James Wilde: Hereward

His head throbbed with the beat of his blood. The thing he carried with him at all times, shackled deep in his heart, was rising free. He welcomed it. There was no other way. Back at the camp, in the grey hour just before dark, Alric had pleaded with him to hold his true nature in check or risk losing his soul for ever. And part of him knew the monk was right; to give in to the bestial bloodlust and the slaughter, where was the honour in that? But the peace of which he had always dreamed now seemed as ephemeral as the fenland mist. Alric had been a good friend to him, perhaps the best he had ever had. But Hereward Asketilson was already dead. Hereward the scourge of the invader, the feeder of ravens, demanded blood. And his devil would ensure it flowed in torrents.

Through the leafless trees, the torches glimmered round the Normans’ hall, Hereward’s old home. The warrior raised his hand to bring his war band to a halt. For a long moment, they waited in silence until a shadow separated from the trees and edged towards them.

‘Did I do well?’ it whispered.

‘You did well, Hengist.’

The thin-faced man from the village ran a shaking hand through his lank blond hair. His pale eyes glistened. ‘The Normans killed all the other men,’ he croaked. ‘Once I had told them the location of your camp, as you instructed, I thought they would leave. But they put my neighbours to the sword, while they knelt, while their women sobbed and prayed.’ The words died in his throat.

Hereward rested a supportive hand on the trembling man’s shoulder. ‘The invaders can never be trusted. They have no honour. But through your courage, and your neighbours’ sacrifice, we lured them into the fens and broke them. And soon, perhaps this night, we will be rid of them.’

Hengist nodded, wiping the back of his hand across his sticky nose. ‘I will join you,’ he vowed, ‘and I will pay them back in kind.’

‘And this night?’

‘Two men upon the fence.’

‘Only two?’

‘The others feast in the hall, and lick their wounds.’

Hereward shook his head in disbelief. ‘Then they have brought this end upon themselves.’ He nodded to Redwald, who flashed a grin, and Guthrinc, who cracked the knuckles of his large hands. The two men pulled their hunting bows from their shoulders, and an arrow each from the pouch upon their backs, and then moved quietly into the willows surrounding the enclosure.

The rebels ghosted among the trees. Beyond the palisade, the Norman guards stood on their platform, their helmets agleam in the torchlight. Redwald and Guthrinc knelt on the treeline, shafts notched. Hereward knew it would take a good eye to hit their prey in the gloom, but those two men were the best archers he had. They would not fail, as he had failed Vadir.

The bow-lines creaked, held for a moment, and then snapped free. Twin arrows whistled through the dark. The shafts flew so fast Hereward didn’t see them strike, but he heard them puncture flesh, and a gasp of shock and a gurgle. Both knights fell from their platform.

For a long moment, the warrior listened for any sign that the Normans in the hall had heard the falling bodies. When no sound came, he waved the rebels on. Clambering over the newly dug ramparts, the men gathered at the foot of the fence. Dropping to his hands and knees, Hengist felt around the base of the timber palisade until he came to an area that had been padded with loose chips of wood under a thin covering of soil. Hereward felt his heart swell at the risks the English farmers had taken to meet his strict instructions during their labours. At his nod, four men fell to the ground and scrabbled out the padding until there was space enough for a slight man to crawl under the fence.

‘Let me,’ Redwald whispered.

‘Take care,’ Hereward said. ‘The guards may still be alive. The knights could leave the hall at any time-’

‘Brother,’ Redwald interrupted with a grin, ‘trust me.’

‘I trust you,’ the warrior replied. He felt a burst of pride at the other man’s bravery.

Redwald wriggled through the narrow gap, and a few moments later the rebels heard the groan of the bar lifting from the gate. Once the way swung open, the men flooded inside the enclosure. Hengist padded around to the rear of the hall, Hereward and Alric darting behind. From within came the sound of drunken singing and laughter. Fools, Hereward thought. The Normans had too quickly drowned their misery at the day’s dismal outcome. But then they did not understand the English, and the fire that burned in their hearts, or the weight of their hatred.

Edging past the pit where the waste and rotting food was tossed, along the side of the chicken hut, Hengist ducked down at the hall’s rear wall and moved a pile of wood. A hole had been dug behind it, just big enough for a man to squeeze into the space beneath the hall’s timber floor where the straw had been stuffed to keep out the winter cold. Hereward nodded approvingly. Once again he felt impressed by the risks that had been taken by the men the Normans had put to work. He found a grim humour in the thought that the invaders had turned good men into their slaves and thereby brought about their own demise.

The warrior sent Alric to fetch one of the torches. When the monk returned with the sputtering brand, Hereward handed it to Hengist and whispered, ‘You know what to do.’

‘Aye. With joy in my heart,’ the other man replied, his face cold.

As they made their way back to the front of the hall, Alric caught Hereward’s arm. ‘You are not alone. I will pray for your soul.’ The monk’s face looked like stone, but his eyes swam with passion.

‘Then pray hard, monk.’ Clapping his arms around his friend, Hereward squeezed tightly. He held the embrace for a moment, and then, without a word or a look, turned and loped to the front of the hall where the rebels waited in the shadows along the palisade.

Grasping his axe with both hands, Hereward strode to the side of the door and waited. His men darted into a tight semicircle around him. The warrior looked across the row of faces, seeing courage and fear, the iron of defiance and the fire of righteous fury. The English were ready. And now there would be blood.

Hereward closed his eyes. In his mind, he pictured Asketil within the hall, his father’s fists beating his mother to death. The warrior remembered the way her blood had drained along the lines of the timber boards, creating an indelible stain that had haunted him every day he had spent there. He recalled the deep wound of his grief and his long belief that it would never heal. And then he felt his rage, his old companion, begin to simmer, and then boil, and then rise up through him. With a whisper, he summoned his devil.

The acrid scent of burning whipped in on the breeze. Wisps of grey smoke began to curl out from under the mud-coloured wattle-and-daub walls of the hall. And then the night filled with a roaring as if a great beast had been woken. Orange sparks glowed, whisking up towards the starless sky. Tongues of flame licked out from the base of the walls. Within the hall, a panicked din erupted. Feet thundered towards the door.

Coughing and spluttering, the first man burst out into the night. Hereward swung his axe. The head spun through the air and bounced across the mud and wet leaves. Blood drenched the warrior, but he barely recognized the sensation. His thoughts had washed away on a tranquil sea, his vision narrowing to that small doorway. Things emerged, familiar shapes that could have been shadows or monsters or memories, and each time he swung his axe. The bodies piled around his feet in the growing red pool. When the commander, Aldous Wyvill, lurched out, his gaze locked on the warrior’s face for a moment and his lips curled back from his teeth in horror at what he saw before the axe fell.