Edward Marston - The Lions of the North

Ermine Street, the great highway between London and York, showed scant respect for any variations in contour. It arrowed its way north with Roman straightness and dealt with obstacles in its path by cutting through them. They were able to make steady progress before spending the night at a small village in the north of the county.

Inclement weather delayed their start on the next day and enforced a change of route. When they reached the Humber Estuary, they found it so broad and uninviting, so wild and so windswept, that Ralph Delchard, a reluctant sailor, abandoned the plan to cross by means of the ferry and instead struck west along the bank of the river. The detour slowed them still more and sapped the vestiges of their good humour. By the time they finally reached Howden in the East Riding, they were bedraggled and dispirited.

Like everyone else in the party, Golde fell asleep the moment she climbed into bed. They were staying at the local manor house, a long, low building with a thatched roof and a sunken floor. A fairly primitive structure, it made no concessions to comfort and had a musty atmosphere that made them cough when they first encountered it. It nevertheless seemed like a palace to travellers on the verge of fatigue.

Golde was sharing a small bay with Ralph. When she awoke in the night, she was alarmed to find that he was no longer beside her. She dressed quickly and went in search of him, feeling her way to the door in the gloom. He was nowhere inside the building. Golde eventually found him at the rear of the house, sitting pensively on a chopping block and staring straight ahead of him. The storm had abated and a crescent moon now picked out everything in sharp profile.

She ran across to him on tiptoe and touched his arm.

“What ails you?” she said.

“Nothing, my love.”

“Then what has brought you out here?”

“I could not sleep.”

“After a day like the one we had?”

“I felt the need for some fresh air.” He stood up and slipped an arm around her. “But there is no need for you to be out here at this hour.”

“I want to be with you.”

“Rest while you have the chance. I am used to a long day in the saddle. You are not. Go back inside.”

“Only when you have told me the truth.”

“About what?”

“This, Ralph. Sitting out here alone in the darkness. It is not like you. Something is troubling your mind and I will not leave your side until I know what it is.”

“Golde …”

“Do not think to fob me off with an excuse.”

“It is nothing that need concern you.”

“Everything about Ralph Delchard concerns me,” she said firmly.

“I left my home and my sister to be with you and I have never had a moment’s regret about that decision.”

He grinned. “Not even this afternoon in that downpour?”

“Not even then.” She kissed him lightly. “Now, tell me.”

Ralph heaved a sigh. “There is not much to tell.”

“Then it will not keep us out here much longer.”

He pulled her close and held her in both arms. Gold had brought a happiness into his life that he had never thought to experience again.

In the short time they had been together, she had rekindled something in him that had lain dormant since the death of his wife and that no other woman had been able to reach, let alone ignite. Golde was right to remind him of the sacrifices she had made in order to follow him.

Having committed herself so completely, she was entitled to know what was worrying him, however painful it might be for him to tell her.

He sat her on the block of wood and knelt beside her.

“I hope you will not despise me,” he said quietly. “It is not a pleasant tale.”

“I love you, Ralph.”

“My story may test the strength of that love.”

“You will not find it wanting,” she promised. “No more evasion.

What brought you out here tonight?”

“Guilt.”

“I do not understand.”

“How could you, Golde? Only those who were actually here could really understand the full horror of that time.”

“What time?”

“When I last visited this godforsaken county.”

“You have been to Yorkshire before?”

“Oh, yes,” he said soulfully. “I came once before. Many years ago, at the heels of the Conqueror himself. And we left the most dreadful legacy of our visit. As soon as I stepped onto Yorkshire soil again, the guilt rose up in me until I could hardly contain it.”

“But why? What did you do?”

“We wreaked havoc. We came to put down a revolt but we stayed to exact the most hideous revenge. I have never seen the Conqueror so angry. He was shaking with fury. The rebels dared to challenge his kingship for the third time in a row and he vowed that they would never be able to do it again.”

“I recall it now. The King executed their leaders.”

“He did much more than that, Golde. He ordered us to lay waste the whole county. And when Yorkshire was torn asunder, we were to visit the same grisly fate on Northumbria. That was our appointed task-the harrying of the North.”

“News of the terror even reached us in Hereford.”

“We committed every crime of which man is capable. We did not just kill our enemies, we destroyed everything in our path. We tore down houses, burned crops, slaughtered animals. King William can be a cruel man when roused and Yorkshire bore the brunt of his cruelty.

We starved this county into submission, Golde. The famine was unending. Men, women and children died of hunger in the thousands.

The place was a wilderness.” He stood up. “And the shameful truth is that I helped to make it like that.”

“I can see why it sits heavy on your conscience.”

“I shudder when I think of what we did. It is not something of which I am proud. It makes me feel sick. Now that I am back, I am aching with remorse.”

She rose. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I do not know.”

Golde was moved. He had risked her contempt by admitting his part in a vicious act of vengeance but he was making no bid for her sympathy. His anguish was something that he alone had to bear. It could not be soothed away with kind words from her. Golde was grateful for his honesty. She was shocked by his confession but she was also touched that he felt able to reveal a more sensitive side to his character. They stood there without saying a word. Ralph grappled with his remorse while she tried to assimilate the full import of what he had told her.

The silence did not last long. A violent explosion of noise made the pair of them leap involuntarily apart. A quiet night was suddenly alive with noise and movement. Men shouted, swords clashed, horses neighed and a dog barked incessantly. Sounds of a fierce struggle came from the stables. Ralph reached instinctively for Golde and shielded her with his body as he hustled her to the safety of the house.

Once she was out of danger, he drew his dagger and moved towards the gathering pandemonium around the stables. All he could see was a mass of bodies and horses, swirling about in darkness. The clamour had woken everyone in the house and servants came running with torches. Soldiers billeted in neighbouring dwellings had also been roused from their slumbers but they reacted too slowly to the emergency.

As Ralph moved in, a voice gave a stern command.

“Away!”

Before he could get any closer, he was caught in a stampede and buffeted to the ground by plunging animals. As he rolled over in the mud, he heard triumphant jeers rising above the thunder of departing hooves.

“Damnation!” he roared. “They’ve stolen the horses!”

Ralph Delchard was back on his feet in an instant, cursing the thieves, calling for light and slashing the air with his dagger to relieve his anger. The whole household seemed to be converging on him. The stables were no more than a series of ramshackle huts at the side of the property. Ralph had left two of his men-at-arms to sleep in the straw so that they might guard the area, and his immediate concern was for them. He grabbed the first blazing torch that reached him in order to see what had befallen his sentries.