‘What troubles you?’ the warrior asked, his eyes narrowing.
‘It is not for me to say. You will find out soon enough.’ The boatwright glanced towards the western sky. ‘It gets dark early this time of year. If you leave now, you should be home by dusk.’ He caught himself. ‘But your father is not at his hall.’
Hereward flinched. ‘The Normans have taken it?’
Nodding, Holbert flashed a glance at Sawin that the warrior couldn’t read. ‘He is staying in the house that used to belong to Berwyn the leatherworker. Before Berwyn saw fit to anger the bastards.’
Hereward could see a dark mood had fallen on the two men, but neither would discuss what haunted them. He finished his ale and thanked Holbert for his hospitality before making his way back to the old straight track.
‘Why did you not tell me you wanted to visit your kin?’ Alric asked.
‘I should tell you everything?’
Alric looked hurt. ‘If I am to help you-’
‘Some things are beyond help.’
For a moment the monk hesitated, and then he said, ‘I find myself afraid, and I do not know why. But the look on Holbert’s face-’
‘It is too late to go back.’ Hereward ended the conversation and closed his own mind to conjecture. Instead, he fixed his attention on the grey light moving towards the horizon and set off along the track.
He felt his mood darken with the fading of the day. No comfort came to him from the old trees that had been friends in his youth, places for hiding or trysting. No old memories stirred him. Barholme was silent. A chill wind blew across the scattered farms, some unidentifiable sour odour caught up in it. Suddenly he realized he was not yet ready to face his father. Troubled thoughts had been stirred up in him, and he would wait until they stilled. He needed to find the right words, and not be driven by rage or loathing or grief.
‘I would see my father’s hall first,’ he said.
Alric looked pleased that the uneasy silence had been broken. ‘This is your home?’ he said, looking round.
‘Asketil Tokesune is a wealthy man. He holds land in many places, freely with sake and soke, but Barholme was always close to his heart.’
‘And you have fond memories of it?’
‘I have… memories.’
Hereward strode on, determined to avoid more questions. He followed the track through the leafless trees until he saw his father’s hall loom up in the half-light. It was an old, timber-framed building, the thatch wearing thin in many places. From within echoed the raucous sound of drunken singing.
The warrior stiffened. Alric caught his friend’s sword-arm and whispered, ‘You have learned some wisdom in your years on the road. Do not throw it away now you are back on your own soil.’
Hereward nodded. ‘The wisdom is all yours.’ The loud voices told him there were many Normans inside the hall, too many to confront. Still, the building called to him. He thought of his mother lying on the boards, her glassy eyes devoid of the warmth he had known. Her ghost still walked here, the ghost of the woman she had been, the reminder of the only days of peace he had known in his life. His chest tightened as the visions rose up.
Each step along the track to the arched gateway in the enclosure brought another memory of her, teaching him the harp with giggles and teasing, singing, smiling, calling to him to come home. Come home, Hereward. Come home.
And then he looked up the tall elm poles that formed the arch and his heart stopped.
Alric must have noticed that his friend had grown rigid for he hissed, ‘What is wrong?’ Standing beside the warrior, the monk followed his line of vision to the top of the arch, squinting in the growing dusk, not believing what he was seeing. And then all he could say was, ‘Oh.’
Hanging on the arch was a head, turning green, eyes gone, mouth sagging. The decay had not been merciful, for Hereward recognized it in an instant. His young brother, Beric.
CHAPTER FORTY — SIX
Blood flooded Hereward’s head. In the thrum of arterial flow, he heard his young brother’s dying screams and the laughter of the Normans hacking through muscle and gristle. Rage, burning hot. And then whispers, the seductive voice of his devil, throwing off the shackles that had been forged so carefully over three years, and rising up in him, filling him, destroying him.
Someone tried to grab him, urging him to restrain himself, to grieve but not to hate, but the words came to him as if through deep water. The warrior threw the arms off him and rounded on the one trying to restrain him. It was the monk. Whatever Alric saw in his friend’s face, he recoiled in horror.
‘There must be blood for this,’ Hereward hissed. Flames closed in around his vision.
‘If you give in to your urges, you will lose everything you have gained,’ the monk pleaded.
‘It is too late for that. Too late for everything.’
‘Please, I will pray for you…’ Alric clutched at his companion’s tunic.
‘I do not need your prayers,’ Hereward snapped. ‘Only revenge. He
… he was barely a man.’ Caught by a rush of grief, he glanced back at the rotting head above the archway. The stink of decomposition drifted down to him.
‘Then at least do not confront the Normans now. You will be killed.’ The monk let go of the tunic and stepped back, clutching his hands together in desperation.
Hereward’s head swam. His devil urged him to enter the hall and slaughter all he found there, telling him that then, and only then, would the pain be eased and he would find peace. The monk sensed his inner battle and grabbed him once again. As if dashing in a skull with a rock, the warrior threw his friend to the floor. Unsheathing his sword, he almost drove it into the man’s chest there and then to end the sanctimonious pleadings.
Alric threw his arms wide. ‘Kill me then. If it will end your rage and save your soul, I give you my life.’
Blood closed over Hereward’s vision and he thrust down with the blade. The monk cried out. His vision clearing, Hereward glared down at a torn robe and a bloody shoulder. Some hidden part of him had twisted the sword at the last moment, but he had been poised to kill the man who had tried to save him.
Sickened, the warrior sheathed his sword and lurched away through the growing gloom. The blood still pounded in his ears, filled with screams and whispers. Stark trees lashed in a howling wind that had blown up from nowhere, and in that gale he thought he could hear the voices too, or was it just the alfar stalking him, ready to steal his life and his soul? The moon was out, and the stars, glittering like ice.
Down winding tracks he ran into the haunted night, and gradually his rage seeped away and his blood subsided and the devil returned to its cave. When his thoughts calmed, he recognized the small, timber-roofed house that had belonged to Berwyn the leatherworker looming out of the dark. Now, though, it was the home of his father.
Standing on the threshold, Hereward felt unsure if he could enter. His stomach had knotted, and though he told himself it was his mounting grief at Beric’s death, he knew he was simply afraid. How had he come to this? So many hearts had been stilled by his sword, and he was frightened of an old man. His father could do him no harm. And he had travelled so many miles across the whale road, just to be here. Why could he not bring himself to go inside?
Cursing his weakness, he called, ‘Asketil Tokesune.’ When there was no reply, he repeated, louder this time, ‘Asketil Tokesune. It is your son. Hereward.’
A low growl emanated from the quiet interior; it could almost have been that of a beast.
Hereward entered the dark, chill house. Only a few dying embers remained in the hearth. The floor was beaten mud covered with dry rushes, not the fine timber boards of a thegn’s hall, and in the gloom he could see little sign of comfort, no tapestries, no ivory or gold, no cauldron of ale. A grey figure hovered in the shadows near the far wall. When it stepped forward, the warrior felt shocked by how greatly his father had aged. Asketil’s face was the colour of ashes, hollow-cheeked and sagging around the eyes so that the shape of the skull could be identified. The thegn’s silvery hair was thinning on top and hung lank around his shoulders. But the warrior felt most struck by his father’s loss of potency. The man of iron who had ranged through the days of Hereward’s youth with fists like hammers and a heart like an anvil had been replaced by a bent-backed, hollow-chested wisp of straw.