Sword of Vengeance, page 22
‘Stay here,’ Beornoth said to Brand, Hrist and Sefna. ‘I’ll check the horses.’ He marched around the side of the farmhouse towards the small barn, and stepped over the corpse of the farmer, who lay face up in his own farmyard, staring up with his dead eyes at the heavens. Beornoth rounded the barn’s front post, and he stopped dead two paces inside. The horses were skittish, scraping at the ground and snorting at the blood-stink of iron in the air. Tata crouched over something, and Beornoth stepped forward, squinting into the darkness to see what had happened.
‘What is it, boy?’ he asked.
Tata turned, surprised. He leapt away from a dark mass, which at first Beornoth thought was a sack of grain, but as he drew closer realised was in fact Hrodgar. He lay on his back with his throat cut, the wound wide and gaping so that it looked like a huge, grizzly mouth. Dark blood pulsed from it and pooled on the hay-strewn floor.
‘I am sorry, lad,’ said Beornoth, reaching out his hand to comfort Tata, whom he thought had been crying over Hrodgar’s corpse. But Tata was not crying, he was snarling, crouched like a feral animal. His hand whipped at Beornoth, and he held a wicked blade like an animal’s claw. It was the bone-handled knife, a gift from Beornoth. The blade missed Beornoth’s fingers by a hair’s breadth and it would surely have sliced away his digits had he not recoiled so quickly. Tata came at him, slicing and jabbing with his knife. Blood spattered his hands and face, and Beornoth realised it had been Tata who had killed Hrodgar, the farmer and his wife. He had murdered them whilst the fight beneath Hareswood’s walls unfolded, and Beornoth just gaped, unable to understand why.
‘Turd of Satan,’ Tata hissed like a serpent, and he came too close to Beornoth, too drunk on murder to be cautious of what Beornoth was. Beornoth grabbed his wrist and broke it with a crushing twist. His left hand closed about Tata’s throat, and he lifted him from his feet, so that his legs kicked and bucked in the air, his angry eyes bulging. Beornoth threw him backwards into a post, and Tata fell to his knees, cradling his broken wrist. He spat at Beornoth, and tried to run, but Beornoth tripped him, and picked Tata up again, this time by the scruff of his neck.
‘Why did you do this?’ Beornoth said in disbelief.
‘I serve Lord Godric of Hareswood,’ Tata said, glaring at Beornoth through eyes brimming with hate.
‘You are a spy for Godric the traitor?’
‘I am the son of Aethelric of Bocking. A thegn, whom you hanged from the gate of his own hall.’
Beornoth let him go and staggered under the grim warp and weft of the boy’s words. Aethelric had been the thegn of Bocking in Essex, and he had sided with the Vikings, one of many who had invited them to England’s shores in search of a new king, and to break away from the Church’s crippling grip upon the land. Men such as Aethelric had been sick of ceding land to abbeys and monasteries, and tired of Æthelred’s rule. The king had sent Beornoth to punish Aethelric for siding with the Vikings, and so he had.
‘How could you do this? After the kindness we have shown you?’ Beornoth asked, glancing again at Hrodgar’s corpse.
‘After you killed my father, Godric took me in, said he would help me and my mother recover our lands. He helped us. Godric is a good man, kind and generous. He sent me to Winchester, to watch and send him word of what the king’s response to Maldon would be. Godric needed ears close to the king, and there are few closer than Hrodgar the Assassin. Hrodgar took me in and brought me to you, and now you are here, burning and killing another good man, just as you did my father. You are evil, and this land will never be just whilst men like you live.’
Beornoth sighed. People viewed the world through many different eyes, sight tainted by each person’s experience. To some, a hero was a villain; to others, the villain was the greatest of heroes. To Tata, Beornoth was an evil man because he could not see the right of things through the fog of his own suffering. Beornoth had spent time with the lad, teaching him to fight, trying to offer him something better than life as a servant. But the lad was the son of a thegn whom Beornoth had killed. Tata was a soul burned up with hate and a thirst for vengeance, just like Beornoth himself.
‘Go,’ Beornoth said, rubbing at his exhausted, stinging eyes. ‘Go to your lord.’ Tata stood and edged away, then spat at Beornoth and kicked a clump of hay at him before running off into the darkness.
‘God in heaven,’ said Thered. He walked into the barn and made the sign of the cross above his chest. ‘The boy did this?’
‘Aye,’ said Beornoth. ‘He was Godric’s spy.’ He didn’t have the strength to explain the entire sorry tale. Violence begets violence, and Tata hated Beornoth with the same bright fury with which he too hated. It was like a miller’s wheel, turning under the force of a river, endlessly moving, driven by the water’s churning strength. That was the world in which Beornoth lived: violence, vengeance, battle and blood. It would never end, he realised. His eyes became fixed on Hrodgar’s opened throat, unable to look away from the horror. There would always be men who wanted to take from the weak, there would always be swords and axes and spears, and men who must stand up to them. War made orphans and bitter warriors who lived for vengeance. Men craved wealth and power, and so it would be until the end of days.
‘Why doesn’t God stop it?’ Beornoth said.
‘Stop what?’ asked Thered.
Beornoth didn’t answer. Nobody could answer his question about God’s mystery, not even the greatest and most holy priest, monk or bishop. Beornoth rose and wiped his face on the back of his hand.
‘We must leave this place,’ Beornoth said. He quickly saddled his horse, and the company rushed in behind him, each one gasping at Hrodgar’s corpse before making their horses ready to ride. Saving his burh from the flames had pulled Godric and his forces away from the fight, but it would not be long before he sent men after Beornoth, to finish him and remove the last threat and barrier to him seizing Essex and becoming ealdorman. Beornoth knelt and stripped Hrodgar’s byrnie. He tugged and pulled at the strings at its rear and struggled to pull the heavy chain-mail coat over the dead man’s arms and shoulders.
‘We don’t have time to give him the honour he deserves,’ said Thered. He held his horse’s reins at the entrance to the barn, and Beornoth realised they were all watching him as he grunted and heaved at the dead body.
‘The mail and weapons are his heriot. They must be returned to the king,’ said Beornoth. ‘They are what made Hrodgar a king’s thegn. We must return them.’ He drew the sword from Hrodgar’s scabbard and showed it to the company, and they looked away from its blade, which was still crusted with blood from the fight at Hareswood. Thered turned away and mounted his horse, and the rest of the company hurried to lead their mounts from the barn and make ready to ride. Beornoth pulled again at the byrnie, but could not pull it free from Hrodgar’s body. He sagged, resting his forehead against the cold iron rings on Hrodgar’s chest. It was not the heriot which made Hrodgar a king’s thegn, it was the man himself and the blessing of the king.
‘I am sorry, lord thegn,’ he said, and turned away from Hrodgar’s body. Beornoth had to go. He slipped the royal ring from Hrodgar’s finger and tucked it beneath his own byrnie. The lives of his company were more important than the heriot, as was his quest for vengeance. Beornoth had fought to recover his own lost heriot, and that was how he had first come into the service of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth. It was important, woven into his understanding of what his rank was and how king, ealdorman, thegn and churl maintained order and stability in the kingdom. But he left Hrodgar’s body there, dishonoured and killed by a vengeful boy, and it was another death to turn the never-ending wheel of revenge and feud.
21
They rode away from the farm as a red sun crept over the lowlands. A column of smoke twisted from Godric’s burh to stain the sky with grey, and Beornoth led his company west, away from the traitor, leaving his hopes of vengeance in a blood-soaked ditch with the corpses of too many men. Nobody spoke on that morning, as they rode under the shame of defeat, and Beornoth did not know where to go or what to do. They needed food, rest and to find some deep cunning if he was to kill Godric. The traitor was much smarter than Beornoth gave him credit for, for he had embedded a boy-killer close to the king, a lad whose soul was bitter and twisted because Beornoth had killed his father, and Tata had got close enough to become servant to a king’s thegn. Godric had thwarted Beornoth’s attack, he had too many men, and his burh was well defended. It seemed like an impossible task, as Beornoth let Virtus pick his way along the rutted roads and hedge-lined paths of Essex. There had been so much blood and suffering both at Maldon and now also in the killing in its name. So, Beornoth rode west and searched his soul for a sign of what to do next, of how to avenge the fallen.
‘We are close to Branoc’s Tree,’ said Brand, breaking the silence. ‘Or what used to be Branoc’s Tree.’
Beornoth looked up from his defeat-induced stupor and recognised the slope of a treeline to the north, and a clutch of silver birch trees where a thicket ran between two fields.
‘It’s just over that rise,’ Beornoth said, nodding towards the trees.
‘We can rest the horses there and take a rest ourselves.’
Beornoth patted Virtus’ neck; the horses needed a rest after the long ride away from Hareswood. Godric would have men pursuing them, and there were probably scouts watching Beornoth even now, but there was little he could do about that. They had not tried to conceal themselves as they rode aimlessly away from the farm. But somehow, Beornoth had led his broken war band to the familiar lands which had once been his responsibility as thegn of Branoc’s Tree. There was old Wicca’s farm to the south, a man with ten children who bred hunting dogs, and across a babbling brook were Ceol’s fields of barley.
At midday, they arrived at what used to be Beornoth’s burh and were surprised to find people inside its damaged walls and burned buildings. Smoke rose from what had been Beornoth’s hall, a section of it repaired and roofed with earth rather than the thatch which had covered it in his day. Whoever occupied the place had gathered fencing from around the burh to make a grazing pasture for a handful of sheep and goats. The fence cornered a piece of land which had once held a much larger flock, and Beornoth had fond memories of lambing season and how happy that new burst of life had made the people of Branoc’s Tree. That was before Olaf Tryggvason had come with his Vikings and hung their corpses from the mighty oak tree which gave the place its name. The tree stood high and proud even now within the repaired structures, and Beornoth winced at the memories woven into its bark and roots, the laughter of children, joyous feasts and good friends, and the howl and cry of the slaughtered.
‘Who are those people?’ asked Thered, sitting upright in the saddle and shielding his eyes from the sun to peer down at the activity in the ruins. Only they weren’t ruins any more: as well as the repaired hall, other buildings had been covered in grassy earth to keep the new occupants warm and dry, and as he rode closer, Beornoth noticed that most of the people in the place were women in long tunics of undyed wool, belted with knotted rope, and white hoods over their heads.
‘They look like nuns,’ said Beornoth. He was as surprised as Brand and Thered, who had both spent time at Branoc’s Tree, to see people inhabiting it again, and that those people were nuns. ‘And children.’ For a dozen barefooted children ran about the place, and the sound of their laughter brought a welcome lightness to Beornoth’s heart.
Three of the nuns strode from the gate, which wasn’t really a gate any more because the actual gate was missing, so that all remained were the former posts and lintel. Beornoth approached the women with his hand raised to show that he came in peace. A band of armed riders would strike fear into the nuns’ hearts, with every person in England fearful of Viking raids or the wrath of masterless men.
‘I am Beornoth, and we come only to rest our horses,’ Beornoth said. ‘We mean you no harm.’
‘I am Abbess Agatha, and are you the same Beornoth who was thegn in this place?’
‘Yes.’ Her eyes flicked to his byrnie, and then across Beornoth’s companions. They had not had time to clean the mud, blood and filth of battle from their weapons, armour, faces and hair, and so looked like a desperate war band, hollow-eyed and crusted with other men’s blood.
‘The Lady Ælfflæd gave us permission to build on this place,’ said the abbess. She had a strong, broad face with a thin-lipped mouth, and she did not shy away from Beornoth in his soiled war glory, but held his gaze.
‘Then you are welcome to it. I hope you have better luck here than I did. We will stay awhile and water our horses, if you do not object?’
‘Of course not. You are Beornoth, the hero of Watchet, Rivers Bend and Maldon. Please, come inside.’
Beornoth dismounted and led Virtus through the gate. Agatha led them to a trough full of glistening water. A gaggle of barefooted children ran to the horses but stopped short of stroking their flanks. They were warhorses, each beast over fourteen hands, muscled and frightening. One small boy with tousled hair darted forward and touched Virtus’ tail, and they all laughed and ran away.
‘Why do you have so many children here?’ Beornoth asked, as a nun approached with a bowl of water for Beornoth to drink.
‘We are building a nunnery and a home here for the orphans of war. These are the children of those who have died during the Viking attacks this last year. Without our care, they would be without home, food, warmth and love.’
‘And who pays for that food and warmth?’
The abbess frowned at the awkward question and fussed at the wooden crucifix hanging around her neck. ‘The Lady Ælfflæd has granted us this land, to use its hides to fund the work we do in God’s name.’
‘Then she has been very generous.’ Beornoth took a drink of the cool water and passed it to Thered. The old burh was busy not only with nuns and children but also with chickens and geese, and four pigs snorted and foraged in a hay-filled pen. ‘Do you have any food?’
‘Yes, please follow me.’ She led Beornoth and Thered towards what the nuns had salvaged from Beornoth’s hall. The earth roof was roughly done, clods of cut grass packed on top of the old with the fire blackened timbers still showing beneath.
‘Do you mind if I wait out here?’ Beornoth asked. Inside that door were memories best left where they lay. Old friends had died inside the feasting hall, which had been Beornoth’s home, a place of happiness and safety. His mind was already torn and ragged, hurting from so much loss, too much pain. He did not care to have another reminder of those horrors brought to life.
‘Of course not. Please, sit.’ She gestured towards a half-circle of logs which someone had trimmed of bark. ‘We have little, but I should be able to spare a bowl of broth for you and your men.’
Abbess Agatha called four of her nuns, and they disappeared inside the hall. Brand and Sefna approached, followed by the rest of the company; the last nun through the door almost fell as she noticed that most of Beornoth’s warriors were Vikings.
‘They have done fine work here,’ said Thered generously, taking in the crooked planks and rough workmanship of the new buildings pieced together from the old. Beornoth could imagine how leaky and cold the structures were in the winter.
‘They could do with a carpenter,’ said Brand. ‘A blind sailor could have made better joints.’
‘They are providing a home for the children of folk murdered by your people,’ Beornoth said. ‘This is the cost of your reputation and the real cost of Olaf’s ten thousand pounds of silver. This is what happens after the warriors have left, when the glory has been taken and the skalds have written their songs of shining weapons and brave deeds.’
Brand shrugged, and Beornoth ground his teeth. A man like Brand simply didn’t care about the fate of the weak. He was a Norseman, a worshipper of Odin, and Thor, who cared only for war, reputation and silver. The plight of these orphans was not his concern, and if Beornoth pushed him – or Vigdjarf, Sefna or Dolgfinnr – on it, they would answer that the Saxon warriors should have protected them.
‘So, what now?’ asked Vigdjarf, sighing as he sat down heavily on a log.
Beornoth felt all their eyes upon him, and he could not meet their stares. He looked ahead, past them towards a distant hill. A bird soared there, floating on the wind, and Beornoth watched it, wondering at the simplicity of its life. They had all lost men, Vigdjarf, Dolgfinnr, Reifnir and Thered. Of the fifty who had made the journey south from Northumbria, only thirty remained. They had lost eight men in the ditch at Hareswood. Thered’s hearth troop, which had been ten strong, had seen five good warriors perish in Beornoth’s search for vengeance. Many of those who stared at him were wounded. They were tired and cowed by defeat.
‘I came south with you, Lord Beornoth,’ said Thered, ‘but this journey is over for me now. We have recovered Byrhtnoth’s body, and he will now lie with honour in Ely. We have punished many of those responsible for Maldon. But I will return north with my men. My days of war are over.’
Beornoth nodded without taking his eyes from the bird. It was too far away for him to be sure if it was a falcon, but he thought so. Thered was a brave man, an ealdorman, and he had more than played his part in the war against Olaf’s Vikings and in the search for revenge, and Beornoth understood his desire to go. Thered was a changed man, made wise by the horrors of battle, and he had earned some time by his fire with good hounds and strong ale.
‘Go then, Lord Thered,’ said Beornoth, and he smiled for the first time in so long that he had almost forgotten how to. ‘Return to your shire with honour, and I thank you and your brave men for what you have done, and what you have lost.’
‘So, it’s over then?’ said Thered.
‘Even with you and your men, we fight against a force ten times our number. Their scouts will know we are here, and by tomorrow, Godric’s men will come for us.’
