He put Acha out of his mind. Pulling his cloak around him, he forced his way through the bitter gale towards the church. Deep inside him, the drums beat out the word betrayal in a steady rhythm. His plans were shifting fast to match the new way he saw the world, a place of shadows where honour mattered little. He was beginning to think that the men who spoke of honour were the ones least likely to have it.
On the higher ground, the waves of white washed up high against the sturdy grey vessel of the church. The bell protested with faint musical notes against the wind’s turbulent battering. Beneath the tower, the low houses of the clerics stood silent, their thatch now lost beneath folds of snow.
Hereward strode to the hut where Alric had been held, but he found the small, straw-covered room empty. Rats scurried away when he entered. He grew angry and that surprised him, a little. The monk meant nothing to him. But the order imposed by undeserving powers needed to be confronted, to be disrupted, and the monk, like all men, deserved a second chance. Prowling around the church enclosure, Hereward considered dragging the archbishop from his hall and prodding him with a sword until Alric’s new location was revealed. Perhaps more than prodding him.
But as the warrior made his way to Ealdred’s looming hall, he heard faint, discordant voices. Following the sound, he came to a sturdier house with a timber roof. He identified Alric’s tones, and, he thought, the archbishop’s. The two men appeared to be involved in an argument. Pressing his ear against the door, Hereward listened.
‘Tell me what the Mercian knows.’ It was the archbishop, his voice strained.
‘If I knew anything, I would not tell you.’ Alric’s voice cracked.
‘What others have heard his lies?’
‘I do not believe he lies. He has always spoken with an honest tongue. Which is more than I can say for other men I have encountered in Eoferwic.’
‘He is a murderer… a beast.’
‘He is a man. Like all men.’
Ealdred snorted. ‘The Mercian has shown himself to be corrupted by evil-’
‘Like all men,’ Alric interrupted in a loud voice, ‘he has good and evil within him, and like all men he can be saved and brought to God. Woe unto them that call Evil Good, and Good Evil — ’
‘Do not quote scripture to me! You face punishment for your own crimes against God. First the court will hear your shame, and then you will endure your trial by ordeal. Your flesh will be seared. Your nose will be filled with the stink of your burning flesh, and your cries will rend your throat. Let us see then if you continue to protect this worthless sinner.’
‘I care nothing for myself.’ Alric’s voice broke with emotion. ‘You think to tempt me. You hint that I will face no trial, no ordeal, if I give up this man who needs me. I welcome the opportunity to proclaim my sins and beg forgiveness.’
‘What vanity to think you alone can save a soul,’ the archbishop sneered. ‘Another sin against God.’
Hereward felt unaccountably moved by the monk’s words. He had been as unyielding as the oak for as long as he could remember, but that night seemed to be one of transformation. Anger crystallizing from his stew of confusion, he tore open the door and stepped into the warm room.
The archbishop whirled, fear rising in his taut features as it had done in the faces of the four men who had died earlier that night. Lit by the golden light of the blazing fire in the hearth, Alric closed his eyes and gave a beatific smile. He was kneeling before Ealdred, his hands and feet bound. New bruises mottled his face. Two men stood guard over him, not churchmen. Hereward guessed they had been sent by the earl to extract the answers Tostig required.
‘Stay back,’ the archbishop hissed, ‘or God will smite you down.’
‘Your friend and ally, the earl, is already discovering God’s will may not coincide with his. Now it is your time to learn this lesson.’ He raised his axe.
‘You dare attack a man of God? Truly, you are capable of any monstrous deed,’ Ealdred gasped, backing to the far side of the house. He urged the guards forward with insistent hand movements.
With little enthusiasm, the two men grabbed the spears leaning against the mud-coloured wall and edged forward. The warrior faced his opponents, his eyes glinting.
‘Spare them,’ Alric said.
‘They can spare themselves by throwing down their weapons.’
‘Do not listen to him. Attack. The earl will reward you,’ Ealdred cried.
The monk pleaded again.
‘Quiet,’ Hereward shouted back at the young cleric. ‘Always you are like a fly buzzing in my ear.’
The guards attacked as one. The warrior spun between the spear thrusts and brought the axe down on one haft, shattering it. Continuing to spin, he swung his weapon towards the disarmed guard’s head. At the last moment, he turned the blade so the flat struck the man’s temple, knocking him cold.
‘There,’ Hereward snapped. ‘I listened. Now, be silent.’
The other guard struggled to turn his spear to the warrior’s new position. Hereward kicked the man’s legs out from under him, and made to drive his axe into his chest as he sprawled.
‘No,’ Alric insisted. ‘Let him live.’
Cursing loudly, Hereward wavered, and then kicked the guard in the head. ‘I am already regretting my decision to come here this night.’ He glared at the monk, then turned to the archbishop, still cowering against the far wall. Shaking his axe towards the cleric, he said, ‘You play games with lives to see the advancement of the Godwins. I would be a fool to think you would ever reconsider your alliances, but know that judgement comes, sooner or later.’ He grabbed the back of the monk’s habit and dragged him towards the door. Slitting Alric’s bonds, he hissed, ‘My patience balances on a knife-edge, monk. It would be wise for you to keep your jaws clamped firmly shut from now on.’
Alric nodded, his smile unwavering.
Briefly emboldened, Ealdred called, ‘Your days are numbered, Mercian. You will rue this night.’
Hereward flashed the archbishop a murderous look and then hauled the young monk out into the snow-blasted night.
CHAPTER TWENTY — THREE
Sickened, Tostig surveyed the blood seeping into the floor of the reeking house. His gaze roamed towards the bodies discarded and dismembered as if they were cordwood and then skittered away. Though he was battle-hardened, the earl had never witnessed a scene of such dispassionate slaughter. He glanced at the corpse still hanging by its feet from the beam and muttered, ‘What kind of man is capable of such things?’
Kraki levered one of the bodies with the toe of his shoe and shrugged. ‘A good man if he is at your shoulder. Less so if you stand axe to axe.’
Tostig kneaded his brow in thought. ‘Find him. Do not let him leave Eoferwic.’
The Viking nodded. ‘The slave might know his whereabouts. The Mercian has been trapped by her thighs and she is one who can steal a man’s wits in the process.’ Still drunk from the festivities, he lurched out into the night.
The earl hesitated a moment, eyeing the marks of torture on the hanging body and wondering how much Hereward had learned from the dying man. He had promised his brother he would hold the north in the name of the Godwins, and every day he felt he was failing a little more. And now his chance to prove to Harold that he was worthy of respect was on the cusp of being destroyed by a Mercian who was more beast than man. He could hear his brother’s condemnation ringing in his head, as he had heard it ever since he was a child. Tostig the Worthless. Tostig who would amount to nothing.