless goblets o’ mead, and after fighting all day the fallen ones are raised up again to join in the feast.”

Eric laughed out loud, treating it as a joke, and he teased her: ‘Perhaps we believe in the god Heimdall who has a flaming sword, needs less sleep than a bird, can see for one hundred leagues at night and can hear grass growing!’

Gwener didn’t see any joke and remained earnest looking. Eric, realising Gwener was serious, explained: ‘I really am a Christian; I believe in Jesus.’

Eric was a Christian in the sense that he saw Jesus as a young courageous hero doomed to be overcome by his foes, yet able to undo the worst evil that they could do to him.

’Don’t you want to die heroically on the battlefield?’ Gwener persisted.

’We are expected to die for our lord, if necessary,” Eric replied, a little discomforted now. Never before had he met a girl so forward. No one, not even a priest, had ever before questioned him in such a forthright manner. After a perplexed silence and not wishing to argue with her, he decided to turn the conversation back to songs: ‘It would be a pleasure to hear you sing.’

Her voice softened a little: ‘I know a song that praises the virtue o’ friendship and the giving o’ gifts. Would you like to hear that?’

Eric agreed, his happy-go-lucky countenance returning.During the song, his head froze in an attitude of listening, his

gaze never leaving her face, concentrating on memorising the words, not allowing himself to be distracted by her lovely features. He recited the song back to her, remembering the words exactly, much to Gwener’s surprise. With a growing respect she asked: ‘Do you know the riddle song o’ the swan?’

When Eric shook his head, Gwener began to sing:

45 The Swan

‘Silent is my dress when I step across the earth .,

Or reside in my house or ruffle the waters.Sometimes my adornments and the high windy air .

Lift me o’er the livings of men. The power o’ the clouds carries me far - over all people.My white pinions resound very loudly, ring with melody .

And sing out clearly, when I sleep, not on the soil .,Or settle on grey waters - a travelling spirit.’

To her further astonishment Eric repeated the song back to her word perfect. ‘You remind me of a swan,’ Eric then extolled. ‘A travelling spirit gracefully floating up the swan road.’ It was then that he believed he detected a flush in her cheek beneath her

bronze skin; and underneath, he was sure there was a smile there somewhere trying to be born.

’The road is hard and perilous. Life is na’ easy for travelling players,’ she said, trying to be serious.

Eric grinned to signify a joke coming: ‘You need a good pair of pinions,’ he said, pointing to her feet, and her mouth at last curved into a soft smile.

’It can be dangerous trampling the roads,’ Eric admitted.’Big Wynne protects us.’Big Wynne remained as he had been, quietly seated on a

boulder, his watchful eyes never leaving the two minstrels.Until now Eric’s gaze had barely strayed from Gwener’s face.

Although unable to unravel her thoughts, he was enthralled by the way she tossed her head back defiantly when her hair fell forward, and he was also intrigued by her soft, lilting Welsh speech even if she was outspoken.

Despite her resentment against housecarles, Gwener’s own heart had also been stirred. Eric’s swagger and air of devilry excited and stimulated her. His mixture of good humour and harmless vulgarity she found difficult not to like. He smiled a lot and was smiling now but it was not enough to wipe out the painful memory of her parents' death. Best not to get involved, she decided. ‘I must return to my brother,’ she said, suddenly standing up.

’It will be my pleasure to escort you,’ answered Eric, showing off his best manners by politely holding her elbow. He would have stayed all day given half a chance. ‘I am beholden to you for singing your songs for me. Better than any nightingale I ever heard,’ he praised.

Gwener dropped her eyes; a touch embarrassed at Eric’s weav-ing of winsome words.

The steep demanding path rushed the two minstrels and Big Wynne fast down the hill, much too fast for Eric who wished to delay their parting as long as possible. Engaging his arm in hers, he made a show of supporting her to prevent her from falling. She didn’t seem to mind.

It felt good holding her close and his heightened senses could not miss the weasel scampering across their path, the whistling meadowlark hovering overhead, nor the trio of scavenging mag-pies. ‘What is that saying about three magpies, aren’t they good luck?’ he asked.

’No they are not,’ Gwener answered firmly. ‘To see one is rare, two is fair, but three means trouble.’

’Oh well, fate goes ere it must,’ Eric responded.As a delaying tactic, Eric suggested picking some raspberries

but it was far too early in the season and all too soon they arrived back at the same outbuilding they had left earlier. Sat waiting on a stool outside was Bleddyn.

Eric turned to Gwener to reluctantly bid her farewell and was pleased to find her not unwilling hands resting on his forearms. She looked up at him with a calm intentness as if she knew exactly what was going through his mind, though he could read nothing of hers.

Entranced with Gwener’s physical closeness, Eric found his heartbeat quickening. With all his senses focused on her face, he did not notice Gwener admiringly rub the fine textured cloth of his own tunic sleeve between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Which path are you taking next,’ he asked.

’To Canterbury.’’I’ll be escorting Earl Harold back to Bosham,’ he told her before

a terrible thought struck him - he may never see her again! Grasping her hands firmly in his, he soft focused his eyes into

hers and asked: ‘May we meet again tomorrow?’Attracted by his easy manner and good humour, Gwener hesi-

tated just a moment before blurting: ‘Yes!’Eric’s heart jumped. ‘May the saints watch over you until I call

upon you with the morning sun,’ he said excitedly, trying to im-press her with grand speech.

Slowly, reluctantly, he released her hands, tore his gaze away from her face and walked away with a bounce in his step that had not been there a few hours earlier. With his cap set at a self-satisfied tilt, he skipped lightly over the ground; too lightly, as he

slipped on a patch of mud and turned sheepishly to give Gwener a farewell wave.

Light of heart he made his way to the great hall of Ditchling to report to his captain Haldane. In his state of euphoria, Eric failed to see the dark figure of Siward wearing a crooked smile and watching him from the shadow of a four-poster building.

Eric’s exuberance did not last long. Haldane gave him a dress-ing-down for his behaviour at the banquet, not the least of his sins was giving offence to the Queen for reciting the vulgar poem. Eric did show remorse for the vulgar poem; as for the argument with Siward that disrupted the banquet, he made no apologies.

The dressing-down did not bother him - he had received a few of those before - but his punishment did. Haldane ordered him to escort Earl Harold’s workmen to Portskewet in Wales and guard them while they erected some buildings for the purpose of hunting, an ignominious duty for an earl’s escort; and to add to his misery, he had to ride to London immediately to pick up the workmen, leaving him no time to see Gwener.

Two days later, the travelling players, consisting of three acro-bats and two minstrels set off walking to Canterbury through the great forest of Andredsweald where all manner of dangers lurked.

Chapter 4: High Hopes

Bishop Aldred hallowed the minster in Gloucester, which he him-self furthered, to the glory of God and St. Peter. He so fared to Jerusalem, with more ceremony than any other did before him.


Under cover of a summer fog that rolled off the sea and across the marshes, a young man slipped quietly out of Rameslie Abbey before the birds were awake and the monks had begun their matins. Only once did he look back to see the abbey disappearing into a white mist as innocent as a pile of homespun wool.

Alfred had to admit that no matter how long he stayed at the abbey, he would never be in tune with it. All that praying and contemplation left him as cold as the surrounding stone walls. There were no regrets at leaving behind the abbey which now had two servants short - his mother lost to the grim reaper a week earlier, and he himself now deserting.

The freshly dug mound of earth covering his mother suddenly appeared out of the mist and pulled him up short.

Tears began to well. Pain at his mother’s loss, regret at the things he had said, things he had not said, and guilt for not coming up to her expectations, all conspired to water his big brown eyes. He tried unsuccessfully to console himself that in the end she had accepted that he did not have the discipline to be a priest and that the sea and ships were in his blood and running through his veins.

His mind’s eye pictured her sitting by the open door in the better light, fingers working, head bent over, staring down at her embroi-dery with soft wistful brown eyes. Over the years, her head had bent over further as her eyesight faded, till she was finally unable to see her embroidery at all. With skilled hands, that had needled and threaded for a life time, forced into idleness, her spirit ebbed away. The hopes she held for her son, which gave her life mean-ing, finally faded and she came to accept that her desire for Alfred to become a priest had only been a dream.

Why she had wanted him to be a priest, Alfred never did under-stand. A vague notion jostled inside his head that she had encoun-tered some violence earlier in her life and it had affected her so deeply that it had turned her toward religion. But whatever her beliefs, they had not rubbed off on to Alfred. Nothing gripped his soul harder than his ambition to be a mariner, a trader across the sea. That was what his heart was set on.

’This is your father’s weregeld,’ his mother had told him just before she died, holding out the silver crucifix that she was unable to see. ‘The price paid for the murder of your father.’

Weregeld was the price paid to the family of a murdered man by the perpetrators of the deed as compensation for his loss. Pay-ment in silver to the victim’s family avoided any further bloodshed in way of revenge and wiped out any dishonour.

’Your father killed a Norman and we have served our penance in this monastery . . . take the crucifix; carry it with you always; it will protect and guide you through a sinful world . . . I hoped you might become a priest . . . but at least I am thankful that you haven’t inherited your father’s fiery temper.’

His father’s murder by avenging Normans after he had stabbed to death one of their compatriots was only a vague memory to Alfred.

Only four winters old at the time, he soon became clear of the outcome - banishment for himself and his mother to the Norman-owned abbey of Rameslie in Sussex.

’The crucifix is a gift from God,’ his mother told him but Alfred knew that she had found the crucifix at the side of his father’s

body. She believed what she wanted to believe and what right had he to argue? Who knows the twists and turns of fate?

As he stood staring down at his mother’s grave he vowed to make something of himself in this world. His plan was already laid - go to London, the biggest trading port in the kingdom, sell the crucifix, find a ship and become a merchant trading across the sea.

Pushing his fingers hard into the soil, his big brown eyes watered again and he whispered: ‘Please forgive me, mother.’ Then he stood up, walked away, did not look back, and only then did he realise that he knew no one else in the world outside the monastery.

The clinging vapours of marsh and mist swallowed him up but the impatient sun soon burned away the haze to kindle a glow of expectation within his heart. Quickly finding the road leading west, he set his feet along it, intending to turn north at the cross-roads a few miles further on. Two days walking through the great forest to Maidstone, then Rochester, and on to the great port of London itself - his legs were long and youthful.

Seventeen winters old, slim and limber, he was as quick as a squirrel with not a cloud or plough line on his face. His thick lips and bush of wiry fair hair he had inherited from his father; his big brown eyes were his mother’s. He could passably read, count, weave cloth, make furniture, speak a little French and ride a horse, a little bit of quite a lot - a journeyman for all trades.

In theory, he was able to read the wind and clouds to foretell the weather, fair or foul; how to steer a ship into the wind; navigate by the sun’s position at dawn and dusk; use the Little Bear constella-tion as a guide at night and make allowances for the tides.

In practice, he had only been to sea once when some sympa-thetic fishermen took pity at his doleful pleading and took him fishing for a day. It had cost him three days on bread and water back at the monastery but it was worth it.

The first few miles of his journey were familiar, having travelled it many times with Alwin, one of the more cheerful, easier-going English monks he felt saddened to leave behind. It had been Alwin’s suggestion to take Alfred with him on his rounds of the abbey’s estate that had initiated the change in the disobedient

servant boy who was always running away. Endless bouts of bread and water diets had thus far not cured his rebelliousness.

’If we allow him to see the world outside the abbey then he will have no cause to run away,’ Alwin argued with the Norman abbe and his reasoning turned out to be correct.

Assigned to help Alwin in collecting the abbey’s rents, Alfred took to it like a duck to water. A sulky, morose boy changed to a quick-witted one who rarely needed telling twice, quickly learning to truck with the tenants, count and weigh without ever getting short measured.

The abbey leased out its land to tenants who paid food-rents, in money or kind: pigs, hens, eggs, lambs, honey, malt, corn or whatever had been agreed. Mills paid in flour, fisheries in eels. The borough of Rameslie, which was part of the estate and a thriving fishing and trading port, paid its annual dues in herrings, and salt produced by evaporating brine in salt pans.

When not collecting dues with Alwin, young Alfred acted as general dog’s body to whoever needed assistance. Familiar with the kitchen, bake house, workshops, fishponds, orchard and vine-yard, he assisted the monks by cleaning, sweeping and carrying. Scavenging his knowledge along the way, he even picked up titbits from travellers in the guest house.

His speed of learning even surprised Alwin who began to think he could become a priest until he realised that Alfred did not have the calling. Alfred could never accept the subservience and disci-pline required by the church.

‘All that calling to prayers, kneeling on stone floors and cold contemplation is more than I could bear,’ he told his mother.

Alfred always lingered on the waterfront at Rameslie harbour. He loved the smell of the sea, the comings and goings of the trading and fishing ships. Seeing the wine, cheese and pottery being shipped into Rameslie from abroad, and the wool, skins and hunting dogs going in the opposite direction to Flanders and Normandy, he knew what he wanted to be - a trader across the sea.

Just as clear in his mind was his ultimate ambition - to become a thane by crossing the sea three times at his own expense. And

with the innocence of youth he anticipated storms left astern and plain sailing ahead. All he had to do was to sell his crucifix and set himself up with a ship in London.

’Good Tidings! What a grand day!’ he greeted every traveller in a heady feeling of freedom. ‘Fly away Peter; fly away Paul!’ he sang to the birds in their own triumphant free flight.

He forded a shallow, fast running river that quickened his heart as he was reminded of those double-ended elegant Viking long ships that he loved so much. Efficient and graceful, flaunting curved prows and tall stern posts decorated with carved figures; they were a familiar sight to Alfred. The sight of these ships ploughing through the waves with billowing sails always stirred Alfred’s heart. Able to sail across trackless seas and up narrow rivers, they could be beached on any shore.

The river water he shook out of his shoes before checking that his crucifix was still safely tucked inside his belt beneath his tunic. Selling his crucifix would have horrified his mother, he knew that, but you had to make the most of what life had to offer. ‘Life is but a brief candle,’ he remembered a traveller once telling him.

At the cross roads he turned right for London - the left fork would have taken him to Hastings. The territory now unknown to him and the sparser woods gradually giving way to shadowed gloom; he penetrated deeper into the forest.

The few travellers he had encountered so far now reduced down to none. Everything became darker and intimidating. Mysterious whisperings came from wind-blown leaves in the trees. Obscure shapes slinked at the back of every tree before merging into vague, hovering, threatening shadows. Although surrounded by menace he was unable to define what it was, or where it came from, only knowing that he felt threatened. Pressing quickly along the ill-trodden path, he felt he was walking through a tunnel of trees with the sun nervously peeping through.

Once he stopped to listen to faint sounds that were as hard to place as a sparrow whistling in the branches. In the uncertain, uneasy quiet he listened hard but failed to recognise any familiar sound. His apprehension grew, recalling stories he had heard about outlaws who laid ambushes by blocking the path with trees.

Focusing his eyes far ahead, he saw no obstructions. Nothing untoward happened and he pressed on, becoming adjusted to the silence and the fluttering shadows. Slowly he began to feel more at ease.

Many miles slid quietly by and as the light began to fade, the darkening distorted shadows, that might be ghosts or apparitions, made him nervous again so he thankfully sank into a hiding hole for the night. The forest about him seemed full of shadowed faces and eyes staring at him. He wisely decided not light a fire that might attract outlaws.

Shivering a little, he closed his eyes; listening to the forest sounds, fancying he could hear low muttering voices and sounds of branches breaking, perhaps foot treads that could be animal, or something, closing in on him.

Like a scared cat, he waited silently. Nothing happened and no-one appeared. Tiredness overtook his fear and he dropped into an uneasy sleep of winks and dozes with one eye half open and one ear half cocked. It was a long night.

In a feathery greyness of a dawn where the sun was only a promise, Alfred was quickly up and on his way. In no time at all he was at Maidstone, and with barely time to note a church, several mills, a couple of fisheries and a bridge over the river Medway, he was back on the forest track still heading north.

A cheering beam of sunlight began occasionally to break through the canopy of trees and he now felt relaxed as he walked. Sudden-ly, from out of the trees to his right, a scream shattered the calmness, bringing him up abruptly in his tracks, like a startled deer.

Not trusting his ears where every sound seemed magnified, he peered apprehensively through the trees. Seeing no movement, no animal, no human form, he stood perfectly still, waiting, eyes staring and ears straining. He was met by silence. Deciding it must be an animal of some kind, he started to walk on.

Another scream pierced toward him from the same direction, more muffled but sounding just as desperate for help. No hesita-tion this time, he ran in the direction from where the screams had come and after thirty paces he spotted a horse ahead and slightly left. He turned towards it. Running a zig-zag path through the

trees, he reached the horse and pulled up sharp, his jaw dropping open, his eyes widening and his whole body stiffening at the sight that met his eyes.

On the floor of the forest, a big broad-shouldered man in a bright blue tunic was pinning down a young girl, her body spread-eagled beneath his greater weight. Her cries and struggles were in vain as the grunting man tugged at the bottom half of her robe pulling her legs apart with one hand while stifling her cries with the other. Despite her diminutive size she was putting up brave resistance in a desperate, uneven struggle.

A stupefying moment passed before Alfred realised that he was witnessing a rape and in that moment he was at a loss as to what to do. Life in a monastery had not prepared him for this.

Alfred’s light feet had made little sound but the big man sensed his presence and turned his dark greasy head towards him. Alfred’s heart stumbled a beat as he stared into a face that first tightened into hostile surprise then turned livid with teeth bared and murder glaring from pitiless eyes. Alfred froze to the spot.

The man’s piercing stare never left Alfred’s face as he growled deeply and rose to his feet, dragging the girl upright with him in a tight-hand grip.

Alfred’s darting glance at the girl’s honey-coloured features revealed black disarranged hair and dark eyes, wide open in terror like a trapped doe’s. As though pulled by some dark satanic force, his own horrified eyes dragged themselves back to the man’s storm-ridden face. Not knowing whether to run or say a prayer, Alfred did neither - just stood dumbly transfixed.

Dragging the girl behind him, the big man stomped up to Alfred and smashed his bunched fist into Alfred’s mouth that sagged invitingly open. Alfred stumbled backwards as his head snapped back, his legs crumpling under him, till he landed flat on his back, his mouth filling with blood and pain, and his head swimming into blackness.

For an unconscionable time he lay dazed with a fog swirling round his eyes and his muddled brain unable to determine exactly which way the sky was.

The trees were still swimming giddily around when another cry from the girl penetrated his dulled, aching wits and forced his eyes into focus. Through a clearing fog he picked out the big man, still holding the girl, but striding towards a sword that leaned against a tree.

The stark realisation hit him that if he did nothing he was going to die. His eyes scanned around desperately for he knew not what, but his hand dropping on to a fallen branch provided his salvation. His fingers closed around the make-shift cudgel and as quick as thought, in a complete reflex action, he scrambled to his feet, ran forward, leaped and struck at the man.

The branch caught the big man with a dull thudding sound behind his right ear and with a pained grunt he slumped to the ground. The sword that his hand had almost grasped fell sideways away from the tree. Alfred’s exceptional speed and cat-like move-ment had caught the would-be rapist unawares.

’Oh my God!’ Alfred cried, shrinking back in horror at what he had done, the branch falling from his now useless fingers.

’We must run!’ the girl screamed, but the hysterical, though logical words, did not penetrate Alfred’s stunned wits.

’We must run!’ she screamed again, even louder, and this time its desperate urgency forced its way into Alfred’s numbed mind.

’Yes, run!’ he shouted in a voice disconnected from a mind that was helplessly confused. And in that panicky moment they both ran in different directions.

His fear-sped feet rushed him along not knowing where they were going like a mad hare in headlong flight. Not daring to look behind, he hurtled, lurched and tore through the undergrowth, his legs driven by adrenaline released in fright. He ran and ran till his lungs caught fire, his legs died and he doubled over, choking for air. Taking a fearful look behind, he found no one in sight.

Suddenly struck by another fear, he grabbed at his belt to feel the cold comforting touch of silver - his crucifix was still there.

’Thank the Saints!’ he croaked out loud, then nervously checked about to see if anyone had heard. The only sound was the rustling leaves in the trees.

Sweat ran down his brow into his eyes and he tasted salt on swollen lips. When he checked his teeth, two were missing. And apart from the physical pain, his conscience gripped him. Never should he have let the girl run off alone - she could still be at the mercy of her attacker. Admit it, rebuking himself, you panicked!

’Lord of mercy!’ he cried out again as he realised that he may have saved her from a rapist but had left her prey to every other forest predator and there was no chance of finding her now in this vast forest. All he could do was stumble on hoping he didn’t run into the girl’s attacker himself.

Warily staggering on through the forest, he began to think more logically. Where had the man and girl come from, and why were they in the forest? It could scarcely have been a chance encounter between a young girl and a housecarle - he knew the man was a housecarle, having seen some of them at Rameslie in their highly coloured cloaks and tunics, sporting fancy swords and jewellery.

He couldn’t figure it. All he could do was pray for the saints to help guide the young girl home. Best to look to himself, he decid-ed. The housecarle may be searching for him and revenge came to a housecarle as naturally as breathing, and to one who had been made a fool of, it would come without mercy.

Alfred found the forest path again. Risky as it was he had to stick to it and yet keep out of sight of the housecarle. No longer a carefree traveller, he felt more akin to a fox as he padded noise-lessly through the forest, eyes and ears straining at every sight and sound, his air of freedom now departed.

Acting like a hunter’s quarry, skulking with the wariness of wild game, Alfred peered well ahead, constantly swivelling his head to check behind, until ahead, he spotted what appeared to be a sheep with two legs. As he came closer he recognised a sheep-skin bag with a man, half-stooped, walking beneath it.

When the man’s head turned toward him, Alfred observed, twixt a shaggy beard and a ridge cap tightly jammed on his head, a face with a bony nose and protruding eyes as if the bag was too heavy for him. He was aged anywhere between thirty and fifty winters.

’Are you friendly?’ the man demanded, eyeing him out of the corners of his eyes, not sounding in the least bit friendly himself.

’Er . . . yes . . . are you a pedlar?’’This is not a sheep I’m carrying on my back!’ the man guffawed

at his obviously oft-repeated joke. ‘Yes, I sell leather belts, straps, rings and buckles.’ The man was not as aggressive as his gruff manner indicated.

Alfred asked him: ‘Have you ever been to London market?’’Once or twice.’’Is there much trading there?’’Is there much trading there?’ the pedlar repeated, looking in-

credulous at an absurd question. ‘I’ll say there is. Where have you been all your life? In a monastery?’

’Yes, in a monastery.’’In a monastery?’ the pedlar repeated, his eyes widening further.

‘Bit young for a monk aren’t you?’’No, no!’ Alfred answered with a smile. ‘I was only a servant.’’Oh!’ The pedlar appeared disappointed as if he expected some-

thing more intriguing. ‘Well, let me tell you that London mart is the busiest market in all England, probably in all the entire world. I’m only going as far as Rochester if you wish to join me.’

’Er - yes,’ Alfred hesitantly answered. It had occurred to him that he might be safer travelling with a companion.

’Best not to be alone on this road if you can help it,’ the man advised, his eyes making a show of scanning the surrounding trees. The two travellers were already in step.

’Do you travel this road very often?’ Alfred inquired.’I wish I had as many pennies as miles that I’ve travelled on this

road,’ said the pedlar. ‘But can you guess who I am?’’You are a pedlar.’’No, no, I’m setting you a riddle.’’Oh!’ Alfred said, a little puzzled.The pedlar recited a poem:

‘A creature came shuffling among;Many wise men in the eating place.He had two ears and only one eye,Two feet and twelve hundred heads,A back, two hands and a belly,

Two shoulders and sides, two arms,And a neck. Now tell me his name?’

Alfred looked uncertain.’A one-eyed onion seller!’ the pedlar explained, bursting into loud

laughter.When the two travellers reached Rochester, Alfred’s eyes wid-

ened in wonder. Fences and hedges divided the richer, well-built timber houses with large gardens from the poorer closely-packed wattle and daub dwellings; and not a stone’s throw away was the market-place crammed with varied workshops.

Beyond stood the quayside, harbouring longships from which packhorses plied their cargoes to the market. This was the bright new world, lively and colourful, to which Alfred aspired. This was where he would make his mark.

Thanking the pedlar for his company and bidding him farewell at the market, Alfred walked on and turned left at the first main cross roads, joining other travellers on the Dover to London road.

By late afternoon he approached the Great Bridge of London and joined a jostling throng of people. Amazed he may have been at Rochester, but now, he was thunderstruck. The bustling, shouting and novel sights of London overwhelmed him. Traders bartered their wares in strange tongues at wooden stalls; bared-teethed dogs in cages barked at a chained-up bear; entertainers swal-lowed swords, juggled clubs and played tunes on a reed pipe.

Enraptured, he dawdled, listening to traders bartering and warm-ing to the festive air. The violent encounter with the housecarle had faded into the past and he was all agog like a duck in a thunderstorm, not knowing where to look next. Slowly he wound his way across the bridge, utterly convinced he was on the road to success and would soon be a merchant trading across the sea.

Chapter 5: Poetic Omen

Earl Harold was at the height of his power and reputation . . . and he was beyond all rivalry at court.

Anglo-Saxon England by F.M.Stenton.

The sun was reluctant to show and the air lay heavy under an overcast sky. The Great Bridge of London overflowed with market stalls, mostly makeshift though some had elaborate covers, all busy, as German, Fleming and Saracen voices mixed with local Saxon bartering their wares.

On the approaches to the Great Bridge, Eric mingled with other travellers, reining his horse this way and that, skirting a pacing bear held by a chain attached to a stake driven into the ground and giving an equally wide berth to the cage next to it full of barking dogs.

A juggler and a flute player caught his eye and ear, reminding him of a Welsh minstrel girl he had recently met. That cheered him. He needed little reminding since a proposal of marriage to this same dark-haired girl had been engaging his mind since he had left Ditchling.

As he rode on to the bridge a commotion at the far side sharp-ened his attention before he glimpsed a man dodging in and out of travellers and carts, running fast towards his side of the bridge. From behind the runner a loud cry traversed the bridge: ‘Stop! Thief!’

A faint familiarity of the voice jarred something in Eric’s brain but he could not quite place the owner.

Travellers halted and stallholders turned their heads. Swiftly dismounting and holding his horse by the reins, Eric stood with his legs braced, his hand lightly resting on his sword hilt - waiting.

The slim youth, running fast, saw Eric at the last moment and shuddered to a halt. Under his bristling mop of bushy fair hair, his big brown, incredulous eyes stared at Eric. Despair shadowed his face as realisation dawned that housecarles were blocking both ends of the bridge. He was caught between hawk and buzzard.

Quickly turning on his heel, he accelerated back in the direction he had come like a hound loosed from its leash, but instead of running back down the bridge he veered to the side and dived over the barrier into the river.

It all happened within two blinks of an eye and along with a crowd of onlookers, Eric strode to the side of the bridge in time to see the youth, his arms flailing, being carried downstream by the current. Twice his head disappeared beneath the fast flowing water and as Eric waited for it to appear for the third, and perhaps last time, another head appeared at the side of his own - a recognisable dark, greasy one.

Astonishment, bewilderment and grave suspicion, each in turn, rapidly crossed Eric’s face as he gaped at his arch antagonist Siward, whose own expression just as quickly changed from embarrassed surprise to scornful staring through narrowed eyes.

’Has he drowned?’ Siward said in hopeful anticipation.Caught off-balance, Eric tried to concentrate his faculties as

questions swiftly raced through his mind. What was afoot? What was Siward doing here? How was he connected with this distur-bance? Up to some cunning of that he was sure - but what? His evil shadow seemed to plague him everywhere. Angrily uncertain, Eric snapped: ‘What has this to do with you?’

’He is a thief.’’How do you know?’’I saw him.’’Was it you who shouted thief?’’Yes.’Eric recognised Siward’s shout across the bridge now - a little

belatedly. You could be fined for not raising the cry after a thief also came into his mind and irritably he asked Siward: ‘What had he stolen?’

’A silver crucifix,’ Siward answered calmly’You saw this crucifix?’’Yes.’Eric stared hard into Siward’s insidious eyes and all the secrecy

that went with them. They merely stared back into his own. Siward was lying, Eric would have sworn an oath on it, but for what reason he had no idea.

Eric hadn’t seen any crucifix in the youth’s hand but why would he jump in the river if he had not stolen anything? Eric’s face tightened with vexed suspicion and he again peered down river. The youth’s head had not re-appeared. If he was a thief he had paid dearly.

Again, unrewardedly, Eric sought an answer in Siward’s face but only found a self-satisfied smirk. Siward’s bonnet was pulled well down on the right side of his head - now that was unusual. Before he could question Siward further he was distracted by a shout, echoed by several voices coming from further down the bridge: ‘Someone has been hurt!’

Striding to a crowd that had gathered some twenty paces further down the bridge, Eric pushed his way into a ring of curious faces peering down. The focus of their attention was a figure stretched on the floor, completely enveloped in a hooded cloak. Because of the figure’s large hood, Eric was unable to distinguish any facial features.

’Is he dead?’ he asked the man bent over tending the figure.

’No, no! It’s a woman. She is breathing all right . . . only lost her senses. She was knocked over by the thief and banged her head on the floor.’

To give her more air, the man pulled back the hood and Eric leaned forward to look more closely. Unexpectedly, the woman opened one eye, an eye that looked directly straight into Eric’s face. The woman began to speak in a deep voice that resounded from deep within her hood, and to Eric’s greater astonishment, she recited a poem, loud and clear with pauses and stresses on the right syllables as though it was an epic poem:

The kingdom will be cursed - with a king’s death.Devils will drive - through the landWith fire and sword - and havoc of war.When a green tree - has been felled in half,Put three furlongs apart - and by its own efforts .

Rejoins and bears fruit - the curse will end.’

Amazed and bewildered, Eric couldn’t believe his ears. The world seemed to have slipped back in time to when the pagan worshippers of the god Odin ruled. She must be a sybil, he first thought, but this could not be, they did not exist. In legend, a sybil was a pagan prophetess, a child of Odin, who used the stars and runes to foretell the future - especially the fate of kings. They belonged to the pagan past. Nevertheless he had this vague, inexplicable feeling that the woman’s portent held some truth.

Opening her other eye, the woman shook herself out of her trance-like stupor and appeared to come to her proper senses. Putting his arm under one of her shoulders, Eric helped her rise to her feet which she did in a rickety fashion. Coming into balance, she loosed away from his arm and quickly disappeared into the surrounding, wide-eyed crowd.

In that uncomprehending moment, Eric mutely watched her disappear into the crowd. For no reason that he could remember afterwards, he looked down to where the woman had lain and lying there on the floor, no more than a hand’s breadth in length, was a lustrous crucifix. He picked it up.

’Is this yours?’ Eric asked the man who had been tending the woman.

’No, no, it does not belong to me, as much as I desire it,’ he answered with a confused expression and eyes focused some-where into infinity.

Eric’s initial bewilderment was now replaced by an irritancy at not knowing what was going on around him. Surveying the crowd of onlookers, he held up the crucifix and demanded: ‘Does anyone know the owner of this crucifix?’

No one dared make a false claim to a housecarle and uncommit-ted looks and shaken heads dumbly returned signalled the end of Eric’s patience. The bizarre events with so many unanswered questions had stretched his tolerance too far. He strode frustrated up and down the bridge, pushing through and annoying travellers and onlookers alike, trying to find the owner of the crucifix, or at least find Siward who might provide some answers.

Siward, as usual, had turned up like a bad penny and as sly as a fox had slipped away again. Neither could he find the poetic priestess, if that was what she was. She had come from nowhere and had disappeared into nowhere.

Eric, angry with himself at his own ignorance, had a nagging suspicion that something else had happened on the bridge, apart from the poetic omen, that he did not comprehend and no one was willing to enlighten him. He stared for a time over the side of the bridge into the muddy-green river as if he expected some answer to come floating downstream.

Left with a crucifix that had no owner and a conundrum that could not be explained, he surrendered to confusion, stuck the crucifix into his belt, paid a farthing to the youth who held his horse for him, and resumed his journey.

As he rode he recalled the old stories of the pagan past told to him by his father, tales of the god Odin who only had one eye, wore a blue-hooded cloak, appeared in different guises, and decided the fate of kings and kingdoms.

And he remembered the stories of his heathen ancestors setting out every summer from Denmark in their long ships carved with dragon heads and flying raven banners to plunder and ravage

England, boasting that wherever they ventured the ravens fol-lowed.

Did the woman’s prophecy mean that Vikings were about to invade England again? He couldn’t believe that. Those sorts of prophecies were always rumouring around. England had been invaded so many times in the past that fear of it conjured up tales of impending disaster at every peal of thunder.

The youth must have stolen the crucifix, or else why was he running away? Must have dropped it when he bumped into the woman; but who and where was the real owner? A logical answer lay there somewhere, but where? Siward was covering up some-thing more than what was under his bonnet.

With no explanation in sight, Eric gave up and turned his mind to something more appealing. What was Gwener doing at that mo-ment?

Perhaps preparing to entertain at some feast somewhere, a feast to which he had no invitation. That thought didn’t brighten him. It would be some time before he would be able to see Gwener again and that saddened him further. He petulantly kicked his heels into his horse and galloped on to pick up the workmen he was escorting to Portskewet.

Several hundred paces downstream from Great London Bridge, a young man had been pulled out of the fast flowing river and lay sprawled out on the riverbank like a dying fish. His rescuer, a big man, was bending over him and saying: ‘It’s your lucky day young man!’

The well-meaning words were too much for Alfred. His rescuer’s ironic words further took his breath away and he coughed, splut-tered and desperately gulped in air while his brain struggled to the surface of consciousness.

His lucky day! Lamentation was closer to the truth. His mouth attempted to voice words of protest but the outcome was a chok-ing wheeze.

’Are you all right?’ the man asked, his gruff voice tinged with sympathy.

Alfred tried to say: if you only knew, but no sound came, his overworked lungs too busy grasping air.

Lucky day! Smashed in the mouth by a housecarle, forced to flee for his life through the forest, pursued across London bridge as a thief and then almost drowned - disastrous ill-fate more like; shipwrecked even more accurate.

Struck by a more calamitous thought, his whole body stiffened while his desperately urgent hands searched at his tunic belt. Frantic fingers only grabbed air - his silver crucifix had gone! Despair overwhelmed him and his deflated body, and spirit, slumped helplessly back down again on the riverbank.

The crucifix must have been lost in the river as he desperately tried to keep afloat in the fast flowing current. Stuck in the mud at the bottom of the river were all his hopes and dreams. His voice box at last unlocked but it only released his anguish. ‘Oh God!’ he groaned hoarsely. ‘I might as well have drowned . . . better throw me back in!’

Alfred’s dejected eyes looked up into the face of the big man whose own eyes stared curiously back from between ruddy-weathered cheeks surrounded by a mass of unbroken tangled black hair. His rescuer, brawny and well built with tattoos badged on both arms, had no inkling why Alfred wanted to be returned to the river from whence he had just been dragged but did recognise an unfortunate soul in torment. His curious stare held concern.

Alfred began to shiver, first his teeth, then his arms and legs, followed by the rest of his body.

’Best get you warm and dry,’ the big man told him, and with the accomplished ease of a fisherman picking up a catch, he threw Alfred’s light frame over his broad shoulder and carried him in to a cottage sited fifty paces back from the river’s edge.

Simply built from four corner posts, its walls had timber panels filled with wattle and daub, and poles held up the roof of reeds interwoven through slats. The door lay invitingly open and inside smoke curled slowly up from a welcoming hearth fire that mixed with steam from a suspended cooking pot.

Alfred’s nose filled with the odour of stewing fish and his eyes watered from the smoke. A woman, stirring the pot with a wooden

spoon, looked up with surprised eyes and silently watched the big man lower Alfred down on to a wooden bench set close to the hearth fire.

’I’ve just fished this young fellow out of the river,’ the big man said, turning his head toward his wife. ‘He was almost drowned.’

’Goodness me!’ she exclaimed, releasing her spoon, putting her hands on her hips and inspecting Alfred with sad, grey eyes. Her face had lost its youthful fleshiness but her tight-fitting tunic over her long-sleeved dress gave her a stout, charitable appearance and it was a maternal, caring look that she gave Alfred. Despite the warm summer evening and the hearth fire, Alfred was unable to stop shivering.

’Better get out of those wet clothes while I find you something dry,’ the woman told Alfred before rummaging inside a wooden chest set against the wall. Coming up with a garment of more than ample proportions, she handed it to Alfred who changed into it, a touch embarrassed at undressing in her presence.

Considering it sinful to turn away guests, she was totally uncon-cerned at a stranger dressing in her home; in fact, she seemed more than pleased to be entertaining. Thinking he was in need of a good meal more than anything else, she handed him a bowl of hot fish stew: ‘Here! This should warm you up.’

Her husband, equally unconcerned at having a stranger in their home, sat silently on a stool watching Alfred eat.

Utterly miserable at his failed venture into the world of trading, Alfred slowly supped his stew through painful swollen lips and gazed dully and disconsolately into the fire. He could not credit his terrible misfortune. Fate had played him a foul trick. If he had left Rameslie Abbey one day earlier, or later, or even an hour either way, he would have avoided the clash with the housecarle in the forest and would now be safe, and warm and dry, somewhere in London with a bag full of silver pennies tucked inside his belt.

And to run into the same housecarle again on London bridge! Once was ill-luck, but twice - tragedy! And to top that, he was confronted by another housecarle at the other side of the bridge! To redeem his pride and wreak his revenge, the housecarle must have set a trap. Well, he succeeded; how well he succeeded!

Alfred had paid dearly for battering the housecarle over the head and rescuing the girl. All had been lost - his whole future.

Perhaps it was more than ill-luck, he mused, or perhaps it was fate . . . the hand of God. Was it retribution because he had run away from the abbey not having served sufficient penance? Per-haps the crucifix belonged to someone else, a good Christian perhaps, and he had no entitlement. With no answer to hand, no solace, he just stared dismally into the fire that cackled and spat back at him. Alwin’s oft repeated words came back to him: ‘God in his wisdom gives and withholds.’ A truer maxim he had never heard, but the truth was hard to bear. Despair was total.

The hot stew fumed inside his stomach and with the warmth of the hearth fire penetrating his bones he eventually stopped shiver-ing and raised his eyes to look at his host.

Within the mass of tangled hair, bright questioning eyes inside a cheery countenance stared back at him. Head half-cocked for-ward, his host waited patiently for Alfred to speak, and a qualm of guilt at his glum, silent ingratitude overcame Alfred who quickly uttered: ‘Thank you for saving my life.’

Like plucking fish from a barrel,’ his rescuer replied, a fuzz shrouded grin spreading across his face before his expression became intent: ‘You said you wanted to be thrown back in, were you trying to drown yourself?’

Alfred thought long before answering, not wanting to say too much. He had been accused of being a thief and if he was brought before a court he knew no one whom he could summon up as an oath-helper - no worthy friend to swear on his behalf.

As for trial by ordeal - what harrowing stories! You could be bound by a rope and thrown into a pool of water and if you floated you were proved innocent. Or you could be made to carry a piece of molten metal in your hand a certain distance; or your hand forced into boiling water and you were proved innocent if the burn or scald healed straightaway.

Deciding to take no chances, he lied: ‘No, I’ve had a bad day that’s all,’ he told his rescuer. ‘I accidentally fell off the Great Bridge.’ It was not so far from the truth and he added: ‘I’ve been a bit unlucky; an ox has trodden on my foot.’

’How’s that?’ It was the first time the big man had heard the expression.

’I lost something valuable in the river, something made of silver.’A few moments passed in silence as the big man waited for

further explanation but with none forthcoming he said: ‘Better alive and poor, than rich and dead.’

Alfred’s head nodded agreement but his heart was not so sure.’Fate is fate and there is little any of us can do about it,’ the big

man added with a philosophical shrug of his shoulders.Alfred became more curious of his host: ‘Are you a fisherman?’’Yes, the fish stew gave me away, eh?’ he guffawed and his

deep chortling laugh almost infected Alfred whose bruised lips tried to stretch into a smile but could not quite reach muster.

’I’ve got a small boat on the river . . . use baited hooks to catch eels, burbot, trout and lamprey. I’ve fished at sea a couple of times but my boat is too small for the whale’s bath.’

Alfred’s interest picked up another fraction and confessed: ‘My name is Alfred.’

’I’m Alnoth the Fisher and my wife’s name is Estrith. You had better stay with us for the night, to let your tunic dry.’

’Thank you for your hospitality,’ Alfred said and waited for his host to ask him where he came from - he didn’t.

’No trouble; my wife likes to entertain folks . . . ‘ first looking to his wife, who was putting something else in the stewpot, before lowering his voice: ‘Since we lost our own two daughters to sick-ness.’

Making out not to hear, his wife began sorting through some furs in the wooden chest. Alnoth did not explain further and Alfred was too polite to ask.

When Alnoth went outside to check his boat was secure, Alfred began to take in his surroundings. The furnishings did not run to extravagance but the fishing baskets standing in one corner, a clay oven in another, two stools and a table, a double bed, a hearth that gave a cosy red glow and two half-closed yellow eyes of a curled-up cat - all offered a homely welcome.

Though he had only known the fisherman and his wife a short time he felt safe in their company, and having no friends, nowhere to go and no idea what to do, he felt no inclination to move.

Hopelessness and disappointment took a hold and as his mind and body became tranquillised by the magically warm hearth fire that he found too hard to leave, he slipped into a drowsiness. His eyelids became too heavy to hold open and he fell asleep.

When Alnoth returned, he picked Alfred up, laid him on a straw mattress that his wife had conjured up and covered him with skins and furs. At first light next morning, Alnoth took him fishing.

At the manor of Hadone, just outside the town of Canterbury,

Edith Swanneck rose early, dressed, and was careful not to disturb Harold Godwin, Earl of Wessex, the man sleeping in her bed.

Their bedroom was on the upper storey of the great hall and she shivered slightly in the damp morning air as she stepped out of the door on to an external staircase that led down to the ground. With a light, purposeful step that belied her forty winters, she de-scended the stairs, her upright bearing giving her a tall appear-ance though she was only of medium height.

A silver brooch pinned a brown head-dress that almost envel-oped her fair hair, and her evenly proportioned figure filled a tightly-sleeved, full-length gown of fine, green cloth. A crowing cock broke the easy quiet and a cheering reddish sun peeped over the horizon as she made a bee-line for the part-stone, part-tim-bered kitchen.

Inside the warm kitchen a young girl absent-mindedly stirred the steaming contents of a cauldron above a hearth fire while an older woman cooked oatcakes on a wood-burning stove.

’Everything all right?’ Edith inquired, sniffing at the cauldron and wrinkling her nose slightly.

’Yes, my lady,’ answered the older woman starting to fuss with the cakes. Edith ran a satisfied eye around the kitchen before stepping outside.

Picking out a large iron key from several pinned around her waist, she began opening the door of an adjoining store just as a flustered and out of breath steward arrived at her back.

’Ah! There you are,’ she said reproachfully. ‘Help me with some provisions.’

The steward took the pork, mutton, cheese and beans that she had selected over to the kitchen before she locked the door again.

Lifting her gown up from the wet dewy grass, she tip-toed over to the combined stone granary, water mill and bakery, forty odd paces away, where smoke poured out of a louver fitted in the roof.

’Best part of the day,’ she proclaimed to herself, sniffing the odour of fresh-baked bread before her generous mouth widened into an attractive, engaging smile.

The heat from the oven hit her the moment she stepped inside the building but it was pleasurable, a sure antidote for creaky joints, she believed. A fire burned in the bottom half of an oven behind an iron door, and the baker was pushing a platter contain-ing several lumps of dough into the open recess in the top half.

’Everything in order, baker?’’Yes, my lady,’ he replied, stopping to wipe his brow.The comforting warmth held her for a few moments before she

checked inside the granary and started back toward the hall. On the way she gave a ‘good morning’ to a lark whistling above before opening a door beneath her bedroom and shouting inside, not too loudly: ‘Godwin! Edmund! Magnus!’

Eyes still clinging to sleep, her three sons aged between nine and fourteen, drowsily raised their heads from their pillows. Their hair colouring from blond to brown corresponded with their heights from tall to short, though all were big for their age.

’Get yourselves washed and dressed and into the hall for some-thing to eat,’ their mother ordered.

All three of Earl Harold’s children were named after distinguished men: Godwin, their grandfather, was the previous Earl of Wessex;

Edmund was a renowned King of England; and Magnus, a previ-ous King of Denmark and Norway.

Their ambitious grandfather Earl Godwin sired six sons and a daughter. The eldest son named Swein died in disgrace on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the next eldest Harold, inherited his father’s title, Earl of Wessex.

Earl Godwin's other sons, the boys' uncles, Tosti, Gyrth, Leofwine and Wulfwen, were all earls of various earldoms throughout England. The boys' aunt Edith became Queen of England when she married King Edward.

Edith Swanneck had lost her parents when she was only five years old and was brought up by her aunt Dove who was Earl Harold’s cousin twice removed. She also owned the estate of Easton comprising two mills, a dozen beehives, some cattle and goats and Earl Harold was a frequent visitor. Harold and Edith fell in love but because they were distant cousins they could not marry. Edith remembered his very words as if it were yesterday.

When he returned from exile a year after the affray at Dover, he said to her: ‘If we were to wed every priest would lift up his hands in horror and curse our nuptials, and my family would gather round me with threats and prayers to put you aside, and as my brother Swein has been declared a ‘nothing’ and an outlaw, an outlaw so would I be . . . but life is too short, the future uncertain, and to spurn a woman’s love I cannot do . . . would you be willing to take charge of my household at Hatfield?’

Edith had agreed without hesitation and knew exactly what she was doing. Edith would become Harold’s mistress - commonly known as a Danish wife. Their union was an attachment where the only consideration was love and affection. No betrothal agreement bound them, just a spiritual love-knot tied with fondness and devotion. Pledges of their enduring attachment were signified by gifts exchanged.

She gave herself as a lover, not as a duty or sacrifice, but in passion for she loved him not as a soldier-earl, but as a man and the father of their children. Though bearing Harold’s children in the foreknowledge that he may marry another, she knew she would always have his love, and it was to him that she belonged.

It was customary for men of high rank and standing to marry for political reasons - alliances were formed, disputes mended and war averted by astute marriages. Happy as she was with her life and Harold’s love, the struggle for power amongst ambitious earls and kings made for her an uncertain future. Respect and consid-eration she may have had as Harold’s Danish wife but she had no title or standing, and it would be perilous, if not neglectful, to ignore her position.

Everyone was in the hands of fate, yet as an unmarried, emo-tional woman in a male world dominated by power and pride she knew she had to keep a tight rein on her household to ensure that those about her were loyal to her - protecting her children was her first duty.

With her children roused, Edith made her way to the small village church not more than a hundred paces distant from the great hall. Most days she would visit the church to offer a prayer. Quite dark inside, the high, small windows of the wooden church provided little light and as Edith was about to kneel at the altar she spotted through the gloom a young dark haired girl, trying to hide away in a corner.

’Who is there?’ Edith demanded.The reply came tremulous yet determined: ‘I seek sanctuary in

the church.’Edith moved toward the young girl: “Why, my girl, do you need

sanctuary?”Distress showed in the girl’s eyes; her black hair was in disarray

and her clothes were torn and dirty. ‘I have been attacked in the forest,’ she said.

’Attacked? By whom?’’A housecarle.’The girl was obviously frightened and Edith softened her voice,

echoing with some surprise: ‘A housecarle has attacked you in the forest?’

’Yes.’It took a little coaxing but the girl eventually said her name was

Gwener and explained that she was one of two minstrels travelling with a group of entertainers on their way to Canterbury.

’We were walking through the great forest when this housecarle rode up, stabbed Big Wynne with his sword, grabbed me and carried me into the forest. It was only with the help of a brave young man passing by who hit the housecarle over the head with a branch that I escaped. We both ran off.’

’Where is this young man?’ Edith asked.’I don’t know.’Edith only had her word for it but saw no reason why the girl

should lie.‘A housecarle, you say,’ she said, frowning a little. ‘Earl Harold

will see that justice is done. He will find your friends to confirm your story and will punish the housecarle for his crime. In the meantime you will be stay here at Hadone under my protection.’

Gwener’s brother Bleddyn and the three acrobats were later found by Earl Harold’s men in the forest and they also joined Edith’s household. Big Wynne’s sword wound in his shoulder soon healed but finding the offending housecarle proved much more difficult - no trace of him could be found.

Chapter 6: Uprising

Caradoc, son of Gryffydd, went to it with all the force he could gather, killed almost all those who worked on the building, and seized the goods which had been prepared. We know not who it was who first suggested this foolish raid; this was done on Saint Bartholemew’s Day.


Merchant ships sailed from York via the Humber estuary to Flan-ders, Spain, Italy and North Africa carrying tin, lead, cloth and black jet. Others sailed the Easternway across the North and Baltic seas via the old Viking route down the Dnieper river through Russia across the Black Sea and to Constantinople.

These merchant longships docked at the quayside were not given a passing glance by the two intent-looking Northumbrian thanes who had sailed down river from Cleveland. They were not in the business of trading - at least not in goods.

Their strides had purpose and their eyes stared ahead as they hurried through the streets of York, taking scant notice of traders bartering at the front of their houses, nor the tall Minster noted for its scholars. Justice was their aim. Under a safe conduct they were heading for a meeting with Tosti, Earl of Northumbria.

’We got rid o’ Eric Bloodaxe, didn’t we?’ the elder man said vehemently.

’Aye,’ agreed the other, though neither could have known Eric Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of the Northumbrians who had been killed in battle a hundred years previously.

Passing the church of St. Olaf, they both looked toward it for the same reason. ‘If he only knew, he would turn in his grave,’ said the younger man. The mighty Earl Siward, previous Earl of Northum-bria, lay buried in this same church that he himself had built and consecrated to St. Olaf.

’Ai’ve heard tha’ Earl Tosti and Malcom, King of the Scots, are blood-brothers.’

’Maybe so, but Tosti was born a Godwin, rules as a Godwin and will die a Godwin - caring na’ a hoot for Northumbrians.’

As they approached the courtyard of the old royal palace they fell into a pent up silence, a frustrated resentment at Earl Tosti’s harsh, taxing rule.

Siward, Earl Tosti’s escort, met them at the gate, greeting them with a cold half smile: ‘Welcome, worthy thanes!’

’Greetings!’ The two thanes’ grim response made no effort to conceal their disdain for a man whose very name was an affront to Northumbrian glories. While Earl Siward was revered by the Northumbrians, his namesake, Tosti’s escort, was reviled.

’Earl Tosti is ready to see ye. I’ll show ye the way.’ Siward said, leading them up an external staircase to the upper floor of the palace through an iron-bound door above which was carved a defiant stag’s head. The timbers of the old palace were full of damp and a little the worse for wear but the trio entered a well-furnished, sumptuous room.

Floor’s timbers scrubbed clean, decorated hangings on the walls, a table covered with an embroidered linen tablecloth neatly laid out with silver-chased beechwood cups, bowls and ash spoons, and ornately carved, dark blue painted chairs with embroi-dered cushions, provided grandeur. An iron bound chest on the far side of the room looked more business-like.

In the centre of the room sat Earl Tosti on a high-backed chair, its arms carved with dragon heads. Both thanes knew that this chair had been revered as so sacred by one Viking King of Northumbria that he always dismantled it to take with him on his travels. The room held a veneer of royalty - though only a veneer.

’My lord, this is Gamel.’ Siward motioned toward the younger, taller of the two with a beaky nose, a bird-shaped head and eyes

to match. The thane leaned forward from a slightly stooped back as if about to pounce.

’This is Ulf.’ Siward gestured with his other hand toward the elder, shorter, stocky man with a red face as though he had been running. His chin was thrust out in determination.

’Greetings, my worthy thanes!’ Tosti’s mouth smiled but his eyes did not, jumping continuously from Gamel to Ulf and back again. ‘I am sure that I can settle any complaints that you bring.’

Even if the two thanes had been able to see beyond Tosti’s easy smile they would have found an unfathomable darkness. Nor did they notice the sweet smell of dried flowers emanating from a bowl on the table, all their senses focused on their lord Tosti, Earl of Northumbria, a man they believed had no interest in Northumbrian people except for what he could extract from them to serve his ambition.

Tosti’s groomed appearance of smartly trimmed hair and mous-tache, fine tunic, well-cut leather shoes and a gold bracelet on his wrist, contrasted sharply with the two thanes’ rough well-worn tunics and straggly locks. But physical appearance was of no consequence to the thanes, their minds solely concentrated on violation of folks’ rights.

Their highly-charged sense of injustice had so overridden their normal caution they did not appreciate that underlying Earl Tosti’s and Siward’s fine clothes were two ruthless men - one brutally pursuing his own ambition, the other revelling in gratuitous vio-lence.

Chairs were available but all of them stood their ground. Gamel dispensed with polite preliminaries. ‘This man,’ he accused, point-ing his finger at Siward, ‘hanged a villager and raped his daughter.’ Siward did not flinch, merely looked to Earl Tosti to answer.

Tosti, also unmoved, responded calmly: ‘The villager was a robber.’

Ulf’s neck stretched up and his chin jutted out even further as he furiously exclaimed: ‘His taxes were forcibly taken from him . . .’ and with a rush of words: ‘he was na’ proved to be a thief.’

Tosti responded: ‘He was withholding just payment of his dues.’ The cold authoritative tone that brushed aside their protests fur-ther increased the thanes’ exasperation.

’Under King Cnut’s laws he had a raight to be heard a’ the shire court.’

Ulf’s voice had risen several tones and resentment lifted him on to his toes. An ugly grin touched Siward’s lips. Tosti’s cheek flushed and the first edge of irritation crept into his voice: ‘As Earl of Northumbria it is my duty to punish all wrongdoers.’

Having got nowhere with his first accusation, Gamel tried anoth-er: ‘His daughter was raped!’

Not waiting for his lord to answer for him this time, Siward pitched his voice low and dangerous, his face registering no emotion and his eyes hard and cold: ‘She was a harlot!’

Gamel and Ulf stared aghast at Siward unable to believe what they were hearing. Understanding slowly crept into their eyes; their protestations were only wasted breath. Gamel visibly strug-gled to hold himself in check. Ulf’s complexion had deepened to a dangerous hue but still he pressed his accusations: ‘What aboot the church silver tha’ has been stolen? It must be returned.’

Tosti was not quite so calm now. ‘Stolen!’ he retorted fiercely. ‘That silver belongs to Durham church and that is where it has been rightfully returned.’

Gamel’s temper ratched up another notch and he stood open mouthed, his hands curled into fists so tight that his knuckles stood out white. Ulf persisted, spittle flying from his lips in exasperation, his voice risen to such a pitch of emotion that it was close to being inaudible: ‘What aboot the murder o’ Cospatric at the King’s court?’

’Cospatric was a traitor to Northumbria,’ Tosti answered, and there he made a mistake. He could have denied any knowledge of the affair for there was no evidence to connect him with the murder, but his answer was admittance that he had an involvement.

Deathly silence fell upon the room. Gamel’s blood had risen past boiling point and his fury erupted. With a snarl that came from deep within, he lunged forward at Siward and gripped him round the throat with hands that spelled murder. He would have surely

throttled the life out of him except that Siward drew a knife from beneath his tunic and plunged it deep into Gamel’s heart.

A gurgling cry escaped from Gamel. His hands limply fell away from Siward’s throat and bright red blood pumped through his tunic front.

Siward withdrew the knife to allow the stricken Gamel to sink to the floor, and almost as one movement, thrust the bloodied blade into the chest of Ulf who, in his fury, had also thrown himself forward at Siward.

Ulf’s wide, incredulous, pained eyes stared at the knife sunk into his chest till Siward slowly withdrew it and also allowed him to fall dying to the floor alongside Gamel.

The low groans and last gasps that came from the two thanes slowly subsided into deadly silence as the wooden floor turned dark crimson in an ever-widening pool of blood. There were no signs of life when Siward checked the two bodies and a sickly smell filled the room - a mixture of blood and dried flowers.

Two quick-tempered thanes had forfeited their lives in a passion of hate and injustice. Siward had carried out a cold-blooded execution. Eyes glittering jet black, Siward held up his bloodied knife triumphantly and turned to Tosti: ‘They tried ti murder us under the guise o’ safe conduct and haive paid for their treachery.’ He had not the slightest rue for any grievous wrong and the paradoxical truth that Earl Tosti was guarantor of the safe conduct of the two thanes was lost on him.

’It was a plot to kill ye, my lord,’ he proclaimed to Tosti, smugly self-satisfied that he had been too strong, too quick to be outwitted by two thanes, and had stolen a march on his lord’s enemies.

There was nothing in Tosti’s eyes. They were blank with no reflection of light as though his mind had become untethered and waved good-bye leaving nothingness. ‘Plot? Kill?’ he repeated slowly, his voice unmindful.

Slowly his eyes became clearer as he regained reality and thoughts began to flow back into his mind. ‘We are surrounded by traitors!’ he eventually said, staring contemptuously at the blood-ied bodies on the floor. No further justification was required.

Tosti turned an obliged face to Siward - just one of a number of different faces that he constantly changed. To his sister Queen Edith, he was a disadvantaged, loving brother who needed her help at court.

To King Edward, he was an adopted son who shared his love of hunting. To his wife Judith, he was a faithful, clean-mouthed husband who loved his children. To his brother Harold, he was a rival for a crown and would stop at nothing to gain it. To the Northumbrians, he was a foreigner who ruled harshly without justice. He was an enigma.

King Edward had appointed Tosti as Earl of Northumbria and as such Tosti believed he was untouchable. Plots by Northumbrians to overthrow him, real and imagined, he ruthlessly put down with ever increasing violence till his obsession with gaining a kingdom had turned into paranoia. He had lost touch with reality and it never entered his mind that the murder of two thanes could spark a flame of rebellion.

Siward returned a cool, calculating look. He usually gave off a feeling of coldness, except when he was angry. No one knew what he was thinking, not even Tosti, but it did not matter to Tosti since he achieved results - Siward protected his lord.

The two bodies of Gamel and Ulf were removed and the floor scrubbed clean but dishonour and hate could not to be so easily wiped away. Other Northumbrian thanes began to look elsewhere for help. Young Earl Edwin of Mercia was no friend of the God-wins, and Caradog, son of the late Prince Gruffydd of Wales, would not spurn any opportunity to avenge his father’s death.

Earl Tosti was not so untouchable as he believed.

The sun was high and hot with not a breath of wind to stir, the

quiet only broken by an occasional, contented neigh of a horse grazing in the meadow, or the droning chatter of workmen drifting out of the main hall.

Having scoffed all his lunch, Eric took his ease lolling on a wooden tub in the shade of the newly-built kitchen. He had two

good reasons for relaxing - the erection of all buildings was complete and it was the festival of St. Bartholomew when nobody worked. The woods had already beckoned his friend, Wulfmer, who was a woodsman from Eric’s home village of Edwinstowe, and who had set off to trap some game for supper - a hare, duck or pigeon perhaps.

Wulfmer spent so much time in the woods and blended so well into them that Eric began to wonder if indeed he was descended from a tree.

Eric’s eyes closed slowly and he let his mind drift . . . slowly down, slipping into a dreamy mistiness, a shrouding, woolly swirl of emptiness. The mellow singing of a minstrel girl came floating inside his head. Peering into the mist, he searched for something, he knew not what, till the mist began to clear and he saw a Roman villa, and out of it emerged a small golden figure with long dark hair, dressed in a white flowing robe, gliding towards him, floating above the ground.

The name Venus, the Roman goddess, came to him and settled comfortably in his mind. Lights began to dance and flicker, throw-ing light and shadows across her dark face, lighting up her beauti-ful features. Her black hair shimmered like a raven’s wing. She played a hand-held harp and sang a beautiful song but when he reached out to embrace her, she glided away out of his reach.

The mist suddenly cleared to leave bright sunshine and her face clear and shining in the glowing sunlight. But he could not see her eyes - they remained veiled and hidden. His eyes flicked open and awake, blinking into the bright sunlight and he remembered that Gwener was the Welsh name for Venus, goddess of charm and love.

’Gwener,’ he cried out-loud, the name easily tumbling from his lips.

Though he had met her but once she had undoubtedly stirred him profoundly. She had this fascinating quality that so attracted him, pulled him toward her. Her face could be so wholly calm one moment as to be almost unfriendly but would light up with a winsome, girlish smile when one of his quips touched her humour.

She had indeed changed his world, made it appear different, lighter, brighter. He wished he could smell the flowers in her hair now, touch her, hold her close, feel her warm body against his own.

Did she feel the same toward him? That he did not know. She had little respect for housecarles, that he knew, but saw no reason for her to blame him personally for her parents’ death. Had she not agreed to meet him again at Ditchling? She must have felt some-thing for him and on that assumption he was going to ask her to marry him.

Decision made, Eric fully opened his eyes. The sun had sunk a little, reddened, but refused to cool. Even the surrounding air, lying quietly still, had succumbed to its stifling rays. Allowing his eyes to close again, he recalled a poem:

‘He has a hoard, horses and hall-carousing, and would have everything within an earl’s having - had he his lady with him.’

Though appearing relaxed, Eric's ear was instinctively half-cocked, his task of guarding the workmen not forgotten. All had been peace and tranquillity since his arrival at Portskewet - the local Welsh had been no trouble. Nevertheless, his ancient iron was strapped around his waist and his battle-axe leant against the kitchen wall within arm’s reach.

In the woods half a mile away, Wulfmer the Woodsman was still trying to catch supper. A pigeon glided gracefully down, gave a final flap of its wings and settled on the lowest branch of the tree. Wulfmer decided that this was the one for the pot, this one puffing out its chest feathers in pride. He pulled back his leather sling.

The pigeon must have had an extra sense for it flew off again to a higher branch where a more accurate shot was needed. Must be losing my touch, Wulfmer thought. Not a muscle had he moved but the pigeon had sensed danger. There was something odd in the air today.

Still and silent, Wulfmer could have been part of the forest - a bush or a scenting animal perhaps. His narrow eyes, sharp nose, large weather-beaten hands and riotous beard gave him the look of a predator. Snaring wild fowl with nooses and nets and trapping animals came to him as easily as falling off a log, having learned the hard way.

Orphaned when ten winters old, he had survived an animal-like existence by living off the forest on nuts and berries, catching birds, animals and spearing fish. Though now a veteran hunter and trapper, his appearance was deceptive, as his wife and children could testify. His fierce appearance hid a soft compliant nature and a repugnance to violence, at least the self-gratifying violence perpetrated by humans. He was loath to strike any human being.

Appearance didn’t bother him; not liking people very much, he found his wild-look an advantage - it kept them at a distance. When he married and became a woodsman, his wife tidied him up somewhat, but now, away from home, cutting wood in the forest all day, he had returned to a state where he was barely distin-guishable from the habitat.

But as expert as he was in the pursuit of game, he had caught nothing this day. Something was amiss. A tension, nervousness in the air was keeping the birds and animals on edge. Quietly, patiently, he waited under the tree for another pigeon, any pigeon, to fly closer. Perhaps the animals were having a day off. Did the festival of St. Bartholomew apply to all God’s creatures?

Perhaps not such a good neighbour, Wulfmer was a devoted family man and his thoughts turned to his wife and two children. How he sorely missed them. They were the stuff of life to him, holders of his affections, able to inflame him, make him roar with laughter, or bring him to tears. It was with reluctance that he had set off for Portskewet to join Eric the Minstrel for he had no idea where the place was, or where Wales was. For all he knew, it could have been the end of the earth. Only twice in his lifetime had he been out his home village of Edwinstowe in Nottinghamshire. Most villagers never left the village at all, and like them, Wulfmer knew every bush, tree, animal and person in the village for it comprised their whole world.

He had never ventured over windswept ridges, wolf retreats and through the great forest where outlaws roamed, along tracks which high and mighty kings and earls travelled with their escorts, where merchants guardedly carried their wares, and pedlars

threaded their wary way. Villages were just lonely islands set in a dangerous sea.

No pigeon came, so he picked up his axe and moved deeper into the forest where few rays of sunlight found their way to the forest floor. Cool here in the woods, calm and peaceful amongst the mysterious trees, he felt a kinship amongst the birds, badgers and hares. Moving silently through the forest to check his traps, he stopped and listened now and then. All seemed quiet . . . too quiet. The birds weren’t whistling . . . very odd.

Gripping his axe in a firmer hand, he stood quietly against a tree waiting for something, though he knew not what. Hearing a move-ment, he turned his head soundlessly. Something, or someone, was moving through the trees. A low mutter followed by the rustling tread of footsteps and then they were there, men with their black painted faces, carrying clubs and spears moving stealthily in his direction. Supper no longer mattered and he ran through the trees as fast his legs could carry him, heading straight for the buildings and toward Eric the housecarle.

Faint at first, the shouts and cries soon clicked Eric’s brain into wide-awake. Shading his eyes with his hand from the lowering sun, he peered through the shimmering heat towards the woods. The whooping and shouting grew louder before the dark mass of trees suddenly threw out a figure like a flushed hare, running towards him as though on the wings of the wind.

There was no mistaking Wulfmer for a tree now - trees didn’t move that fast. Behind him emerged a score or more wild men, waving clubs and spears, shrieking and hollering like a pack of hunting dogs in chase.

Eric’s instincts took over. Always in moments of crisis his brain became clearer, cooler, and he moved swiftly without panic. Grabbing his axe, he ran into the main hall and shouted a warning to the workmen: ‘Move! We’re being attacked!’

Half-asleep eyes stared back. Eric bellowed louder: ‘Run! We are being attacked!’ Panic replaced stupefied stares and they scattered like birds in a thunderstorm.

Outside again, Eric scanned around. The horses grazed peace-fully in the adjacent field. No time to grab them - Wulfmer and the

chasing mob were almost upon him. They would have to fight their way out. His stomach churned and he wished he hadn’t eaten so much pottage for lunch.

Wulfmer rushed up, his white-knuckled fingers tightly gripping his axe, his chest heaving, his frightened eyes looking pleadingly at Eric. Closing fast behind, brandishing clubs, short swords and spears, was a mob of black painted faces bellowing: ‘Alleluia!’

’This way!’ Eric shouted to Wulfmer and ran up the track leading to Chepstow. Wulfmer followed, managing to stay with Eric for about fifty paces till he ran out of breath.

Eric halted to wait for him, turned to face the chasing Welshmen, and shouted to Wulfmer: ‘Swing your axe!’

While the rest chased after the workmen, six wild Welshmen, borne on their own shouting and blood-thirsty shrieking, came straight at Eric and Wulfmer.

Wulfmer’s heart inside his breathless chest sank in dread. He did not know, nor wanted to know, how to fight. His axe had never been used for anything except cutting wood. Instinct for survival took over; it was fight or die - except for a heart that did not want to be in on it and pounded inside his chest to be let out.

As the Welshman’s sword thrust forward, the sweep of Wulfmer’s axe, guided by many years of cutting wood, swished viciously through the air. Undistinguishing between the bark of a tree and the flesh of a man, it struck the Welshman between shoulder and elbow, cutting into flesh, muscle and bone.

’Ah . . . ee!’ the Welshman screamed, worse than any animal sound Wulfmer had ever heard. The sword that the Welshman was attempting to ram into Wulfmer’s midriff fell uselessly to the ground. Its owner followed, holding his arm with his other hand, trying to stem blood pouring through his fingers.

’O . . .o . . .h!’ another Welshman gasped as Eric’s axe struck him in the chest with a dull thwack as though splatting into hard cheese. The Welshman was left convulsively choking, his eyes and mouth stretched wide with pain. He toppled to the ground to join his compatriot and the other four attackers stopped dead in their tracks, the blood lust in their eyes replaced with sudden caution.

Eric swung his battle-axe slowly, menacingly round his head keeping the four Welshmen at bay and saw out of the corner of his eye a workman in the distance being clubbed to the ground. He felt ashamed and dishonoured - the safety of these workmen was his responsibility and he had failed them. This was real disgrace.

There was no time for recriminations. Eric and Wulfmer stepped warily backward and the four Welshmen followed, keeping just out of range of the deadly poised axes. After dodging a spear from one of them, Eric decided that their only chance was to run for it.

’We are going to charge them,’ Eric told Wulfmer in a low voice, his eyes never leaving their assailants, ‘then run like hares. Wait for my shout.’

Wulfmer nodded a reluctant agreement, his heart beating faster than a bird’s, his eyes glued to black painted faces. His stomach contents churned and tried to find their way into a mouth that was wide-open sucking in air. Let’s just run, he was about to plead to Eric, but Eric was too quick.

’Holy Cross!’ Eric yelled and charged forwards, swinging his axe like a windmill. In a nightmarish daze, Wulfmer followed him. The Welshmen stepped back in panic but weren’t fast enough. Eric’s axe caught an angle of sunlight and flashed before catching one of them with a blow that split his head wide open.

Wulfmer, too quick for another trying to step inside his whirling axe, thudded a crunching blow into the Welshman’s side with whistling deadly speed. At this terrible onslaught the other two turned tail.

’Let’s go!’ Eric roared, and away they went, axes in tight-hand grips, legs stretching and bounding like hunted deer in a chase. Eric’s sword bobbled and flew around his sprinting legs as if hanging on for its dear life. Eric would later explain to his captain Haldane: ‘Not fleeing, but retreating from greater numbers.’

Over the brow of the hill, along the Chepstow road they scamp-ered like drunken hares. Catching his foot, Wulfmer lost his bal-ance altogether and fell sprawling flat on his face.

Eric turned and shouted: ‘Come on Wulfmer! This in no time to take a nap!’

Scrambling to his feet, Wulfmer looked at Eric with shocked, fearful eyes but carried on running, panic spurring him on. A small voice repeated in the back of his head in time with his thudding feet: ‘Death behind! Death behind!’

They kept running till hearts pounding, lungs bursting, their legs died and they slowed to a stagger. But before they could regain their breaths, Eric had urged Wulfmer on again: ‘Come, my friend, we must keep going.’

And so they did. Three breathless miles further on they stumbled across a stream where Eric crashed down, his body spread-eagled on the bank while his face dipped into the cool running water, gulping down greedy mouthfuls which barely touched his throat. Hoarsely he pronounced: ‘It tastes like wine.’

When he turned to look at Wulfmer, he found he was not drink-ing. On his knees with palms flat on the ground, his face the colour of cream, he was throwing up on the grass. Eric waited patiently till there was nothing left to come up.

’Best take a drink of water,’ Eric advised and watched him sip a little water from his hand before laying back on the river bank, eyes closed, looking like death.

Eric walked back up the road, axe at the ready to confront any pursuers. There was no one in sight. ‘Nobody chasing - must be more interested in pillaging; I presume that was the purpose of the raid,’ he informed Wulfmer.

Wulfmer sat up, a faint trace of colour returning, although dark clouds rolled across his eyes in mournful grief. ‘I must have killed him . . . must have,’ he muttered.

’He would have killed you,’ Eric coolly answered. Horrified as the woodsman was at what he had done, Eric gave him silent tribute. Wulfmer may not have much stomach for fighting yet knew how to swing an axe. He could fight at his shoulder anytime, Eric decided.

Nor did the young housecarle admit to Wulfmer that he himself had not felt so daring and dauntless during the skirmish because his own stomach had been in turmoil.

He had discovered a truth - it was easy to talk of bold heroics in poetry but reality was different.

Wulfmer leaned toward the stream to wash away the blood haphazardly trickling down his legs when a silver object, almost hidden in the long grass, caught his eye. Picking up the crucifix, he showed it to Eric: ‘Is this yours?’

’Yes, it is,’ Eric said with some surprise. ‘I must have dropped it, or perhaps it fell out of my belt . . . it seems to have a mind of its own.’ It was then that Eric decided he was going to add a chain to it and wear it round his neck. Why? He would be hard put to explain . . . just a feeling; it gave him assurance - a sort of talisman. ‘Thanks,’ he said to Wulfmer. ‘I’ll return the favour sometime.’

‘I owe you the favour,’ Wulfmer said, ‘I would be dead if you . . .’‘I was supposed to protect all of the workmen,’ Eric said regret-

fully. Already in disgrace, this retreat was not going to look good when he got back to Canterbury. He imagined making his report: ‘My lord, I escorted the workmen to Wales as ordered. I have met the Welsh and have to report that your buildings and workmen are no more.’

Why did the Welsh attack? That Eric did not know, nor could he guess. The Welsh knew it was Earl Harold’s property so why challenge a lord of such high standing by pillaging a few buildings? It seemed so incredibly stupid. Perhaps Prince Gruffydd’s son Caradog had some hand it. But why? An act of revenge? Perhaps. This was some weaving of wiles that were way above his head.

’Come Wulfmer, we’d better move on. We’ll pick up some horses from Chepstow. I have to report this attack to Haldane who will be in a high dudgeon. Mind that will be nothing new. And when Earl Harold learns of it, fur is going to fly.’

’Are we going home?’ Wulfmer asked in a hopefully rising voice.’Yes, we’re going home.’The word home worked a miraculous recovery in Wulfmer and

he clambered to his feet, albeit unsteadily. ‘I want to get home to Edwinstowe and never fight again.’

Eric did not reply. If only life was that easy. Most times there was no alternative to fighting - defending your hearth and home, kith and kin, was first priority. Always be prepared, sword and axe at the ready, was the best watchword.

To the West, the blood-red sun was at the bottom of a purple foreboding sky. To the East, thick vengeful clouds began to mass and menace. An angry rumble of thunder rolled across distant hills. Eric thought it just another summer thunderstorm but the bloody violence that violated the peace of that St. Bartholomew’s Day spread waves that rippled beyond the Welsh border, across Mercia, and into the simmering cauldron of Northumbria.

Chapter 7: Rebellion

The thanes all gathered together in Yorkshire and Northumber-land, outlawed their earl Tosti, killed all his retainers they could find, both English and Danes, and seized all his weapons in York, with the gold, silver and money they could discover anywhere else.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle AD 1065.

Two hundred Northumbrian thanes attacked York and Lincoln, killing many of Tosti’s housecarles and seizing his armoury. The rebels then marched south into the Earldom of Mercia gathering support.

At Britford, King Edward called a meeting of the Witan - the King’s council of earls, thanes, bishops, abbots and priests.

Earl Harold, summoned by the King to the meeting of the Witan at Britford, gathered his thanes and housecarles at his manor of Hadone near Canterbury. With civil war possible every fighting man was needed and even Eric the Minstrel was recalled from Sandwich to where he had been banished after the Welsh attack at Portskewet.

Inside the great hall, Eric ran into Gwener’s brother Bleddyn who informed him that Gwener had been abducted and almost raped in the forest. An appalled look came over Eric’s face: ‘Gwener attacked?’

’She was . . . is all right,’ Bleddyn explained, looking up at Eric from the stool he was seated upon.

‘She is here?’‘Yes, she is . . . we are all staying here with Edith Swanneck.’Eric turned on his heel, strode out of the portal and over to the

lock-up larder where he found Edith Swanneck organising

Harold’s provisions for the journey. ‘Good Tidings!’ Eric greeted, not quite in his usual cheery tone.

‘Good Tidings!’ Edith returned, not slowing from her task for she had known Eric since he was a young lad.

Eric wasted no time: ‘You have a minstrel girl staying here with you - dark, long hair, sings like a bird.’

‘Yes.’’I would like to see her.’‘Why?’ Edith looked up, now curious.‘I was prevented from meeting her several weeks ago and I wish

to apologise.’Though unsure of his intentions, Edith was impressed by Eric’s

manners: ‘She has gone to the bee-keeper to collect some honey. I expect her back at any moment.’

Eric waited for Gwener’s return close by the church, his eyes alternatively scanning between track and hall where housecarles and thanes prepared for their journey. His face lit up when Gwener came walking down the track bearing two jars of honey. As she neared, a cautious smile overtook her face.

‘Greetings, Minstrel!’ Eric said with a smile.‘Greetings, Minstrel!’ Gwener acknowledged in return, her voice

barely above a whisper.‘I’m sorry I was unable to meet you at Ditchling but my duties-‘’That’s all right,’ Gwener said. ‘No need to apologise.’Eric surprised himself by feeling awkward, not sure how to put

the question: ‘Your brother . . . told me . . . that is . . . that you were attacked in the forest.’

‘Yes,’ she quietly replied, explaining no further, merely pushing an errant lock of hair back behind an ear.

‘I am sorry . . . I will understand if you do not wish to talk of it.’Gwener hesitated. She had intended not to tell anyone of her

ordeal but now that Bleddyn had told Eric, she felt she owed him some explanation. In calm detachment she related what had happened.

First surprised to learn that a housecarle had been responsible for the assault, Eric was puzzled that Gwener showed so little emotion, or anger, expecting to find in her some bitterness or

recrimination. What had happened to the forthrightness she had shown at their first meeting?

This mystery became secondary when Gwener described the housecarle. Eric’s eyes first widened disbelievingly, then narrowed as suspicion soon turned to certainty that the perpetrator of the deed was Siward. Then he saw it all with sudden clarity. Anger surged through him; blood welled up to his face and neck; his eyes flared and his lips compressed white. Recalling all the rancour, the insult swapping, the malevolence in Siward’s face at the banquet, he knew his attempted rape of Gwener was not by chance. Siward had planned it as a means of revenge, his own twisted way of wreaking vengeance.

Eric thanked God for the fortunate intervention of a passing youth, otherwise she would not now be alive. Standing stiff in silent anger, his heart aching for vengeance, he held his tongue with pained resolution for at that moment he was helpless to say or do anything.

Contempt for Siward and sympathy for Gwener were coupled with the burden that Siward’s attack on Gwener had been aimed at himself. Siward must have seen that Gwener had taken his fancy and her rape and murder were intended to inflict pain and torment on the both of them.

He could not tell that to Gwener . . . nor would he ever be able to bring himself to do so. Guilt piled on top of his tangled emotions and he was unable to look her in the eye, his gaze concentrated above her head in a sightless fury.

Gwener saw the fury rise in Eric but she stood, waiting quietly. She didn’t want to get involved, having built herself a barrier of silence she had been loathed to break. It seemed an endless time before Eric could speak and even then it took an enormous effort of will to constrain a calmness into his voice: ‘I am sorry . . . I will see that he is punished.’

What he did not tell her was that no one would be interested in prosecuting a housecarle, especially the personal escort of Earl Tosti. And Eric knew, just as Gwener knew, that crimes against the Welsh were classed as lesser offences. Any retribution would be solely up to Eric.

Gwener thanked him for his sympathy in a faint and restrained voice. Though she had decided to have nothing more to do with housecarles she was not finding it so easy now Eric was here, standing so close. She forced herself to remain aloof even if her heart did not agree.

Looking into her bright eyes, face of glowing skin and dark silken hair tumbling past her shoulders, Eric’s anger melted away. She was alive and well and that mattered most of all.

Her revelations and her cool reserve had not deflected him from his purpose - calamity always stiffened his resolution. Reaching forward, he grasped her fingers in his own and moved close enough to her to feel her warm breath upon his neck. Her eyes were still distant and a detecting barrier between her and himself, he ignored it: ‘Do you like it here with Edith Swanneck?’

‘Yes, she has been very good to me.’‘Not so hard on the pinions,’ Eric said jocularly and drew a faint

smile from Gwener that lent itself more to courtesy than humour. Getting around to proposing, he was not finding so easy. A quick glance in the direction of the hall told him that Earl Harold’s party was almost ready to ride. ‘Shall we walk a little?’ he suggested.

She nodded agreement and taking her arm, he guided her towards the church. At the door he turned to look into her face that reflected a golden glow from the reddish sun. At that moment Eric believed that the sun only shone on Gwener but found no mes-sage of encouragement in her eyes. Slipping his hands around her slim waist he pulled her gently closer.

‘Gwener . . . I wish to tell you how I feel about you. I like you very much . . . the way you speak, the way you sing and play the harp . . . your beautiful eyes and face. I am very fond of you - well more than fond of you. What I truly mean is that I love you, with all my heart.’

Weaving winsome words had never been a problem to Eric but these came falteringly, and as his arms embraced her, she re-sisted slightly and seemed embarrassed. He blurted: “Will you be my wife?”

His proposal hung in the air and for the first time he read her eyes - a mix of surprise and uncertainty.

She should have guessed his intention but hadn’t. From his manner she should have seen his proposal coming but she didn’t, and unprepared, the proposal flummoxed her. She could not accept, could never accept a housecarle in marriage. Housecarles were responsible for her parent’s death and one had tried to rape her in the forest. Her heart lost the battle against her head which said no, but her heart hung heavy and the refusal seized in her throat.

Seeing and hearing neither acceptance nor refusal, Eric said: ‘I would like your brother to accept a money gift as a pledge of my honourable intentions.’

Unable to rebuff him outright, Gwener used this offer as a means of rejection and her words came in a rush as if speed might reduce her heartache: ‘My brother and I are minstrels and we must stick together. He’d never agree.’

Eric set his jaw sullenly. Believing he had seen a momentary sparkle in her eye earlier, he was now not so sure. With an unwelcome awareness that she did not care anything for him, his spirits began to sink. Still he did not give up: ‘Nevertheless, I shall ask your brother.’

Gwener did not reply and there was a hurt silence. Eric eventu-ally broke it: ‘You don’t like housecarles do you?’

‘No!’ Her reply was barely audible.‘You don’t like me then?’Gwener could not answer, only lower her sad eyes.‘I am a housecarle - know little else. I can only earn honour as a

warrior.’’Innocent people are killed by war.’‘Everyone needs protection from their enemies.’This time Gwener did not answer. Yet neither did she raise her

eyes nor make any move to pull away from Eric’s arms.The sound of trampling horses’ hooves came from the great hall.

Still Eric waited. She hadn’t given him a definite no; there was still a chance; perhaps this wasn’t the right moment. She needs more time. Yes, that’s it, she needs more time. He would win her over eventually. Faint heart never won fair lady.

With the shouting of orders coming from the great hall Eric realised that time had run out. ‘I will have to go. Earl Harold has itchy breeches. I shall present myself and a money pledge to your brother at the first opportunity.’ Giving her a farewell peck on the cheek, he slowly released his embrace, smiled and said: ‘May the Saints watch over you.’

Marching quickly back to the great hall, he was not totally disheartened, hopes not entirely blighted. He just needed time to win her respect and esteem that was all. First he had a crow to pick with Siward.

By now Earl Harold’s party had ridden out of the village and he put urgency into his legs by sprinting. He did not look round so did not see the tears start down Gwener’s cheeks. First a solitary one, another, then a cascade. Her tightly held emotions had burst into the open.

Earls, thanes, bishops and abbots, all learned and versed in law

as well as religion, came from all over the kingdom to advise the King on how to keep the peace and provide good justice. They even chose his successor when he died. And inside the great hall at Britford, the King’s counsellors were abuzz and astir, bustling hither and thither like ants in a colony to some purpose that was not too apparent to Eric. Information came in the form of rumours, swelling and warping like unseasoned wood with each re-telling: ‘The rebels are marching south.’

’They are turning west to join up with the Welsh.’’Earl Edwin’s brother Morcar is heading the rebels.’Speculation swirled covering every condition with facts lying thin

on the ground.’A masterpiece of confusion,’ Eric concluded to anyone within

earshot.With no orders, Eric stood just inside the portal of the King’s hall

watching nobles and clerics gravely arguing amongst themselves. At their centre, Earl Tosti fretted and fumed, unable to understand

why it was necessary to call a meeting of the Witan at all, urging that the Northumbrian rebellion be put down by force straightaway.

Earl Harold said little, keeping his own counsel, waiting for the other two Godwin brothers to arrive: Gyrth, Earl of East Anglia, coming from Dunwich; and Leofwine, Earl of Essex, coming from Colchester.

Allowing his thoughts to wander, Eric recalled the saga of the eldest Godwin brother, Earl Sweyn, a man with uncontrollable passions. After seducing an abbess, he then killed his own cousin, Earl Beorn, in cold blood on board his ship at Bosham. When summoned to a full meeting of the army at Sandwich, Sweyn pleaded: ‘My love for Algive flushed hot blood through my veins and in my passion I believed her vows could be annulled. I was wrong. My cousin Beorn desired my earldom and when he taunted me over my love for Algive, my sword arm flowed with fire and I killed him.’

Sweyn was found guilty of dishonouring his rank as an earl and declared a nithing - a man without honour. He accepted penance by going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and died on the return journey at Lycia.

Eric’s thoughts returned to the present when some of the nobles in the hall began to disperse. Nothing could be done, it seemed, till the Witan fully convened the next morning.

As the crowd thinned Eric suddenly spotted Siward and his hand automatically went to his sword hilt, his heart beating faster, his face flushing with humiliation. His honour had been affronted and Gwener’s good name had to be upheld.

‘Eric!’ Haldane’s loud shout forced him turn to face his captain framed in the portal. ‘There is not enough room at Britford. You’ll have to quarter at Salisbury.’

Eric nodded disappointedly as his opportunity for revenge faded. ‘But I want you back here tomorrow morning,’ Haldane added.

’Yes, Captain,’ Eric answered. The idea came slowly to Eric at first and quickly hardened into certainty before he added: ‘Yes, Captain. I will be surely be back in the morning.’

A steady drizzle of rain began long before dawn of the following

morning and inside the barn at Salisbury, Eric rose unusually quiet and began preparing for the day. His decision had been made the moment Gwener had told him of her terrifying ordeal, and though made in fury, he was now calm as if vengeance had been stowed away in his baggage and he was unpacking it now that he had reached his destination. Revenge was a feast best eaten cold.

Needing to look smart if he was going to do battle, he fastened his cloak with a gold brooch at his right shoulder, leaving his sword arm free. He said nothing of his intentions to his fellow house-carles. It was not their fight. A poem burst into his mind: ‘May grief and bitterness blast the mind of that man! May his mind ache behind his smiling face! May a flock of sorrows choke his chest! The edge of vengeance will draw out the breath from the doom-shadowed!’

The last line came out in a low voice and Thorkill the Tall looked curiously at his friend. Assuming Eric was practising his poetry, Thorkill resumed his own dressing.

Eric buckled his ancient iron around his waist, checking that it slid easily in and out of the oily wool lining inside the leather covered scabbard. The sword was old, fashioned by Vikings who had discovered how to make steel by the carbonisation of iron.

The blade had been forged by welding strips of metal together, then folding, slicing and hammering them till the strips were cut up and bent so often that a serpentine pattern ran right through the blade. Not only was the sword exceptionally strong and sharp but Eric also believed that the blade’s magical properties gave extra power to his arm and an edge over any foe. The runic writing inscribed on it read: ‘The Sleeper’.

Eric slipped quietly out of the barn and rode towards Britford on a muddy track that became muddier with every splashing stride of his horse. The righteous church of St. Peter with its stone-dressed walls he passed by without a glance, his mind entirely taken up with an un-Christian thought - vengeance. If there was a small

voice of reason in the back of Eric’s mind telling him to hold back it was too faint for him to hear - compulsion for revenge too strong.

Finding Siward casually leaning against the wall of the King’s hall and assuming it to be an act of providence, he honed in on his enemy without looking down at the muddy ground churned up by horses’ feet. As he came closer his heart rose up against Siward but he held himself in check, telling himself that he had to remain cool and sharp.

The two housecarles lounging either side of Siward he vaguely recognised but spared them no more than a second glance. Siward, unperturbed, looked up at his approach and greeted him sneeringly: ‘Well, well! If it isn’t a minstrel coming to give us a song!’

That he could stand there so easily after the sin he had commit-ted against Gwener made Eric’s blood rise. ‘You’ll soon be singing a different song,’ Eric promised him.

Eric’s eyes never left Siward’s face as he dismounted. Undoing his cloak, he threw it over his horse which tossed its head and stepped back a pace. It looked reprovingly at Eric with its toad-like eyes before deciding to wait and watch.

Eric let Siward know why he was about to kill him: ‘How brave and bold you are when raping girls. Let’s see how brave you are when facing steel.’

Siward stiffened and jerked upright, his face setting hard, realis-ing that Eric knew about his attempted rape and murder of Gwener and that he was here for revenge.

‘Do you hasten home when the fight gets fierce and furious?’ Eric taunted. Siward said nothing but moved away from the wall on to the balls of his feet and reached for his sword. Eric drew his sword. The other two housecarles stared in astonishment but recognising that this was a personal duel stepped well back.

Sword arm poised, up on his toes, stomach squirming, his hot skin prickling inside his wet tunic, Eric spat at Siward: ‘I’m going to cut you up as spoil for the ravens!’

Siward remained cool and dangerous, growling: ‘Let’s see how ye like the feel o’ sharp steel yerself!’

Both lunged at once trying to get in the first telling blow and steel clashed against steel.

Striking again, they each parried the other’s thrust, the blow jarring up Eric’s arm and forcing him back a pace.

Eric knew he had to use his speed and fleetness of foot to have any chance against Siward’s power, so he circled round ready to nip in like a hound darts in to nip a stag. Catch Siward wrong-footed was his aim, but the slicing, thrusting blade of Siward flashed by his face, scraping his ear, and it took all his skill to keep his feet on the slippery ground.

The advantage of speed was lost in the mud. He should have anticipated that. His sword arm sustained a cut as he warded off another slicing sweep of Siward’s sword and he had to give ground to a more powerful arm.

Instead of his own sword forcing an opening Eric found he had desperately to defend. His arm juddered and his hand almost lost its grip on his sword as he parried Siward’s hacking blow that aimed to split his skull in half. Bobbing and weaving and parrying as best as he was able in the mud, he could find no opening in Siward’s defence for a killing blow - or any effective blow at all.

Eric’s confidence wilted, as badged with blood, steaming with sweat and gulping for breath, he desperately warded off Siward’s cutting and stabbing steel. Like an epitaph round and round inside his head went the words: ‘Mighty words - puny deeds.’ He had made a tactical error - having chosen the time and ground, he had chosen badly, not allowing for the mud. For the first time in his life he feared he was going to die.

Time seemed to slow, or perhaps Siward tired and slowed - he would never know. Through his sweat filled eyes, behind the flashing steel in front of him, he saw the smirking, triumphant face of Siward and he swore that he was going to knock that smirk off his face if it was the last thing he did.

‘Holy Cross!’ he yelled, and with all his rage flowing into his sword arm he started a charge forward till his foot slipped back-wards in the mud.

Seeing his chance, Siward pounced, swinging his sword straight at Eric’s head. Only an instinctive parry from Eric blocked the blow as he sprawled in the mud but Siward’s power knocked Eric’s ancient iron clean out of his hand. Flying sideways, it somehow

ended up in Eric’s left hand, just in time to block Siward’s follow up thrust to Eric’s heart.

’Stop!’ Haldane’s shouted command rent through the air like a clap of thunder an instant before he thrust his own imperilled body between the two antagonists. Despite being a foot shorter than either of the two housecarles, Haldane’s authority was enough and both housecarles held back their swords.

Eric scrambled to his feet poised ready to fight on while Siward slowly and reluctantly stepped back holding up his sword.

Haldane’s face was almost black, about to emit thunder, and it did: ‘By all the Saints, what’s going on here?’

Right on Haldane’s heels an astounded Earl Harold arrived alongside a furious-looking Earl Tosti. The sound of clashing steel had brought them all rushing out of the hall.

‘Is this a grudge fight?’ Harold demanded, staring incredulously at a muddied and bloodied Eric.

‘It is a matter of honour,’ said Eric, defiantly, his lips then sealing tight.

Earl Harold held Eric’s eyes for a moment, not sure that he understood, and then searched the face of Siward, a face that revealed nothing. Nor did any words issue from Siward’s lips as he stood impervious to Earl Harold, his face expressionless, seem-ingly hollow of heart or humanity.

Edgy and nervous, Tosti stared at both housecarles before demanding of his brother: ‘Is this more treachery?’

‘Come my brother, you are seeing devils everywhere.’ Harold’s voice was calm and low, his normally equable temper still unruf-fled. ‘This is a personal feud.’

Not in the least convinced, Tosti stared suspiciously at Harold from beneath knitted eyebrows.

‘Yes, it is a grudge fight,’ Haldane quickly said in support of Harold. ‘Not to be taken seriously.’

Nobody believed it not to be serious. Both housecarles had obviously been trying to cut each other in half but Haldane was trying hard to play it down. Discord had grown between the two brother earls since they had arrived at Britford and Haldane was becoming alarmed.

Tosti had intimated with hints - no actual accusation had been made - that Harold had had some involvement in promoting the rebellion in Northumbria and this fight between their escorts fur-ther drove in that web of suspicion. Tosti believed that this fight was an attempt to deprive him of his personal escort and leave him further exposed.

’You!’ Haldane shouted at Eric as though he were deaf. ‘Go back to your quarters at Salisbury and don’t move till I tell you.’

Both housecarles slowly and reluctantly sheathed their swords, Siward with blackened brow, and Eric steaming inside and out. His disappointment sheathed with his sword, Eric then obstinately mounted his patient horse and rode unashamedly away, cutting through a crowd gathering too late to witness the fight.

He felt little remorse with only one regret - his failure to stick his sword into Siward. Merely bad luck, he told himself, his foot had slipped in the mud otherwise . . . next time he would be better prepared. Satisfaction would only be granted with retribution. Revenge was a heady potent drink of which Eric had taken a long draught.

The Witan went into session later that morning and in the evening, Haldane called on Eric at Salisbury. A short grizzled man, Haldane had a face like tanned leather and was so tough and durable that Eric believed the rest of Haldane’s skin was just the same. No housecarle ever argued with Haldane’s orders. Even if Eric managed to come up with a dry comment now and again he would never deliberately disobey him - it would be tantamount to disavowing his loyalty to Earl Harold. Unquestionable, unthinkable even.

Haldane sternly looked up into Eric’s face. ‘It was a foolish and futile act,’ he upbraided. ‘Even if you had killed Siward, and I doubt that, you would have been made a nithing.’

With a rebellion in Northumbria, Haldane had no time for house-carles’ quarrels. The why’s and wherefore’s of the fight didn’t interest him. Its effect on the tottering relations between Earl Harold and Earl Tosti did. Apart from the King, the two brother earls were the most powerful men in England and a split between the two meant a split within the kingdom.

’Even now, you could be outlawed,’ Haldane exaggerated, trying to alarm Eric, to put the lid on a dispute that could cause lasting damage. Eric was usually no more than a poetic pain in the backside for Haldane but this swordfight with Siward was serious; the kingdom was on the verge of civil war.

‘Outlawed,’ Haldane gravely repeated. ‘You know what that means - a wolf’s head!’

For the first time Eric realised he was in real trouble though Haldane was laying it on a bit thick. Haldane didn’t tell Eric that there was some doubt that he would be outlawed. A lot of support had surfaced for Eric – Thorkill the Tall and several more compan-ions had offered to act as oath-helpers on his behalf.

No one had come forward to support Siward.’Fortunately for you, we have a rebellion on our hands and any

action has been postponed till a housecarle’s court can be sum-moned,’ Haldane informed him. Tightly pursing his lips, his usual grin nearly a grimace, a disquieted Eric merely nodded his head. In his obsession to gain revenge he had never considered the after-affects. Perhaps revenge had better wait a while, he thought. A more opportune time was bound to arise.

’In the meantime,’ Haldane continued, ‘you will be under the orders of Vebba, one of the thanes escorting Earl Harold to Northampton tomorrow.’ Haldane did not want to leave Eric behind to ferment further trouble with Siward.

Eric knew Vebba very well - he was a thane from his home village of Edwinstowe.

’Yes, captain,’ Eric finally answered. It was the longest time Eric had ever listened to Haldane without a rejoinder.

‘Be ready to ride at dawn,’ Haldane finally ordered before turning on his heel and leaving Eric to ponder his future. Eric did not deliberate long - if there was going to be a battle he was not going to miss it. He could deal with Siward later.

At first light, Earl Harold’s negotiating party of twenty house-

carles and twenty thanes rode north to deliver the King’s message to the rebels. The rain was patchy, the going soft, and as always Earl Harold led from the front, riding fast. Close behind were Haldane, Vebba the Thane and Eric.

Out of Salisbury they splashed along the sodden track through villages with tall silent churches, past fields of toiling plough teams and grazing sheep; over the Roman portway and Hampshire downs, into the dip of Kennet valley, fording rivers, cutting through forests, climbing the Berkshire downs and over the ancient Ridge-way track before sweeping down to the plain and into Oxford borough for an overnight stop.

Eric gave his tired horse a clean, a brush down, and after a feed of hay and water the horse looked his usual frisky self.

Inside the great hall Eric dried himself out, ate some potage and in the fading light picked out Vebba the Thane, his white spiky hair standing up like ears of corn. With straight back, blunt face and plain speaking, Vebba uncomprisingly confronted life’s ups and downs. His forehead, carrying a deep plough line from too much frowning, betrayed the hardships of life and beneath swan-white eyebrows that matched the hair on his head glinted two pale blue eyes. As lord of Edwinstowe village in Nottinghamshire, he worked hard and expected everybody else to do the same.

’What happened at the meeting of the Witan?’ Eric asked him.Vebba held his reply, his lips pursed, till he had eased himself

gently on to a seat bench before groaning: ‘I’ll have to get me some leather breeches.’

Eric laughed: ‘You should ride with Earl Harold when he is in a real hurry.’ Discerning Vebba’s unsmiling face in the flickering light of the hearth fire, Eric realised Vebba was in no mood for jesting.

Vebba settled comfortably before saying: ‘We don’t want any more meetings like that - the stormiest I’ve ever seen. The King wanted to call out the fyrd straightaway but most of the thanes said there was not sufficient cause. Two hundred thanes do not rebel without good reason, they argued. They said that the problem lay between Earl Tosti and the Northumbrians themselves.’

‘Aren’t the rebels marching south?’‘Yes, and picking up support from the Derby and Nottingham

men . . . and the Earl of Mercia.’Vebba’s voice became low and troubled: ‘The King backed Earl

Tosti of course but a few brave thanes suggested there had been misrule, accusing Earl Tosti of using the law to suit himself. ‘Only criminals could make these accusations,’ Tosti retorted. And you’ll never believe this, Tosti accused his brother Harold of being in league with the Northumbrians, the Mercians and even the Welsh! Tosti shouted that Harold was trying to get rid of him for his own ends.’

Vebba’s voice dropped to a whisper: ‘Earl Harold had to swear his innocence on oath. It was shameful. I like Harold, and his two brothers Gyrth and Leofwine but Tosti - I’ve no time for him.’

‘Does it mean war?’ Eric asked.‘It was agreed to call up the fyrd while Earl Harold parleys with

the rebels. Harold has to persuade the Northumbrians to reason.’Vebba’s head shook sorrowfully. ‘I dread shire fighting shire but

I’ll fight if needs be, even if it’s not my quarrel.’ He stared at the floor as if he might find some answer hidden in the wood grain.

“We will have to wait on the morrow to see which way the fates lie,” Eric said.

Vebba raised his head and stared at the hearth fire, a worrying future mirrored in his unfocused and unblinking eyes.

‘Best be prepared for anything,’ Eric concluded. ‘Fate can deal you a blow at any time.’

Surprised by the Welsh at Portskewet, Eric wasn’t going to be caught napping a second time. His sword would be his comforta-ble sleeping companion.

Next morning, Earl Harold’s party set off once more. North up the old Roman road, across another that led west to Cirencester, no turning, no halting, and no slowing, straight on to Watling Street before resting awhile at Towcester.

On again, fording a river, then another, the track becoming muddier by muddier mile as the rain came teeming down. And the further they rode the less life they saw. As if smitten by the plague, the land had been swept of life: no ploughmen huddled into the

wind, no bleating sheep, no warning bark of a dog, only the splashing of their horses’ feet through black puddles. Harold pressed on till they rode into a burned out village.

Reduced to ashes but still smouldering in the damp air, the cremated hall and cottages had funereal smoke carelessly curling round and up into gloomy clouds. At first sight, Eric thought the half dozen men lying scattered on the ground were asleep but soon realised it was a sleep from which they would never wake.

Earl Harold and Haldane speedily dismounted. Vebba and Eric followed, and all four checked the motionless men for signs of life. Stiff and cold with faces a sickly colour of cream, they had been dead for some time.

Earl Harold’s face stiffened and he stamped to his packhorse, unstrapped two banners, his own personal standard ‘Fighting Man’ which he handed to Haldane, and the King’s own red and gold embroidered ‘Dragon of Wessex’ which he himself unfurled and held aloft.

Staring fixedly ahead, Harold spurred his horse into a gallop with the ‘Dragon of Wessex’ flapping furiously behind. In its wake, the rest of the escort battled to hang on to their lord’s tail.

When the party reached Northampton, the town appeared to have over spilled itself - men, carts, sheep, goats, horses, cows and oxen filled the surrounding countryside.

Eric realised that the cattle had been pillaged from villages using the old Viking stratagem - reward us with gold or we’ll burn, pillage and slay. The rebels meant business.

Assured of their position, the rebels merely watched as Earl Harold’s party threaded a silent path between them. No shouts of aggression, no threats, only confident eyes followed the parleying party up to the town gates where they halted.

Dismounting, Earl Harold symbolically stuck the King’s standard into the muddy ground. Haldane stood on Earl Harold’s right, Vebba and Eric on his left.

If Earl Harold had any impatience it was disguised. He stood perfectly still, his legs slightly astride, his face carefully blank looking toward the gates. Only tightly compressed lips indicated any inward emotion. The gates of Northampton were as far as

Harold’s mediation stretched into the Earldom of Mercia. The rain made no effort at compromise, coming down vertically.

Out of the town gates a dozen mounted Northumbrian thanes trotted the few yards to confront Earl Harold’s party. Half of them dismounted and a tall big-framed man, obviously of Norwegian extraction, stood challengingly in front of Earl Harold. His dark intense eyes, deeply set inside sharp bony facial features, stared hard; and when he spoke his rasping voice failed to hide an underlying anger that was not newly acquired but had been fester-ing for some time: ‘Greetings, O worthy Earl. My name is Beorn; aie ye here ti parley?’

‘Greetings, worthy thane. I am Earl Harold sent by King Edward who sends his friendly greetings.’

For a timeless moment they eyed each other as though search-ing for something hidden behind each other’s eyes that might give the other an advantage.

Earl Harold raised his voice for all to hear: ‘I bring you a message from your King. If you lay down your arms, your King, in full earnestness and with the help of God, will listen to all your com-plaints . . . and furthermore, he guarantees to remedy any mis-deeds and misjudgements that have been made against you.’

An impatient hush followed while everyone’s eye, King’s man and rebel, turned to Beorn, waiting on the reply. When Beorn did speak it was an obviously prepared answer: ‘Northumbrians haive been wrainged. Earl Tosti has nae carried out proper law. He has extorted dues without rights; his men haive mairdered villagers and thanes under safe conduct and he has nae upheld King Cnut’s laws.’

Eric had to stretch his ear to follow Beorn’s brogue but clear enough was the message, laced as it was with deeply wounded feelings of injustice: Earl Tosti was not fit to rule, so they had got rid of him, and that was their right.

Earl Harold stood unmoved.‘Arll o’ Northumbria, and the men from Derby, Leicester, Notting-

ham and Stamford are wi’ us,’ Beorn ended.Every eye turned to Earl Harold who could have been a statue

with his arms stiffly down by his sides and looking straight at

Beorn. His reply came evenly, unhurried: ‘An Earl needs a strong arm and a dauntless heart to rule - Earl Tosti has these. He must have no fear, nor give no favour - Earl Tosti does this. You have made charges against him that may be true, or may not be true, but they have to be proved. As a fair and just man I give you my guarantee - even though these charges are against my own brother - that the King will ensure that justice is done.’

Harold paused for emphasis: ‘This rebellion is no longer against Earl Tosti - it is against your King. You must show loyalty to your King and lay down your arms.’

For a brief moment Beorn turned his head towards a youth amongst his own party who just perceptibly shook his head side-ways. Stretching to his full height, Beorn then said: ‘Tosti is yer brother and ye will support him, and so will the King. We do nae expect justice. We were bairn free and if necessary we will die free. As sure as God’s beacon rises i’ the heavens we’ll nae endure Tosti. We have elected Morcar as our ruler and he is now Earl o’ Northumbria and tha’ the King must accept.’

At this, Eric realised that the youth in the parleying party was Morcar, younger brother of Earl Edwin of Mercia. Harold must have recognised Morcar but could not, would not acknowledge him as Earl of Northumbria. It became plain to Eric that the rebellious fury of the Northumbrians had been calculated, planned and timed to succeed while Earl Tosti was hunting with the King at Salisbury.

Earl Edwin of Mercia, hemmed in north and south by the God-wins, saw advantage in getting rid of Earl Tosti and replacing him with his own brother, Morcar. And the Welsh attack at Portskewet now made sense - Caradog’s assistance had been enlisted to divert Earl Harold.

Eric looked to Earl Harold who stood patiently weighing the rebels’ determination. So still, so calm was he, it seemed his heart had stopped while his mind went into a corner to confer with itself.

Everyone else stood rooted in unbearable strain, nerves gripped tight in the confrontation, awaiting the outcome.

With a blink of his eyes, Earl Harold’s whole body stiffened into alertness and when he spoke, his voice was not as loud as before,

though more fervent: ‘If you wield your weapons of war, it will be against your own countrymen. Englishmen will be fighting English-men and all blood spilt will be English. There will be no gain for you, or I, or any Englishman - the only profit will be for foreigners.’

Beorn hesitated, only a moment: ‘Without honourable vassalage, Northumbrians will stay clad i’ steel, ne’er turn hence, ne’er flee one foot, ready ti sink into the slaughter. Blood has already soiled the ground and we’ll nae hesitate ti spill more. We’ll nae yield.’

Earl Harold waited, his face grimly set, eyeing Beorn. It seemed forever.

In the suspenseful silence, Eric stood peering bleakly, the rain-drops accumulating on the end of his nose beginning to irritate, itching to be wiped away. He dared not move a finger, fearing that any disturbance would shatter any chance of peace for ever.

At last, with a minuscule, acquiescent twitch of his eyebrows, Harold replied: ‘I will take your message to your King.’

Resignedly, Earl Harold of Wessex turned away, pulled the soggy King’s banner out of the ground, lifted himself along with his failure into the saddle and ordered his party back from whence it came. Spirits weighed heavily on the return journey carrying a message of war.

The mud-splattered party arrived back at Britford expecting to find fyrdmen mustering but few had turned out - they did not believe it to be their fight.

The King was furious. Despite it being the festival of St. Simon and St. Jude he called another meeting of the Witan.

Only on the following day did Eric learn the outcome of this meeting when Vebba informed him that the King had agreed to the Northumbrian demands.

Eric’s eyes widened in surprise.‘This meeting was worse than the first one,’ Vebba told him. ‘The

King’s face glowed red and he shook as if in a fever: ‘God will avenge those who have not done their duty and withheld their services,’ he shouted. ‘They have already lost my friendship.’

‘But Earl Harold summed up what we all thought: ‘The rebellion was against Earl Tosti himself, not against the King who must

solve the Northumbrian problem himself, and then there would be peace.’

’Tosti shouted that he had been betrayed and accused Harold of treachery. Harold told him he had brought it upon himself. It chilled my blood to see two brothers at knives drawn.’

Eric felt no surprise at all - angels could fall out with Earl Tosti.’With no fyrdmen to call on and the thanes backing Earl Harold,

the King had no choice but to exile Tosti and make Morcar, Earl of Northumbria. Tosti stormed out vomiting promises that all would live to regret his betrayal . . . but he will have to eat the bread of the stranger in banishment and disgrace.’

Vebba’s voice shrank to a whisper: ‘The King wore all the weight of his winters. I swear to you Eric, he looked like - may God forgive me for saying so - a shrivelled old man and that’s the truth.’

Eric didn’t take in Vebba’s last words about the King - Earl Tosti in exile had stuck in his brain. If Tosti goes into exile then so does Siward which meant there would be no charges against himself, no housecarle court, no banishment . . . and no chance to wreak his revenge. Feelings of relief were mixed with regret.

‘Mind!’ Vebba added. ‘The Godwins have come back from exile before, so make a notch at my words, Eric - Tosti will be back and with trouble.’

A high price had been paid for peace. Tosti’s exile struck the King like a winter virus, changing him from an active to an ailing King and he suffered the first of his enfeebling seizures.

Two Mercian brothers had formed an alliance in the North and two Godwin brothers had become irretrievable enemies.

None of this was too much concern to Eric. His thoughts had turned to Gwener and finding pledge money for her hand in marriage. What he needed to do was win her respect and esteem.

Chapter 8: Death of a King

King Edward came to Westminster at Christmas, and there let the minster be hallowed that he himself built, to the glory of God and all God’s saints; the hallowing was on the Innocents’ Day. He passed away on Twelfth Night and was buried on the twelfth day in the same minster.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle AD 1065

Christmas Eve was an exultant celebration of a birth, but festive season or not, housecarles still had to earn their pay. Eric was one of Earl Harold’s escort of twenty housecarles on their way to celebrate Christmas on Thorney Island which lay in the middle of the Thames River.

As the party rode over London bridge, the drizzling rain seeped through Eric’s cloak, sheepskin lining, woollen tunic and into his bones. He hoped a Yule log burning in the hearth, a tender chicken in the pot and a jug of warm wine might greet them at the King’s palace to warm their hearts in celebratory cheer. There was always hope!

When Eric arrived at the spot on the bridge where he had heard the hooded women’s prophecy earlier that summer, his numb

fingers reached inside his tunic for the crucifix chained round his neck. It felt cold and comforting yet revealed no explanation.

Passing the stone and timber fort at the end of the bridge, they turned west, their horses’ hooves splattering a path through nar-row streets of huddled timber dwellings.

The crumbling Roman wall built by Emperor Constantine peeked at them from their left, and on their right stood the church of St. Paul’s where King Ethelred lay buried. If rumours were true it would not be long before his son King Edward joined him - the King’s health had seriously worsened since the rebellion.

Through Ludgate, across Fleet bridge and on to Charing village where stone-masons, blacksmiths and carpenters were complet-ing their last work for the new abbey church, the reason why King Edward was holding his Christmas court on Thorney Island, so named because of its abundance of bramble bushes. After fifteen years of planning and building he was now ready to fulfil his lifelong ambition and dedicate his new church to St. Peter.

A ferry boat took the party across the narrow stream separating the mainland from Thorney Island. The island’s holy reputation had been gained from the numerous churches built on the island. Eric recalled one story, probably a tall one, that St. Peter himself had dedicated one church and had paid the ferryman in geese.

Why anyone should want to build a church on an island in the middle of a river with the Tyburn marshes as neighbours, Eric could not understand. True, it was warm and pleasant in summer, but in winter the damp and misty air chilled the body into shivers. And you needed a boat to go to church.

When Eric saw the new church he had to admit that it was impressive, easily the largest building, timber or stone he had ever seen. It towered upwards forever and he felt for the safety of the workmen balancing precariously up in the clouds mounting a weather vane on top of the central tower.

Dwarfed in comparison was the King’s Palace with its long row of arched windows and cloisters. It was brimming over with abbots and bishops, banging elbows with earls and thanes, here not only for the Christmas festival and church dedication but also for a meeting of the Witan. Everywhere was a tight squeeze. Eric and

the other escorts had to fit themselves into outbuildings, bedding down with Benedictine monks of the island’s older foundation and craftsmen still working on the church.

Eric’s hoped-for chicken turned out to be unrecognisable stew and cold ale instead of warm wine. At least he found a warm fire and expelled some of the damp from his bones before beginning to scout around.

The feeling he got was less a happy celebration of a birth than the anticipation of a funeral. The King was unable to rise from his bed after another seizure and rumour had it that it was his death-bed. The atmosphere improved little when he stumbled across Vebba the Thane whose face and running nose epitomised the surroundings - cold and miserable.

’Good Tidings, Vebba,’ Eric cheerfully greeted him. ‘It may never happen.’

‘It will!’ Vebba mournfully replied, his voice heavily nasal.‘What will?’‘The King won’t last much longer. But who is going to succeed

him? That’s the problem.’‘Problem? I presumed it was going to be Edgar the Atheling, the

surviving seed of the Wessex kings.’‘Too young - he’s only fourteen; can’t speak English; his father

was never crowned, and he’s got no support.’Eric got the impression that it was Vebba’s problem alone: ‘Has

King Edward named a successor?’‘All he has said so far is that the Kingdom of the English belongs

to God and He will provide according to His pleasure.’‘There is a rumour,’ Eric suggested with a mischievous gleam in

his eye, ‘that the King has promised the throne to William, Duke of the Normans.’

Horror overtook Vebba’s face: ‘You can’t really believe that! What do we want a foreigner for, least of all a Norman? No! No! What we need is a strong ruler to prevent Duke William from invading and taking over the kingdom. We need someone we can trust, someone who can defend the kingdom against invaders.’

Vebba deliberately stared at Eric who, knowing he was hinting at their own lord, Earl Harold, teased: ‘Oh! You mean me!’

‘Trust you to play the fool!’ Vebba exclaimed, stamping his foot in frustration and stalking off, loudly sniffing.

Nothing quite as entertaining presented itself to Eric during the rest of the day, and he spent Christmas Eve with Thorkill the Tall and other companions cheering themselves by the hearth fire, supping goblets of ale and telling tall stories.

The evening would have been improved with the addition of female company, Eric reflected, especially a dark-haired minstrel girl whom he couldn’t get out of his mind.

The next day King Edward rose from his sick bed with a great effort of will and donned his crown and regalia to attend the Christmas Day service. Before entering the church for the service, Eric craned his neck to look up at the central tower that stretched up and up, looking coldly down on him, an incomprehensible block of ruddy stone, strange and proud, dwarfing him into insignificance.

He entered the church by the west door, stood in the nave, looked about, and his mouth dropped open at the church’s sheer length and space. Never before had he been in a building with so much unbroken space from end to end.

And the height: the tower stretched up and up to the sky, its spiralling staircase climbing forever, perhaps to heaven. The craftsmanship he found admirable, so fine, so grand, yet so cold and empty. Everything and everyone were so distant, the length endless, the stone so chilling, the choir’s voices so lost in this vast void that they might as well have been singing in the next shire. The stony magnificence left him untouched and cold.

Eric guessed the church had been designed by a Norman for it showed their mark of grandeur and coldness. A church needed the warmth of wood and plaster and painting, simple and homely. This stone church left him cold and he was not entirely sad when the service was over.

Not invited to the King’s evening banquet because he was persona non grata with Queen Edith, Eric spent his evening in front of a warm fire amongst his companions indulging in dark ale and good fare. Not his usual self, he had been unable to forget Gwener. Try as he might to push her to the back of his mind she kept coming back in a recurring vision, her eyes shining, her face

glowing and her voice singing sweetly. And now, as he stared reflectively into the fire, there she was, smiling up at him out of the flames, firing up his heart.

Feeling the hand of Thorkill the Tall on his shoulder, he dragged his eyes away to find his friend looking at him smilingly, his ginger moustache hiding the upturned corners of his mouth.

‘Everything all right, Eric?’ Thorkill asked. ‘It’s not like you to be gloomy, especially at Christmas.’

‘It’s Gwener!’‘Ah! Troubles of the heart,’ Thorkill said, his face changing to

enlightenment.‘You know she has refused to marry me . . . is there any point in

trying again?’A normally quiet, serious young man not given to rash decisions,

though his reactions were sharp enough at times of danger, Thorkill took time to answer. ‘I don’t profess to understand wom-en,’ he said. ‘Anyone who tells you that he does is a fool. What I do know is that sometimes they say yes when they mean no, and sometimes say no when they mean yes. You have to look behind the words. Has she told you that she does not like you?’

‘No, she has not exactly said that, but she cares nothing for housecarles.’

’Well, there you are. She does not like housecarles but she likes you - that’s the problem.’

Eric silently nodded. Thorkill opened the palms of his hands: ‘He who wants to win a

lady’s love must speak to her fair. That shouldn’t be any trouble for you Eric - you can charm the birds from the trees. He must praise the lady’s beauty, her figure and her winsome attributes. He must offer her presents.’

’You think I should propose again?’ Eric had already made up his mind to do so but needed extra assurance.

‘If you really care for the lady and you wish to win her then of course you must. Weak heart never won winsome lady.’

Eric focused his eyes into the hearth searching . . . and out of the fluttering embers of the fire Eric kindled a plan. It would take time and all of his pay but she was worth it. Hope brightened him. A

harsh winter may be ahead but his heart was full of youth and spring and love.

On the following day the King had another seizure and was too stricken to leave his chambers. Three days later on Holy Innocents Day, he was still too ill to attend the consecration of his abbey church. Eric felt that fortune had frowned darkly upon the King who had spent fifteen years planning and building the church and then missed its consecration. Was it God’s rebuke, he wondered? If so, it was harsh.

The King hovered between coma and delirium. The Witan wait-ed, anticipating their duty to choose a successor and in the next few hesitant days an uncertain future lay in men’s minds, adding another layer of fog to the mist already blanketing the island. As Eric wandered about he caught snippets of conversations:

’Edgar the Atheling is only a boy.’‘But he is the only living son of the English royal house.’‘The successor has to be English - people won’t accept a for-

eigner.’‘He has to be strong, able to defend the kingdom.’Earl Harold’s name he heard more and more. Opinion hardened

that he was the best man to succeed. Duke William was not on anybody’s short list, except among the Normans at court.

New Year came and went. Time lingered. The searching, cling-ing damp and the morbid waiting for death shivered everyone’s bones. Eric saw nothing of Earl Harold, and tired of kicking his heels on the chilling, holy island, wandered through the cloisters of the old monastic buildings and who should he bump into?

Two Norman knights, Roger de Beaumont and Hugh Margot, old acquaintances from the King’s hunting party the previous summer.

Eric felt no surprise at seeing them here, not with Hugh’s keen interest in the succession. ‘Good Tidings!’ he greeted, trying to sound welcoming.

Hugh’s smile took time to form and then did not reach his cold blue eyes. ‘Greetings! Not the most joyful time for us to meet again.’

It wasn’t a good time first time around, Eric recalled, but let it pass: ‘No it is not. I expect your question will be answered shortly.’

‘What question is that?’

Eric knew Hugh was acting dumb but played along: ‘Who will succeed King Edward?’

‘Edgar the Atheling, I believe you said.’‘Might be.’ Eric wasn’t being cagey; he really didn’t know.‘What about King Harald of Norway. I hear that he has a claim.

The English crown was promised to the King of Norway by Hardi-canute.’

Eric had heard of this claim before but had never taken it seriously, in fact, never considered it at all. ‘No! No foreigner can be king.’

’Oh! What about King Sweyn of Denmark? He has many rela-tions in England. Isn’t he Earl Harold’s uncle?’

‘Yes, but again, he is a foreigner.’‘Earl Harold is not of royal blood, is he? So he cannot succeed.’’Not necessarily so,’ Eric argued, rising to the defence of his lord.

‘The Witan will elect the most capable - whether of royal blood or not.’

’Do you believe that Earl Harold will succeed to the crown?’ Hugh probed.

’Yes, I believe he will be elected.’ Eric was not really so sure but was not going to tell that to Hugh.

Having pressed Eric into an opinion, Hugh began to undermine it. ‘King Edward has already promised the crown to Duke William.’

From his first meeting with Hugh, Eric had never taken the knight too seriously. He always had this urge to be flippant in the face of arrogance. ‘News to me!’ he said nonchalantly shading the truth for he had heard the story several times. ‘I don’t know when that could have been - the Duke has never been to England.

‘Duke William came to England fifteen years ago. The promise was made then.’

‘Fifteen years ago!’ Eric contemptuously cried, pulling his face into exaggerated incredulity. ‘Tell me then! Why hasn’t he graced our shores since?’

Visibly rebuffed for the moment, Hugh hesitated.‘Does he have any estates in England?’ Eric demanded, begin-

ning to enjoy Hugh’s discomfort. ‘Is there any written pledge? Any deed? And why is he not here now, to claim his crown?’

Hugh recovered composure: ‘None of these are necessary. A promise is a pledge that cannot be broken.’

‘It has to be sworn before witnesses.’‘Not between honourable men. A promise is a pledge-‘’I know, that cannot be broken,’ Eric completed in exasperation

and turned to Roger who so far had said nothing.‘Yes, it is true,’ Roger concurred. ‘King Edward did promise the

crown to Duke William. As you know, Duke William is related to the King and it was the Duke’s family who harboured Edward for many years when he was in exile in Normandy.’

‘But that’s no reason . . .’ Eric began and stopped short as he recognised the deadly earnestness in the faces in front of him. Up to this point, Eric had treated the conversation as friendly banter to pass the long depressing waiting; but now, he realised how serious these two Normans were. Eric had woken up to their stop-at-nothing determination to secure the crown of England for Duke William. The recognition came like the jolting clang of a sword falling on the ground between housecarle and knight.

Eric narrowed his eyes and peered more closely at the two knights. As he did, it occurred to him - did it matter? They were not members of the Witan. They had no influence. How muddy-headed these Normans were. The Witan would never elect Duke William as King - he was a Norman. ‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ Eric ended with a condescending smile.

Hugh added nothing and he reminded Eric, just as he had at their first meeting, of a bird of prey that had selected its prey and was toying before striking. His determined air made Eric feel uneasy.

’King Edward may yet recover his health,’ Roger said. ‘We should all pray that he may live for many more years.’ Eric and Hugh nodded assent though neither believed he would and all three carried on their way.

Eric had not gone far before he heard the shouted news that the King had recovered. Unfortunately it turned out to be premature. As often happens, his recovery was a temporary rise in spirit before a final succumbing and he died that same evening after his household had been summoned to hear his last will and testament.

The following morning, Eric’s long arm caught Vebba before he went into a meeting of the Witan. Eric opened with his usual question: ‘What’s happening? Did the King name a successor?’

‘I wasn’t present at his death you know,’ Vebba sniffed. ‘I can only tell you what I have been told.’

‘That’s better than nothing.’‘The King didn’t name a successor at first. He told of a vision he

had: two monks he had known in Normandy came to him and told him that because all the earls and churchmen in England were the servants of the devil, God had cursed the kingdom. So for a year and a day after his death, devils would come through the land with fire and sword and havoc of war. And because the people would not repent, God would not stop punishing England for her sins till a green tree, in full leaf, cut in half had rejoined itself by its own efforts.’

Eric looked at Vebba in amazement. He had heard this story before from a hooded, prophetic woman on London Bridge. Was the woman a sybil after all?

‘Do you believe it?’ he gasped to Vebba.‘By all accounts Queen Edith believed it. She did not stop weep-

ing.’That sealed it for Eric. If Queen Edith believed it then it must be

true. ‘Everyone else was terrified except for Archbishop Stigand who said the King was out of his mind with sickness and senility. The King could not have been all that much out of his mind because he asked that God’s mercy may reward Queen Edith with eternal joy in heaven for she had always been at his side like a beloved daughter with dutiful and loving service.’ Eric was touched.

‘The King then commended the Queen and the entire kingdom to the protection of Earl Harold and then asked to be buried in the new abbey church.’

’Does that mean Earl Harold will be king,’ Eric asked, still unsure.’Of course it does. All that is needed now is for the Witan to

confirm it. They can hardly go against the King’s last will and testament, and then we can all go home and live in peace. If we hang about this damp island much longer none of us will survive

the winter.’ Vebba’s voice was cracking up, his nose running as he clasped his cloak tightly around him.

Eric could hardly believe it - he was going to be a king’s escort.The Witan went into session. Meanwhile Eric wandered by the

workshops of the old monastery and at a small half-stone, half-timbered building he stopped to watch a monk fashioning a book.

Wearing a drab, almost colourless cowl and tunic, the monk bent over his table gilding the book with gold leaf. Never having seen a book close up, Eric looked over his shoulder in curiosity. On impulse, since the monk obviously knew about precious metals, Eric asked him to examine his crucifix.

The monk searchingly looked the housecarle up and down, politely disdainful of Eric’s bright clothes and obvious profession, but took the crucifix and held it up to the light. His eyebrows knitted and asked: ‘Where did you get it?’

‘I found it.’ Eric knew it was a stupid answer the moment he said it and the monk’s eyes slid sideways towards him.

‘It was dropped by a thief, who drowned in the river,’ he hurriedly added and realised that sounded just as foolish.

The monk looked even more suspiciously: ‘This crucifix belongs in a church. Beautifully engraved; real quality work; old Roman silver I would say - reworked by a Saxon goldsmith. Yes, too good to be anything else,’ the monk said appreciatively. ‘Which church does it belong to?’

‘I don’t know. I think it holds some meaning.’‘Of course it holds some meaning! It is Christ’s crucifixion!’ With

his face only a hand’s breath from Eric’s, the monk’s eyes searched into Eric’s soul. ‘You are a Christian, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Eric blurted, taking the crucifix back, almost snatching it in his embarrassment. ‘Thank you for your help,’ he stammered awkwardly and turned away, feeling the monk’s eyes staring into his back as he hurried off. He was unable to explain it to himself, let alone the monk, that the crucifix seemed to have a will of its own.

Chapter 9: Coronation

Earl Harold was also hallowed king – and he had little peace during the time he ruled the kingdom.,


The Witan confirmed Earl Harold as their new King and Edward's funeral was arranged for the Feast of Epiphany.

Eric knew that the funeral would be nothing like the wake he was used to - lamentations followed by an elaborate meal with drinking and merry-making. Solemn and grand and fit for a king this one would be - and so it was.

First there came candles, crosses and the choristers singing an anthem, followed by the King’s body completely shrouded on an open bier covered by a richly embroidered pall with an attendant either side ringing a bell. The widow and mourners followed the bier in a procession that stretched all the way from the palace to the new church. The King was buried in a stone sarcophagus sunk into the main altar with a sceptre by his side and a crown upon his head amid weeping and sighing.

A month of prayers was ordered and money distributed to the poor.

Having bid farewell to the old king, the mourners prepared to acknowledge the new one and King Harold’s coronation was programmed for that same afternoon.

‘This afternoon? It’s a bit quick after the funeral, isn’t it?’ Eric exclaimed to Vebba.

‘Have to think about the future,’ Vebba said huskily. ‘We can’t hang about this damp island any longer. The Witan won’t meet again until Easter and an uncrowned king will leave the kingdom wide open to any invader.’

’Suppose the funeral feast can serve as the coronation feast,” Eric said wryly.

In the new abbey-church that afternoon, Harold took a triple oath of peace, promising justice and mercy to his people and when Archbishop Ealdred asked if they accepted Harold as their king, Eric and Vebba shouted ‘Vivat’ along with the rest of the congre-gation.

If Eric had any future plans of his own they were soon quashed. Now a King’s housecarle, he had to escort King Harold and Bishop Wulfstan to York to appease the Northumbrians who complained that they had not been consulted over Harold’s crowning.

King Harold stayed in York until Easter when a long-haired star appeared in the sky. Causing much disquiet, the comet was widely believed to be an ill-omen. King Harold returned to London.

After Harold’s crowning, Roger de Beaumont and his party left

for Caen in Normandy to report to Duke William. Hugh Margot, having convinced Roger of the necessity for speed, rode ahead to be the first to give news of King Edward’s death - and more importantly, Harold’s coronation - to the Duke.

The cold stone floor of the sparsely furnished room inside Duke William’s fortress chilled Hugh’s feet and spread shivers up his body. Filling the entire ornately carved chair in front of him, William stared unblinking, waiting for Hugh to speak, his sharp blue eyes

cutting deep into Hugh’s own eyes. Hugh feared that William was able to read his every thought.

‘My lord, I bring grave news,’ Hugh said, a little hesitantly.William still silently waited.‘Your cousin King Edward of England is dead.’William blinked into life, repeating with surprise: ‘My cousin is

dead?’’He died seven days ago on the Vigil of Epiphany.’A heavy silence followed and eventually William said: ‘He was a

noble and saintly king.’ There might have been a reverential tone beneath his harsh intrusive voice but no one would guess. His wide, thin mouth was hard set and his eyebrows bristled below a square forehead.

Everything about him was square - square head, square shoul-ders, like a stone cut ready to go into a church wall. His purple robe stretched tight across his chest as he rose from his chair and strode to look out the window: ‘He was a good king though deprived of his homeland for many years. My father and I har-boured him . . . and his brother and sister when they were exiled.’

Turning away from the window, William stared unblinkingly at Hugh: ‘Earl Godwin murdered Alfred, Edward’s brother, did you know that?’

Hugh only dared nod an affirmation.‘Edward, my cousin, had a pious spirit and a righteous soul,’

William added, his square face and jaw drooping slightly under his close-cropped, spiky hair. ‘You bring me news of the succession?’ he added deceptively casually, a beam of winter sunlight striking his face as coldly as it struck the chilled surrounding stone walls.

Nervously tightening his fingers, Hugh mentally braced himself as if for a fight: ‘Earl Harold was crowned king on the same day as the funeral.’

Duke William erupted: ‘Earl Harold is king!’ he shouted, his face darkening purple. ‘No! No! This cannot be! The crown has been promised to me. It is mine by right.’

Stomping rapidly back and forth across the room, fists clenching and unclenching, eyes blazing, he eventually stopped in front of

Hugh, his furious face no more than a hand’s breadth from Hugh’s nose. Hugh instinctively blinked.

‘How has this happened? How? Harold is a usurper!’ William shouted louder still and stared at Hugh with a furious, demanding glare.

Hugh gulped; it took all his willpower not to look away from William’s blazing eyes: ‘King Edward commended the Queen and the kingdom to the protection of Earl Harold and the Witan ac-cepted him as king,’ Hugh explained.

‘The Witan! Who are they?’ William’s voice had adopted an injured edge at this injustice that had been dealt him.

‘Earls and churchmen-‘‘Churchmen! The English church has no authority - Archbishop

Stigand has been excommunicated.’After this pronouncement William calmed a little and returned to

the window. Hugh waited for what seemed an eternity, as if guilty of a crime and awaiting sentence. ‘What is your opinion of the English fighting strength?’ William suddenly asked.

Hugh hesitated at first but then spoke quickly: ‘The thanes are only part-time soldiers but the housecarles are well-trained warri-ors who fight on foot. It is said that one housecarle is worth two Norwegians though they over indulge in gluttony and drinking.’

William stared through the window at the distant stone towers of St. Stephen’s abbey – the abbey that he himself had endowed. ‘Bah! Nothing ever changes in England. They are without disci-pline.’

One thing Duke William was not short of was discipline. Rollo, his thrice great grandfather, had led his Vikings, Norwegian and Danish, into capturing the town of Bayeux where he claimed in polygamous fashion, Popa, the daughter of the town’s leader. She bore him a son named William Longsword, the first in the line of Dukes of the Normans.

Rollo backed the King of the Franks against other invaders - Hungarians, Slavs and Saracens, and as more and more Norse-men joined him he formed his own colony around Rouen.

Over the years the Norsemen became Christians, took up the Romance language, inter-married with the Franks and established

a duchy ruled by armed knights who learned to fight from the stirrup and saddle.

Especially breeding their horses for fighting, they rode them into battle much as their forebearers had sailed up the rivers in their longships to pillage and slay. Laying siege to fortified towns, they starved them into submission and expanded their domain. They loved fighting so much they were forever challenging each other in private wars.

William was only eight years old when he succeeded to the dukedom and right from the start he mastered the art of survival, thwarting all attempts to control him - his four guardians all met violent ends - and as he grew he learned how to dominate and manipulate others.

Knighted at the age of seventeen, he was a fine rider, archer and swordsman with a big physique and bigger ambitions. Sniffing out all threats to his rule, he ruthlessly dealt with any treachery and eliminated his enemies.

William may have been born a bastard but was born to lead. Tough, unsentimental, a brilliant organiser, not clever but worldly wise, he held a contempt for failure. He dominated his intellectual superiors by strength of will, flattery, threats, force, or any means that would gain his ends.

Never deceived by flattery himself, he was skilled in the art of persuasion, and if that failed he ruthlessly waged war. Power and prestige were William’s ambitions and he troubled himself little with the spirit.

After defeating the King of France in battle, he used a scorched earth policy to subdue Maine and Brittany. Placing his own men in command of provinces and castles, he totally controlled his duchy. His two half-brothers held key positions: Odo, a military man, was Bishop of Bayeux and Robert was Count of Mortain.

William now turned back to Hugh, confiding in a low, husky, voice: ‘I will need to be informed as to how this usurper fares: where his defences lie and where they are weak, where his ships are deployed, where his fighting men are stationed and how the land lies.’

This was the opportunity Hugh had been aiming for and he grasped it with both hands. ‘I know England well, my lord,’ Hugh exaggerated, but this was no time to sell himself short. ‘It would be an honour to serve your interests and keep you informed of all happenings in England.’

The Duke’s eyes travelled slowly from Hugh’s face down to his feet and back again: ‘Bring me word of all occurrences in England for information has its own rewards.’

Both men eyed each other with no necessity to speak, a bargain tacitly agreed. One aimed for a kingdom, the other for a small piece of it; each ready with a sword in one hand; and with the other to grab whatever was within reach.

William returned to look out of the window, his eyes focused into the distance: patience and far-sightedness were two of his other attributes.

Feasters had been revelling inside the hall since the horse racing

had finished that morning. Drink sloshed about in goblets before vanishing down throats and boasts of wondrous deeds came from long-haired men dressed in various furs.

Boasting loudest of all was an enormously tall man dressed in a leather jerkin of reindeer hide and seated in a decorously carved and cushioned high seat. He also drank the fastest.

King Harald of Norway, known as mighty Hardrada, the thunder-bolt of the north, a legend among Norsemen, feared and admired as a berserker, had poems written about him praising his savagery and his prowess.

Standing seven feet tall, he looked fierce, was fierce, as well as loud and combative. Though carrying more fat than he used to, he carried it well on his large boned physique. His long blond hair, now turning a metal grey, hung down to his shoulders, mingling into a drooping moustache and long beard.

Thirty five winters had passed since he had fought in his first battle on the side of his half-brother King Olaf. The battle lost, he

had fled across the Baltic Sea to find refuge with King Jaroslav, the ruler of Russia. After several years in his service, he took the old Viking trading route south, sailing down the Dnieper River, across the Black Sea to Constantinople, and joined the Varangian guard, a company of Norse warriors. The Varangian guard acted as bodyguard to Empress Zoe, ruler of the Byzantine Empire.

As Captain of the guard Harald's cunning and treachery became legendary throughout the Mediterranean. Fierce, resourceful, dou-ble-dealing, vengeful and cruel, he fought in the Greek Islands, North Africa and the Holy Land. Believing in fame, power and gold, he did not care how he got them.

When he decided he wanted to be a king he returned home to force King Magnus of Norway to share his kingdom with him. When Magnus died, Hardrada succeeded to the entire kingdom; except the Danes would not accept him.

For fifteen summers, Hardrada raided the Danish coastal towns, burned farms and carried off the womenfolk. Still King Sweyn and his Danes would not submit and Hardrada was eventually forced to sign a peace pact. In the two winters since, the lust for fame and glory that had driven Hardrada all his life was being annulled by feasting and drink. He and his warriors now lived on past glories, carrying the air of yesterday’s men.

At this latest feast, the court poet had recited a poem called ‘The Battle of Nissa’ that extolled Hardrada’s victorious exploits in a sea battle against the Danes. The poem lifted Hardrada up straighter, his eyes glinting with pride, if a little glazed from too much wine.

The men’s door at the end of the hall opened and a man, broader than Hardrada, though not as tall, came breezing in, accompanied by a few flakes of snow. Heading straight toward Hardrada, he bristled with animal energy, the livid battle scar down his left cheek in a flush, his greying hair belieing his youthful stride. An Icelander with exceptional strength, a wild, barely controlled force within a powerful body, Hakon was a battle veteran who had fought with Hardrada since their early days in the Varangian guard. As one of Hardrada’s marshals, he was not a man to cross, having reputedly put out the eyes of Empress Zoe’s husband.

‘I bring news fraim England, O King,’ Hakon announced loudly before reaching Hardrada. ‘King Edward is dead and Earl Harold rules.’

’Harold is king!’ Hardrada exclaimed, banging his goblet hard down on the table; and adding salt to the wound, shouted: ‘King Sweyn’s nephew!

‘Is it nae true tha’ the crown o’ England belongs ti the King o’ Norway by a treaty twixt King Magnus and King Hardicanute?’ Hakon demanded.

’It is true - Harold is a usurper,’ Hardrada answered loud enough for all to hear. His eyes began to glow. The prosperous kingdom of England, awash with riches and booty, was a beguiling attrac-tion - a far better proposition than Denmark.

After two idle summers, his battle-hungry warriors were itching for a fight and their fervour epitomised itself in Hakon’s eyes that glittered at the chance to recapture former glories; to be so famous that their names would live forever in the minds of men.

Despite two idle years and the attraction of England’s riches, Hardrada’s shrewdness was not lost: ‘What is the state of Eng-land?’ he asked Hakon.

“England’s treasury is full fraim profitable trade because nought is spent on defence. There are nae fortresses, nae defences at all a’ the river mouths,’ Hakon informed him. ‘The Northumbrians haive thrown out Earl Tosti, King Harold’s brother, for they haive nae love for the men o’ Wessex. All we haive ti do is win York and the Viking kingdom o’ Northumbria will caime ti our side. The Northumbrians hold ye in high regard.

Stories of Eric Bloodaxe, reigning in prosperity and surrounded by Norwegian followers at York a hundred years earlier, were still extolled by Hardrada’s poets.

‘What o’ the Mercians?’ Hardrada asked.‘The Earls o’ Mercia and Northumbria are brothers and will nae

fight each other.’‘What o’ the Wessex men?’‘They haive become accustomed ti peace and will nae fight

against the Northumbrians or the Mercians.’‘Harold has many housecarles.’

‘Harold will always negotiate rather than fight.’‘How can Harold be king if he does nae fight?’‘By treachery and double-dealing.’At this, Hardrada let loose a great bellow of laughter and slapped

his knees. Crooked dealing was something he well understood. His eyes narrowed. To rule England was an enticing prize but he had to be sure. All risks had to be considered and whether the odds were in his favour.

Excitement quickly grew among the Norwegian warriors at the prospect of this new enterprise, a chance to re-live former glories.

No one dreamed it might be their last great adventure.

Believing himself to be the true King of England, Duke William

decided to invade. The Pope sent along his blessing with a papal banner and a finger ring containing a hair of St. Peter himself.

To plan the way, Hugh Margot was sent by the Duke across the channel to survey Sussex. First he visited Rameslie Abbey where he put a proposition to the Norman Abbe: ‘If your harvest from all your estates is used to support invading Norman forces then Duke William will restore the estate of Steyning to your abbey.’ The estate had been taken away from the abbey by King Harold.

The offer found no genuine favour. The Abbe could not condone war. On the other hand he did not want to put the abbey at risk. Refusing to aid Duke William would undoubtedly bring a ruthless ruler’s wrath down on himself and the abbey. The Abbe had to reluctantly nod assent before lowering his eyes to the floor.

Satisfied the first half of his mission had been accomplished, Hugh rode off west following the bank of the river Brede. The keen March wind watered his eyes but he knew that at other times the mist could spread up river off the sea to blanket all movement and hide landmarks.

The ground was soft and soggy. The land needed to sustain an army, and the terrain not too rough or marshy to impede knights

on horses. Six soggy miles further on, at a ferry crossing, Hugh turned north.

To carry straight on up the road would lead him through the great forest to Maidstone, that he knew. Turning left, he followed a track that skirted the forest and took him back toward the coast.

The landscape became undulating with occasional steep little valleys. By a grey old apple tree at Caldbeck Hill, he came across a gruff, old pedlar who obligingly pointed out directions: “This road leads to Maidstone,” he said, pointing north. Gesturing south in the opposite direction, he said: ‘That road leads to Hastings.’

Pointing west, he added: ‘That road takes you to Lewes, either through the forest or along the coast, whichever takes your fancy.’

Hugh took the Hastings road but detoured west to follow Bulver-hythe harbour for a couple of miles before returning back to the same road. When Hugh arrived at the port of Rameslie, he real-ised he had ridden round in a circle, skirting what was more or less an island surrounded by forest to the north, the river Brede to the west, marshes in the east and the sea to the south - a good place to defend.

Sussex was more or less an island, like England in miniature. Rich in plough land for crops; orchards for fruit; woodland for hunting; pasturage for cattle; rivers full of fish; it was a prize amongst an English collection - a ripe plum ready for picking.

Hugh boarded a ship home to Normandy and reported his findings to Duke William.

Chapter 10: A Wedding

Then it happened that all through England such a sign in the heavens was seen as no man had seen before. Some men said it was the star, ‘Comet’, that some men call the long-haired star; it appeared first on the eve of Letania major, April 24th, and so shone all seven nights. Soon after that came Earl Tosti from across the sea into the Isle of Wight, with as many household troops as he could muster, and was given money and provisions.


Because of the strong west wind the captain of Alfred and Alnoth’s ship decided to put into the port of Sandwich, a decision that became another twist of fate that afflicted Alfred whenever life’s tide seemed to be running in his favour.

As helmsman, Alfred confidently steered the merchant ship into harbour. Still learning the practicalities of using the wind, tide, stars and birds to navigate, his confidence was growing and was beginning to feel closer to his ambition of becoming a ship’s captain.

Like snow in April, Alfred’s grief at losing his mother’s crucifix soon melted away. With the resilience of youth and helped by his new friend, Alnoth the Fisher, he had just got on with his life. Alnoth’s easy-come, easy-go attitude to life came as a tonic to Alfred after his disciplined life in the monastery.

As a snail to a swallow, the two fellow mariners were opposites. Alnoth, large, slow moving and slow thinking, was a homely man, a simple optimist who looked on the bright side, always ready to make a joke of everything. He held a simple philosophy - best take things as you find them; if something is going to happen, it will; so don’t worry, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Alfred was of scanty proportions, nervous, quick and intelligent, a bit of a rover yet he knew where he was going and determined to get there. Alfred did the thinking, took the lead and Alnoth followed, brave and strong, always astounded at Alfred’s knowl-edge of things of which he himself had no inkling.

A London burgess, impressed by Alfred’s theoretical knowledge of navigation and his smattering of French, took the pair on as mariners. He never thought to ask Alfred if he had been to sea before but Alfred learned quickly, one lesson in particular - no ship traded under an easy sail. Often there was an extra toll to pay: pirates, storms at sea, tidal currents and unpredictable fogs took their own percentage cut - along with the other unforseen twists of fate.

The large number of warships filling Sandwich harbour should have aroused the crew’s suspicions but their ship was berthed before they realised their mistake. No sooner were the anchor ropes tied than they were staring down the points of well-honed swords with housecarles and Flemish men-at-arms on the other end. Forced to unload their cargo, the crew were then ordered not to leave the port.

‘What’s going on?’ Alnoth demanded.Alfred doomfully explained: ‘Judging from the Flemish men-at-

arms, it appears that Tosti has returned from Flanders. Come back for a reckoning.’

Alnoth unlocked his word hoard: ‘I thought Tosti was in exile? What’s he doing back in England and what right has he to take our

cargo? He is not an earl anymore. Tosti and Harold are brothers, to be sure, but King Harold can’t have given Tosti leave to land his men. And what are these Flemings doing here?’

‘Count Baldwin of Flanders is obviously helping Tosti.’‘That don’t mean he can steal our ship and cargo!’‘Try arguing against swords!’Alnoth quietened at that and the despondent seven man crew

wandered through the mish-mash of huddled timber houses that made up the streets of the town looking for somewhere to lodge.

Alnoth started again: ‘He has no right to steal our cargo. An exile has no rights at all. Where is King Harold, that’s what I’d like to know? Tosti has . . .’ Alnoth’s voice tailed away at the sight of Alfred’s face which had turned as grey as smoke around wide, staring brown eyes.

‘What’s the matter?’ Alnoth asked. ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

Alfred had seen a ghost, an attendant spirit, a dark haired, broad shouldered housecarle heading their way. Fright gripped Alfred but indecision kept his legs moving forwards down the street towards the housecarle.

Would the housecarle remember him? Alfred remembered the housecarle clear enough so why shouldn’t he remember him? And Alfred knew exactly what the housecarle would do to him if he did recognise him - he had seen it written all over his face on London Bridge.

Calm! Think! To run now would be to give himself away, and where would he run to? He had to bluff it out. Desperately trying to appear casual, he half turned and chattered nervously to Alnoth whose head tilted in puzzlement: ‘No, it’s not a ghost but a bad penny that keeps turning up, an ill wind that’s always blowing me into stormy waters, a Jonah who appears at my every turn. Steer a course straight ahead . . .’

As they came abreast of the housecarle, Alfred’s whole body stiffened in dread. He felt sure that a flicker of recognition crossed the housecarle’s face but as quickly as it came, the slight quizzical look evaporated. Siward strode purposefully on and Alfred drew a long comforting breath. He then whispered a prayer of thanks.

‘That was the housecarle you met in the forest, wasn’t it?’ Alnoth asked, tumbling to Alfred’s fear.

‘Yes, that’s the one.’ Alfred had confessed his ill-fated encounter in the forest and on London Bridge to Alnoth some weeks earlier.

‘Does anyone else know?’‘No,’ Alfred answered quietly.Alnoth offered up one of his pearls of wisdom: ‘Confide only in

one, never two; confide in three and the whole world knows.’Alfred persuaded his face to smile. Alnoth clasped a friendly arm

around his shoulders, grinned broadly, and said: ‘You don’t have to look for trouble, do you, Alfred? It finds you!’

The captain and crew found a draughty ale-house, little better than a hovel, where they bedded down for the night.

Early next morning Tosti’s men rousted out all the ship’s crews in Sandwich, some willing, some not so. Not desiring to be pierced by a sword, Alfred, Alnoth, the rest of the crew and the captain, loaded some stores on to their ship and were forced to launch with three Flemings and two warriors from the Northern Isles aboard.

Alfred steered to their instructions and joined the rest of the fleet of sixty ships on an easterly course along the coast.

They did not turn into the Thames estuary as Alfred expected but crossed it and followed the coastline north. By the following morn-ing the fleet reached a river mouth, turned in and disembarked on a pebbly beach.

Leaving a third of their men to guard the ships and crews, the rest of their captors donned helmets and mail coats and sallied inland. Their ravaging was later confirmed by a pall of black smoke in the distance. They returned at dusk loaded down with provisions and plunder. Alfred, Alnoth and the rest of the crew could only watch appalled.

On each of the next two days, a ravaging party went out and returned, not only carrying provisions but also sporting artefacts and jewels. Alfred and Alnoth looked depressingly inland at the funereal smoke and wondered how many local people had been killed and when it would be their turn.

Minds sharpened towards escape - but how? As yet, and as luck would have it, Alfred had seen no sign of his Jonah - the housecarle.

The fleet took to sea, sailed north again, turned into another estuary and pulled up on shore. As before, a raiding party set off inland. By the middle of the second day they hadn’t returned and the crews’ guards were becoming increasingly nervous.

Alfred and Alnoth sat on the shore with their backs up against their ship. To while away the time, Alfred told Alnoth a story about King Cnut that concluded with the punch line: ‘. . . and of course, the tide still came in!’

‘King Cnut couldn’t stop the tide coming in?’ Alnoth said, puz-zled, expecting a funny ending and missing the point.

Alfred patiently explained: ‘Of course not. He wanted to show that, though he was king, he had no power over the tide. He could not produce miracles just because he was king.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Alnoth though neither his voice nor his face seemed sure. ‘What we need is a miracle - to grow us a pair of wings to fly us over the gannet’s bath and back home.’

Both lapsed into a silence of futility and frustration. Seagulls noisily pecked at spilled scraps of food on the beach and Alfred thought: scavengers, no different from their captors.

Alnoth said: ‘We are taking the whale’s path to the Northern Isles, further than the land of the Scots.’

‘How do you know that?’‘Those with the peculiar speech come from there - a place called

Hawk’s Knees.’Alfred was surprised that Alnoth knew that - he didn’t.‘Do you think they will kill us?’ Alnoth softly asked, his voice

unusually grave. Alfred realised that Alnoth had been hiding his real fears. ‘While

they need crews to man the ships they won’t harm us,’ he an-swered, trying to put confidence into his voice.

‘Life is but a brief candle. He who does not know his fate is free-est of care,’ Alnoth pronounced.

Alnoth’s homespun philosophy brought a wry smile to Alfred who looked out to sea. Having cleaned the beach of scraps of food, the seagulls wheeled and squawked overhead. The tide had begun to recede. No sign of the raiding party. Time lingered. Alfred turned his head to look along the beach where men were lounging, or

stretching their legs as far as the guards would allow. The air was brooding and tense, the only sound the lapping of the sea against the shore.

Alfred’s senses sharpened as he heard what sounded like a cry beyond the ridge of bushes and grasses among the sand dunes, maybe a bird. Another cry and he strained his ears like a startled deer. Yes, definitely shouts and cries - and they were human. Everyone jumped up looking alert and nervous.

Over the dunes, gasping, almost exhausted and in a panic, staggered the remnants of the raiding party. Some had lost their weapons, some carried bloody wounds, but all floundered through the sands frantically shouting ahead to launch the ships. Whilst their guards rushed across the dunes to help their injured com-rades, Alfred saw his chance to launch the ship - without their captors.

Shouting at the captain and the crew to shove off, Alfred quickly untied the anchor ropes. All hands pushed hard but the shelving of the beach was shallow and it seemed an interminable time before the ship came afloat.

Alfred jumped in, took the helm and glanced behind to see the returning raiders forcing their way through the shallows and clos-ing on the ship’s stern. Close to panic, Alfred desperately shouted to the crew: “Row! Row! Pull hard on the oars!”

Alnoth pulled hard on his oar but other crew members hesitated, looking fearfully at their captor’s hands desperately reaching up to the side of the ship. Their hesitation was enough to allow the leading raider to take hold of the ship and begin to haul himself in.

Alfred’s heart leapt within him when he recognised him, his tormentor, the housecarle who had blighted his life, bringing fear and affliction along for the ride. Alfred froze, unable to act, just staring into those fierce eyes and scowling face about to jump aboard.

Despite the encumbrance of his mailcoat and sword Siward would have made it into the ship but Alnoth quit his oar, leaped across in front of Alfred and smashed his big fist full into Siward’s face.

Stunned, Siward fell back into the water and when his head re-appeared, recognition lighted his eyes. ‘You!’ he shouted, now remembering where he had seen Alfred before.

Siward threshed and splashed his arms in the water but it was too late, and too deep. The ship moved away leaving him and his fellow raiders floundering and shouting uselessly. The last sight Alfred got of Siward was him pulling himself into a more obliging ship. Frantic oars of Alfred’s ship drove hard through the water, fear providing strength and the will to put distance between the ship and shore. The hoisting of the sail added a few more knots and when out of the estuary, Alfred turned the ship south. More ships joined them, having abandoned Tosti’s punitive expedition. Only a dozen ships containing Tosti, his most faithful housecarles, and the men from the Orkney Isles sailed north.

Alfred’s ship was first into the port of London where the captain praised Alfred for his quick thinking but would he please forewarn him next time of his intentions.

Relief at their escape was tempered by another unexpected turn - King Harold had called up the fyrd.

‘Called up the fyrd? What for? Tosti has gone north!’ everyone protested.

’Tosti is not the danger - Duke William is going to invade,’ the burgess informed them. ‘And the ship and crew will be in the service of the King for the next two months.’

Alnoth voiced everyone’s exasperation: ‘What right has Duke William to invade us? We’ve already got a king; what do we want with another? The Duke’s brain must be addled to invade. Like sticking his head into a hornet’s nest - King Harold will just throw him back into the sea.’

Alfred said nothing, knowing from experience how single-minded and resolute the Normans could be. He also foresaw the difficul-ties of intercepting an invading fleet at sea.

A week later, along with other ships and crews called up in service of the King, Alnoth and Alfred's ship began ferrying house-carles and fyrdmen along the south coast to the Isle of Wight.

Midsummer Day at Bosham and Edith Swanneck was organising a King’s banquet. All along the south coast men were scanning the horizon for the invasion fleet of Duke William, but the sea re-mained empty. Complacency increased with each weary, waiting day so King Harold decided to lift morale with a banquet.

By late afternoon Edith had finally checked inside the brewery that the ale was good and clear when Eric the Minstrel turned up, splendidly attired in his best tunic, his hair and moustache well trimmed. Over one arm draped a ladies gown and in the other an after-dinner harp.

Edith judged the gown and harp both far-fetched and dear bought, and she also noted that he appeared unusually nervous. ‘Everything all right, Eric?’ she asked, her face unable to hide her intrigue. ‘You will be reciting your epic poetry tonight? The King thinks it will boost morale.’

‘Yes, O gentle lady. There’s no problem there.’‘The gown and harp - who are they for?’Eric hesitated: ‘They are for a young lady . . . what I wanted to

see you about . . . but first I have brought a gift for your eldest son.’ Sliding it out of his belt he produced a dagger, slender and long with an inlay of bronze along the back of the blade. He presented it to Edith.

’That’s a very generous gift, Eric, for which Godwin will thank you personally. But why have you brought it?’ She wondered if this was one of Eric’s practical jokes. Was he actually smiling? She couldn’t always tell.

Eric put on his soft, persuasive voice: ‘I need to ask a favour. The minstrel girl Gwener, who is singing tonight, has turned down my marriage proposal . . . I am asking her again tonight.’

Edith raised her eyebrows as if she was unaware that Eric was smitten with Gwener. There were very few people in her house-hold who didn’t know. ‘You are serious? This is not one of your jokes?’

Eric always had difficulty appearing earnest: ‘It’s no joke. I’d like you to help persuade Gwener . . . tell her how long you have known me . . . that you knew my mother who was a fine singer; that I come from a good family.’

‘All right, Eric. I’ll tell her what a fine fellow you are and that you will make a good husband.’

‘You are a most gracious lady. I thank you earnestly for your help and I will toast you and your family - in your own fine ale.’

‘Big gifts are not always necessary,’ Edith admonished him with a smile. ‘Esteem can often be bought cheaply with half a loaf and a bottle of wine.’

‘The saints will reward you,’ Eric said.‘Did you know that Gwener’s father was bard and harpist to

Prince Gruffydd of Wales?’ Edith informed him.‘No, I didn’t,’ Eric answered thoughtfully, ‘but it comes as no

surprise that she is so close to royalty.’Eric smiled thankfully at Edith before turning and striding away.A short time later the banquet got under way. For Eric, banquets

usually passed at the speed of galloping horses but this particular one dragged. Perhaps it was because he could not wait for the minstrel singers to appear, or perhaps because he was only sipping at the brown nectar - he wanted to keep a clear head.

During the feasting, Thorkill and his other table companions pulled Eric’s leg over Gwener.

He protested, denied, pretended that he did not care and grinned through it all. He had no option - he did enough leg-pulling of his own.

Eric silently hoped his strategy would work. No expense or trouble had been spared. The full-length, green gown in Flanders cloth had cost him a lot of silver pennies at London market, and the lyre had been made by a craftsman. The maple wood for the frame and willow for the pegs had been supplied by Wulfmer the Woodsman.

At long last Gwener came into the hall, followed by Bleddyn carried by Big Wynne. As they made their way to the minstrel gallery, Gwener’s eyes searched the tables and having found Eric’s, held them for a moment in recognition, before lowering them again.

Eric found her no less bewitching, still holding that mysterious quality that so attracted him at their first meeting. After seating Bleddyn in a chair, Big Wynne left the dais to the two minstrels.

King Harold, sitting at the top table with his youngest brother Earl Leofwine, his mistress Edith and their three sons, waved a com-manding arm for the minstrels to commence and everyone quieted to listen.

During the performance, Eric managed to catch Gwener’s eye once but her eyelids quickly lowered to allow her to concentrate on plucking the harp strings.

Bleddyn ended their performance with a solo poem called, ‘The Phoenix’, about a mythical bird reborn in its own ashes. The audience seemed held as if in a spell, not just by the words of the song, but by the haunting quality of Bleddyn’s voice:

46 The Phoenix

No noise is heard where this wild birdNurtures its nest out in the wilderness.Tall in the tree where birds fly free,Flashing and fair to build its lair.In a high home amongst leaves alone.Plants become glowing in the dwelling,Fuming and fragrant the bird is burnedO’ a funeral pyre burned by fire.

The phoenix’s nest, flames most fiercest,Hissing, cackling burns the age-old bird.Then it grows, begets first like an eaglet,A fledgling fair that grows bigger ereIn exultant light until it is like an eagle.,Full grown with full, brilliant plumageIn an ending the same as beginning.’

At the completion of the song, Edith entered the minstrel gallery and began to speak with Gwener who stared at the floor while listening silently to Edith’s golden opinions of Eric. From beneath a puzzled frown Bleddyn looked up at the two women. When Edith had finished, Gwener looked up with anguished indecision all over her face and in a barely audible voice she said: ‘He is a housecarle!’

Edith set her face and motioned her arm around the hall: ‘If William the Bastard invades England, the only ones who will stop him burning and killing are these men here - these housecarles and thanes!’

By this time Eric’s fingers had begun to drum impatiently on the table and unable to await the outcome any longer he bounced to his feet and strode over to the dais. Edith intercepted him: ‘Do your recitation now, Eric - ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’ - a special request from the King.’

’A special request from the King?’ repeated Eric as though the petition had dropped from the skies. ‘Yes . . . surely,’ he uttered, unclear what was happening, but trusting to Edith who turned and ordered Gwener and Bleddyn to remain where they were.

It was an effort to suddenly have to concentrate on epic poetry but Eric bent his mind to it. A century earlier, West Saxons and Mercians had united under King Athelstan to crush a Viking invasion. It was just the poem to inspire King Harold’s men at this crucial time. Eric's recitation inspired much shouting amongst the audience, especially at the lines near the end.

Crowds of carcasses - left for carrion;Many livid ones and - many sallow sins.Left for the white-tailed - eagle to tear it.,Abandoned for the sharp - beaked raven to rip it.Forsaken for the scavenging - hawk to gorge it.That baying beast - the wolf of the Weald.’

Everyone cheered the end with every expectation that history would repeat itself and the invading Normans would also be defeated. Eric turned around to look down into Gwener’s eyes. They told him little.

Turning once more toward the audience, Eric recited another poem, one that the feasters did not expect. It was all about love and the last verse most expressed Eric’s feelings:

47 Lovelack

‘It was rainy weatherAnd with heavy heart at hearth;Thinking of my love’s wanderings.Here my grief grows,My lovelack preying on me.Some lovers in this lifeLive dear to each other;Lie warm together.The day’s beginning,I go by myself. ‘

Everyone in the hall was surprised - except Edith, Bleddynn and Gwener, who most sharply recognised its poignancy.

Choking with the sadness of the words, Gwener’s eyes blinked rapidly and flooded with tears. She turned her pleading face to Bleddyn whose eyes clearly registered understanding and he blurted back: ‘Marry the man before it is too late. Everyone has a right to be happy.’ Bleddyn had assumed that Gwener had turned Eric down for his sake because he was a cripple and did not want to desert him. In this there was some truth.

Eric gave Gwener no time for her to acknowledge Bleddyn’s approval. Grabbing her hand, he whisked her out of the minstrel gallery with her feet almost skimming the floor and galloped with her out of the hall into the evening twilight.

‘Wait here a moment,’ he told her before disappearing into a small outbuilding and re-appearing again with the gown and lyre. ‘To show my love for you and how deeply I care for you, please accept these betrothal gifts.’

Gwener was unable to answer, her eyes wet with weeping, her cheeks awash with tears.

‘I didn’t wish to make you cry,’ he said apologetically, holding out his arms.

A last tremor played around her lips, her resistance went com-pletely and she threw herself on to Eric’s breast, clasped her arms around him and sobbed: ‘I have been so blind.’

Completely stuck for words, Eric almost wept himself.‘I’ve loved you from our first meeting,’ she cried, clinging closer

still as Eric embraced her with his upper arms - his hands still held his gifts. ‘It was because of my mam and dad . . . I didn’t under-stand.’ She raised her tear-stained face to his and their lips met in a long lingering kiss that neither wanted to release lest they lose each other now they had finally come together. The barrier be-tween them broken, the kiss held for a long time.

Warmly conscious of her receptive body moulding into his own, Eric felt her heart beating quick and light like a bird’s as her caressing lips generously pressed against his own. She had given herself to him, he to her, and they had at last come together as one.

When their lips parted, Gwener’s tears had stopped, her face shining, her eyes glowing and luminous in the evening’s half light. Her voice no longer trembled but was rich and warm: ‘I’ll never be distant, never reject you again.’

‘You cannot live without love, whatever life’s injustices,’ Eric said, quoting a saying found from somewhere deep within his memory.

Affection filled her eyes, the dark veil that had covered them as a shelter from a violent world now gone. They kissed again, less desperately now, more tenderly, and when their lips parted, Eric pleaded: ‘Please accept these gifts so that I can embrace you properly.’

Gwener took the gown, felt it between her fingers and on her cheek. ‘It is so smooth, fine and beautiful,’ she appreciated and her eyes began to well again.

Eric handed her the lyre: ‘It’s an after-dinner harp, played on the knee - so they tell me.’

‘It’s marvellous. Where did you get it?’‘I had it made just for you . . . there’s one condition.’‘Oh!’’You have to play it just for me.’‘It’s a promise.’

The promise sealed with a kiss, Gwener unclipped her brooch from her robe and gave it to Eric. ‘An exchange of gifts means a sharing of burdens as well as happiness,’ she explained.

Bathed in moonlight and twinkling starlight almost as bright as day on the shortest night of the year, the loving couple strolled arm-in-arm toward the seashore.

‘I’ll see your brother in the morning to make proper betrothal arrangements.’

Gwener’s brow knitted slightly.‘Is there some problem?’ he asked concernedly.‘I am worried what will happen to him. I know he can sing on his

own but . . .’‘He can stay with us as long as he likes.’‘Eric, you are a generous man.’They passed a crumbling old Roman villa and amphitheatre

without a glance. It was part of the past - promise lay ahead. Standing so close with the moon reflecting on the water gently lapping against the sand, Eric looked into her eyes glistening in the moonlight. He kissed her face that was so warm and soft.

They were so close yet appeared such opposites - she was dark of Celtic descent, gifted in prose, poetry and music; he was fair of Danish blood, poetic, but a fighting man endowed with a spirit of adventure. Yet each found attraction in the other, drawn together by the inexplicable emotion of love.

They had much to learn about each other but in the meantime there was youth, passion and promise. War at that moment seemed a long way off.

After a cold August the whimsical English weather turned hot

and the wind went to sleep. On a grassy cliff top, south side of the Isle of Wight, Alfred and Alnoth peered out to sea.

For the thousandth time that summer Alfred tried to focus his eyes fifty miles away - all the way to the Duchy of Normandy but saw little through the heat haze.

King Harold’s strategy against Duke William’s invasion fleet Alfred had long since worked out. The English fleet will try to intercept the Norman fleet before it reaches shore, though it will require an early sighting with wind and tide in its favour.

Failing that, the King will attack the Duke as soon as he steps ashore. Using the speed of his ships, he will transport his army to wherever the Normans land. Marching his army along coast roads meandering in and out of the bays and having to ford rivers would take too long.

’He’s not coming,’ Alfred remarked with a mixture of boredom and disappointment. Alnoth’s large bulk did not stir. There had been no good reason for Alnoth to move before, so there was no good reason to move now. He had heard that same observation a thousand times. Three months had gone by and there was still no sign of Duke William’s fleet. ‘Better waiting than dead,’ he merely remarked.

The hot afternoon dragged on.‘Tell me one of your stories,’ Alnoth asked.‘All right,’ Alfred agreed, if only to break the boredom. ‘A story

about ‘King Alfred, eh?’‘I might have guessed - who would believe he is your favourite

king?’ Alnoth said with a grin.‘Our greatest king, Alnoth, get it right! It was Twelfth Night at King

Alfred’s camp. The Saxons had too much to drink and what do you think happened? The Danes attacked!’

Alnoth added his own two pennyworth: ‘There is no better load to carry than lots of common sense, no worse than too much drink.’

Alfred carried on: ‘All the Saxons took flight, some to their homes, some to France, but many were killed. For a long time Alfred hid in the forest and marshes of Somerset, most of the time on the Isle of Athelney. Sometimes he disguised himself as a minstrel harping through the Danish camps. And once he acted as a kitchen boy and got scolded for burning the bread.’

‘That was by a dairy maid wasn’t it?’‘No, that was another time.’‘Not much good as a cook, was he?’ Alnoth guffawed loudly,

slapping his hand on his knee.

‘Alfred won a great battle against the Danes on Exmoor and captured their enchanted banner called the ‘Raven’, supposedly woven in a single day by the three daughters of the famous Viking king, Ragnar Lothbrook. Then King Alfred baptised all the de-feated Danes.’

‘Baptised them?’ Alnoth exclaimed in amazement.‘Yes, though one old Viking veteran, who had been through the

ceremony a dozen times, complained that his vestment was not up to the usual standard.’

Alnoth rolled over in a fit of laughter.When Alnoth recovered, they resumed their surveillance and

their eye caught a small fishing boat under an easy sail.‘I suppose its fish for supper again,’ Alnoth groaned. ‘We’ll soon

be growing gills.’‘Don’t you ever stop thinking about food?’’I have to keep up my strength,’ Alnoth answered taking a swig

of mead from a leather bottle. When Alfred rejected the last piece of cheese, he scoffed that as well.

Alfred’s eyes scanned the horizon for the umpteenth time: ‘Duke William’s not coming because he has not been able to build enough ships which means he’ll come next year.’

‘Next year? You mean we’ll have to spend next summer here as well?’

’Probably.’‘You’ll never sail your own ship.’‘Looks like it.’ Alfred’s voice was flat and depressed.A slight wind got up, blowing from the east. ‘Duke William won’t

be sailing on this wind. Come on, Alnoth. Let’s find us some supper,’ Alfred finally said.

They walked back to the village where too many housecarles and fyrdmen were hanging about waiting for a fleet that did not come, beginning to believe it would never come.

The defenders had kept their vigil too long. Restless, itching to be on their way, they were low on food and having outstayed their two months service for the King with no one to fight, they were more than ready to hotfoot it home. Flock and crop were calling. A

harvest beckoned to be brought home and a thousand and one jobs were waiting.

Soon it would be the autumn equinox that would undoubtedly bring the first winter storms. Then they could go home safe in the knowledge that Duke William and his invading army wouldn’t come - at least not until next spring.

Chapter 11: Gate Fulford

The shipmen forsook him (Tosti) and he went to Scotland with twelve small vessels. King Harold of Norway met him there with three hundred ships, and Tosti bowed to him and became his man.


At the mouth of the Sogne Fjord, Norway, 300 closely moored longships waited for a north-easterly wind to belly out their sails and blow them across the trackless North Sea and up the swan road into the heart of England aided by 8,000 Norwegian oarsmen.

Shallow in draft and broad of beam, the ocean-going craft were clinker built on keel planks, sweeping up to tall stems and sterns carved with dragon heads and tails. Impatiently tightening their anchor ropes, eager to test their well-braced bark in swirling currents and surging seas, their timbers did not so much groan but sneer at the pitching and rolling.

When a favourable wind did blow, the invasion fleet set sail. With Hakon standing look-out in the fore, Hardrada’s ship cruised majestically ahead. Modelled on King Olaf’s old ship ‘The Long Serpent’, she was the longest of the fleet at 150 feet and the fastest with a top speed of 8 knots, propelled by 36 pairs of oars. She carried several passengers, mostly Hardrada’s kin: his sec-ond wife Elizabeth, his two daughters, and his youngest son Olaf.

The fleet followed a simple course. Two days sailing due west, a brief stop at Shetland, and then south to the Norwegian earldom of Orkney.

The joint rulers of Orkney, Paul and Erlend, sons of Thorfin the Mighty, believed Hardrada’s daughters would make fine marriage catches, so to impress the old warrior with their mettle they joined the invasion fleet. So did other Orkney men, lured by prospects of plunder.

At the mouth of the Tyne river, the fleet met up with Tosti’s fleet of a dozen ships from Scotland, manned by housecarles, Flem-ings and volunteer Scotsmen. Some of the fleet marauded along the coast of Cleveland but the wind picked up to strong and backed westerly, and not wanting to risk scattering his ships, Hardrada tacked starboard to lead his fleet into Scarborough harbour.

At the first sight of the Viking fleet, the local fishermen fled inland and 8,000 warriors landed, ate and drank their fill, stocked up with provisions and took their entertainment by building a bonfire on top of the hill. They pushed it with pitchforks on to the roofs of the fishermen’s cottages below, setting the whole town ablaze. Siward loved it; Hardrada and Hakon revelled in it - here again were the glory days.

On top of the hill above the smouldering ruins, cooler heads considered their next move. ‘York is less than two days march from here,’ Tosti informed Hardrada.

Hakon looked at Tosti with heavy-lidded eyes that were not too difficult to read: trust is the virtue of a foolish man.

‘I’d haive ti leave a force here ti guard the ships,’ Hardrada shouted, the wind trying to whip away his words, “that would split our forces wi’ too many miles twixt us.’

‘We can sail up river to York,’ Tosti suggested.‘Aye . . . we could,’ Hardrada agreed, his eyes searching sky-

ways for abatement in the low scudding clouds.Two days later the wind dropped and the fleet sailed south,

hugging the coast. Entering the Humber estuary, they rowed up the river Ouse on the tide and moored up at the village of Riccall where the river narrowed such that the longer ships would now

have difficulty turning round. Hardrada would not risk taking them further - dreams of winning a kingdom had not clouded his instinct for always leaving open an escape route.

‘On ti York!’ Hardrada ordered and the warriors prepared for battle, donning their trappings of war: boar-head helmets with nosepieces made of hide and iron; long byrnies of reindeer hide covered with metal rings; cloaks of bear, fox and beaver; woollen trousers and leather shoes.

Flexed and stretched were sword arms that had last clashed with the Danes two summers earlier. No practise was needed. Wield-ing a sword or an axe was second nature to these veteran warri-ors; as familiar as raising a goblet of mead.

With a round lime-wood shield in one hand and brandishing a spear, an axe, or a sword in the other, 6,000 warriors began their march along the riverbank to York. The rest of the force remained behind to guard the ships.

Drizzle loosed from low dense cloud further dampened the soggy water meadows but did not quench Norwegian eagerness. Paddling and clattering along, placing trust in their courage and ancient heirlooms of steel, they expected to make good their boasts.

Taking giant strides at the head of the troop of trampling men was Hardrada, confident that the Northumbrians would soon sub-mit to his cause.

Hard on Hardrada’s heels, Tosti carried his obsession alongside his shield - revenge for his betrayal. He was going to teach these treacherous Northumbrians a lesson and retrieve his earldom.

Siward merely thirsted for revenge. Having harboured his hate for nearly a year, the Northumbrian housecarle had returned to settle old scores.

The army stomped through the deserted village of Gate Fulford, the villagers had scarpered, and only grazing cattle stared inquis-itively at these noisy, battle-hungry warriors splashing by.

At the far side of the village they stopped and stared hard. Ahead of them and barring their path, stood a defensive line of thanes and fyrdmen, silent and waiting behind an overlapping array of shields. Their line stretched three furlongs wide from the river

Ouse on their right to a watery dike and marsh on their left and blocked the invaders’ path to York.

’Form a battle line!’ Hardrada ordered.Amid blowing horns the Norwegians, Scotsmen and Flemings

also lined themselves up between dyke and river. Hardrada positioned himself in the middle and unfurled his battle

standard ‘Land Ravager’, a white flag with a raven emblazoned on it.

Hakon stood on his right in charge of the dike side of the line. Tosti, surrounded by a score of his own housecarles including

Siward, was on Hardrada’s left towards the river.A war horn sang an eager battle cry and the whole invading line

moved forward as one. They tried to instil fear into the Northum-brian defenders by banging their weapons against their shields and shouting and hollering into the hollow sides of their shields to resound an unreal, death-calling echo.

Amid this raucous clamour they closed on the defending line, their screaming and shouting turning into a roar as with a last rush they crashed into the defenders with shuddering, crashing thumps and clashes of steel.

Javelins flew, spears jabbed, swords and battle-axes whirled; steel clanged and rang and resounded along a line of grunting, heaving bodies threshing in a wild frenzy of power, wrought up from savage minds keened on killing and maiming with every thrusting and scything blow.

Clashes of steel, shouts and cries echoed and reverberated in the damp air. Warriors fell, cut down in blood. Men pushed forward and men gave ground till the battle line became a chaotic, contort-ed, writhing snake with grunts and howls and cries screaming above the clashing of steel.

Shields splintered and shattered as they attempted to block lethal blows; spears and swords jabbed and thrust; axes swirled in a frenzy; hands gripped weapons to knuckle white, arms jarred, shoulders dipped, heads ducked, knees bent and straightened and stomachs knotted tighter. Thousands of warriors frantically clattered and crunched into each other.

The defenders, a combined force of Northumbrians and Mer-cians commanded by the two brother earls, Morcar and Edwin, attacked hardest where the Norwegian line was thinnest alongside the dike. It was an attempt to wheel the Norwegians round and push them back into the river.

Hakon swung his bloodied axe with immense power even though his shield juddered and cracked under incessant blows. He and his men had to give ground. Some of the Northumbrians went right past him and Hakon suddenly found he was desperately fighting with his back to the dike.

On the river side of the line, the fighting was stalemate. The experienced Norwegians were making short, savage lunges to prevent their line being turned, but Hardrada reacted immediately he saw the Northumbrians break through on the dike side. Order-ing his war-horns to sound attack, he himself led the charge.

With his battle-axe whirling round his head, his eyes fire-glazed, his face like a maniacal demon and howling like a wolf, he ram-paged forwards, scything down defenders in his path, cutting a swath through the defending line. His own warriors, gripped by the same battle fever, wildly, savagely, deliriously followed in his wake.

Siward caught the same demented fever and erupted forwards, shouting and shrieking. His swirling axe cleaved all before him, hitting arms, chests and heads with gruesome power, penetrating byrnies, flesh and muscle.

Defenders fell back. Under this onslaught, the defenders steps backward, slow at first, became desperately quicker and longer, then striding and running, till their line changed from a steadfast shield-wall to a panicking mob in retreat.

Siward’s howls changed to grunts of exertion as his axe just sliced through the air. Raiders pursued defenders along the river-bank with Siward in the forefront, venting his revenge by cutting down those not so fleet of foot. Those who tried to swim the river were speared like fish.

Along the dike side, the Northumbrians, who had fought their way through the attacking line and had turned Hakon and his men toward the dike, now found themselves cut off from their own main force by Hardrada’s counter attack.

Instead of fending off Northumbrians with his back to the dike, Hakon now found himself on the attack and dashing the heads of those Northumbrians who were attempting escape by fording the dike. Those who did make it across the dike were claimed by the swampy morass of the marsh, too exhausted from their wounds to raise their heads above water. Dike and marsh became their watery graves.

The whole field belonged to the Norwegians.Siward turned back from pursuing Northumbrians to look for his

lord Tosti and found him flushed of face, animated eyes flashing everywhere, his sword waving ecstatically in the air. ‘Victory is ours!’ he kept repeating in a high-pitched triumphant shout and his mind appeared to be not quite in touch with the rest of him.

’I’ve had harder victories!’ Hardrada’s voice boomed out from a few paces away, though his face and beard ran with sweat and his chest heaved. Hakon joined them covered in blood, mud and sweat. Siward felt a pain in his leg, saw blood running down it and stemmed it with a piece of linen - the only wound between the four of them.

Dead and injured lay stretched in a line from dike to river. The water in the dike, alongside which had seen the deadliest action, was turning a bloody brown colour. Bloodthirsty shouts now turned into cries for help as weeping, bleeding, stricken warriors all pleaded for attention. The silent ones were dead.

The Norwegians tended their own, easing the outpourings of groans and cries. No one heeded the vanquished, only the victori-ous robbers who relieved them of their weapons and jewels; victors took the spoils.

‘On ti York!’ Hardrada commanded with scant regard for the injured.

’Not with all the army,’ argued Tosti in a strong voice standing in front of Hardrada. Tosti had recovered his presence of mind: ‘York is an earl’s town, capital of the Northumbrian kingdom.’

Hardrada looked askance at Tosti: ‘The Northumbrians a’ fled and the town is for pillage.’ Pillaging was a way of life for Hardrada. Was that not why battles were fought and won?

Tosti held his ground and stared Hardrada full in the face: ‘Will you settle for just a town as a prize or a kingdom? You came to England to be King!’

Hardrada stared back at Tosti, the wheels of his mind in motion, weighing the larger prize. The reward of England’s treasures, the renown and need to make his name live forever in men’s minds, appealed to his ambition. Many towns he had plundered and one more or less made little difference, but winning a kingdom would make him famous. ‘We’ll take 200 warriors into the town,’ he declared.

But the Norwegians’ blood was up and it took all Hardrada’s persuasion, and their fear of him, to stop them storming the defenceless York.

‘A greater prize awaited them,’ he said, ‘we’ll need to parley with the Northumbrians for the whole of the English kingdom.’

The Norwegian warriors were none too happy but reluctantly returned to their ships at Riccall.

The following day, the Norwegians celebrated their victory close by their ships. Seated together around one of the campfires were Siward and Hakon, both well lubricated after endless goblets of wine.

Hakon’s voice may have been steady but his eyes were a touch bleary, matching those of Siward.

‘When the Northumbrians haive joined us, Hardrada will be King o’ England as well as Norway,’ Hakon pronounced.

Siward’s head came up sharply.Hakon added: ‘The Northumbrians will fight with honour for such

a renowned warrior as King Harald - they always keep their oaths.’“The Northumbrians are treacherous,’ Siward interrupted sharp-

ly, his eyes flaring.Hakon looked at him in surprise: “Wha’ di ye mean?”‘They rebelled against their lord Earl Tosti, their rightful earl, and

their loyalty is nae ti be trusted.’Hakon looked thoughtful: ‘Tosti is nae Northumbrian is he? He is

West Saxon.’’Tosti is a ruler o’ noble blood - he is a kin o’ King Cnut on his

spindle side.’

’King Cnut was Danish,’ Hakon answered, not disguising a sneer and staring at Siward in deliberate provocation.

‘Aye,’ answered Siward, his hackles rising.‘And does not Tosti believe in loyalty twixt kin . . . between

brother and brother?’ Hakon demanded.The flames from the fire reflected in Siward’s flashing eyes and

he quickly answered: ‘Harold is a usurper . . . Tosti should be King of England and will be King of . . .’ and then stopped abruptly, realising he had said too much.

Hakon’s eyes glittered dangerously and studied Siward’s face with greater mistrust. Realisation slowly came into them that Tosti’s real ambition was not to be just Earl of Northumbria but to be King of England. The silence that followed lasted for some time.

On the following day, Hardrada promised to confer titles and estates on all those Northumbrians showing loyalty to his cause and with their army defeated the Northumbrian thanes had little choice. After some negotiation they reluctantly agreed to join Hardrada against King Harold. It was a fragile pact.

Not entirely trusting the Northumbrians, Hardrada insisted on holding hostages. It was agreed that Norwegians and Northumbri-ans would all meet up together before marching south to meet King Harold.

The meeting place was in dispute. Backed vociferously by Si-ward, Tosti wanted the Northumbrians to muster at York. The Northumbrians, not wanting to gather in the confines of the town where they would be vulnerable, suggested the more convenient Stamfordbridge where roads from the four corners of the shire met at the river Derwent.

On Hakon’s advice, Hardrada decided to ignore Tosti and put his trust in the Northumbrians’ word. Since the following day was a Sunday, the meeting of Norwegians and Northumbrians was arranged for Monday morning at Stamfordbridge. Meanwhile Hardrada’s warriors would remain close to their ships at Riccall.

Chapter 12: The Bridge

Then came our King Harold on the Norwegians unawares, and met them beyond York at Stamford with a great host of English folk.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle AD 1066.

Within a day of receiving news that Scarborough had been burned by invaders from Norway, King Harold, like the old Roman legions marching out to defend the outposts of their empire, led his housecarles and thanes out of London to the defence of his kingdom.

Through Bishopsgate and up Ermine Street, King Harold led his army in a racing, headlong ride. Fording rivers, threading through forests, charging over heath and shrub, splashing through mud and marsh, up hills and down valleys, the pace never slowed.

Riders detoured to summon up thanes and fyrdmen from the countryside and still the pace did not slacken. King Harold spurred unerringly on to York.

Men rallied to the King’s banner to form an ever-lengthening line of marching, riding, clattering men that stretched for miles along the great north road. Even his housecarle captain Haldane failed to slow the King: ‘Haste could be fatal. An army cannot be brought to battle stretched between here and London,’ he pleaded with the King.

‘Speed is vital,’ Harold answered and spurred unerringly on.

Eric grumbled at the remorseless riding despite the excitement of it all and feeling an anticipation of great events. When Eric had kissed Gwener good-bye at Bosham he had been unusually lost for words, his throat thick and heart heavy at leaving Gwener behind. It was Gwener who said: ‘I’ll see you soon,’ and left him with a kept vision of a sweet smile that would comfort him in their separation.

On the following Sunday morning, seven days after leaving London, the exhausting, gruelling ride came to an end when the King called a halt at Tadcaster. Ordering his captains to draw the men up in battle order south side of Wharfe Bridge, he conferred with local thanes.

A short time later, Haldane sent for Eric and Thorkill, his two quickest men on foot and horseback.

‘The Norwegians have defeated Earl Edwin and Earl Morcar in battle but are not occupying York - they are still on their ships at Riccall,’ Haldane informed them.

Eric’s mouth fell open at this news.‘Hardrada and Tosti are waiting to receive Northumbrian hos-

tages before marching south,’ Haldane added.Eric’s jaw stretched even further at this information. Tosti in

league with Hardrada – he could not believe it!Haldane lowered his voice: ‘I am giving you an important task

that requires stealth and quiet.’ Haldane looked hard at Eric as though having second thoughts about the quiet part. ‘Both of you are to ride to Riccall but . . . you must make sure you are not seen by the Norwegians. Keep out of sight and watch them. Make sure you are not detected. When they move, you ride straight back here and report. They will more than likely move north.’

‘North?’ Thorkill queried in surprise, a look of disbelief on his face.‘To Stamfordbridge to meet up with the Northumbrians.’Eric’s face was a picture of perplexity and only one word tumbled

from his lips: ‘Tosti?’‘Yes, Tosti has joined Hardrada.’ Haldane’s words came whis-

pered and hoarsely. His eyes fell to the ground as though in shame, held for a moment, then returned to Eric’s face, sharper

and more determined. ‘You must ensure that the Norwegians are not aware of your presence.’

‘Yes, captain,’ Eric answered and something flashed into his mind, something to do with game birds that he couldn’t quite grasp, then it was gone.

Through the mist, knees bent, half crouching, Thorkill trod in Eric’s footsteps as they ran across the water meadows south of the river Ouse and cut across the loop where it bends round towards Riccall. Their horses had been left on a long halter at the river junction and they carried their supplies in skin bags on their backs.

When masts and stem posts suddenly loomed up out of the mist in front of them they fell frozen to the grass, straining eyes and ears for sight and sound. The thin veil of mist screened murky figures on board the ships; the quiet only broken by occasional voices.

They had to move closer to see what was happening so the two housecarles slid furtively forward like tortoises. The grass was long and kept them hidden but Eric had a sudden panicky moment - what if their movement put up a water-fowl and declared their presence? They had to take that chance.

At less than fifty paces from the ships they dared go no closer; they could see men moving about. Was this the main army or a small force left behind to guard the ships? It was difficult to tell.

They lay still for some time, watching, waiting, before Thorkill pointed a finger toward the ships and silently mouthed the words: ‘Shields.’

The significance soon struck Eric. The complete line of shields arraigned alongside the ship meant the main army was still here.

Darkness closed in and the human pair of pointers gingerly shuffled backwards a few hundred paces and crawled into a lurking hole for the night. Amongst the cold dark shadows, they scoffed stale cheese and bread, shared a leather bottle of water and settled into their skin bags for the night, along with their thoughts.

‘Hardrada and Tosti are two tricksters in harness,’ Eric eventu-ally whispered.

’Yes, and it looks as though the Northumbrians will fight with Hardrada,’ Thorkill said.

The notion of game birds came to Eric as it had done earlier, but this time he held it, recalling how Harold’s goshawk had caught and killed the partridge at King Edward’s hunt.

‘Our King Harold will attack the Norwegians using speed and silent surprise,’ he told Thorkill. And hard on the heels of that thought Eric remembered Tosti’s peregrine falcon at the same hunt: ‘Though it’s possible the Norwegians may be trying to lure King Harold into a trap.’

‘Possibly,’ Thorkill concluded. ‘Best get some sleep. I’ll wake you for your watch.’

Seven days of hard riding had taken its toll and Eric quickly submerged into an exhausted sleep till woken later by Thorkill when Eric took his turn on watch.

When the first whistling bird welcomed the misty dawn the pair stealthily crept back to the same spot they had occupied the previous evening. Grey blanketing mist hugged the Norwegian ships and deck awnings where only the spectre of stem posts and masts rose out of the enshrouding gloom.

It didn’t take much imagination for Eric to visualise the god Odin sitting asleep on the deck with a raven perched on his shoulder and two enormous wolves at his feet.

At the blast of a horn, the mist seemed startled into dispersal and the scene changed into lively activity. Fires were lit and men breakfasted. Clattering of weapons penetrated the gloom and Eric noticed the shields on the ship’s sides disappearing - the Norwe-gians were going north, just as Haldane said.

Like a pair of weasels, the two watchers scrambled backwards till well out of sight and ran all the way back to their horses. Riding at full gallop back to Tadcaster, they gave the news to Haldane.

King Harold immediately ordered his army to march on Stam-fordbridge, taking the road that went straight through the town of York.

Not all of the Norwegians set out for Stamfordbridge. A third of them, including Hardrada’s son Olaf and the Earls of Orkney, stayed behind to guard the ships. Not all of those who set off were walking - the leaders rode horses rustled from surrounding villag-es. Not all expected to fight and did not wear their byrnies which seemed a wise decision as the day warmed up. Most carried their helmets.

The red ball of a sun soon burned away the last of the mist to pleasantly warm the marchers and riders splashing along the river bank following the line of the river Derwent going north. Their easy talk was occasionally interrupted by a squawking crow or their own innocuous rattle of weapons as the temperature rose to uncom-fortable warm.

When they arrived at Stamfordbridge around noon they found no one there. Hardrada and Tosti showed no concern, allowing the men to sprawl in the sunshine on both sides of the narrow wooden bridge while they themselves lounged farther up the slope. And so they waited for the Northumbrians.

Hakon moved on to the bridge itself, just wide enough to pass an ox-cart, where he could survey both road and river. Siward was far from relaxed, his head restlessly swivelling to all points of the compass, his eyes searching the horizon, suspicious that some-thing was amiss.

Appearing to detect something, he moved to a higher point on the rising ground and had to wipe away a trickle of sweat from his eyes - he had not removed his helmet or byrnie- and peered along the old Roman road toward York. He blinked hard . . . yes, there was something . . . a cloud of dust from trampling horses. Must be the Northumbrian thanes . . . but surely not all from the same direction?

‘Some men are coming from York!’ he shouted to Tosti and Hardrada, who both mounted their horses for a better view.

‘It must be the thanes with their hostages,’ Tosti said confidently.Burnished swords and shields’ bosses of King Harold’s army

caught the sun’s rays at just the right angle to throw a reflection and flash a warning to the Norwegians.

‘This is trouble,’ Hardrada shouted to Tosti. ‘What are we going ti do?’

Despite his misgivings at the meeting place, Tosti had believed that the Northumbrians would swear their allegiance. This down-turn caught him unprepared. His mind went away again, his eyes appearing to hold no reflection, absorbing the sun’s rays. ‘We must retreat to the ships and fight them there,’ he said.

‘Nay!’ Hardrada retorted. ‘They will attack us all the way back ti the ships. I’ll send three o’ our fastest riders on goodly steeds back ti the ships and bring up the rest o’ the warriors. O’er the mean-time, we’ll give these English a hard fight.’

‘It is a good decision,’ Tosti hastily agreed. ‘I do not want to retreat.’

A contemptuous ‘told you so’ look crossed Siward’s face but it did not matter now - it was too late. They had to fight a battle at a time and place not of their choosing with many of their warriors without byrnies and a third of the army back at their ships 14 miles away.

Commanded by Hakon, the men on the York side of the bridge quickly formed themselves into a defensive semi-circle drawn back on itself, intending to hold the bridge as long as possible.

The main force commanded by Hardrada, including Tosti and Siward, formed a defensive line up the slope on the opposite side of the bridge.

King Harold’s frantic rush from the south had not been for nought. He had completely surprised Hardrada. Many Northumbri-ans had tagged on to Harold’s army during its rush through York, but in front, Eric and Thorkill were setting the pace for an army about to attack.

King Harold called his army to a halt two hundred paces short of the Norwegian’s first line of defence and ushered their horses to the rear - so there was no temptation to flee from the battle. A shield-wall was quickly formed. The Norwegians were badly posi-tioned on both sides of the bridge and King Harold intended to take every advantage.

The English shield-wall was formed into a war-hedge in the shape of an arrow-head, presenting a narrow front to Norwegian

arrows and missiles, yet sharp and sturdy enough to pierce a hole in the opposing line.

In the front rank, Eric stood at Thorkill’s right shoulder, gripping his spear so that it stuck forward between his own and Thorkill’s shield. After taking a deep breath he steeled himself for his first real battle. The rush from Tadcaster had been so hectic that there had been no time to think about a battle, no time for the blood to run cold, heart to pound, stomach to churn and fear to take a grip; now they did.

‘Can you see Hardrada?’ Thorkill nervously asked, unable to pick out anyone of great height in the Norwegian line in front of them; Hardrada’s rumoured height varied anywhere between seven and nine feet.

‘No,’ Eric croaked out of a dry throat and licked his dry lips.War-horns blew and the whole English line of six ranks moved

forwards in tight formation. Eric glanced sideways at Thorkill who was sweating profusely under his helmet, his ginger moustache sodden and his face tightened with suspense. Eric realised he must look exactly the same and put his own head down as close to his shield as possible. He also said a short prayer.

Eric first felt the thudding of arrows and missiles against his shield and then a jolt as the sharp end of their wedge impacted against the Norwegian line. Keeping his head well down, Eric picked out everything with his ears: steel clashing against steel, steel against wood, cries, grunts and a bedlam of howls and shrieks. With no space to move sideways, Eric could only ad-vance, pushed by men from behind, his legs moving involuntarily forward. He jabbed blindly forward with his spear.

A war hedge is not a group of individuals but a mass of stabbing steel, surrounded and protected by shields expected to hold together no matter how fierce the opposition. This palisade of spears, backed by a wall of shields, was forced into the Norwegian line by the mass of men at the rear pushing the front rank remorse-lessly forward. Piercing spears brought demented screams and shouts from the Norwegians.

Eric was suddenly in the thick of it, deflecting a Norwegian’s deadly whistling axe with his shield before forcing the Norwegian

back with his own spear. His shield took a juddering blow. Steel clanged against steel. Grunts and screams rent the air.

Axes, swords and spears began to take their toll and Eric found himself stepping on wounded as he pushed forwards. He did not look down, not daring to take his eyes from the whirling weaponry in front of him. The overriding weight of the English wedge pushed the Norwegians back who began to funnel back towards the bridge.

At the river, the English wedge straightened, cutting the bridge off from some Norwegians. Eric, determined to clear the riverbank, drew his axe from his belt and Thorkill did likewise.

‘God Almighty!’ Eric shouted at the top of his voice and rushed forwards, catching one Norwegian in the chest and just missing another who fell backwards into the river. As the Norwegian floundered in the water a housecarle rammed a spear into his back. Eric turned to attack along the riverbank but was blocked by other fighting housecarles and he could only watch the fighting now concentrated at the bridge.

The human deadly barrier blocking the bridge was Hakon, whirl-ing his axe around his head in a giant arc cutting Englishmen down like corn. The English front line was being pushed uncontrollably into the path of the Hakon’s lethal axe by warriors pressing in a swarm behind.

Hakon would have held the bridge indefinitely if a resourceful thane had not drifted downstream in a barrel and poked his spear through the underside timbers of the bridge into Hakon’s knee. It cut his ham string and the big Viking slowly toppled over. Even as he sat on the floor of the bridge the giant’s axe still whirled around his head till an English sword crashed down on his head splitting his skull. Another sword penetrated his byrnie, flattening him to the floor. This ended his last great adventure.

The English stepped over the downed Norwegian and flooded across the bridge to form another shield-wall five ranks deep with their backs to the river facing the second Norwegian line further up the slope.

A restless, eerie hush had replaced the clamour and clashing, only broken by agonised cries coming from the wounded lying on

and around the bridge. The wounded had to tend to themselves for every man was needed to fight.

Fifty paces up the slope in a defensive line, taking advantage of the higher ground and behind their shields, were the rest of the Norwegians. They shouted silent aggression.

Side by side, Eric and Thorkill again joined the front line. The sweat stung Eric’s eyes and he wiped it away before gripping his shield tightly in his left hand and his spear in his right. Half-nerv-ous, half-excited, his blood thumped thickly in his ears and temple, his arm muscles quivered like harp strings and his feet stamped restlessly. Licking his lips to conjure some moisture, he only tasted salt. He wished he had taken a drink from the river but it was too late now.

Glancing along his own line, he saw a row of helmets glittering in the beam of sinking sunlight; and when he looked towards the Norwegians, their helmets and shields also reflected in the red-dening sun. Glowering embers of a fire about to burst into flames, it seemed.

‘Why did they defend the bridge so desperately?’ Thorkill asked hoarsely.

‘Hardrada was on the bridge.’‘He wasn’t. He’s in the middle of their line . . . see . . . under the

white banner with a raven on it.’Eric picked out the tall figure: “So that’s the King of Norway who

thinks he is King of England. Can you see Tosti?’‘No.’Eric’s eyes searched for Tosti and Siward but the figures were

just outlines, strangely watchful and threatening. War-horns blew and Eric moved forward with the rest of the English line, seeing very little apart from the daisies at his feet as he kept his head low behind his shield.

The arrows, short axes and stones that came at them were a signal to speed up their advance and crash into the Norwegian line. Eric jabbed his spear forward searching for gaps between the Norwegian shields. Sharpened steel came from all angles. Shrieks, grunts, clashing steel and splintering shields resounded in his ears. His every reflex, nerve and muscle were concentrated

on avoiding the flashing steel in front of him, yet at the same time, intent on stabbing his own steel into opposing byrnies.

Warriors fell and Norwegians gave ground, yet they fought back. Breaches made were stubbornly closed. Drained of all thought and emotion, Eric’s every movement was a reflex action. One slip and he was dead. He drew his axe aiming to kill or be killed. He was scared all right.

English grunts of exertion gradually changed into shouts of ‘Out! Out!’ till all the English line were chanting in unison. Slowly, grimly, behind whirling steel, the Norwegians backed up the slope a foot at a time, then a yard, as more and more of their number sank in the slaughter. Up the slope they retreated on to the flat ground where they formed defensive circles.

The Norwegians rallied for a while when support arrived from Riccall, but because they had run all the way - some of them had even thrown away their byrnies - the revival became short lived.

Siward, fighting at Tosti’s side in the circle commanded by Hardrada, powerfully swung his sword knowing they were losing the battle. So did Hardrada, and in a last desperate gamble the Norwegian King attempted to repeat his successful frenzied as-sault that had turned the tide of battle at Gate Fulford. His face twisted in savagery, his helmet and shield discarded, he let out a fearsome howling and hurtled forward at the speed of a raging bull, swinging his axe around his head in a great scything arc cutting a swath through the English line.

Englishmen desperately scrambled out of his way as he dealt out death. The mighty Hardrada had gone berserk and so had Siward following in his wake howling a hymn of hate.

Several paces to their right, Eric first heard, and then saw the seven foot giant hewing a path through their line, and in a reflex action with no conscious thought, Eric ran to block Hardrada’s path.

The power of Hardrada’s axe knocked Eric’s own axe clean out of his hands but Eric’s instinct for survival, coupled with lightning reflexes, drove him down and forwards to grab Hardrada around the knees and bring him crashing to the ground. Swiftly in one movement, Eric pulled the dagger from his belt and drove it powerfully into Hardrada’s throat.

Well-trained reflexes helped again as he rolled quickly sideways in time to avoid Siward’s scything sword as it crashed down and thudded into the ground an inch away from his chest.

Eric had regained his feet with his sword half way out of his scabbard when Haldane yanked him backwards by his shoulder, stepped forward and rammed his own sword through Siward’s byrnie into his chest just as he was about to bring his avenging sword down on Eric’s head.

Siward never saw Haldane’s first sword thrust into his chest, nor the second lethal blow from Haldane that cut deep into his neck. His crazed, vengeful eyes were fixed on Eric with such an intensity of hate that he was oblivious to all else.

Siward fell dead alongside Hardrada who was gurgling his last mortal cry. The Norwegians following on the heels of Hardrada stopped in their tracks at the sight of their fallen leader and the cry went up: ‘Hardrada is dead!’

Lament swept round the Norwegians in the field. Fighting slowed and stopped and Haldane retreated, pulling Eric with him back amongst the housecarles surrounding King Harold. The English expected it to be the end of the battle.

Aware that he had killed Hardrada and that Haldane had killed Siward, Eric was none too clear how it had come about. Reacting on blind impulse, his actions had been a complete reflex.

King Harold stepped forward and shouted: ‘All hail, Norwegians. For the love of God and peace, I offer peace to my brother and retreat for all.’

’Hail ti ye!’ the Norwegians shouted back. ‘We would rather die than leave the field where our King is slain.’

The Norwegians were going to stand fast, defiant and grim amongst their dead and wounded, determined to meet their fate with fury rather than give up the fight.

Amongst the Norwegians, Tosti shouted back to his brother: ‘I’d rather die here than beg for mercy!’ and then raised Hardrada’s raven banner. The Norwegians rallied round it, began to shout their war cries and the bloody battle began again.

Despite his aching shoulders and his body insistently demanding rest, Eric grasped a deep breath and wearily dragged himself forwards.

Mind mangled, stomach sick at the carnage, he laboriously swung a tired sword into ever widening ranks of Norwegians. All thoughts of heroics had long gone. Survival was everything. Being the bravest of the brave was not so important now. Staying alive in this chaotic, murderous scramble was all.

Into the twilight the battle raged on and the Norwegians died where they fought. Tosti was hacked to the ground and died still clinging to Hardrada’s banner ‘Land Ravager’ that was stained with the blood of Norwegians, Flemings and Scotsmen.

In the half darkness it became a running battle as the Norwe-gians stumbled and scrambled their way back to their ships at Riccall pursued by the English.

Completely spent in mind and body, Eric had no compulsion to chase the Norwegians. Falling on his knees, he gave thanks to God that the battle was over and for sparing his life. Searching disbelievingly beneath his mud and blood splattered tunic to find a serious wound, he found none.

Physically, he was exhausted. Spiritually, the battle had been a nightmare. The revulsion at the carnage reflected in his face - his usual grin replaced by a hollow grimace.

Dead and wounded lay on bloodstained grass on both sides of the bridge all the way up the slope and along the flat. Some were stiff in death, others writhing, weeping and crying in pain. Eric had lost contact with Thorkill some time earlier. Was he wounded or dead? Desperate to find him, he searched in the murky darkness amongst the pitiful cries. He also checked the still and silent until he heard a hoarse cry: ‘Minstrel!’

Laying on the ground, tenuously holding himself up on one elbow, Thorkill had a bloody patch on his chest accompanied by a deathly-white face. Pink and frothy blood spilled out of his mouth. Eric put an arm around his shoulders and gently eased him flat to the ground.

‘Take it easy, my friend,’ Eric said. ‘The battle is over.’

‘It is all over for me, my friend,’ Thorkill answered with a choke. ‘Hunger devours one, storm dismasts another, and another is hacked down in battle.’

’I didn’t know you were a poet too,’ Eric said and Thorkill raised a ghost of a smile.

‘I didn’t flee from the field,’ Thorkill croaked.‘No, brave and true,’ said Eric.Thorkill looked heavenwards and hoarsely whispered: ‘Receive

my gratitude, God of all, for all the luck I’ve enjoyed in life but help my spirit to meet You in your kingdom.’ Choking once more, he sank back with a low rasping sound, his ashen mask of a face turned up to Eric, his eyes still and staring.

Eric felt his own heart die within his chest. He now knew there was no glory in death.

The sickly mist in the following dawn’s ashy light tried unsuc-

cessfully to hide the stark reality. More than two thousand English dead and twice as many Norwegians, Flemings and Scotsmen lay prostrate around Stamfordbridge.

There were more at Riccall. After pursuing the invaders all the way back to their ships, the English had fired their ships when they refused to surrender.

The victors and losers, who now gathered inside the timber grandstand outside the royal palace at York, looked dampened and grey. Prince Olaf, expecting to be hanged, searched for signs of mercy in the grim, vengeful faces arraigned in front of him and found none.

On the ground wrapped in a robe, lay his dead father whose quest for a kingdom and vast riches had been rewarded with cold steel. The arch deceiver, the prince of trickery, had been hood-winked by an English earl who had also deceived himself. Seeking vengeance, the English earl’s brother, the King of England, faced the invader’s son.

King Harold pointed to Hardrada’s body: ‘Give him the honours due to the brave.’

Prince Olaf kneeled down and uncovered his father’s grey life-less face. He started at the ugly gash in his throat, stared silently for a long moment before replacing the robe.

Eric, standing close-by, looked hard at King Harold. That cheer-ful demeanour the King used to carry as an earl before he became King had gone. Dark clouds had overtaken his eyes.

Harold said to Prince Olaf: ‘Your King invaded a people who had given him no offence and he has paid the forfeit. Alas, what’s done is done and may God forgive him . . . as for my brother: heavy judgement bears that life he deserved to lose; he believed he was beyond all judgement except God’s. This battle has trifled all other battles and I demand no revenge only that you swear an oath never to return to these shores.’

Prince Olaf stared in disbelief and even the thanes were taken aback, but where the Prince looked visibly relieved at this reprieve, the thanes stared in consternation.

‘I swear it,’ Olaf said quickly and stepped forward to lay his hand on his father’s heart. ‘I swear by God and all the Saints that I shall never again come to these shores.’

Paul and Erlend, Earls of Orkney, stepped forward, swore the same oath and having sworn, stood unsure.

‘Take what ships you need and return with your men to your homeland,’ King Harold ordered quietly.

Eric noted mutterings from among the Northumbrian thanes and although he understood their feelings he also understood the King’s. Winning the battle had been a costly cup of victory with the loss of his brother Tosti and many of his close companions; just as Eric had lost many of his hearth companions including Thorkill the Tall, as close to him as any brother. But revenge had to be set aside. Bloodied sword and axe may have settled the battle but on their own, they could not bring peace.

The next day, Prince Olaf, Paul and Erlend, and just enough survivors to fill 24 ships sailed for home, taking with them the body of Hardrada, King Harald of Norway. Though King Harold had

promised him just seven feet of land in England, his last resting place would be Orkney.

Victory celebrations among the English were somewhat sub-dued. Eric, even though he had killed Hardrada, felt no triumph. His heroic dreams had died in the battle and a dull numbness had settled on his brain. His zest and boyishness were gone, replaced by a feeling that nothing would be able to put him back into the sunshine of a world that had changed forever.

Chapter 13: South Invasion

Then came William, earl of Normandy, into Pevensey on Michael-mas eve, and as soon as they were prepared, they built a strong-hold at the town of Hastings.


Carpenters came from all over France and Normandy to build ships for Duke William's invasion. By August, freshly tarred and ready for launching, the ships were pulled down to the sea at the mouth of the river Dives and loaded with weapons and stores. One ship even carried a pre-fabricated fort. Duke William asked all the churches to pray for a successful expedition and 7,000 thousand men with 2,000 horses assembled ready to embark for England.

Unfortunately for Duke William the wind blew from the northern quarter right through August and 700 invasion ships just bobbed hopefully on the flood tide, or sat forlornly in the mud on the ebb. Almost into the autumn equinox, Norman prayers were answered when the wind came round to the south-west.

Hugh Margot joined in the scramble to load stores, weapons and horses, and at high water he cast off. With her bow jauntily thrust forward his ship swaggered out to sea with Roger de Beaumont’s ship on his starboard quarter.

Heading the fleet was Duke William’s ship named ‘Mora’ pre-sented to him by his wife Matilda. The ship carried a cross and lantern on the mast head with the leopard of Normandy carved on the prow, and on the stern post, a boy holding a lance and blowing a horn.

‘Follow the Duke!’ Hugh ordered his helmsman.Hugh’s crew comprised of a dozen fighting men who set the sail

and took turns at the oars. The two horses roped into boxes looked apprehensive.

It was plain sailing past Cap D’Antifer but under lowering skies the wind picked up and the sea changed its mood to angry. Not knowing what to make of the weather on her maiden voyage, Hugh’s ship began to protest, her timbers groaning as she pitched and rolled in a swelling sea.

In the twilight Hugh watched streaks of foam on the top of black waves turn white, as white as the frightened eyes of the horses and crew - most of the crew had never before been to sea. The rest of the fleet became slowly lost to sight and Hugh looked anxious. He ordered his helmsman: ‘Hold the same course!’

The horses, hobbled and boxed in wooden panels fixed by struts to the side of the ship, were held immobile by ropes tied to the struts. To ease their fear they had been tied facing each other and sharing a net of hay, but their eyes began to roll with the rolling of the ship.

The wind now gusted off the port beam and the helmsman had difficulty holding course. Hugh’s stomach turned over as the ship yawed wildly and staggered. Realising that they were trying to steer across both wind and tide, he ordered the helmsman: ‘Steer with the wind!’

Hugh tried to calm the horses by talking to them but they dug their toes into the bottom of the ship, raised their heads and screamed in terror. First doubts about the success of the venture crept into Hugh’s mind.

The wind blew harder and the ship rose and fell like a cork in the water. Waves broke continuously over the side and spray hit Hugh in the face blinding him with tears. Falling darkness could not hide the alarm that came into his face as the horses began to panic and go berserk, squealing and kicking out with their hooves, crunching and splintering the panels. He decided he had to lose them.

‘I’m going to cut the horses free and let them go overboard,’ Hugh shouted to the frightened crew clinging grimly to the sides of the ship to prevent themselves from being thrown into the sea.

‘You!’ Hugh fiercely shouted at the nearest man. ‘Cut the ropes of the horses while I hold their heads.’

The man didn’t budge.‘Move! Or I’ll throw you overboard!’The man reluctantly moved, though never releasing more than

one hand at a time from the side of the ship. The horse reared its head and stamped its feet, but balancing precariously, Hugh hung on to the rope around the horse’s neck whilst the other man cut the rest of the ropes free.

With the last remaining rope cut, Hugh pulled hard on it and toppled the horse head first into the sea. Hugh almost followed but grabbed the side of the ship just in time.

The second horse, its last rope cut, was reluctant to move at all. It dug in its feet until the ship lurched and threw it into the sea to leave Hugh spread-eagled in the bottom of the ship desperately clinging to any timber that his hands could latch on to.

The storm blew unabated. Waves came over the sides and Hugh ordered the men to row but it made little difference, the oars missing the water as often as not as the ship pitched up and down. Hands were better employed baling.

The quick, sickening drops between the waves caused the contents of Hugh’s stomach to come up, he knew not where, nor did he care. Peering through the darkness and flying spray with eyes no wider than pinholes, he could see neither where the waves were coming from, nor where they were going to. As for the rest of the ships, he had no idea where they were, or which direction they were taking. One thing he knew for sure - his own ship was helpless.

Hugh determinedly made up his mind not to drown and lie ingloriously in this watery grave. Survive the storm, that's what he was going to do for he was going to live and prosper in a promised land. All that was needed was resolution.

‘Hold tight on to that tiller!’ he bawled at the blurry shape of the helmsman who gripped the tiller as though life itself.

’Start baling!’ he shouted at the crew. They used cups and bowls and Hugh baled faster than any of them. Tossed about on a cruel sea, retching with sea-sickness in between beseeching prayers,

the crew grimly baled at the Hugh’s endless croaking order: ‘Bale, men, bale - if you want to live!’ It was the longest night of Hugh’s life.

When a calmer, hopeful dawn eventually broke the crew thanked the Lord for their salvation. No other ships were in sight and in the murky light Hugh surveyed his crew of eleven - one short, a man lost overboard in the dark.

Listless bodies slumped and drooped heads held sleepless eyes sunk into faces that varied in colour from chalk to green. Hugh ordered the exhausted crew to row, and row they did, if slowly and listlessly. Using the dawn light for direction, the helmsman steered the battered ship toward the Normandy coast. Hugh saw no sense in invading England alone.

With tide and wind helping, land was spotted a few hours later. They followed the coastline east searching for a safe haven and turned into St. Valery, the only natural harbour within fifty miles of Cap D’Antifer. There they joined the rest of the storm-hit ships - at least those which survived. Some of the too heavily laden ships were lost at sea, while others were wrecked on shore. It was a disaster for the invading army and the wind cocked a snook by returning to the north.

For Duke William it was merely a setback. He announced: ‘We are going on. There will be no turning back.’

Saying prayers and making vows, he gave gifts to the church for heaven’s protection and to avoid alarming his men hid the loss in supplies by increasing the daily rations.

Eustace of Boulogne made a suggestion: ‘Let us call upon the saints to help us; let us call on St. Valery himself.’

No means that gained success were ever spurned by Duke William. The bones and relics of St. Valery were ceremoniously paraded outside the church and prayers offered up for a success-ful invasion. Supplies were replenished and preparations made to embark for England once again.

Alfred and Alnoth were delayed leaving the Isle of Wight when Alnoth was struck down by food poisoning. The pair manned one of the last ships departing the island and discovered too late that the ship was a rickety old one when it was caught in a storm - the same storm that hit the Norman invasion fleet. They found them-selves shipwrecked at the port of Pevensey.

Whilst waiting for another ship to take them back east, they helped the local fishermen. The day was grey and dull when Alfred and Alnoth, together with an old man and a boy, went fishing in a boat about a half a mile out to sea. The horizon was barely distinguishable when they looked out to sea, except the boy had young, sharp eyes and was the first to detect the dots on the horizon. No one was too concerned. It was probably a school of porpoises.

‘They’re getting bigger!’ the eagle-eyed boy shouted.All peered in the direction of Beachy Head where they could now

plainly see dots on the horizon.‘They’re ships!’ eagle-eye shouted again.Alfred blinked and peered hard. ‘They’re ships all right - a whole

fleet of them,’ he said quite calmly though his heart missed a beat. The old salt cried: ‘Good Lord deliver us from the Northmen!’No command was necessary - nobody but a fool would place

himself in the path of an invasion fleet. They all rowed hard for the shore, including Alnoth, though he hadn’t fully recovered his strength. After pulling into the harbour they clambered up the south wall of the old Roman fort to get a better view.

‘Must be heading up the coast,’ Alnoth surmised.Alfred screwed up his eyes trying to determine the fleet’s direc-

tion and numbers. There appeared to be hundreds. Estimating time and tide in his head, he said: ‘They are not heading up the coast! It is low water now and I reckon they will pull in here on the flood tide!’

They clambered back down the wall and ran into the town. The townspeople had already spotted the menace and were gathering their children together with whatever belongings they were able to carry. They were heading inland. Stories of Duke William’s ruth-less methods of waging war had circulated throughout the long

summer and the townspeople weren’t waiting around to test their truth.

Two riders rode around the bay and headed north through the great forest to warn King Harold.

‘What are we going to do now?’ Alnoth asked Alfred.‘We’ll find a ship further along the coast. Ships must be putting

to sea to escape the Duke’s fleet,’ Alfred replied.So the two mariners followed the narrow path that wound around

the harbour, Alfred setting the pace, squelching along the marshy track, looking constantly astern to watch Norman ships pulling into the harbour. Once Alfred believed he saw horses on board and quickened his pace. The thought of armed mounted knights bear-ing down on them was not something to dwell upon.

‘We’ll keep on going till we find a ship,’ Alfred said without slowing.Alnoth’s weather-beaten face and out of control black beard

failed to hide the sickly, yellowy look of his face. ‘I can keep up as long as we can stop now and again for a rest - and something to eat,’ he said.

Alfred laughed: ‘Something to eat! You must be getting better!’ Able to outpace even a fully-fit Alnoth, Alfred kept his steps in companionable union with his friend’s. Once they stopped to look back and saw hundreds of ships pulling into the harbour. Alnoth best described the scene: ‘A storm of ships!’

A few hours later, several miles further on, as dusk began to fall, they came upon the great hall of a village. A dog bounded out of the portal, barking and snapping at their heels, followed by a short, squat man with long fair hair, short moustache and a beard. He unsuccessfully ordered the dog to be quiet. Holding an air of being very busy, very important, and with no time to waste dealing with scruffy visitors, he said sharply: ‘I am the lord’s reeve. What is it you want?’

Alfred disliked him before he had even spoken. ‘The Normans have landed at Pevensey!’ he told him. Even in the half light Alfred saw disbelief written in the reeve’s face.

‘Duke William’s fleet would not sail at this time of the year.’Alfred held his reply though he wanted to say - believe what you

like!

‘How many ships?’‘Hundreds - too many to count.’The reeve looked dubious. ‘Who are you? Where do you come

from?’ he demanded.‘Mariners from London. We were shipwrecked returning home

from the Isle of Wight.’The reeve looked Alfred up and down, and then at Alnoth who

was almost out on his feet. Shipwrecked? It was feasible. Several of King Harold’s ships had been lost in a storm on their way home; but then again the two mariners might have been drunk and seen a school of porpoises. He was not going to raise the whole village on the say-so of two scruffy strangers.

‘I’ll ride to Pevensey at first light,’ the reeve stated. Then pointing his finger at the two mariners he ordered: ‘You two will stay here till I return.’

Inside the great hall, a servant brought the two mariners some cold fare by the light of a wick in an oil-filled cup. A brush from a feather would have keeled Alnoth over, so Alfred guided him on to a straw mattress and he soon fell fast into slumber.

Alfred remembered that it was the festival of Michaelmas on the morrow and for no reason that he could determine, he decided to go to church in the morning.

At low tide Pevensey Bay was a lagoon of mud flats and tidal

streams with a shingle bank that cut it off from the sea. The harbour sheltered behind a peninsular jutting out for three miles into the bay and on this spit of land sat the borough of Pevensey. Nearby stood a stone fortress built by the Romans and more useful now as a bearing for mariners at sea.

Compared to the first disastrous channel crossing where the Duke’s fleet ended up in St. Valery like a fisherman’s catch left gasping on the wharf, the second attempt was a breeze. In a fair wind and tempered sea the Norman invasion fleet beached their ships with comparative ease on the shingle beach of Pevensey

harbour. First ashore were archers with bows ready strung to cover disembarking infantrymen and knights. They met no opposi-tion.

Hugh Margot eagerly galloped across the mud flats to find, a little disappointingly, no one to fight. Everyone had fled. To his further surprise, Roger de Beaumont ordered him to report to Duke Wil-liam.

It appeared that the Duke wanted to reconnoitre inland and needed someone acquainted with the area. Hugh was more familiar with the land further east but it mattered little as there were only two ways out of Pevensey - the road to Lewes and a coastal path.

The Duke’s party cut across tidal streams on to the marshy coastal path that wound around the bay. William was not happy. The land couldn’t possibly support his army and was far too marshy for knights to operate on horseback. And if they took the road to Lewes their ships would be left vulnerable. Nobody argued with William’s assessment - few ever did. William turned to Hugh: ‘Describe what is further east.’

Hugh took his time, having learned that you had to be precise with William: ‘Hastings is the next harbour along, further around Bulverhythe bay. And the abbey of Rameslie is beyond that.’

‘Is there harbour for all our ships?’‘Yes.’’Are there many villages between here and Hastings?’‘Several along the coast and inland.’‘How far is it by sea to Hastings?’‘About eight miles.’‘By road?’‘About thirty - the road twists and turns around the coast.’Hugh was sure William already knew this, but he also knew that

William double checked everything. With no further questions, the Duke ordered the scouting party back to Pevensey where field-kitchens had been built on the beach, fires lit, and a meal put in preparation. The Duke invited Hugh to dinner.

Hugh tried hard not to disapprove of the well-fleshed Bishop Odo, half-brother of Duke William who quickly said grace before

proceeding to stuff himself with fish and chicken. Neither did Hugh entirely take to William’s other half-brother, Robert, Count of Montain, whose restless, mistrusting eyes never stood still.

He looked more respectfully to Eustace of Boulogne, a tough veteran campaigner who knew what he was about and was one of the few who were not completely in awe of Duke William.

During the meal, William asked Hugh to describe the land be-longing to Rameslie Abbey and in the light of the kitchen fire Hugh drew a triangle in the sand with a stick.

‘This is the sea,’ Hugh explained, pointing along the bottom line. ‘This line to the west is Bulverhythe bay and this line to the east is the river Brede - the whole area is surrounded by water.’

Bisecting the triangle horizontally half way up, he scratched a squirl in the bottom half: ‘This is Rameslie estate.’

‘What about roads?’Hugh drew another line bisecting the triangle vertically: ‘This

road runs from Hastings to London.’ Then forking two lines out of the top of the triangle he added: ‘Though the road does fork here, west to Lewes, or east to London via Maidstone through the great forest.’

‘How does the land lie?’Hugh pointed his stick just below the apex: ‘This is very rough

terrain where the watershed narrows, just before the crossroads at Caldbeck Hill.’

Instantly William made up his mind. He ordered the whole fleet and army to move to Hastings. Knights would take the coastal road to secure the safe landing of the ships which would carry foot-soldiers and equipment across the bay.

Hugh hid his disappointment. Cautiously staying close to their ships in a defensive position was not his idea of an invasion. You didn’t get what you wanted by waiting for it to come to you - you attacked and grabbed it. But then nobody argued with Duke Wil-liam.

Alfred woke at first light on Michaelmas Day to hear the reeve and his escort ride off to Pevensey. After a slow breakfast with Alnoth looking a little perkier, they both walked to the other side of the village to the simple wooden church. With no bell-tower to call villagers to church, the priest rang a bell in an adjacent stable.

The thin shafts of light squeezing through narrow windows barely illuminated the plastered and painted walls. The baptismal font was a wooden barrel and the priest stood in front of a simple wooden altar, casting a shadowy shape from the light of flickering candles.

Amid a faint aroma of incense, Alfred dipped his fingers in the bowl fixed just inside the door and crossed his breast before entering and joining Alnoth and other villagers kneeling on the clay floor.

As the priest chanted in Latin, Alfred’s mind wandered. Memo-ries of his mother came flooding back with a few tears and with them the shame at losing her crucifix. Feeling guilty - he felt her very presence here in the church watching over him – he decided he must do penance. Go on pilgrimage, he considered. But Rome and Jerusalem were a long way away . . . perhaps . . . one day. Name his first ship ‘Edeva’ after her - yes, that’s it; that’s what he’d do. It wasn’t much but he could think of nothing else.

After the service Alfred and Alnoth filed out of the church with the rest of the congregation, blinked into the daylight, and started back toward the hall. Suddenly, charging up the road, wearing nut-shaped helmets and long coats of mail, astride large war-horses that pounded the ground and kicked up the dirt, came six Norman knights, heading straight for the church.

Villagers stood and stared before shouting and running in all directions.

’Come back into the church!’ the priest shouted. ‘It will provide sanctuary.’

Alfred hesitated. The priest’s confidence almost won him over but instinct told him to run . . . and run fast. ‘Come on, Alnoth! This way!’ he shouted and away they went, in headlong panic with hearts racing, running over a field of stubble grass, lurching on the uneven ground, staring ahead not daring to look behind.

Fear drove them on, over the field and through woods with brambles scratching, briars tearing and feet slipping on dead soggy leaves, rushing blindly on till Alfred stopped to allow an out of breath Alnoth to catch up.

No one chasing behind but away they went again, chests heav-ing, across a stream in two wet strides, splashing through a marsh like flightless waders and then uphill, staggering with pulses racing and lungs bursting. There they pulled up sharp. Two apparitions rose up in front of them; ghosts seemingly long laid to rest dis-turbed by their flurry. Unsure of their greater fear, Normans behind or demons ahead, they gulped and stared wide-eyed.

Alfred wiped sweat away from his panicky eyes and saw that they were not two spiritual beings but ordinary men who had stood up from a ditch, one waving a billhook and the other a spade. Hurriedly raising his arms in the air, Alfred shouted: ‘We are fleeing from Normans.’

’Who are you?’ the elder man demanded, holding his spade threateningly.

’Fishermen from Pevensey,’ Alfred answered, nervously looking behind and thankfully finding nobody in sight. Alfred’s answer did not exactly substantiate their appearance: tunics torn and shabby, hands and face scratched, muddied legs and soaking feet, more frightened than fearsome; but then, they could hardly be mistaken for Norman knights.

The two men lowered their gardening implements. ‘Are Normans coming this way?’ the younger one asked nervously.

‘Possibly,’ Alfred said.‘You’d best come and hide with us,’ said the elder.‘Hide?’ Alnoth joined in. ‘Is there no way we can get on a ship?’’No.’The answer sounded so final that Alfred’s heart sank.’Come, we’ll show you,’ said the elder man and led them along

a path, past several buildings, up a hill to a promontory elbowing its way out into the bay. The whole of Pevensey bay lay before them and the sight that met their eyes filled them with dismay. Norman ships had moved out of Pevensey harbour and were now

heading east, disappearing past the end of the bay towards Hast-ings.

‘We are cut off!’ Alfred dismally exclaimed. ‘Knights astern and fresh-tarred floaters ahead.’

‘Now I know how a penned lamb feels against a marauding wolf,’ Alnoth said, staring miserably at the offending fleet.

Through the hazy greyness, Alfred just distinguished the masts and shrouds of the ships. ‘Can you see the men on board?’ he asked bitterly. ‘Can you see what kind of men inflicts swords against a people who have done them no harm?’

Alnoth looked hard at Alfred. He had never before seen him this angry.

These Viking ships weren’t the ones Alfred loved. These were floating harbingers of death and destruction. Alfred imagined what he could not actually see - ships with carved dragons’ heads and tails on stem and stern posts, death shrouds for sails, gallows for masts and manned by ogres, monsters and demons.

As he stared resentfully, Alfred realised he had missed some-thing. Then it came to him - where were the horses? There were none on board the ships. The reality of the Norman manoeuvre struck him like a blow. ‘The knights are riding round the bay while the foot-soldiers are going by ship. The whole army is moving east to the estate of Rameslie! Where I have come from!’ he exclaimed.

Alnoth had lost the thread of Alfred’s reasoning but Alfred saw it all as clear as day: ‘The abbey will supply the Normans with food, apart from what the knights can plunder on the way. The Abbe of Rameslie and Duke William are fellow travellers in the same ship.’

Alnoth looked uncomprehending: ‘Does that help us?’ he asked.‘No help at all. We might sail around them if we can find a ship.’

‘Can a ship get in and out of here?’ Alfred asked his hosts.‘Yes, if we had one. None of the ships returned from fishing

yesterday.’‘We are well and truly trapped like fish in a barrel,’ Alnoth said.

‘But where are the rest of the villagers?’ he asked his hosts.‘Hiding in ditches,’ the eldest replied.‘You mean we’ve come all this way just to hide in a ditch!’ Alnoth

pleaded.

’I’m sorry, Alnoth. The best laid plans of mice . . .’ Alfred began.’Mice is right - hiding in ditches. Generous and brave men get the

best out of life but cowards fear everything.’‘It takes prudence not reckless heroics if you want to see the day

dawn where you were born,’ Alfred returned. ‘Have you a sword or spear?’

‘No,” Alnoth answered, ‘I’m a fisherman not a warrior.’‘Well then, what else can we do?’In accompaniment to a resigned shrug of his shoulders, Alnoth

said: ‘Come ere what come way; what will be, will be. We’d best join the moles.’

From the direction they had come, wreaths of smoke curled upwards, slowly spreading and climbing into the sky to further sink their spirits. Left with no other option but to hide from the Normans, the two mariners joined the men, women, children and babies skulking in the ditches.

The flickering rush light struggled to dispel the gloom surround-

ing Eric and a grieving group of housecarles seated inside the great hall at Huntingdon. The shoulder companions of these housecarles had departed from their lives at Stamfordbridge, taking their courage, their generosity and their whole world with them.

If only Eric had Gwener with him he would have found it easier. He missed her terribly, her dusky face as golden as a female blackbird, her lips as red as robin redbreast and her smooth throat out of which came the songs of nightingales.

Just a sight of her would lift his heart. If only he had Pegasus to fly him to his Venus. Slipping into a gloomy doze, he began to dream: a beautiful maiden beckoned to him and he went to her. She welcomed him with a horn of mead, gave him a sword and an eight-legged horse. She led him down into the ground to a hall of many doors with walls of glittering spears and a roof of golden shields. Shadows of eagles and ravens played upon the walls.

Twelve men in black and twelve in red were fighting but as they fell they sprang up again to continue the fight. A one-eyed man in a blue cloak and wide-brimmed hat offered him a gold ring and a cup of mead. ‘Take a drink,’ the beautiful maiden said. ‘It is the mead of inspiration made from the blood of a wise giant. It gives power to compose poetry and speak words of wisdom.’ Eric hesitated, tempted but unsure.

‘You see these two ravens,’ said the one-eyed man with a sly smile and pointing to two birds wheeling overhead. ‘They are ‘Thought’ and ‘Memory’ and they could be yours.’

Eric took a sip of the mead and immediately the maiden began to change into a grotesque shape. ‘The doors of death are open to many,’ she croaked, blood running out of her mouth and down her chin. Eric dropped his cup and ran to one of the doors but the fearsome maiden threw a piece of mistletoe which pierced him like a spear, and he fell to the ground unable to move - until he awoke to a loud shout: ‘Duke William has landed at Pevensey!’

Haldane stood framed in the doorway, bellowing the news. Silence hung for a moment before hullabaloo erupted and a dozen questions from housecarles were simultaneously thrown at Hal-dane: ‘How? When? Where are they now . . .?’

Haldane answered: ‘Five days ago; hundreds of ships and thousands of Normans ravaging Sussex.’

In the descending silence, Haldane began to issue King Harold’s orders. Eric was designated to deliver a summons to Earl Leofric in Essex.

’Essex?’ Eric queried. ‘Whereabouts in Essex?’ The fact that Essex was half marsh and half forest was Eric’s sum knowledge of the shire.

’Try Colchester,’ Haldane answered dismissively, ’and use your spurs. This is no time for joy riding.’

‘Joy riding!’ Eric exclaimed, looking dumbfounded. Riding anywhere was difficult at this time of the year. Yet he knew Haldane was right. The faster the whole army got down to Sussex the quicker they could repel the Normans. Carrying the King’s written summons, Eric took the old Roman road into Essex and by good fortune found Earl Leofwine at Colchester. He delivered the summons and headed

for Canterbury and Gwener and as he rode an old song went through his mind.

48 Dearest One

Snow and ice can no more be seen; Flowers and grass grow so green; High Philomena takes her part; Love burns caverns of my heart. Dearest one oh please don't delay; Oh yes, love me right away Without you I just cannot fend; Carry our love to the end.

Why the delay, O dearest one; Things that have to be done; So quickly do all you love to do; I'm ready here for you.

No matter where I am I find, You are always on my mind. And everything I try to do, Contains memories of you. Dearest one oh please don't delay; O yes love me right away; Without you I just cannot fend; Carry our love to the end.

Why the delay, O dearest one; Things that have to be done; So quickly do all you love to do; I'm waiting here for you.

No matter where I am I find; You are always on my mind; And everything I try to do;Contains memories of you.

Crossing the river Thames by ferry, he arrived at Canterbury to find neither Gwener nor Edith Swannick. More than worried, he rejoined King Harold in London where the King was gathering his forces.

Chapter 14: Hastings

He (Harold) gathered a great army and came against them at the ancient apple tree. William came among them unawares, before they had gathered.


Fyrdmen gathered round the Grey Old Apple Tree at Caldbeck Hill with their weapons of war: swords, spears, clubs, stones on sticks, bills and pitchforks. They came from Devon and Somerset, Norfolk and Suffolk, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, London, Kent and Essex, and those most weary veterans from Stamfordbridge.

King Harold’s arm swept across the ridge of open heath that cut across the road to Hastings and ordered: ‘Form a line across this ridge - this is where we will hold the Normans!’

Four furlongs wide, the ridge sloped away on both sides into steep valleys of rough ground covered with bushes of gorse and broom. Furrowed rain gullies ran down the slopes to converge into streams and eventually into the river Brede - a natural defence against out-flanking mounted knights.

The King peered down the road toward Hastings in anticipation, the only road by which Duke William’s army could come, where

the ground sloped away for a furlong and a half into a marshy valley called Santlache before rising gently to Telham Hill five furlongs further on.

Earl Gyrth, Harold’s next eldest brother, liked it: ‘As good a position as I’ve ever seen.’ His blue eyes, set between chubby cheeks and a fringe of blond hair, seemed to be smiling as if to confirm his sunny disposition.

Harold’s younger brother, Earl Leofwine, darker, quieter, and deeper thinking than any of his elder brothers, nodded his assent. Haldane’s silence indicated his approval.

Eric could find no flaw but then nobody asked him. Since his slaying of Hardrada at Stamfordbridge he had been promoted to a marshal that admitted him to the King’s entourage but did not stretch to providing counsel. Like the King, he stared down into the valley along the road that led to Hastings just six miles away, half expecting to see Norman knights galloping towards him.

When they did attack they would have to attack up the slope. He liked that. Not so good was their lack of surprise. By now, Duke William’s scouts would know King Harold’s exact disposition. ‘Why has Duke William waited for us to come to him?’ Eric asked Haldane.

Haldane gave him that familiar ‘if only you listened you might learn something’ look before saying: ‘Duke William is taking no chances by not moving too far from his ships.’

King Harold tilted his face skywards and Eric knew what he was looking for, hoping for, perhaps even praying for - rain. Wet ground would provide William’s horses with a slippery footing, particularly coming uphill. No rain had fallen for a week now, leaving the ground dry and firm enough to take horse’s full stride.

King Harold led his party back to Caldbeck Hill where Eric spotted his two friends from Edwinstowe, Vebba the Thane and Wulfmer the Woodsman riding up the road from Lewes.

‘Good Tidings!’ Eric shouted, grinning with pleasure, his first real grin for a month. ‘Duke William will be shaking in his shoes now.’

’Haven’t you yet learned any respect for your betters?’ Vebba returned, though his eye held a warm welcome. Wulfmer forced a smile.

’It is good to see both of you,’ Eric said more seriously. ‘We need all the fighting men we can get. You’ve heard about the battle of Stamfordbridge?’

’Yes, a glorious victory,’ Vebba said.Eric lowered his voice: ‘Many shoulder companions fell in death.’’But a noble victory,’ Vebba persisted.‘Yes, we won.’ Eric’s tone lacked any note of triumph and a

puzzled Vebba stared curiously at him, unaware that a housecarle’s dreams of glory had turned into nightmares.

Vebba said: ‘Saints help us! We have just come through the village of Nirefield. It is laid waste and burned to the ground by the Normans , , , though the church still stands.’

“Good God!” Eric exclaimed.’What is happening here?’ Vebba then asked.‘See that ridge,’ Eric said, pointing down the road. ‘That’s our

defensive line.’’Defensive line? Aren’t we attacking the Normans?’ asked a

surprised Vebba, eager to avenge the burning of Nirefield village.‘The King has picked the ground that gives the best advantage.’Vebba, obviously disappointed, looked pensive for a moment: ‘If

King Harold has picked it then its good enough for me.’‘It’s a good position,’ Eric confirmed.Vebba’s face held a half-mocking smile: ‘Well, if you approve, it’s

got to be all right.’Eric smiled and added: ‘Not all the fyrdmen are here yet.’‘We can beat Duke William with half an army.’‘You always did think your geese were swans,’ Eric chided. ‘Best

not to underestimate these Normans.’Wulfmer finally joined in, his voice barely above a whisper: ‘I will

pray for the aid of the Good Lord and His Saints.’All three clasped hands tightly for a moment before joining the

other housecarles and fyrdmen.The fyrdmen clustered in groups around the old apple tree, each

group comprised of the same hundred and village - kinfolk and neighbours. They shared the same fire, whatever food they had brought with them and the same fears. The men, who would fight

together, perhaps die together, were the same men who worked together, drank together and knelt together in church.

No one questioned why they were there. No foreigner was going to tell them who was going to be their King. Nobody invaded their land, burned their homes and murdered their kin without retribu-tion. Here to defend their hearth and homes they would throw these Viking invaders back into the sea.

King Harold had given out a single message: ‘Duke William and his Normans are trapped, hemmed in by the sea and river and their only way out was down this road. This was where they would finish him. Stand with firm resolve and stout heart, fight shoulder to shoulder, retreat not one foot’s pace, nor yield ere an inch of your own soil to the Norman.’

The housecarles sat warming their hands and blinking their eyes into their campfire, all acutely aware of the havoc and death to come but meeting it with calm expectancy. No feast this night: no chickens on spits, ale or wine to whet their appetites and lift their spirits; no fine colourful clothes, glittering bracelets or boasting of past prowess - just a skimpy fare of salted bacon, stale bread and even staler ale.

Coats of mail, sharpened spears and battle-axes were all that glittered in the firelight. Talk came in hushed tones, hiding unease as to whether they would endure their wounds in the battle ahead and hold out in the hour of need.

‘How about reciting a poem, Minstrel?’ one housecarle shouted and others took up the chorus. To Eric, it seemed an aeon since he had last recited.

’Something from Beowulf,’ someone suggested.‘All right, just a few lines,’ Eric agreed and everyone quieted to

listen.‘Men draw near with shining weapons;The birds of battle screech.The grey wolf howls, the spear rattles;Spear answers shaft.The pale moon wanders;On her way below clouds gleaming.Evil deeds will now be done

Provoking pitched battle.Wake up now, my warriors!Grasp your shields, steel yourselves!Step forward and be brave!’

In the still air, Eric’s voice carried clear to anxious warriors, holding eyes downcast and voices down to a hush. This night might well be their last. For Eric, the atmosphere became all too eerie and he ended with the lines:

‘I have never heard before.Or since of sixty triumphant warriors.Who bore themselves more.Bravely in the thick of battle.’

Shouting usually accompanied the end of his poems but this one met a hushed silence and Eric felt a strange chill. It was not just the end of a poem; it seemed the end of something more. His flippancy, his easy-going life, his dreams were gone forever. He had tumbled into a gloom and a harshness where no aspirations were left. Fame and immortality in verse would never be found. There was only one prize for war and that was death.

Campfires died, sentinels posted and everyone bedded down not knowing what the dawn would bring. Settled inside his skin bag, Eric closed his eyes and visualised Gwener’s golden face brightened by the sun, her dark hair blowing in the breeze, black eyes shining, kind mouth greeting him and lips brushing his as gentle as a feather. Cheered, he slipped into slumber, though thin and uneasy.

At Hastings as dawn brought night’s blackness to not much lighter than a murky grey and cold mists rolled in off the sea to lay sullen in the valleys, Duke William ordered his army to march on Caldbeck Hill. Inside the Norman camp, bishops held mass, took confessions and gave sacrament to the accompaniment of clang-ing armourers’ anvils.

Having heard mass in Bishop Odo’s tent, Hugh Margot and Roger de Beaumont collected their battle gear and walked with their horses in the procession of knights, archers, infantrymen and carts winding their way along the narrow road to Caldbeck Hill.

Impatient at the slow pace, Hugh remarked to Roger: ‘Isn’t it odd that we are walking to fight on horseback while the English ride to fight on foot?’

Only a clearing of his throat signified Roger’s agreement. His communication with Hugh had reduced in proportion to Hugh’s rise in favour with Duke William. Noting Roger’s peevishness, Hugh ignored it. Companionship he did not need, nor Roger’s sponsorship now that he had the Duke’s favour. His future now lay about him - a thriving land with abundant livestock, woods for hunting and flourishing fields for crops. His sword arm would provide his needs.

Conscience did not come into it. Having sworn his fealty to Duke William, the rightful King of England, he saw himself as a Christian champion driving back the heathen and backsliding Christian; land and booty being just reward for doing his duty.

Two miles before Caldbeck Hill, the two knights stopped on a hillock to don their armour. Over the top of his leather-padded undergarment, Hugh pulled on his one-piece mailshirt of inter-locked and riveted metal rings. The slit in the left hip accommo-dated his sword. After placing his conical helmet, a solidly-forged iron skull piece inside metal bands, over his head, he put his leather-bound foot into his triangular iron-looped stirrup and hauled himself into the saddle. With his kite-shaped shield slung over his back and holding a lance in his right hand, Hugh reined his horse forwards ahead of Roger.

On the crest of the next hillock, they sighted the English line less than half a mile ahead forming up at top of the slope behind their

shield-wall. Hugh felt he could hear English taunts and it instilled in him an excitement, a chill and a faintly sick feeling. It was with a strategic eye and an unhappy face that he viewed the battlefield.

The ground ahead was shaped like a saddle with the English lined up on the cantle, with themselves on the bow and dipping down in between. Either side of the English line sloped away steeply into thick undergrowth that guarded their flanks. King Harold had picked a good position.

Immediately ahead, he saw Duke William, apparently uncon-cerned, directing men forward to their positions. The Duke was parading his army almost within bowshot of the English army with all the arrogance of a falcon before striking, certain in what he was doing, having done it many times before.

Roger was directed to the left into marshy ground, beyond a stream and a hillock in the bottom of the valley, where he joined the Bretons and the men from Maine and Anjou.

Hugh moved into the centre of the line consisting of mainly Norman knights commanded by the Duke himself and his two brothers Odo and Robert. Hugh’s position was immediately under the Papal banner - a gold cross on white.

On Hugh’s right flank were stationed mercenaries from France and Flanders under the command of Eustace of Boulogne, all on a cut-throat crusade with a promise of a share in the spoils.

The archers arranged themselves in front, infantry behind them, and mounted knights behind them.

The English, peering silently from behind their shields, patiently

waited for the Normans to attack.In the dingy light of a cheerless dawn when even larks were slow

to open their eyes, Englishmen had risen from the ground like corpses, and had come slowly to life to fatefully greet the day. The sun hid away, not expecting to shine, and the greyness of the dawn reflected in men’s faces.

’The Normans are coming!’

The shout echoed round and in its unexpectedness caused everyone to flap and flurry. Eric put his mail coat over his leather tunic padded with wool, strapped his ancient iron around his waist, stuck his axe in his belt, picked up his helmet and walked down to the ridge.

Haldane and other captains were already marshalling warriors into a line that stretched all the way across the ridge. Housecarles were in the front row overlapping their shields, and thanes in the second row holding their shields overhead. Behind stood the less experienced fyrdmen equipped with weapons varying from stones on sticks to sharpened shovels. Most of the fyrdmen had no protective armour except some who wore home-made leather coats and caps. A few archers stood at the rear, ready to fire at the Normans over English heads.

If the part-time fyrdmen lacked weaponry they did not lack confidence. A continuous stream of shouting, ribald humour and pretentious insults were bandied about to the accompaniment of clanging metal on wooden shields. Muscles flexed, sinews stretched and weapons gripped and re-gripped in the long line of tightly-packed nervous men. Some were impatient to get on with it, others not at all. Despite the efforts of the marshals, the line was still like a dog’s hind leg.

’The Normans are here!’The chilling cry concentrated minds and hasty manoeuvring

soon brought eight ranks into something like order. Perhaps they looked a little shabby in unkempt tunics and armour that had seen better days but the line ran reasonably straight.

Marshalling the men at the front of the line, Eric turned to watch a stream of Normans come over the crest of the hill half a mile away and file down the slope. First a dozen, then a score or more, then hundreds piled down into the dip to form up less than a furlong away.

Perhaps we ought to attack now before they formed up, Eric thought, turning his head toward King Harold who merely carried on waiting patiently stood between his two brothers at the highest point on the ridge.

Eric checked his part of the line again. A palisade of spears, jammed into the ground and projecting forwards above the line of overlapping shields formed a rampart against charging horses. Some shields were upturned with the pointed end stuck into the ground to leave both housecarles’ hands free to swing their axes. In the rear ranks, shields were held aloft to give protection from arrows and missiles.

The atmosphere was bow-tautened. Men held their breath in nervous expectation and any talk came in hushed tones as if the Normans might overhear and rumble their fear. Many muttered prayers and others crossed their breasts.

‘Hold the line!’ was the order of the day and so they did, waiting with nerves tight, minds stiffening, feet nervously stamping, hands sweating, throats dry and hearts racing.

Satisfied with the line’s compactness, Eric pushed his way through to the back and joined the bodyguard of housecarles surrounding King Harold who stood at his command post to the left of centre, fifty paces to the rear. By his side stood his two brothers, Girth and Leofwine, and his captain Haldane.

The royal banner ‘Dragon of Wessex’ embroidered in gold and blazing with gems alongside Harold’s own ‘Fighting Man’ barely fluttered in the lifeless breeze. Underneath, King Harold held a panoramic view over English heads into the Norman lines.

Eric glanced around at the King who stood calmly still, his sad-eyed, grim face fixed in the direction of the Normans. Like Eric’s, the King’s smile had been lost amongst the carnage at Stamfordbridge.

Earl Leofwine, on the King’s right, held a calm reserve but Earl Gyrth on his left was full of exuberance, making animated gestures in the direction of the Normans. Eric thought he would be better advised to save his energy.

All the surrounding housecarles were quiet and tense, knowing what to expect. They were about to relive the stomach churning trauma they had endured at Stamfordbridge. The scars of that battle were not all visible. Some were hidden away in their minds. No one before had experienced a battle of such deadly fury as that battle - and now they faced another.

Eric’s mouth held a sour and salty taste and his stomach enter-tained butterflies. Everything seemed magnified. His eyes and ears picked out every movement in the Norman lines clearly and sharply: the horses fidgeting and stamping their feet; the knights crossing themselves before exercising their sword arms; the infan-trymen menacing their spears and the archers testing their bow strings.

Shouting immediately followed trumpets sounding and the Nor-man archers moved forward together in a line, stopping a hundred paces short of the English shield-wall. Standing sideways, legs apart, they pulled the strings back to their chests and loosed their metal-tipped arrows into the English ranks. Battle had commenced.

Some arrows found their mark. Eric heard cries after each of the eight volleys. The archers then moved back to make way for the infantry who marched steadily up the slope towards a cacophony of English shouts and banging of swords against shields. When within throwing range of the English line, the Norman infantry met a fusillade of javelins, stones and throwing axes, and rushing the last few paces they ran into a fence of jabbing spears.

Two armies clashed in a din of incoherent screams, shouts, thuds of metal against wood and echoing steel that pealed and reverberated around the hillside. The rear ranks of the English line obscured Eric’s view of the front line but he heard the shouts and cries and thuds, and felt more than heard, the sickening thwack of metal cutting into flesh and bone.

The Norman infantry recoiled back from the palisade of jabbing spears. They came again, trying to force their way into the English line with short thrusting lunges before housecarles stepped for-ward with scything axes to force them back yet again.

Back down the slope mounted knights moved forward and Eric heard the thudding of their chargers cantering up the slope throw-ing clods of earth into the air. He watched them break into a gallop, holding their lances at the ready, and charge straight into the shield-wall and palisade of English spears.

None of the horses had any protection. Some balked at the spears, wheeled and went back on their haunches with front legs pawing in the air. Others fell with spear wounds in their chests, or

their legs shattered by swords. Some did break into the English line, their riders stabbing furiously with their lances. A few knights fell and scrambled to their feet to fight on foot alongside the infantrymen.

The charge made little impression on the English shield-wall and the Normans had to retreat. Eric believed the Normans had made a tactical error in making a frontal assault with mounted knights.

A little earlier, Vebba had made his presence felt on the right hand side of the English line: ‘Is that a fool’s brain that you’ve got under your helmet of iron?’ he demanded of one fyrdman whose careless sword whizzed by his nose. ‘If everybody doesn’t watch where he is sticking his sword, we’ll all be dead by the time the Normans arrive!’

Vebba and Wulfmer stood side by side in the second rank behind housecarles who were calmness itself despite the tension mount-ing behind them. The tightly packed eight ranks had produced a furnace atmosphere and the nervous fyrdmen at the back, jostling and pushing to get a better view of the Normans, were causing all the trouble. Vebba’s booming voice instilled some calm: ‘You’ll get a close enough view when they stick a sword up your nose,’ he told those behind.

Wulfmer was far from calm. In the cramped confines of the lines, he was nearly out of his mind. Terror had closed in on him after hearing a vivid account of the battle of Stamfordbridge, and it was only gut-jerking resolve that held him to his position. Hot and sticky, his stomach knotting, he was barely able to breathe. The additional smell of sweat and body excretions had all become too much for him and he had already brought up what little breakfast he had eaten that morning. His grave seemed to have closed over him and he was in the fire of hell.

‘The archers are moving up!’The cry resounded and Wulfmer, the flesh on his face and hands

tight and white, crouched even lower. Showers of arrows, as thick as hail, whirred and thudded into shields, followed by cries of pain as several struck home. When the whistling darts of death stopped, Vebba edged a wary eye from behind his shield.

‘The infantry are coming!’ Vebba shouted.

At first, Vebba and Wulfmer warded off spears of infrantrymen forced between their shields but the wild frenzy of fury worsened when mounted knights hit the line with shocking speed and lances came jabbing over the top. The housecarle in front of Vebba crumpled and died at spear point leaving a gap. A mounted knight powered through.

Vebba stabbed his sword into the horse’s chest and the wounded horse’s legs collapsed beneath it. The rider, vainly trying to hang on with his knees, toppled over its head and sprawled on the ground. A housecarle ferociously sank an axe into his back. Roger de Beaumont died in the first assault.

One knight turned away but charged back again, knocking Wulfmer to the ground. Wulfmer felt the horse’s steamy breath as he lifted his shield in time to ward off a sword that came flashing down. Horse and rider went straight over the top of him leaving a gap in their wake and the Norman infantry began to hew a path into it.

Wulfmer scrambled to his feet to find himself with space to swing his axe. His heart hammered crazily as he knocked the sword from the leading infantryman with his first blow. The second infantry-man thrust too far forward and his arm was smashed by a second scything blow from Wulfmer.

The infantry following behind prudently backed away. Wulfmer advanced, panting, menacingly swinging his axe.

Vebba also moved forward to fill the gap left by the fallen housecarle and his confidence rose at the sight of knights and infantrymen turning back in disorder. Vebba felt certain the Nor-mans were going to be defeated. So did the inexperienced fighting men in the rear who began to excitedly holler in triumph, leave the cover of the shield-wall and rampage downhill after the Bretons. The fyrdmen believed they had routed the Normans and their blood was up.

Before he realised it, Wulfmer found his legs striding forward, running down the slope, swinging his axe with the rest of the pursuing fyrdmen. He did not so much want to pursue the Bretons as escape from the claustrophobic constriction of the defensive shield-wall. Still rooted, Vebba looked to his left, saw that the rest

of their line had not moved and for an infinitely long moment he agonised. His lord’s order was to hold, but shouldn’t they be attacking these invaders? The urge to avenge the burning of his village proved too strong and bellowing fearsome cries at the top of his voice, he whirled his sword around his head and followed the fyrdmen down the slope.

The Normans in the centre, their left flank exposed by the retreating Bretons, pulled back, leaving the French on their right with no option but to follow. The Normans might well have lost the battle before it had begun except Duke William galloped forward from his command post at the bottom of Santlache meadow, saw that the rest of the English line had not moved, and ordered his Norman knights and infantry to wheel round, cross the field and cut off the pursuing English.

Vebba caught up with Wulfmer on the hillock in the lower part of the valley only to find Normans attacking their rear. Thane and woodsman had to turn about and side by side fight their way back up the slope again.

Vebba desperately waved his sword from side to side while Wulfmer swung his axe around his head in an arc of whistling steel. No match on their own against knights on charging horses, both were knocked off their feet.

Wulfmer, still swinging his axe from a ground position, died from several sword thrusts into his chest.

Vebba, his helmet cloven in two, face streaming with blood, died at Wulfmer’s side shouting defiance at the Normans.

A few Normans fell with them. The rest of the hot-brained pursu-ing English fyrdmen also stood no chance and fell under deadly Norman steel.

The rest of the English line stood helplessly watching from the top of the slope till the hillock below became deathly quiet. This presaged a lull in the battle and the Normans began to re-organise themselves.

It was in dismay that Eric watched the suicidal pursuit of the Bretons by the fyrdmen. And his heart would have bled had he known that his two friends were among those who had been killed.

He turned to look at his lord King Harold whose face had changed from satisfaction at the English line rebutting the Norman attack, to frustration at the fyrdmen leaving the line, and now to fury at their slaughter on the hillock.

‘Hold fast! Close up the line!’ the King shouted grievously at his captains.

’We can defeat these Normans,’ Earl Gyrth confidently assured the King.’The Normans cannot break the shield-wall,’ Leofwine added.

The King could not be calmed: ‘We have to hold the line till the Normans are exhausted and then we can attack. We need tighter control of our line.’

King Harold issued new orders: ‘Gyrth, you take the right flank! Leofwine, you take the left! And Haldane, you take the middle! The line must hold fast till the Normans are exhausted!’Eric looked to Haldane for his own orders but none came. With silent determination Haldane had shoved his way into the centre of the English line. Eric decided to follow Earl Gyrth into the right hand side of the line where gaps were largest.

Wounded men were moved to the rear, fallen weapons retrieved and corpses of horses and men left where they lay as barriers to the next assault. Men filled gaps by closing up from the sides, thereby shortening the line.

Eric joined the front rank to watch the Normans preparing for their next attack, same as before - archers in front, infantry behind and knights in the rear.

‘Here come the arrows!’At that fearful cry, Eric ducked down behind his shield. When the

arrows stopped coming, he risked a peek round his shield, saw the infantry advancing and waited behind his shield.

They were almost on top of him when Eric stood up, dodged a probing spear, swung his axe and smashed it into the shield of the first Norman. Wooden shrapnel from the Norman’s shield went flying. Eric’s next swing, hissing viciously through the air, caught the same Norman’s helmet a slicing blow that sent its owner crashing to the ground.

Bellowing through clenched teeth, Eric stood his ground, swing-ing his axe, almost severing the arm of the next Norman before hitting another with a crunching blow to his chest. Despite his stomach retching, he determined to stop everyone and everything that came his way.

Everything did come: javelins - speeding, singing and whistling; lances - thrusting, stabbing and piercing; swords - cutting, slashing and slicing, high and low, over and under, from all points. His every nerve, muscle and sinew was stretched in fighting to survive.

In the wake of the infantry, the mounted knights came charging up the slope with Hugh Margot well to the fore and flying along. Couched under his right arm was his lance carrying a pennon depicting a raven. His elbows flapped like a goshawk’s wings and he shrieked in part fear and part excitement: ‘Thor aid!’

His horse hit the shield-wall, reared up and down in amongst the defenders, forcing a path into the English line. Crashing right through to the other side, he wheeled round and crashed back again to further widen the gap into which the infantry could now cut and stab.

Hugh had never been drunk on wine but he was drunk now, his eyes holding a murderous glow, his mailcoat splattered with blood, his brain intoxicated in a kill, or be killed, fight to the finish.

Lost among the grunts and shrieks at first, the chant gradually grew louder as housecarles and thanes picked it up, till the whole line echoed in unison to the same repetitive grunt: ‘Out! Out!’

As ferociously as the Normans fought to open a gap, the English fought tenaciously to plug it. Hugh, having lost the impetus of his first charge into the English line, was slowly being forced out.

The English ranks slowly, very slowly, tightened and closed, forcing the Normans to stand off and then straggle back down the slope. A bloody but undiscouraged Hugh turned and rode slowly back to his own lines.

The English line was thinner, shorter, ragged and wearied, but still intact.

A groan of relief escaped Eric as the Normans backed off again. Covered in blood, he was not sure how much of it was his own. One thing he was sure of - the Normans kept on coming. His

weary eye searched up a line that was now more like a fence wrecked in a storm than a shield-wall. Hundreds of dead, dying, wounded men and horses lay on the ground. Some even lay on top of each other. He looked to the King’s banner. It was still flying but saw no sign of Earl Gyrth, Earl Leofwine or Haldane.

‘Are they attacking again?’ a thane asked, hunched over with weariness, his fearful eyes not daring to look towards the Normans.

’Looks like it,’ Eric said, peering down the slope and ruefully recalling Harold’s words: ‘Let the Normans exhaust themselves against the shield-wall before we attack.’

Eric now realised that Duke William intended to attack and attack till the English shield-wall itself wilted with exhaustion.

A sinking, flagging fatigue had overcome weary English warriors who had little left except exhaustion. Every muscle had been strained, every sinew stretched, every effort striven to hold the line together.

Groans and cries of pain, pleas to their mothers and to the Saints came from men drooped and stretched on the ground. Dead were piling on bloodied dead on a ridge that seemingly had an endless appetite for blood.

In the midst of this madness Eric added his own absurdity. He began to recite epic poetry as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Marching up the front of the line, side-stepping bodies, he began to recite lines from the ‘Battle of Maldon’:

‘Wake up, my warriors! Grasp your shields!Steel yourselves, step forward and be brave!

As long as you can lift your shield and wield a sword. Then keep your word. Stand firm, do not yield an inch. We must encourage each other to fight for as long as .

We can wield our weapons. Pierce with our spears and lunge and parry with our swords. He who seeks to turn from this swordplay now .

Will regret it always.’

The weary warriors looked incredulous at the sound of poetic words and the sight of a bloodied housecarle marching up the line

as if battle had not yet started. Startled out of their numbed minds, they slowly, very slowly, forced their tired bodies into life.

Racked minds begged for an end, aching muscles demanded rest, wounded bodies entreated relief, but men called on reserves from depths they never knew they possessed. Dragging them-selves back into their shield-wall, albeit thinner and shorter, they prepared to repel another assault.

Duke William changed his tactics. The English line had to be broken today - it was possible that King Harold could summon up reserves on the morrow but William had none. So William ordered the knights and infantry to attack at the same time as the archers fired their arrows high in the air.

Hugh Margot changed his line of attack. Seeing the English line shortened at both ends, he determined to find a path around the English right flank and attack them from the rear. When the trumpet sounded attack, he and a dozen other knights galloped across the field to the right hand side of the English line.

Eric was holding his shield high in the air warding off the arrows that rained down but hurriedly dropped it as mounted knights and infantry attacked at the same time. Brushing a thrusting spear aside with his sword, he slashed the first infantryman, slowing down those behind.

He had to raise his shield again as arrows came down at random and out of the corner of his eye he saw knights riding around their right hand end of their line. He shouted a warning to other house-carles and ran to the rear to block their path

Having outflanked the English line, the knights rode along its rear heading for its centre and King Harold’s position. Leaning forward in his saddle, keeping close to the horse’s neck, Hugh Margot led the charge.

Eric stood blocking his way but at the last moment stepped aside and swung a slicing blow at Hugh’s body with his sword. Hugh used his own sword to parry then swing down at Eric who ducked out of the way but was knocked sideways by the horse as it reared up and thudded down.

Hugh’s sword curved round in a mighty swipe but Eric parried it with his own sword. Rapidly recoiling, Eric thrust his own sword

forwards towards Hugh’s chest but Hugh blocked it and pulled his horse’s head round knocking Eric off balance. It gave Hugh an opening and he hit Eric with a tremendous thwack across his chest.

Only the ingrained habit of a warrior held Eric up as his legs buckled. A searing pain rasped across his ribs and every ounce of breath burst out of his lungs. Hugh’s horse wheeled completely round and though Eric saw the blow coming, he was unable to raise his sword arm. He failed to counter. Hugh’s sword crashed down upon his head and clove his helmet in two.

With lungs on fire, head filled with searing pain, eyes blurred and unfocusing, Eric felt an unseen hand pressing him down to the ground. His legs momentarily resisted, but incapable of grasping a breath of wind into his lungs, sky and ground swapped places, and he sank to the blood-stained soil. Consciousness left him before he hit the ground.

The charging Norman knights, led by Hugh, rode on, fighting their way with bludgeoning power along the rear of the English line towards King Harold and his surrounding housecarles.

A group of knights led by Eustace of Boulogne had outflanked the other end of the line and were fighting their way towards King Harold from the opposite side.

In defence of their hearth and homes and their lord King, Eng-lishmen did not retreat one step. Their chain mail sang a grue-some hymn as they stood defiant in the whirl of battle, making good their boasts to defend their lord or leave this world.

Earl Gyrth, Earl Leofwine and Haldane had already fallen in the carnage. Fathers, sons, brothers and companions fell where they fought as Norman sword and mace, savage and grim, havocked through them.

The elite housecarle escort defended their lord to their last breath but King Harold eventually fell, fighting to the end amongst his men, desperately trying to ward off a welter of Norman swords and whirling maces.

King Harold died at the same spot on which he had stood since early that morning, not having retreated one foot’s pace. Cut down

with him were the English banners: ‘Dragon of Wessex’ claimed by Eustace of Boulogne, and the ‘Fighting Man’, claimed by Hugh Margot.

Courage, steely resolve and fighting shoulder to shoulder had not been enough to defeat William, Duke of the Normans.

At the highest point on the ridge, the Norman victor raised his consecrated banner, knelt, and gave thanks to God.

The falling blanketing darkness could not mask the pile of man-gled bodies spread all along the ridge; nor could it blot out the pitiful cries and groans for succour coming from the wounded.

The Norman victors tended their wounded comrades but their charity did not extend to the English who were summarily dealt a blade of death.

Chapter 15: Aftermath

Earl William went again to Hastings and waited there to see whether men would submit to him. When he saw that no one would come, he went up with all the army that was left to him.


The departure of Edith Swanneck’s party from Bosham to Canter-bury was delayed when Magnus, the youngest son of King Harold, fell ill. Cut off by invading Normans at the village of Nirefield, they took refuge in the church, the only building left unburned by pillaging Normans.

In the flickering candlelight, Edith’s eyes focused somewhere into infinity, hiding a troubled unease, the worry showing in the tiny crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes.

Her life had been good as Harold’s mistress and mother to their three sons - until he became king. Everything then changed and life was not the same. She hardly saw him. Rumours abounded that he had married Ealdgyth, sister of brother earls Morcar and Edwin, a union intended to unite the north and south of the kingdom.

The rumours turned out to be untrue and there were a few happy days during the long summer of waiting for Duke William to invade before Magnus fell ill. Magnus had been close to death and she took it as a sign, a forewarning. This fearful foreboding of disaster had grown within her and today she felt it strongest.

Something was in the air, a sullen shadow of something terrible impending. The atmosphere held a barbaric undertone of some-thing savage and wild. And hoping that King Harold would come for her, Edith had peered many times down the track that day. No one came - no thudding of horses’ hooves, no trampling feet, no

triumphant shouts, not even a tinkling leper’s bell, just an occa-sional cry of a crow.

Gwener sat opposite her on a straw bed, the candlelight hardly reaching a face that also held a worried, introspective look, her slightly red-rimmed eyes the only sign that she was waiting to hear if her husband was still alive.

She had followed her heart and committed herself to Eric, ac-cepting his uncertain way of life with a calmness and resignation. Now she struggled to remain composed, her nerves taut in the intolerable not knowing.

Bleddyn, his thin, inert legs straggled in front of him, sat next to Gwener and looked to have no song in him.

Big Wynne silently absorbed everyone else’s foreboding. Young Magnus looked pale and exhausted, hardly managing to

keep his eyes open.When the candle’s flame finally gave out Edith said a prayer and

they all bedded down for the night, huddled together, but keeping their thoughts to themselves.

None slept easily. Gwener woke long before daylight and lay in the dark listening, for what she did not know.

Spluttering pools of light amongst the blackness of the ridge near

Caldbeck Hill seemed to silently stop, and then move again as if they had a will of their own. The torches of scavengers and executioners picked their way through a waste of death.

Eric slowly came out of his blackness, fighting hard against an anvil that banged painfully inside his head. Struggling into con-sciousness, he knew not where he was, or even if he was still alive. A vague recollection of a battle was all he had.

He tried hard to remember where he was but his brain was too pained to focus, too deathly tired to work it out. Trying to move, he found he couldn’t, and with each effort he felt a stabbing pain in his chest.

He began to panic when he heard a fluttering of wings - a crow coming to feast on him, he believed, and he painfully moved his

right hand to feel another human body, cold and stiff, lying across him. When he pushed with his hand, a gasp escaped his lips caused by the pain in his chest.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed again till the body finally fell to one side. He lay still, listening, peering into the darkness, picking out faint lights moving about. His helplessness dawned on him. One thing he did know for sure was that his throat would be cut if he stayed where he was. Painfully, inexorably, he hauled himself to his feet, wavered and wobbled as a feeling of nausea came over him. Forcing his legs to move - getting away from torch-bearing ravens was all that obsessed his mind - he weaved an obstacle-strewn path through the blackness.

He fell over one body and had to grit his teeth to hold back a cry of pain. Staggering up again, he stumbled providentially on, his chest hurting and his head throbbing. Following the sound of gurgling water, he scrambled down a slippery slope, lurching over rocks and rain gullies till he fell headlong into a stream. It was an oasis. With cupped hand he drank and drank. He stood up and pain stabbed into his chest when he lifted his arms to try and remove his mail coat. He left it on.

Slowly, stiffly, he followed the path of the stream till the ground rose and he staggered up on to a road. Out there, he knew, somewhere in the night was Gwener. An instinct. similar to the inexplicable instinct of a migratory bird, gave him a bearing. Turning left, he walked down the track through his pain.

‘Gwener!’ he uttered in time with each step, knowing that every stride took him closer to his loved one.

The squeak of the church door opening pierced the silent dark-ness. Gwener was already awake and moving as the tall, indistinct shadow stood unsteadily in the doorway.

‘Gwener!’ The faint croaking cry had barely left Eric’s lips before she had her shoulder under his arm to stop him falling.

‘He’s hurt!’ Gwener cried urgently as Edith arrived to help half-carry him across the clay floor and lower him on to a mattress.

‘Get a flint and a candle,’ Edith ordered. Magnus was already lighting a candle from the altar.

In the flickering light, Eric’s pained, yet relieved eyes, stared endearingly at Gwener from out of a face that was ashen and drawn. His helmet was missing. Blood matted his blond hair and ran down the side of his face, drying into a dark brown stain on his moustache. The rest of him was a mixture of blood and mud covering every inch of his mailcoat and leggings. When Gwener put a straw pillow under his head, his face flickered into a smile that vanished as soon as it had arrived and he tiredly closed his eyes.

Gwener washed his head and face taking care not to disturb the dried blood clotted over the large cut on his head. Cradling his head in her arms, she was simultaneously happy and sad, relieved to have him back alive but suffering in seeing him in such a pitiable condition.

Edith started to remove his mailcoat and Eric grunted in pain. ‘We’d best get it off him. His wounds will need tending,’ she told Gwener.

Slowly, in zig-zag fashion, between Eric’s groans, they eased off his mail coat. Loosed from its chain, the crucifix slid off his chest to the floor and shimmered in the candlelight. Gwener picked it up and its changed shape made her gasp. The figure on the cross drooped downwards, almost bent in half.

‘God of mercy!’ Edith cried, eying the bent crucifix, and then staring at the black bruise in the shape of a cross on Eric’s chest. ‘The crucifix must have saved his life - shielded the blow!’

Crossing herself first, Edith bent over to put an ear to Eric’s chest: ‘Two broken ribs as well as a split head,’ she pronounced. ‘He’s certainly been in a battle.’

‘Will he die?’ Gwener asked, her brow furrowing and eyes beginning to water.

‘No, no, he’ll survive. Best clean his wounds, apply a herbal and time will do the rest,’ Edith assured her.

When Eric opened his eyes, Gwener held his head and hand in profound relief. Injured he may be but he was still in one piece. She did not care that his eyes held a perplexed, uncomprehending look.

Edith could no longer hold back her own concern and an urgent appeal burst from her lips: ‘What news of King Harold?’

Eric’s eyes focused some way beyond the candlelight into the darkness, as though he needed time to put his thoughts together. His answer carried an assumed confidence: ‘We defeated Hardrada.’

Edith was bemused: ‘But Eric, that was three weeks ago!’Confusion spread over Eric’s face. His bewildered eyes jumped

from one to the other but were met with equally bewildered looks. Making as if to speak, he lost the words, leaving his face holding a deeply puzzled expression.

‘The battle against Hardrada was three weeks ago,’ Edith re-peated. ‘What about the battle against Duke William?’

’Three weeks ago? Duke William?’ Eric’s voice was flat and unsure. His muddled expression changed to concentration, trying to change a fleeting impression into something tangible. There was something there on the edge of his mind but it would not come into focus. Whatever it was sank back into oblivion. With a hope-less shake of a head that was hurting even more, his bruised brain gave way to uncertainty and confusion. His impeccable memory lost, he looked helplessly toward Gwener. She could only hold his hand against her cheek.

Bleddyn offered an explanation: ‘The blow to his head has blacked out his memory and he has completely forgotten the last three weeks . . . it may come back with time.’

‘I am not waiting to see. I am going to find out now,’ Edith said with a determination that matched her face.

Those keeping look-out across Pevensey Bay expected to see

what was left of Duke William’s defeated army sailing back to Normandy. Yet no billowing sails of any kind had been seen.

’Duke William must have marched on London, that’s the only explanation,’ Alfred said in frustration to Alnoth.

Alnoth was studying his muddied hands: ‘Have you noticed how our hands are beginning to look like shovels and our noses are turning into snouts?’

‘You do exaggerate.’‘How many times have you told me that people only believe what

they want to believe? Well, it’s just as true to say that people won’t believe what they don’t want to believe - and we are turning into moles!’

Alfred almost forced a smile. Just as sick of hiding in ditches as Alnoth, he thought it too risky moving inland. What they really needed was a ship.

‘We are mariners, Alfred, not moles. We need to be gliding down the swan road, crossing the trackless sea, feeling the sea spray in our faces and breathing salt air into our lungs.’

Alnoth’s eloquence was weakening Alfred’s resolve and his final indictment clinched it: ‘While you are sitting here on your backside you’ll never own your own ship.’

‘All right . . . we’ll go inland and see,’ Alfred answered in surrender.Alnoth armed with a shovel, and Alfred armed with a gardening

fork, bid farewell to the villagers of Wartling. Alnoth respectfully thanked them for their hospitality and the use of their ditches, but assured them that they had to take their leave before their snouts grew any longer and they became permanently bent on all fours.

The two mariners warily retraced their steps inland, their eyes searching well ahead for Normans. They arrived at the village of Herste, or what was left of it, and found it as silent as a grave. Indeed it was a grave, an open one, with English bodies left where they had been cut down, unburied, rotting and smelling. No live-stock, nor any sign of any life could be detected amongst the charred remains.

Quickly they departed, neither mariner finding words to describe their dispirited feelings. They stalked cautiously up the road to-ward Caldbeck Hill, not knowing what to expect - friendly English-men or ravaging Normans.

Grey streaks of a chilling dawn stretched across the sky as a King’s mistress, holding a bent crucifix, and accompanied by a Welsh acrobat strongman rode down the road toward Caldbeck Hill.

Left behind in the church of a burned out village was her young-est son, a wounded housecarle without a memory, and two Welsh minstrel singers. All of their lives had been irrevocably changed this day.

Edith and Big Wynne rode silently, staring ahead with apprehen-sion, the heavy silence only broken by the deep, croaking “prook, prook,” of a family of ravens. With their shaggy heads and massive beaks, the birds wheeled overhead before rolling on their backs, half closing their wings in a kind of triumphant roll before soaring away at great speed.

Undeterred, the couple rode straight into the Norman enemy encampment. Most of the Normans were resting, some tending their wounds, but all carrying the air of a triumphant army. Scat-tered about, laying entirely still and holding deathly pallors were bodies of Englishmen. With sinking heart, Edith realised the Nor-mans had won the battle. Blood drained from her face and she crossed herself for the second time that day. Big Wynne turned pale but rode on.

No one hindered them and the number of dead English on the ground increased. They came to some Norman banners fluttering torpidly in the faint breeze and a group of Norman knights camped underneath. Edith looked beyond the knights and recoiled in shocked disbelief. So crowded were thousands of bodies strewn across the ridge that many were piled on top of each other.

Sliding stricken from her saddle, she fell on her knees, clutched the bent crucifix to her breast and cried a pained: ‘O God Al-mighty!’ Closing her eyes, she prayed that it was only a nightmare, but when she opened them again the full horror still lay before her. Tears streamed down her face.

The Normans were carting away their own dead while English men and women grimly searched amongst the bodies for their kith and kin. Her heart sank to the depths of despair, yet, with trem-bling resolve she forced herself to her feet. She knew Harold must

be among the dead - he would never flee from the field of battle. As she stumbled forward a knight emerged from the camped group of Normans to bar her way. Edith stared with repugnance at Hugh Margot, hate burning from her eyes.

‘This lady has come to find her husband,’ Big Wynne explained.’Was your husband a nobleman?’ Hugh asked Edith.Edith proudly answered: ‘He was the bravest of the brave.’Hugh lowered his eyes under her burning gaze: ‘You may search

for your husband but leave one of your horses - we have lost too many.’

Edith had no choice but to agree. She demanded: ‘What about the English dead? Are they to be left to be eaten by the worms and wolves?’

Not wanting to know, Hugh turned a deaf ear and merely led away the horse.

Edith began her gruesome, heart-rending search. Dead warriors lay huddled together all along the ridge. Some lay shoulder to shoulder just as they had fought. Some had lost an arm, or a leg, or their heads. Others appeared to have no wounds at all as though in deep slumber - their last sleep. All were stiff and silent, the colour of ash and as cold as stone. The only movement came from English searchers and Norman death carts.

As Edith searched she strained her powers of hearing, listening to the utmost to detect the slightest sign of life, hoping she might find a survivor amongst this giant shadow of death. She found no one. The more her search seemed fruitless, the more her eyes welled till she was hardly able to see anything through her tears. Then she found him, his mangled body lying not too far from the Norman banners, badly disfigured, but she knew it was Harold. She had known him too long and too well.

Big Wynne helped Edith wrap Harold’s body in his own well-worn cloak and hoist him across the horse. They both walked with the horse toward the road junction, staring straight ahead, Edith holding out the bent crucifix. No one stopped them - Norman appetite for killing had temporarily abated.

Along the muddy track under a grey sky the King’s battered body was carried. For the first time in her life Edith’s back bowed as she

stared sightlessly at the ground. Big Wynne appeared to have shrunk, a shadow of his former self behind a face of sickly pallor.

Neither of them saw the two unkempt mariners, one carrying a spade and the other a fork, coming towards them from the oppo-site direction till they were upon them.

Chapter 16: EpilogueThe funeral party with a horse as pall bearer, paddled a sorrowful

path across a marsh before climbing on to firmer ground through a village to the highest point they could find - a promontory overlooking a bay.

The fair haired, straight-backed woman looked out to sea. This would be the place, she decided. It was here that Harold could look out to sea in wind and weather and his spirit would protect the land he loved. His mangled body would lie here but in the course of time she would remember him as he was - as she loved him.

What of the future? She recalled a song that Belddyn the Min-strel had sung about a phoenix that rose from its own ashes with renewed youth; and she pictured in her mind’s eye the sun rising behind the church, people departing for the fields, a courtyard full of harvest and meadow grass tall and wet with dew; hearing the ringing of the bell in the church tower, the bleating of sheep, the barking of dogs and she knew the future would be re-born out of the ashes.

The digging proved hard for the three men. They sweated to make the trench deep enough before they lowered in the body, shrouded in a cloak, into the grave. The widow said a prayer and added: ‘Grant to his ghost the grace of heaven.’

She laid a bent crucifix on top of the body and the slim youth looked startled, stared dumbfounded at the crucifix, started for-ward, then changed his mind. Frowning, he looked questioningly at the widow but her eyes were closed. The grave was filled in.

As the burial party moved away from the grave the pinched, deathly look left the woman’s face, her back straightened and she walked tall. Her companion, a big, dark Welshman, held his head high and purpose came into his stride.

The other big, black-bearded man with tattoos on his arms asked his slimmer companion: ‘What are we going to do now?’

The answer came unhesitatingly: ‘Build ships - many ships.’

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