Kraki pressed his face close. ‘This is Northumbria and we are huscarls. We do not send a man before the Witan to account for his crimes. We have our own rules. Here we follow the old ways, of blood and fire. Honour is all.’ He glanced around the circle. ‘A man of honour has firm principles. A man of honour fights for his friends in time of need. For his people, his land.’ The huscarl leader looked the warrior up and down with unconcealed contempt. ‘You have no honour. You are nothing.’
Hereward bit his tongue.
Jeers ran through the ranks. From the edge of the hall ground, a large brown bear rose up on to its hind legs and bellowed in response to the sound it heard. Tostig had had the beast brought over from the Northlands, for entertainment and as a symbol of his own untamed power. Though it was shackled in its own enclosure, its roar chilled all who heard it, the warrior saw.
Kraki glanced towards the bear and nodded. ‘There, the sound of your kin calling to you. But brutish strength and a beast’s ferocity and cunning will not keep you alive for long. That rage that burns so hot in you will be your end.’
Hereward feared the commander’s words were true. ‘I will prove my value, with my sword and my axe.’
The Viking snorted. ‘Not this day. There is too much bad feeling towards you. Who here would want a wild animal at his side, as likely to attack him as the enemy? If you would be trusted, we must see you have been tamed.’ He turned his back on the warrior and walked away. ‘You will toil with the slaves until I summon you, fetching water and cutting wood for the hearth. Even that work is too good for you.’
Hereward’s cheeks burned, but he would endure. He had suffered worse, and at least he had found respite from pursuit. It was even possible that Tostig would aid him in his struggle for justice.
As the huscarls surged out of the gate into Eoferwic, he suppressed his pride and joined the slaves. For most of the morning, he hacked logs from the trees dragged in from the woods to the south. A constant supply of fuel was needed to keep the winter fires burning, and fast though he worked the wood pile never seemed to grow any larger. The other woodmen eyed him with sullen suspicion, but he kept his head down, allowing the rhythm of his labour to still his troubled thoughts. Only when the sun was at its highest and his arm muscles burned did he wipe the sweat from his brow and go in search of food.
Gnawing on a hunk of bread, he rested in the lee of the hall, watching the bear prowl its enclosure. The sweet smell of woodsmoke hung in the air, barely masking the choking odours drifting in from the filthy streets. As he looked idly round, a figure moving stealthily through the deep snow caught his eye. Though her cloak was pulled tight, he saw it was Acha. Something about her cold expression and determined step drew his attention, and his puzzlement turned to unease when he noticed she was approaching the house where the injured Thangbrand lay.
With a rush of realization, he threw the bread aside and raced between the huts. He caught up with Acha at the door to Thangbrand’s dwelling and grabbed her wrist as she half turned at the sound of his shoes in the snow. A knife flew from her hand into a drift. Her eyes blazed. With her free hand, she lashed out, raking her nails across his cheek. ‘Leave me be,’ she snarled.
Hereward dragged her out of sight round the side of the hut and pressed her against the wall until she calmed down. ‘You planned to kill Thangbrand? Has he not suffered enough?’
‘No. He laid hands upon me… he shamed me… he deserves death.’
‘Have you lost your wits? You would not escape punishment. At the least, you would suffer the agonies of an ordeal. At worst, death.’
‘He shamed me!’
Hereward was struck by the murderous fury in Acha’s eyes. ‘I cannot allow you to risk your own life-’
‘Allow me?’ she snapped. ‘You have no say in what I do. I am no little rabbit, weak and frightened and needing a man to fight my battles. In my homeland men bowed before me-’
She caught herself, and in that moment Hereward understood she had been a woman of some standing before Tostig had taken her prisoner. She looked away, her jaw set.
‘Heed me. I know full well the curse of uncontrollable passions. We need no enemies — we destroy ourselves,’ he said. ‘This is a mistake. I will not let you sacrifice yourself to gain revenge.’
‘I do not need your protection.’
‘You think I can help myself? I could not turn away and see you or any woman destroyed.’
‘Then you are a fool.’ She threw off his grip and pushed by him. He felt relieved to see her ignore the knife as she walked back towards the hall. Following in her wake, he recognized that he had done some good that day, a small recompense for the trail of misery he had left behind him over the years. Perhaps Acha understood that too, deep beneath her anger, for she glanced back at him once she reached the hall. Her expression looked curious, but before he could wonder what it meant, she disappeared inside.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Terror haunted every part of Eoferwic. As the cold days passed in the slow march towards the Christmas feast, Hereward had grown to realize that this place was no London or Mercia, where the rule of law held sway. Northumbria truly was wild and untamed. Though the age of the Vikings had passed, their spirit of fire and rock had been embedded in the land, he found, and the people here were of an independent nature. They felt aggrieved that Tostig, a man of the south, had been imposed upon them and they caused trouble on a daily basis. Even the earl’s decision to hire Northmen for his huscarls had done little to placate the people. Those loyal to Tostig were beaten, their houses burned. Open talk of rebellion rustled in the marketplace and along the wharves and in the tavern.
Hereward cared little. He had his own plans for revenge and they consumed him. But he knew he had to bide his time until he learned whether the earl’s messenger had successfully convinced the king, or Harold Godwinson, of Edwin of Mercia’s crimes. At least there had been no sign of the enemies who had pursued him so relentlessly across moor and hill. Perhaps they had fallen to the wolves or the cold, he hoped.
Yet in the quiet moments during his hard labours alongside the slaves, he found himself watching for Acha. They had exchanged looks across the smoky hall, but her dark features always kept her feelings locked away. Three times he had tried to speak to her, but she had spurned him as if he was not there, and he had no way of knowing if this was some game she was playing or if she truly did hold him in contempt. Beside the waters of their Mercian home, his brother Redwald had once warned that some woman would be the death of him, and when he looked into Acha’s cold gaze he wondered if that might be true.
A week after the brawl with Thangbrand, a grey pall blew across the south of Eoferwic and he was at last summoned from his menial tasks to join the earl’s men. The familiar feel of his sword in his hand soothed him. As Kraki waved the huscarls out of the enclosure and over the frozen ruts into the wall of smoke rolling across the tightly packed houses, Hereward knew he should keep one eye on his companions. They loped like a pack of wolves on each side, clutching axes that could easily be turned on him in the confusion.
Wind-whipped flakes of charred wood and smouldering straw mingled with the falling snow. Out of the billowing cloud, frantic men, women and children jostled along the narrow street. The fire’s roar drowned out their frightened cries. ‘Keep your wits about you,’ Kraki called. ‘These bastards are like ghosts. You’ll have a face full of blood from a split head before you even know anyone’s there.’