‘Oh, yes. I plan to dance across this stinking hell every night,’ the monk snapped. ‘How long have you been watching me? Could you have spared me this misery? If you tell me you could have, I will not be responsible for my actions.’
Hereward laughed softly. Alric found it a strange sound, devoid of humour. Something had changed in his friend.
‘I thought you had returned to Flanders. Or worse, lost your life,’ the monk explained.
‘There is work to do here first.’
It was an unsettling reply, mainly because Alric didn’t know to which part of his statement Hereward was responding.
The warrior hauled the sodden monk to his feet. ‘Come. There is a warm campfire waiting. Once you are dry and full, your spirits will rise.’
He led the way back along the causeway, on a winding path beside a bog, and across a second causeway to a thickly wooded island. Pushing through the dense vegetation, Alric realized they were following a path that only Hereward could see. The monk could smell smoke on the breeze, but could see no light ahead.
When he had struggled up the steep incline until the breath burned his chest, his friend suddenly disappeared from view. Baffled, Alric caught an ash branch to pull himself up and found himself standing on the lip of a broad hollow lit by a flickering campfire. The meaty aroma of cooked fowl hung in the air. White willow and ash continued across the dip, but some saplings had been newly cleared, by Hereward, Alric guessed, and the hill continued up to the tree-shrouded summit on the far side.
Skidding down the bank, Alric followed Hereward towards the campfire, only to come up sharp when he saw another man hunched on a fallen branch, gnawing on a bone. Big as an ox, with shaggy brown hair and beard, the man let his flickering gaze drift over the new arrival and then returned to his meal. ‘We feast on fowl, but now you bring me a drowned rat,’ he muttered. By his size and his wry tone, Alric was reminded of a younger Vadir.
‘Guthrinc,’ Hereward said by way of introduction. ‘This is the monk I told you about.’
‘Monk,’ Guthrinc said with a nod.
‘Who are you?’ Alric asked, his eyes flickering towards the carcass resting on a flat stone in the ashes. Hereward tore off a leg and tossed it to him.
The large man shrugged. ‘This and that.’ He eyed Alric up and down. ‘God has not looked kindly on you. What have you done to offend him?’
‘Leave him be,’ Hereward said. ‘He has had a fright in Dedman’s bog.’
Tossing his bone to one side, Guthrinc wiped his hands on his tunic and said, ‘I’ll keep watch.’ He hauled himself to his feet and disappeared into the dark towards the lip of the hollow.
Shaking from the cold and the shock of his brush with death, Alric almost leapt on to the branch next to the fire. ‘You trust him?’ he said, warming his hands.
‘We ran together when we were youths. He likes his ale and his meat and his women, but in any fight he is like a wolf at your side.’
Alric chewed on his bone for a moment, then said, ‘You plan to fight?’
‘The Normans are a blight on all England. They must be driven out, like rats from the grain store.’ The warrior’s voice hardened, his face becoming thunderous. ‘Their blood must turn the rivers red and their bodies pile up like stones on the beach as they flee to their ships.’
The monk considered the new-found vehemence in his friend’s tone, trying to make sense of this sudden rebellion. ‘And this great victory will be accomplished by two of you?’
Hereward’s eyes narrowed. ‘Three, I would hope.’
‘Three, then. But what can three men do against an army? The Normans have crushed any resistance. Destroyed whole villages.’
‘Three is only the start. As word spreads of the resistance we mount here in the fens, Englishmen will rush to take up arms alongside us.’ The warrior stared into the middle distance, imagining the picture his words conjured up. ‘They will come in their tens, their hundreds, their thousands, and we shall rise up, with one voice, one weapon, and smite our enemy. We will crush the ones who make our lives a misery, who steal our freedom, our dreams, our hope. And then, when we are one family once more, peace will reign in England and our future will be assured.’
The passion he heard in the warrior’s voice frightened Alric. Yet in the fire flickering in Hereward’s eyes, the monk saw hints of a deeper truth. Though terrifying in number and strength, the Normans were an enemy the warrior felt he could defeat, whereas a grey-haired, beaten man remained invincible. ‘Take care,’ he whispered, ‘that you do not win the battle but lose your soul in the process.’
Hereward laughed. ‘Always you worry. We have all the time we need to raise our forces and to plan. William the Bastard’s men still slumber, unaware that we are here. The battle in the fens will be over before the Normans know what hit them. And then we will take it to all England.’
CHAPTER FORTY — NINE
25 October 1067
Fat white candles flickered around the High Altar. Shadows swooped across the stained-glass window and the dressed stone wall above it to the vaulted roof, as deep and dark as the black robes of the abbot kneeling in prayer. Only the soft muttering of the Latin devotion disturbed the peace.
Abbot Brand breathed in wisps of sweetly aromatic incense and opened his eyes. He was a gaunt man, as hard as a cold flagstone, with piercing black eyes and thin lips that appeared to be sneering at comfort. Rising to his feet, he crossed himself, and only then did he hear the soft click of a closing door and the echo of feet padding along the nave.
Alric watched the man turn, gauging the abbot’s nature from the intensity of his stare and every line in his face. Suspicious at first, the man absorbed the monkish robes of the new arrival and said in an iron voice, ‘What is the meaning of this interruption?’
‘Father, I waited until you had finished your prayers, but there is an important matter which needs your attention.’
‘Who are you to make demands of me?’
‘I am merely a humble servant of God,’ Alric replied. ‘Like yourself.’
The abbot took a moment to consider if there was any insult implied in the comment. The monk continued, ‘My companion and I have travelled long and hard here to Burgh Abbey, and we are weary from the road. Would you deny us a brief moment?’
‘It must wait until morning,’ the abbot snapped. ‘The business of the abbey calls to me.’ He moved to walk past Alric along the nave to the door, but the monk stepped into his path. Anger flashed across the abbot’s face at the disrespect.
‘In truth, Father, I approached you in advance of my companion to be sure the abbey was not swarming with Normans at prayer. I am only just returned from a long stay in Flanders, but I have been told the clergy enjoy a fruitful and warm relationship with our new masters.’
Suspicion once again burned in the abbot’s eyes. ‘And why would you, a monk, have any reason to question the king?’
‘I answer only to one master, Father.’
The abbot’s patience had almost worn through. As he prepared to call out, Alric said quickly, ‘I see you are alone here at this late hour, and this abbey remains a place of tranquillity, so I would usher in my companion. He is of your blood, Father.’
Abbot Brand started. ‘My blood?’
‘All of this business is about blood, in one way or another.’ Hereward’s voice floated from the deep shadows at the rear of the church. He had entered unnoticed while Alric had been speaking. At the sound of the familiar voice the monk saw a flash of unease cross the abbot’s face, perhaps even fear, but it was gone before he could be sure.
From the shadows, Hereward slowly emerged. The candlelight illuminated the blue warrior marks on his bare arms, his fair hair, his strong jaw. The flames danced in his pale eyes. Alric caught his breath. For the first time, he thought that here was a man who could defeat an entire army of invaders if he put his mind to it. When had this warrior emerged from the wild youth who had sprayed blood across frozen Northumbria? In the misery he had witnessed in Eoferwic? During the long march through the bloody battlefields of Flanders? With Turfrida’s kiss, and her love? On the day’s march from the camp to Burgh, the monk had realized how truly changed his companion was. The warrior, it seemed, had developed a strategy shaped by wisdom and patience instead of the raw passions and rage that had once filled him. But, as always, Hereward kept his plans close to his heart, and Alric had been surprised when he saw the church tower rising up against the grey sky from the top of a hill. It was a grand abbey. Behind the enclosure, halls, houses and stores sprawled across an extensive estate. What, he wondered, could his friend possibly want here?