Stewart Binns - Conquest

The King stiffened in anger.

Prince Osbjorn quickly intervened. ‘My brother, Hereward is a man I respect. He responds tersely because he is a man of principle. Besides, I suspect he no longer needs our support; what he fights for now needs faith, not an army.’

‘That doesn’t excuse an insult to me!’

Hereward stepped forward. ‘Svein, King of the Danes, you are welcome in Ely. The Brotherhood and I are honoured by the presence of a great warrior and a noble king.’

Hereward’s conciliatory tone defused the King’s anger.

Prince Osbjorn continued the discussion. ‘By not keeping his word, King William owes us a debt – not the Danegeld that he duly paid, but compensation for the harm he has done to us and the insult of his indifference. Winter was harsh on the Isle of Axholme and the supplies he promised did not arrive. We suffered badly; disease spread throughout the camp, and those who were fit enough to hunt found their quarry gone to ground. We lost many men and we mean to extract recompense from the King’s Exchequer.’

‘I am sorry to hear of the hardship your men have suffered. How can we help?’

‘There is an agreement we could reach. William is robbing the English earls of their titles and lands and emptying the abbeys and monasteries of their treasures. Is this not so?’

‘It is, my Lord Prince.’

‘We intend to raid Peterborough Abbey and remove all its treasures. It is one of the richest in England and would yield fair compensation for William’s dishonour. We are told that a new Norman abbot, Thurold, has been installed and that he has recruited a force of a hundred and sixty men so that he can strip bare the abbey’s treasures to pay William for his appointment.’

‘And you want us to help in this?’

‘Yes, we presume that it makes no difference to you whether the treasures of Peterborough fall into Danish hands or Norman. Our offer is simple: if we attack, there will be resistance, especially from the monks, and there will be bloodshed on both sides. If you help us and explain our purpose to the people of the burgh and the monks of the abbey, the resistance will be much less.’

‘And what do we get out of this?’

‘William will think it is another rising and that we are supporting you. Also, we will leave you with as many weapons as you need. We have a great surplus from our dead comrades on Axholme and my brother, our noble King, offers them to you in support of your campaign, a cause he doesn’t agree with but thinks is honourable. He will also order his sappers and boatswains to help you prepare the defence of Ely. After the raid, William will come for you and you will have the confrontation you seek.’

‘And you?’

‘We will continue to give the appearance of being prepared to fight for you, and William will negotiate with us again. He will pay us another large Danegeld, which, after protracted negotiation to maximize its worth, we will accept as sufficient and set sail for Denmark!’

Hereward had to smile at the Dane’s cunning. ‘So we face the onslaught of King William, and you sail off to Denmark with yet more geld and the riches of one of the great abbeys of England.’

King Svein broke his silence. ‘If you choose not to help us, we will attack anyway, burn the abbey to the ground and kill anyone who gets in our way.’

Hereward looked at the King; he knew the Dane’s threat was no bluff. He had little choice in the matter. His own force was too small to stop the Danes, and William was too far away to prevent an attack. Although they had their original Danegeld from the previous year, King Svein must have put another severe strain on his coffers by making a second crossing and would not contemplate going home without further booty.

Hereward thought about a compromise. ‘There are some conditions: no one is to be harmed; you may take all the gold and silver and any of the treasures which have monetary value, but the relics of saints may only be taken under the custody of Christian, Bishop of Aarhus. They must be accompanied by several monks of the abbey and kept under their protection as curators until such time as they can be returned to Peterborough. Finally, you must forego five one-hundredth parts of the geld, which will be distributed among the Chapter of the Abbey, who will receive one hundredth, and the local people, who will receive four hundreths.’

The Danes looked at one another. After some murmuring, Svein turned to Prince Osbjorn.

The Prince nodded his agreement, before turning to Hereward with a broad smile lighting up his face. ‘Like Spartacus, you are truly a man of the people. It is agreed; we have an understanding, Hereward of Bourne.’

‘We have, Lord Osbjorn.’

The sack of Peterborough was executed as planned. The monks and the retiring Abbot reluctantly accepted Hereward’s negotiation. As they said they would, the Danes then retreated to Wisbech to count their riches, leaving a corps of engineers to help with the defences of Ely.

When William heard of Hereward’s support for the sack of Peterborough, it had the desired effect. Fearing the beginnings of another rising, he made haste to East Anglia. In due course, William asked to parley with King Svein at Bytham, a Norman fortification on the River Nene, where, after much haggling, William paid a sizeable geld. A month later, after their sappers and boatswains had retuned from their work at Ely, the Danes sailed home, laden with a substantial part of William’s treasury.

A few days after the Danes had left, Hereward’s intuition that Prince Osbjorn was a man of honour was confirmed. A small chest arrived containing two handfuls of English gold – a significant sum of money, sufficient for a knight to live comfortably for the rest of his life.

It also contained a message in Latin:

Accept this gift to your cause. May it serve as my personal Oath to your Brotherhood.

Hereward drew great strength from the Prince’s message. Even though he and the Brotherhood were alone on a small island, isolated in a remote corner of a land where few were prepared to rally to his cause, Osbjorn’s testamonial reinforced his belief in the justice of his crusade.

The Brotherhood continued to send its bulletin to all England’s earldoms, monasteries and burghs: peace and justice for all under a wise and fair King.

With the defences of Ely well under way, Hereward met with Martin, Einar and Alphonso to discuss what to do about the women and girls. First of all, they decided that the orphans of Bourne should be recognized as full members of the family, meaning that there were now eleven non-combatants to worry about. Secondly, after much soul-searching, it was agreed that the women and children must escape to Aquitaine as soon as the situation in Ely became untenable.

A boat would be secreted away on the north side of the isle, in a place known only to them. It would be fully provisioned and checked regularly. At any time from when William’s attacks began, they would be ready to leave at only a moment’s notice. At the last minute, Edmund, Edwin and Gohor would be told of the plan and ordered to join them. Einar, Martin and Alphonso would execute the escape as soon as they feared the family was in imminent danger.

When the strategy was explained to the girls, it was Gunnhild who asked her father the obvious question. ‘But, Father, what about you?’

Then Estrith. ‘It sounds like you’re staying, no matter what.’

They both started to shed tears of exasperation, exhausted by the endless fight their father was engaged in.

‘You said we would go home soon.’

‘Very soon, you said.’

Hereward was at a loss to know how to answer his girls, hoping to avoid the conclusion they had already arrived at. ‘You are going home soon, just as I promised.’