Sword of Vengeance, page 6
The four riders followed the old Roman roads, cut straight and true as the crow flies. Even in winter, evenings in a road tavern were busy affairs of crackling fires, flowing ale and gossip. Taverns were places where news was exchanged between men of different shires. Merchants from London brought carts filled with horn cups, ivory combs, lumps of amber and iron from Frankia. They had news of battles in Frankia and the Holy Roman Empire, which they told in exchange for other stories from tin traders from Cornwall, or a mercenary band from Northumbria.
Beornoth and Hrodgar listened to such tales but kept their own affairs private. Tavern keepers honoured the three warriors in chain mail, and the folk who supped bowed their heads and kept their eyes away from the warriors. Tata fetched them ale and food and cared for the horses. The lad kept to himself, quiet but respectful. Talk of Maldon increased the further south they travelled and Beornoth held his tongue as men with grubby hands and stained woollen clothes spoke of the shame in Byrhtnoth’s defeat. They laughed at how he had allowed the Vikings to cross the tidal causeway when they were trapped on an island. Men with missing teeth and bulging stomachs roared with laughter at how the Vikings had tricked the ealdorman in allowing them to cross, and how he and his foolish men were slaughtered because of Byrhtnoth’s pride. Such talk kept Beornoth awake at night, but those men were not worthy of his wrath. They were the sheep, whom men like Byrhtnoth protected from the seaborne wolves, and it was shameful that Byrhtnoth’s name was spoken of with such disrespect. It all added fuel to the fire, building up the roar inside of Beornoth which he contained and allowed to burn in his heart.
‘So, Sweyn’s gone back home to Denmark,’ said Brand on a blustery day. The three riders crossed a babbling brook outside Celmersford, only a half-day’s ride from Maldon. ‘He’s a cunning bastard that Forkbeard. Bled enough riches here in England to keep his warriors rich and happy, and back in Denmark with enough plunder to secure the kingdom he stole from his own father.’
‘So, there’s only one Viking army in England now,’ said Beornoth. ‘And it’s winter, so Olaf is holed up in Maldon’s burh, unopposed and growing fat off Saxon stores.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk in his filthy tongue,’ grumbled Hrodgar for the dozenth time since they had left Mameceaster.
‘We are talking about Olaf Tryggvason.’
‘I am still not convinced about this plan of yours. Surely, if we ride into his camp, the Viking bastard will cut us down, or worse, torture us and then kill us.’
‘I have met Olaf before, and although he is a Norseman and a pagan, he has a sense of honour and respects the warrior code.’
‘And you think he will simply hand over Ealdorman Byrhtnoth’s body?’
‘He will let me take the body, but it will not be simple.’ Beornoth knew Olaf, had fought the man and spoken with him before. He was hungry for power and glory, and there was no doubt that he was the callous murderer of innocent Saxons. But he was a Viking and a drengr. That was the Norse word for warrior, but to be referred to by that honorific a man must follow the ways of drengskapr, the way of the warrior. If Beornoth asked for his lord’s body back so that he could honour his corpse and soul with a proper burial, he believed Olaf would respect that.
‘Well, you surely know these pirates better than I.’
‘But you have fought the Vikings?’
‘Many times.’ Hrodgar stiffened in the saddle. ‘Part of the bidding I do for the king is to ride to places where raiders strike and assist local thegns to fend them off.’
‘And how is it you came into the king’s service?’
‘Let us save that tale for another day. So, you will do the talking when we meet Olaf?’
‘Aye.’ A fox scampered across the foot of a hedgerow. It paused and turned to look at Beornoth with glinting eyes and lolling tongue and then disappeared. Olaf would grant Beornoth an audience, but the Viking leader hated Beornoth. Beornoth had killed warriors close to Olaf, and one who had been as a father to the Viking warlord. Bravery amused Norsemen. The tales of their gods spoke of such things, and they would admire an enemy with the sheer fearlessness to ride into their camp after a defeat to make a request. But there was always a price for such an audience, usually a challenge. With Forkbeard, it had been a challenge of riddles, but more often than not, it involved a fight with one of their champions. Vikings loved to see armed combat or wrestling. It was cultural for them, the battle for supremacy between two men trained to fight, and Beornoth supposed that his own people would have been much the same before they gave up the old gods in favour of the one true God. Beornoth loosened his grip on the horse’s reins after noticing that he clutched the leather so tight that his knuckles had turned white. Olaf’s challenge would be a fight. It was inevitable, and Beornoth had not fought since Maldon. He was not fully healed, and not even sure he could bring himself to face another man in combat. The defeat had left Beornoth with scars inside as well as out, as though Viking blades had scored the inside of his skull and damaged his mind.
They reached Maldon amidst a driving rain so dense that Beornoth’s head hunched between his shoulders and the chill, sheeting wetness soaked through cloak, mail and jerkin alike to coat his body in misery. The horses plodded slowly along the banks of the wide River Blackwater as it swept around a deserted fishing village, once home to a thriving Saxon community, now little more than a huddle of charred posts and tattered wicker. Olaf had spent much of the previous year sailing his fleet of fifty warships around England’s south coast, raiding and plundering, before coming to rest at Folkestone. Since the slaughter at Maldon, Olaf had made the burh his home. Burhs were the invention of King Alfred: a network of fortresses constructed to his design, stout and positioned at strategic locations across the old Wessex and Mercian kingdom to allow people to flee within their palisades in the event of a Viking incursion along rivers from the sea. The thegns of such burhs were duty-bound to keep the ditches and palisades in good order, and to make sure men were ready to guard their walls in times of need. Now, the burh at Maldon was the fortress home of a Viking warlord, and provided a perfect port for his fleet in the tidal estuary in and around Northey Island.
The builders of the fortress had chosen its location wisely, with wide views across the estuary and its surrounding valleys. It sat atop a hill, dominating the approaches from the river and from land to the south and west. It stood sentinel over a bend in the River Blackwater, which began its journey deep within Essex as the freshwater River Pant. Where the river turned into salt water and became subject to the tide, it emptied into the Blackwater Estuary and then on to the heaving mass of the grey-green sea. The rain pounded the earth and churned the river water. Beornoth tore his eyes away from where the land curled away towards Northey Island, and the causeway battlefield where he had lost so much.
‘Lord God preserve us,’ gasped Tata. Beornoth turned on his horse, so shocked was he to hear the boy utter a word. He had been as quiet as a field mouse for the entire journey. His ruddy cheeks ran pale under his hood, and he pointed a shaking finger along the road towards Maldon’s burh. The breath caught in Beornoth’s throat as he noticed what had so horrified the lad. Rotting heads on spear points marked the edges of the road, set ten paces apart. Saxon heads. Beornoth clicked his tongue and Virtus plodded forwards, snorting at the foul weather. The heads were gaping spheres of green flesh, empty eyes and crooked yawns. Ravens and crows had long since picked the tongues, eyeballs and ears from the grisly waymarkers and each one was a Saxon warrior who had fallen to a Viking blade at Maldon. They were unrecognisable, scraps of skin and wisps of hair on yellowed skulls, but each was a man who had stood in the shield wall and traded blows with the professional Viking warriors of Norway and Denmark. They were brave men who had stood their ground and not fled in the face of so fearsome an enemy. They had been denied a Christian burial to have their severed heads gawked at by passers-by.
The heads closest to the burh were draped with smashed and slashed scraps of chain mail. These were the thegns, Beornoth’s friends. He could not recognise them, but they were undoubtedly the heads of Wulfhere, Cwicca, Leofsunu, Aelfwine, Streonwold, Wigstan and Wiglaf. Men Beornoth had fought beside, shed blood for, and who had bled in turn for him. At the end of the line was a head on its own, the skull draped with a gold chain and set into the rain-spattered mud before Maldon’s gate.
‘Byrhtnoth,’ said Brand. Anger flared in Beornoth. He could barely control himself, fighting the urge to charge his horse into the burh and lay about with sword and seax until the streets ran with Viking blood. Beornoth clenched his shaking hands around Virtus’ leather reins, and asked God to care for the souls of the brave dead, to send his angels to search for the brave men of Maldon if they walked in hell unable to ascend without their bodies being whole. The gates to the fortress were wide open, but the rainfall was so heavy that the road leading in was deserted save the four riders. Beornoth closed his eyes. He tapped the fingers of his left hand onto his thigh, those whose tips were cut away on the battlefield, repeating the names of his friends over and over again, whispering and remembering their faces, the way they had laughed and how bravely they had fought.
‘Are you coming in or not?’ shouted a voice in Norse. Beornoth scrunched his eyes to stare into the relentless downpour, but could see nobody at the gate. ‘Up here, you stupid Saxon bastard.’
Beornoth looked up to where a fat-faced man with a bulbous nose leered down at him from the rampart. Beornoth took down the cloak of his hood so that every man on the wall could see his face. He was more than aware of who and what he was. Beornoth had been amongst this nest of Vikings before and had fought them before. They knew his face and his reputation as a Viking killer. Beornoth crossed his arms over the pommel of the saddle and leaned forward.
‘I am Beornoth Reiði,’ he shouted, using the name the Vikings called him. It meant wrath or anger, and he had earned it.
‘So what?’ the man shouted back, and laughter pealed out across the walls. More faces appeared, bearded and curious. ‘My name is Bjarki Goathumper.’ More laughter.
‘I am here to speak to Olaf Tryggvason.’
‘So come in and speak. Why are you shouting at me like an angry whore?’
‘Careful, Goathumper. Or I might come up there and cut your ugly head off and mount it on a spear. Though I doubt even the ravens would want to peck at your ugly face.’ That at least earned Beornoth a few laughs.
‘Come in, Lord Beornoth,’ said a man who stood a head taller than Bjarki on the palisade. He clipped Bjarki around the head and the smaller man slunk away to the jeers of his shipmates. ‘You have safe passage into the fort. I will tell Olaf that you are here.’
Beornoth raised his hand in thanks and urged Virtus towards the gate. He wondered if Olaf would be enraged to see him, or if he would mock Beornoth for the defeat. Inside the fortress was a mess of discarded baskets, smashed pots and scrawny chickens. Men lined the street which ran from the gate to the centre of the burh, and they were the hard men of the north. Beady eyes peered at him through the rain. Cold killer’s eyes, which had seen furious seas to the north and south, which were whipped narrow by the Whale Road’s wind. A big man with a mashed nose looked Beornoth up and down, and a stocky warrior with a tattooed faced smiled like a man looking at meat roasting on a spit. Tata moaned in fear, and Hrodgar hushed him.
The Vikings pressed in close so that Beornoth’s boots brushed past broad chests and fat bellies. A man with a missing ear spat across Beornoth’s path, and a warrior with bushy red hair and beard snarled through gritted teeth. A thin man held up the stump of a missing arm and shouted something at Beornoth, and he wondered if he had cut the limb from the bastard in the battle. Once that first shout went up, the rest of Olaf’s army followed. They roared and banged weapons on the mud-slick earth. Rain dripped into gaping maws as cruel faces bellowed and spat hatred at Beornoth and his riders. A pink pig whined and ran across Beornoth’s path, chased by a small boy with a stick. Even in the rain the place stank of piss and shit, too many men closed up in too small a fortress. Olaf’s fifty ships had carried a long two thousand men across the sea from Norway, but Olaf had been in England for two years, and he had fought through two summers. The fight at Maldon had been vicious, and though the Saxons lost, Olaf must have suffered at least three hundred dead, and more injured. With the previous fights at Watchet and Folkestone, Beornoth thought Olaf would be lucky to have a thousand men left. Even a thousand men holed up for winter in a burh would mean rampant disease before winter’s end, regardless of access to fresh water.
Beornoth patted Virtus’ neck to calm her as the Vikings shouted and roared in the riders’ faces. He met their stares, locking eyes with a blue-eyed man on one side, and then a one-eyed growler on the other. Beornoth did not fear them, and that realisation stoked his soul. He had believed Maldon had drained the fight from him like ale from a broken barrel but now Beornoth felt his reluctance to fight ebb away, and it strengthened him. He had fought and killed bastards just like them his entire life.
The hall came into view ahead, rising above the throng of warriors with dirty, rain-soaked thatch above a high gable. The hall had once held a cross above its door, but that had been replaced now with two huge crossed war-axes.
Men came from the hall; they carried shields and wore helmets. Beornoth’s jaw tightened as he recognised the Jomsvikings, the famed warriors from Jomsburg. They were a professional company of warriors who sold their services across the Whale Road. Their skill was famed and expensive, and Olaf had been raised amongst their ranks. In their midst strolled Olaf Tryggvason. He wore a green jerkin and a long fur cloak. Olaf glanced up at the rain and muttered something to himself, shrugging his cloak closer about his shoulders. Olaf smiled at Beornoth, the hard planes of his sharp face shifting like shards of broken ice. Beornoth reined in before him and hefted himself from the saddle. He kept his face still, even though his stomach wound pulsed with agony at the twisting movement.
‘Well, well,’ said Olaf, putting his fists to his hips. ‘I had hoped you were dead, but I couldn’t find your corpse when I was mounting the heads of your warriors along my road.’
‘Greetings, Lord Olaf,’ said Beornoth.
‘I would have boiled your skull, I think, and used it as a drinking cup.’
‘Or a pisspot,’ growled a second man, looming behind Olaf. He was large and baleful, with a bald head and a face even more scarred than Beornoth’s.
‘Have you come to congratulate and honour me for my great victory over your warriors?’ said Olaf, tucking his thumbs into his belt and smiling broadly at Beornoth.
Beornoth did not answer but stared at Olaf in grim-faced silence.
‘Lord Beornoth, this is Kraki Farmanson, jarl of the Tronds.’
‘I have heard of you, Beornoth,’ said Kraki, curling his lip.
‘Whereas I have never heard your name before.’ The men around Olaf shifted at the insult.
Olaf laughed. ‘Very good, Lord Beornoth. Should I call you that? I burned your hall and killed your people this summer, so perhaps you are not a lord any more. I see you have one of my Norsemen with you?’
‘Lord Olaf,’ said Brand, inclining his head.
‘Have you turned Saxon? Or are you his lover?’ The Vikings roared with laughter.
‘I took Lord Beornoth from the battle, lord. To repay a blood debt.’
‘So, are you a traitor or a man of honour we should respect for saving our greatest enemy to pay a debt? I will think on it, Brand Thorkilsson.’
‘This man is Hrodgar, a thegn of King Æthelred.’
‘So, why are you here?’ said Olaf, ignoring Hrodgar.
‘I have come to ask you for my Lord Byrhtnoth’s body, Lord Olaf. So that I might take it to his family for a Christian burial.’
‘You are an insolent bastard, Beornoth. I’ll give you that. We have pissed on that corpse, and laughed at how small your warlord’s manhood was. Have you come to beg me for it?’
‘No. I have come to ask you as a man of honour. I hoped that you would see a worthy foe in Byrhtnoth, a man who should not be denied the glories of the afterlife after living his earthly life so bravely. He fought like a Northman, and he was ever a man of his word.’
‘Kraki?’
‘Yes, lord?’ said the scarred warrior.
‘Did we feed the Saxon jarl’s body to the pigs yet?’
‘No, lord.’
‘Good. But I am not sure if I should let you have it. You killed my White Wolf in the great battle, and before that you killed Palnatoki. So, I think I hate you, Beornoth, and am not inclined to agree to your request.’
The Jomsvikings rumbled in anger at the mention of their former leader, who Beornoth had killed at Watchet. Palnatoki had raised Olaf, taught him to fight, and helped him rise to power so that he might pursue his slaughtered family’s claim to the throne of Norway. Olaf had not achieved that dream yet, but had become one of the most feared and powerful Viking lords.
‘Give him nothing,’ screeched a high-pitched Norse voice from somewhere behind Olaf. ‘He is a thing of Loki, Beornoth Reiði, a curse on our people. A hell-demon. Grab him, deliver him to me.’ Two men barged their way through the crowd behind Olaf, and they carried a long timber box, a stained brown container shaped like a horse trough. The men grunted, and stood the box up on its end. Within it was a hollow-cheeked head which rocked from side to side on top of a bloated body with no arms or legs. Wide eyes shone in sunken, dark pits in a face framed by a greasy beard and thin, wet-looking hair. It was Ragnar the Heimnar.
