James Wilde: Hereward

As the smoke billowed out in clouds, the warrior stepped back to give the others a chance. They lunged in one after the other, hacking with their axes or thrusting with their spears, their faces dark and emotionless. The only utterances were the prayers and screams of the Normans.

When the landowner staggered out, Hereward recognized the expensive clothes and the soft body and dragged him to one side before he could be cut down. Frederic fell to his knees, sobbing in fear.

Flames tore through the hall, cleansing it of its ghosts, and soon the intense heat drove the rebels to the edges of the enclosure. No other Normans emerged. When the roof fell in with a resounding crash, the fire whirled up towards the black sky in a gush of golden sparks. And the beast roared on. Hereward flashed back to the night Gedley had burned, the moment when the trajectory of his life had changed. A fleeting thought of Harald Redteeth whistled through his head, and he wondered where his hated enemy had gone. The red-bearded mercenary would never have allowed himself to die in the conflagration. But they would meet again, he knew, and then he would take his revenge for Vadir’s death.

But this was a night for a bonfire of the Normans’ vanity. They thought they could hold England in their fist and slowly choke the life from it. Now, as they felt the first cold fingers of terror on their spines, they would have to accept that the war had not yet ended.

Frederic of Warenne lurched to his feet, searching for a way of escape. Seeing none, he covered his mouth with his hands and began to shake. His fine clothes were smeared with ash. Hereward stood before the landowner and peered deep into his face. For a moment, the warrior thought he was looking at his father, the pull of deep tides inside him growing stronger and more violent.

‘Who are you?’ Frederic croaked, his gaze fixed on the skull of ash.

‘You know.’

Frederic began to cry.

‘Some say war turns us into beasts,’ the warrior continued, refusing to lower his coruscating gaze. ‘But men do it to themselves. Are we all devils? Is this hell?’ He shook his head, not knowing the answer, nor caring. ‘Know this: I see no angels anywhere, though the churchmen tell us we were all made in God’s form. Prove me wrong. Renounce your lands. Return to William of Normandy and tell him he should leave England before judgement is pronounced upon him. For these are the End-Times. The last days. His. Yours. Mine.’

Frederic’s eyes flickered to one side, his cunning thoughts clear.

Hereward smiled. ‘No, that would never happen. For men never give up power unless it is taken from their dead hands.’ He beckoned to Guthrinc.

‘Aye?’ the rebel answered.

‘Give the thief of land your axe.’

Frederic’s brow knitted. When his fingers closed around the haft, he looked at the weapon as if he had never seen one before. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

‘I am a knight now. An honourable man.’ Hereward could see in Frederic’s eyes that the landowner already knew what had happened at Burgh. As the warrior had anticipated, his uncle had informed the Normans. ‘No murderer, despised by all who hear his name. No common outlaw. A knight. I walk shoulder to shoulder with you, and all the Norman invaders.’ He nodded towards the axe. ‘We shall have a wager of battle.’

Frederic’s mouth fell open. ‘A trial by combat?’

‘And thereby solve this dispute between us, as the law demands.’

The landowner shook his head. ‘No.’ He tried to hand the axe back to Guthrinc. ‘I… I do not recognize your knighthood. It was conferred by a spiritual lord. Not by the king.’

‘Raise the axe,’ the warrior said.

Frederic threw the weapon to the ground as if it had burned him.

‘Pick up the weapon and fight. You have no choice.’

Dropping to his knees, Frederic clasped his hands together. ‘Have mercy.’

Hereward could feel Alric’s eyes upon his back. As the warrior raised his axe over his head, the landowner’s sobs cut through the roaring of the conflagration. ‘Is this hell?’ Hereward asked.

The axe drove down.

Blades of ice hung from the branches, glittering in the early morning sun. After the first hard frost of the winter, the wetlands shimmered white as the column of riders made their way along the frozen track from the direction of Lincolne. At the head of the band, Harald Redteeth looked up into the clear blue sky and knew that soon the snows would begin. He already wore his greased furs over his mail shirt, and his beard and hair had been freshly dyed red in anticipation of what was to come.

Beside him, Ivo Taillebois scanned the empty landscape for signs of life. His swarthy features had the heavy bone structure of mud-grubbing stock, but beneath his low brow his eyes gleamed with animal cunning. The Viking mercenary had heard the new Norman commander’s nickname whispered throughout Lincolne and it was rumoured that King William himself had dubbed the man the Butcher. It was a title Taillebois had earned in earnest with his axe during the fateful battle at Hastings, Redteeth knew. And William the Bastard had rewarded the adventurer from Anjou well, in land, for the ship, horses and supplies Ivo had provided for the invasion. The Normans believed that if any man could crush the fenland uprising, it would be the Butcher. Harald remained to be convinced.

‘How will the rebels survive the winter?’ Ivo said in emotionless, heavily accented English. He wore a black woollen cloak over his mail shirt, and brown leather gauntlets against the cold.

‘Hereward celebrated a great victory against your men, and for that reason alone the fenlanders will be behind the rebels, for now. They will get the food they need, make no doubt of that.’

Taillebois grunted. ‘If the people are afraid, they will offer no support.’

Galloping hoofbeats rumbled ahead. The commander brought the column of helmeted soldiers to a halt, and a moment later a black-capped scout rode hard towards them. He pulled his mount up sharply and said, ‘The camp you described is empty. The rebels have moved on.’

Harald stifled a giggle at the voices in the willows that only he heard. Sweeping his hand in an arc, he said, ‘This is their fortress. Water their ramparts, mist their walls, and every step a stranger takes through this land is one closer to death. Wherever their new camp is, you can be sure it will be more heavily defended and more lethal to approach.’

‘You give them too much respect,’ the Butcher sniffed. ‘We have crushed English rebels time and again, from the south to the cold north.’

‘Not rebels like these.’

The iron serpent of soldiers crawled on. By midday they had reached Barholme, where the Viking thought he could still smell burnt wood in the air. The frost had melted under the warm sun, but the wind stayed cold. Nothing remained of the old thegn’s hall but a charred circle on the brown earth and heaps of wet ashes around black bones of wood. In other circumstances that would have been enough to hold the attention of the new arrivals, but all eyes were caught by a row of poles torn from the enclosure fence, fourteen in all. On each one hung a rotting head, the eyes long gone, the jaws gaping in a silent, never-ending scream. Hereward had taken his revenge on the men who had slain his brother, the Viking thought, and in the process had left a stark message for anyone who ventured to this place.

Taillebois remained silent, seemingly unmoved, as he stared into each face in turn.

A grey-haired man lurched from the surrounding willows, leaning on a tall staff. Redteeth recognized the old thegn, Asketil, who had spent so long inveigling himself into the favour of Aldous Wyvill, much good did it do him. The Viking didn’t like the man. How could he betray his own kin? But he put on a broad smile and hailed the thegn.