former masters. But there was nothing in my stomach to throw up and no tears either for these fellow folk and kin who lay in ruin while the dogs and Danes fed. I couldn’t even force the dogs away for to do so would risk alerting the sentries. But no sooner did I have that thought than a large cur trotted towards me growling – then two more yelped at me and a man I hadn’t seen shouted in a strange tongue. Despite the terror that begged me to bolt, I believed he was shouting at the dogs and forced myself to lie still among the corpses and was utterly revolted when one of the dogs nuzzled at my ear and then started licking the side of my face. Then all three of the dogs were rubbing and rolling against me. The sentry shouted again, his voice suddenly much closer, but then he made some exclamation of obvious disgust and backed away choking, and the dogs – well fed and perfumed – resumed their peregrinations about the conquered town.
At that moment the moon came out from behind a cloud and I all but cried aloud as I recognised Holgar – my father – lying close by. His body was rent by many wounds but his face was unspoilt and he seemed to stare straight through me as though I was the ghost and he the man with unfinished business. Now there were tears. The enormity of the disaster was plain and real and I groped for his hand – hoping to find it warm still with life, but snatched my own away as I felt his flesh like cold mutton. Somehow I found the courage to touch his hand again and was surprised to discover that he still wore his ring – a thick ring of copper and gold given to his father’s father’s father by the king – that bore the seal of his office which he would press into ink or soft wax to make his official mark on letters of credence.
A sudden flame of ambitious hope, coupled with vengeance, grew in my heart as I realised that if I could bring the ring to King Edward and tell my story then maybe the king would appoint me his reeve and thegn, despite my tender years, and empower me to take my family’s revenge on Malgard. It took some time, but I managed to twist the ring off my dead father’s finger without needing to cut it off. I also, with some effort, relieved him of his fine leather belt, to which was attached his favourite dagger, that he’d mainly used for eating.
The night got worse. Next to my father’s body was my elder brother’s – although his face was so disfigured by axe and sword cuts, I recognised him by his cloak – a beautifully embroidered, fine spun garment of pale green with the boar’s head and two towers of the family badge in white and gold. I was equally surprised that such a fine cloak had not yet been plundered, but as I removed it from Gram’s corpse, the reason was possibly explained by the many rents which I tore further in taking it from him.
After rolling carefully on the grass to remove the worst of the turd-slime, I made it to the copse on the western outskirt and considered my next move. There was no point heading for home. It would certainly have been occupied by Malgard and I had no wish to see him without a sword in my hand (and the skill to use it).
No, I had to find the king before Malgard did; or if not the king then someone I could trust to hide me until I could get to the king and seek justice for my kin. But the king was in Lundene, or nearby, and I had no idea of how to get there or even in which direction it lay. Many times the size of Stybbor Lundene was said to be – bigger even than Gipeswic – and I felt excited at the prospect of seeing the great city when I should have been feeling only grief. I wondered if God was aware of my excitement and, presuming yes, hoped that He would also be aware of my penitent shame. Then I realised that such a hope was impiously self-serving and that God would be aware of that, causing me to hope that self-knowledge and regret for my self-serving penitence might somehow be worthy of …
I gave it up and concentrated on getting through the copse and then the tanner’s yard with the ring overlarge on my finger, the cloak rolled up in the belt and the dagger clutched in my trembling fist. It was suddenly silent – the night noises strangely still and I crouched at the tanner’s gate – hardly breathing, sending tendrils of my intellect and instinct into the night to locate potential dangers. There was someone close.
My scalp seemed to tighten with cold and my empty gut was sour with dread. There was a presence, lying in wait, and I became slowly aware of a low rumbling sound – an unworldly portent of evil – and I felt my limbs frozen into immobility as the sound grew louder. And just as I realised what was making the sound, the dog that had been stalking me erupted with furious barking and lunged at my throat – moonlight glinting off snapping fangs, but instinctively I thrust the dagger up to ward off the beast and the night was rent with piteous howls. There was a shout to my right and without a further thought I bolted into the darkness towards the river and lay on the low-tide mud, looking up over the bank to where the dog whined its pain and a torch came sparking through the night, revealing a broad, squat warrior, who examined the dog as he held the torch high, casting about for whomever had caused its injury. It was Angdred – Malgard’s man – whom I knew to be a dangerous fighter. Beside the torch he held also a naked sword and, if he found me, the implications were clear.
He was only twenty yards away and if he ran straight towards the river bank I’d be trapped for certain, but he glanced first into the tanner’s yard, giving me a few precious moments to scuttle backwards into the water like a crab, and by the time he did come running over to investigate the bank I was lying face down in knee-deep water, holding my breath and still clutching my bundle and dagger and fearing that my white, naked body would be easily revealed in the moon and torch light.
At this point, I was resolved to fight. My body was tense as an iron rod, ready to explode into action at the first hint of an approach, but after some time, the need to breathe cooled my desire to take the initiative and, with infinite caution, I raised my head out of the water and opened my eyes.
The breath was sweet but sweeter still was the fact that I had not yet been discovered. Angdred was side-on to me, only five strides away, examining the mud on which I had lain and would soon work out where I must have gone. In the small light of the torch, my arm looked strangely dark and I realised that the muck from the pit had dried on my skin, possibly helping me to blend with the river’s mud and obscure me from Angdred’s vision. The current was tugging gently at my legs so inch by inch I pushed myself backwards into the deeper water and began to drift away from danger. Twenty feet … twenty-five … then Angdred finally realised where I must have gone and charged into the water holding the torch aloft and muttering angrily, standing in the spot in which I had lain only seconds before. The deeper the water, the stronger the current – I drifted further from Angdred but he was still close. He picked his way out of the stream and strode along the bank in the direction of flow, peering out over the dark water and occasionally splashing into the shallows to investigate a lump or eddy. At one point he came within six feet of me but I held myself inert like a submerged log and he saw me not. Soon I was twenty, forty, sixty feet away and lost sight of him as the river bent south and I felt my fear start to ease.
The river held no terrors for me. I was not much of a swimmer but I’d grown up playing around the shallow stream and knew it to be fordable for most of its length until it joined with the Greater Arwan some miles further south and east near the town of Gipeswic. I allowed myself to drift for a few more minutes, my heels occasionally scraping against silt and stones. The moon was sailing in an open patch of sky and the night seemed unusually bright. There were trees on either bank, so I had passed into the wood south-east of the town. I kicked over to the opposite bank and hauled my sodden burden onto the dry mud. Then I returned to the cold water and scrubbed at my hair and skin until it gleamed white in the moonlight and I could no longer smell turd.
As the immediate danger subsided, the grief became sharp again and I lay for some time on the bank surrendering to tears. Then, reflecting on the events of the afternoon and evening, I was overcome with a terrible guilt. I had known that God was privy to my thoughts and seemed disposed towards answering my prayers, and yet I had wished for the chance to become a warrior. Almost immediately God had responded by sending Danes, to the ruin of my family. It was my fault that my father and brother were dead and that slavery and worse had befallen my mother and sisters. It did occur to me that Malgard’s arrangement with the Danes must have preceded my
