‘And you thought I was your path to salvation.’ The warrior laughed bitterly.
‘I must save a soul to balance the one I released from this world too soon.’
‘You are a fool,’ Hereward said, adding after a moment’s thought, ‘as are we all.’ The warrior almost felt pity for the young monk, but a vision of the woman stabbed to death in the wood jarred too sharply with his own memory of Tidhild, and his mother. Three women dead, all stained in blood. And then he recalled with a flash of unease what the wise woman had told him in her smoky hut about hidden patterns.
The jubilant cries grew louder. The crowd was ebbing from the church.
His raw emotions receding, the monk started. ‘Hereward, I am a fool. Forgive me. You are in great danger. I thought I would never have the chance to warn you and I had driven it from my mind-’
The warrior knelt and thrust his fist into the neck of the monk’s habit, hauling him up. ‘Then speak and stop your babbling. What danger?’
‘I am rotting here because Harald Redteeth revealed my crime to the archbishop-’
‘He lives?’
‘The Viking was saved from your rope by four men who had been in pursuit of you. And so our destinies continue to be bound together.’
Hereward shook the monk roughly to quiet him, and then thought for a moment. ‘And those four are here in Eoferwic?’
Alric nodded. ‘Redteeth told me that for some reason, what I do not know, they would not confront you in public, only in stealth.’
‘They fear drawing attention to me, or to themselves,’ the warrior replied after a moment’s reflection. ‘You saw their faces?’
Alric described the four men. ‘They are from the south. You will know them easily when they speak,’ he added.
Hereward returned to the door and glanced back at the pitiful figure. ‘Men are like wolves in the woods. Worse, for they have the capacity to deceive and betray as well as kill for base motives. But the life of a woman is a prized thing, and you have taken one. Whether accident or not, you must pay a price for that crime.’
The monk nodded, his face etched with grief. ‘I know.’
And with that the warrior nodded in parting and slipped outside to join all the other fools.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Merging with the throng, Hereward hid in the shadows of his hood until he was deep in the filthy streets of Eoferwic. He felt the blood already starting to beat in his head. His four pursuers were linked not only to the plot that had thrown his life off course, but also to Tidhild’s murder. They hunted him. But now he would hunt them.
When he reached the earl’s hall, he kept out of sight of the other huscarls until he could get Acha on her own. ‘You may be in danger,’ he warned her. ‘Kraki saw us together, and now my enemies are close at hand they may attack you to reach me. I would not have another dead woman lying on my mind.’
‘And do you expect me to hide like some frightened rabbit?’ Acha bristled. ‘I will cut off any hand laid upon me.’
The warrior felt a burst of affection for her. He would never forget Tidhild, but here was someone who could live in his heart. ‘Then take care,’ he said, ‘for the peace of this Christmastime may soon be left broken upon the floor.’
As soon as he was certain no one was watching him, Hereward reclaimed his axe, his shield and his knife from his hut. Comforted by his weapons, he faded into the smoky streets, losing himself among the performers, the tumblers, the pie-sellers and the ale-addled crowds. When he was sure he was not being followed, he made his way to the house where Wulfhere and his family were in hiding.
The one-eyed, one-handed man emerged from behind a willow screen at the back. He greeted Hereward with respect, recalling how warmly the monk had spoken of the warrior. Hereward listened to the words without comment, and then asked the man for aid. For the outspoken protests that placed his life at risk, Wulfhere had found his own degree of respect among the over-taxed, hard-working people of Eoferwic, the warrior knew. He passed on Alric’s descriptions of the four men who had pursued him and asked the one-handed man to spread word among everyone he knew. Whoever returns with knowledge of the men will be rewarded, he said, tapping one of his gold rings. When Wulfhere agreed, Hereward accepted the invitation to wait by the hearth, gnawing on a portion of the man’s meagre supply of bread.
The day passed. Night fell, with the wind coming in cold and hard across the river flood-plain. Heavy clouds swept in from the north-east and soon the snow was falling fast once again. Large flakes covered the brown slush and a peaceful stillness descended on Eoferwic. Hereward stirred from his brooding at the sound of muttering outside the door. When Wulfhere returned to the glow of the fire, the warrior saw that the man’s features were grave.
‘You were right to be concerned.’ Wulfhere squatted by the hearth, using the fingers of his good hand to balance himself. ‘Your enemies have the protection of the earl. He has sheltered them in a house not far from his hall, where they have been hiding by day but emerge when dark falls. You fear some plot against your life?’
Hereward grunted. Rising to his feet, he took directions to the house and thanked Wulfhere for his help, stripping one of the golden rings from his arm to be given to his informant.
Beneath the howl of the icy gale, drunken singing rolled out from the doorways of the houses he passed. The Feast of Fools would continue until sleep came. Grim-faced in the depths of his hood, the warrior wondered why Tostig was sheltering his four enemies. There was no love lost between the Godwins and the Earl of Mercia and his kin. Perhaps Tostig was simply being cunning, he mused. Good hospitality after the long trek could lower the four men’s guard. The earl could be hoping to draw out of them more information about the plot. Or he could be holding them as a bargaining tool once news of the conspiracy came into the open. Hereward felt unsure, but he could not risk his pursuers persuading the earl that he alone was the true enemy.
When he reached the earl’s enclosure, the snow was swirling in a wall of white. He could barely see a sword-length ahead of him. Wild music and drunken singing boomed from the hall. The huscarls were in full throat, the ale flowing freely. Tostig knew how to buy his men’s loyalty, Hereward thought. Head down, he forged into the gale through the calf-deep snow. The house Wulfhere had identified lay on the edge of the enclosure. It stood silent, a trail of grey smoke from the roof-hole whipped away in the wind.
He gripped his axe, enjoying the comforting weight in his hand. In response, his body flickered alight, every fibre burning, the blood thundering in his head. He was alive. He was the lightning and the oak. He was the feeder of ravens.
Hereward pushed into the house.
The howl of the snowstorm faded and for a moment there was only silence. The four men sat around the hearth staring at him, held fast by surprise. Hereward saw that his enemies were rough men, with faces like the cliffs of the Northumbrian coast and patchworks of scars that told long tales of lives lived in violence. Their hair was lank and greasy, their tunics stained with the road.
When they grasped who had burst into their midst, the four men lunged for their weapons. With a lupine grin, Hereward strode across the timber floor in four swift paces and swung his axe. The blade severed the top of the nearest opponent’s head midway down his nose. As the skull-cap flew through the air, a gush of scarlet sizzled in the fire. A cloud of acrid smoke whooshed up. The second man half rose on one knee, his fingers closing round the hilt of his scabbarded sword. Hereward’s axe came down again, lopping off his arm at the shoulder. The victim screamed and pitched forward, clutching at the stump.
The warrior felt as though he were floating across the face of the earth, untouchable, immaculate. He watched the blood drain from the faces of the two remaining men, noted the familiar shift of expressions like moonshadows on snow: shock, disbelief, dread. The world was silent, the air swathing him with the sumptuous muffling of goose-down. His grin broadened. Joy filled him. Euphoria. He floated across the timber boards and swung his axe a third time. To him, the weapon flowed like honey, but the third man moved even slower. The blade sliced through the chest and down towards the right hip, opening up his innards. And hard as the horrified man tried to hold them in, he could not.