wide, jaws strong enough to rip his head from his shoulders.
He flung himself back, too late. Talons tore through his cloak and into the flesh of his arm. The glancing side-swipe threw him from his feet in a shower of his own blood. Slamming into the frozen ground, he skidded on the thick snow. Through his daze he heard roars echoing all around him. Cries of alarm rose up, spreading out into Eoferwic.
Hereward scrambled to his feet and went for his sword, but the scabbard was empty. Flickering torches appeared in the dark of the nearby streets, accompanied by querulous voices growing louder as they approached. Feet pounded in the snow.
When the bear’s bellows receded as it moved away in search of other prey, he shook his head to try to dispel the fog. But a moment later Acha’s scream of terror rang out. Without a second thought, he lurched towards the sound. A rough hand caught his arm.
‘Leave her. She is only a slave. That beast is more fierce even than you.’ It was Kraki, his voice a low growl of warning. The other huscarls surged from the hall.
Hereward threw the Viking off and ran.
A crash of splintering wood. Terrified shouts. He sprinted towards a semicircle of dancing torches that swept back and forth as if a tide of fire washed against the enclosure. In their wavering light, he caught sight of Acha sprawled in the snow. The brown bear loomed over her, snarling jaws only a hand’s breadth from the woman’s petrified face.
Hereward hurled himself on to the bear’s back, flinging his iron-muscled arms round its neck. The enraged beast thrashed from side to side in an attempt to throw off its burden, and then reared up. Enveloped in its musky reek, Hereward clung on to the greasy fur, knowing that one slight slip could see him torn asunder. Shocked faces flashed by as he was hurled around, his feet flying. Each mouth formed an accusation of madness.
‘He has no weapon.’
‘The fool tries to kill it with his bare hands. He has lost his wits.’
And he could not deny the charge.
Half slipping, his feet scrabbling for purchase, he glimpsed Acha stumbling away from the bear’s claws. She cast one uncertain glance back at him before she plunged into the crowd. Relief sparked in him, a response that surprised him with its intensity, but he had no time to examine it. Inflamed, the beast threw itself across the rutted street like a ship caught in a storm at sea. Its flank shattered the shelter outside a metalworker’s workshop, then punched through the wattle and daub of a house on the other side of the way.
Men and women in the growing crowd risked their lives for a sight of the spectacle and to marvel at this unarmed warrior who thought he could defeat a bear. In his excitement, a man stumbled too close. One swipe of a giant paw spilled his stomach into the snow. Before he had fallen, the creature’s crushing jaws had splintered his skull.
By a pile of logs, the beast half staggered and Hereward was torn free. Lurching out of a drift, he sucked in a deep breath.
‘Run, you fool!’ someone called.
Sensing it had isolated its prey, the animal snapped round. The warrior took one step away, then came to a halt. How could he leave the cheering throng at the mercy of the fierce creature? An elderly man recognized the Mercian’s dilemma and shrieked, ‘Stand your ground!’
‘Here!’ The commanding voice crashed through the din.
Hereward glimpsed Kraki barging through the crowd just as the bear charged. Something glinted in the torchlight, turning quickly. The warrior caught the thrown axe, gripped it with both hands and braced himself.
Black eyes glittered. Blood and flesh spattered off bared teeth. The beast’s bellow made Hereward’s ears ring, and then the world around him fell into silence. He stood his ground until the bear’s gaping mouth filled his entire vision.
Then, with all the strength he could muster, he drove the axe down. The impact jarred every bone in his body and the bear’s skull split in two as if he were slicing meat off a roasting pig. A wave of blood crashed against his face, and a moment later the dead but still moving bulk slammed him off his feet. When he came round an instant later, he was fighting for breath, the full weight of the stinking carcass crushing the life from him.
After a moment, many men dragged the bear off him and he emerged to jubilation. Eager hands hauled him to his feet, and slapped his back and shoulders. Grinning faces flashed past with words of praise that he barely heard. Turning slowly, Hereward felt stunned by the adulation of the crowd. In his life of hatred, suspicion and contempt, he had never experienced anything like it.
‘They will tell tales about this in Eoferwic in the time of their children’s children’s children.’ Kraki reclaimed his dripping axe from the bear’s skull. He looked the warrior’s blood-drenched form up and down. ‘Better get yourself washed. There will be women here eager to lie with the hero of the day, but not if he looks like a slaughterman.’
‘Your name,’ a man shouted. ‘Who are you?’
‘This is Hereward, the greatest warrior in all Northumbria, perhaps in all England,’ the Viking announced. ‘He has travelled to Eoferwic from the south to offer his sword in service to Earl Tostig. The earl has gracefully accepted.’ Kraki gave a sly grin, satisfied that he had turned the act of heroism to the advantage of his master.
Unsettled by the attention he was receiving, Hereward retrieved his sword and broke away from the crowd, striding back to the hall with the huscarl. As his surging blood subsided, he felt suspicion rise. ‘The bear could not have broken its bonds. It was set free. What madness would consume someone to release that monster?’
‘The beast was half crazed from its imprisonment. No one would have ventured near it.’
‘The hall was abuzz with preparations for tomorrow’s festivities, and no one noticed a bear at loose?’
Kraki shrugged. ‘Unless it had only just broken free.’
‘The moment I entered the enclosure? During the fire, someone set light to the house I was searching.’ Hereward came to a halt and confronted the Viking. ‘Was it you?’
‘Not I,’ Kraki said, a flicker of indignation crossing his face at the suggestion. ‘No honourable man would murder in such a way. I care little for you, but if I wanted to end your days I would do it face to face, with my blade against yours.’ He snorted and walked on. ‘Your trouble, you see enemies everywhere. But never friends.’
‘I have no friends,’ Hereward called after the huscarl, ‘and I need none.’
Inside the hall, he found Acha waiting for him. She offered no thanks for saving her life, but they held each other’s gaze for a long moment. Taking his arm, she led him away from the streams of servants decorating the hall for the feast. In the quiet of his home, she helped him to his bed and fetched a wooden bowl of fresh meltwater and a cloth to bathe the wounds on his arm where the bear’s claws had torn his flesh. Hereward felt uncomfortable at her tenderness and pushed her away, taking the cloth himself. As he cleaned off the blood, he watched her face. Many would have considered her features cold, perhaps emotionless. But he knew better. The truth lay beneath, where the woman she’d dreamed of being still struggled to survive.
When he was done, her dark eyes met his once again. He saw the promise clearly. Holding his gaze, she leaned across him and brushed her lips against his. He felt the softness of her breasts and the warmth of her thighs pressing against him. Blood throbbed in his body, but it was not the consuming crimson passion of the battlefield; he had control over it, and he accepted it willingly. Unclasping her brooch, she let her dress fall away, and allowed him to explore her body with his hands. Pushing her on to her back, he eased into her, and they moved together, sweat slicking soft skin in the chill of the room.
When they had finished their lovemaking, they lay entwined in each other’s limbs while their breathing subsided, listening to the throb of the hall and the soothing melody of the church bells marking the onset of the holiday.
Reflective, Acha twisted his blond hair around her finger. ‘You have no woman of your own?’ she asked.
Though her question was innocent, Hereward felt a tremor run through him.
‘What is wrong?’ she asked, concerned.
‘I had a woman, once. Not long ago. She died.’ He let his arm fall across his face, trying to drive the vision from his head.
‘The sickness?’
‘Murder.’
Tidhild, staring at him with glassy eyes, the pool of blood around her growing sticky. The guilt consumed
