James Aitcheson - The Splintered Kingdom

‘You can’t do this, Tancred,’ said Robert warningly. ‘As your lord I forbid it.’

I ignored him but asked Eadric: ‘What about Beatrice? Will you allow her to go free as well?’

‘I will,’ he answered. ‘Neither she nor any of the others will be harmed. You have my word.’

‘How do I know you’ll honour that word?’

Eadric affected a serious tone and tried to conceal his smile, most likely scenting victory close at hand. ‘I swear it.’

That in itself meant nothing. I knew as well as any man how easily such a pledge could be broken. And yet it gave me an idea. Casting down my shield but keeping my sword in hand, I stepped forward slowly out of the ring, into the space between the two battle-lines, albeit slightly closer to ours than theirs.

‘What are you doing?’ shouted Wace. ‘He’s nothing but a hollow excuse for a man. His oath means nothing; he only says this because he knows if he tries to fight us he’ll end up with half of his hearth-troops dead.’

He was probably right, but I had no intention of presenting myself to Eadric without a fight, only of making him think that I did.

Fixing my gaze upon the Englishman, I said: ‘In Brittany where I hail from, it is the custom when we swear oaths to do so over the symbol of the cross.’

That was untrue, at least in the manner that I had in mind, but I was relying on him being ignorant enough of Bretons and our ways to believe it. One final attempt to work some cunning; beyond this we had no option but to stand and fight. And die.

With my blade I carved one straight line about six feet in length in the turf, then another to form a cross-piece roughly two-thirds of the distance along the first.

Eadric snorted. ‘Must we do this?’

‘If you wish me to surrender myself to you, then yes.’ I slid my blade back into its scabbard and hoped he did not notice the lump in my throat betraying my apprehension as I swallowed. ‘We stand here at opposite ends of the cross, you make your promise to me, and then to solemnise it we embrace as equals. This is how it is done.’

‘Tancred!’ Beatrice said, and I heard the note of despair in her plea as she began to sob.

A couple of the Englishmen began to object. Eadric raised a hand to silence them. After handing his own shield to a retainer, he paced slowly forward to meet me, frowning in suspicion, as well he might. But I stood alone, with weapons sheathed and arms held away from my body to show I meant no harm as sweat trickled down my back and my chest.

He stopped at the base of the cross as instructed, while I took my position at the other end. If he’d wanted to strike me down at that moment, he could have done, since there was no way I could have drawn my sword in time to parry his blow. But he did not.

‘What do I say?’ he asked. Probably he was expecting some kind of ritual liturgy.

‘You make your oath in whatever form you wish. The exact words don’t matter.’

He gave a tired sigh, then said: ‘Upon the cross I swear to make certain that, if you submit to me, your companions are set free. Is that sufficient?’

‘It is sufficient,’ I replied. ‘Now we embrace.’

Again Wild Eadric smiled, and this time it was a broad grin that showed his cracked teeth, for in his mind he had won. I spread my arms to receive him and he did likewise as he stepped towards me. He clasped his arms around my back, and I made to do the same, except that with my right hand I seized the hilt of his dagger and in one swift movement tugged it free of its sheath, lifting it to his throat before he was even aware what had happened, while with my other arm I held him firm.

‘Move and I will kill you,’ I said, and then to his men: ‘Stay where you are and lay down your weapons, or else this steel ends up in your lord Eadric’s neck.’

At first it seemed they did not hear me, but then I pressed the edge against the underside of his chin, to show that this was no idle threat. A trickle of blood spilt forth where I’d grazed Eadric’s skin, and they glanced nervously at each other before doing as I told them. No man wishes to be responsible for the death of his lord, and that holds true no matter whether he is Norman or English or of any other race.

‘You wouldn’t dare kill me,’ Eadric said. ‘If you do, they will be upon you in less than a heartbeat. They will tear you apart and spit on your corpses.’

‘Shut up,’ I hissed. Step by step we retreated towards the safety of our shield-ring, where Robert set about relieving him of his sword-belt.

‘What do we do now?’ muttered Eudo. ‘Or is this as far as your plan goes?’

I didn’t answer. All I knew was that for the moment as least we held the advantage, and we had to make use of it while we could.

‘Make way,’ I shouted at Eadric’s men. ‘Make way!’

It was a long way from here back to the edge of the marshes, though, and even further from there back to the barn where?dda was waiting with the horses. Even as the Englishmen and Danes cleared a path and we began to move, keeping our ring formation, I saw that we could not maintain this impasse for long. For they would follow us all the way, and sooner or later some of the more hot-headed among Eadric’s oath-warriors would decide to try their sword-arms against ours and attempt to rescue their lord. I knew because it was what I would do. When that happened I didn’t see how we could manage to fight them all off.

Already a few of them were growing restless, their hands going to the hilts and handles of their weapons as they closed upon us. Behind their shield-rims and their helmets and their long moustaches all I could see of their faces were their cold eyes staring back at me.

‘Stay back!’ Pons said. ‘Stay back or we kill your lord.’

It was an empty threat, and they knew it too, for they kept on coming, faster than we could retreat.

‘They are cowards,’ Eadric shouted in spite of the sharpened steel at his throat. ‘Watch how they run from you!’

And there was nothing more I could do.

‘Stop,’ I said to the others. We had made barely thirty paces from the spot where Eadric had first trapped us. We hadn’t so much as left the horse paddock. For all our efforts, our time had come. I for one would rather meet my maker with sword in hand than running like some pitiful craven. ‘We fight here.’

Eadric began to laugh, as well he might. A thundering, triumphant laugh that matched his byname, it seemed to resound off the surrounding buildings and rise to the cloudy heavens, filling the night. Victory belonged to him after all.

But as I cast my gaze around at my loyal companions in arms, I realised that was not the only sound I heard. From somewhere beyond the walls came what sounded like screams, and they were the kind of screams I’d heard many times in my life, for they were screams of pain, of slaughter and the dying. The enemy must have heard them too, for they halted, glancing uncertainly at each other even as I exchanged confused looks with my sword-brothers. Who could be attacking?

Lord Robert grinned. ‘When you said these were all the men you could muster, I knew it couldn’t be true.’

‘I wasn’t lying,’ I replied, but that was all I had time to say before the sound of war-horns cut me off: two sharp blasts given in quick succession. A signal to rally.

On the main streets all was confusion. Men were running back and forth, some carrying pails filled with water while others seemingly without any purpose at all. And then I realised why, as there was a rush of air from the direction of the walls and the night sky lit up with several long streaks of flame, too many to count, like shooting stars except much lower in the sky and burning more fiercely. They sailed over the top of the palisade: first one volley, then another and another still. Some fell harmlessly on to the mud in the middle of the street, but others landed upon the houses, which quickly caught fire. I glanced back in the direction we had come and saw the thatch of some of the workshops close by the monastery consumed by writhing tongues of red and orange and yellow.