‘I know where I go,’ Hereward replied. ‘To Eoferwic.’
‘I could return to the monastery and seek sanctuary, but…’ The monk’s words tailed off.
‘You will have to confess your sins.’
Alric glared at the warrior until he saw that Hereward was not making a point, and then his shoulders sagged. ‘I cannot go back. I cannot stay here. Harald Redteeth will not cease in his endeavours until he finds me.’
Clutching his bloodstained knife tightly against him, Hereward laid down his head. Exhaustion filled him, and it would be several days’ hard journeying through the snow to Eoferwic. ‘Sleep,’ he said. ‘We are safe for now. And the world will not seem so bad at first light.’
The raven flew back to earth, and Harald Redteeth returned with it.
For a few moments, he gathered his thoughts, still immersed in the sensation of flying. When the memories of his walk along the shores of that great black sea had receded, he marched towards the makeshift camp, and bellowed, ‘Ho! To me now!’
Crawling out of their shelters into the gently drifting snow, his bleary-eyed men gathered around him.
‘Break up the camp. We set off in pursuit of the stranger,’ Redteeth growled.
Clapping his arms around him for warmth, Ivar replied, ‘It is not first light for many hours.’
‘Our plans have changed.’ Pulling down his breeches, he urinated into a vessel from one of the burning houses. ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘Let the juices of the toadstool fill you with the passion of our ancestors.’
He passed the vessel of steaming urine to Ivar, and then to the other men. The power of the toadstools lived on within it, but his journey had removed the poison that could trap them on the shores of the great black sea.
‘Hear your ancestors call to you,’ he said. ‘Feel the pull of the tides, and the rising fire in your belly. Now is the time we track the stranger. Now is the time to strike.’
CHAPTER FIVE
The hooded man rode into the teeth of the blizzard, his unlined face numb from the cold. His grey woollen cloak lay beneath a thick covering of snowflakes, as did his horse’s brown mane, and the packhorse behind him, laden with one of the secrets of God. He felt unable even to turn his head to search for the two armed guards who had accompanied him on the long journey from the small village near Winchester.
The white curtain obscured London’s filthy streets, but occasionally he glimpsed torches away in the dark. Deaf from the howling gale, he didn’t hear the guard yelling at him until the man rode alongside, slapped a hand on his shoulder and pointed ahead. The high timber palisade surrounding the king’s palace loomed out of the storm. A cloaked and hooded sentry stood on a platform above the great gates, holding a lantern aloft to see who was approaching.
‘It is I, Redwald,’ he called through numb lips, ‘on the queen’s business.’
The gates opened in jerks as the sentry and another man wrenched them back against the drifting snow.
‘Hell’s teeth, she had better reward you well for being out in this weather,’ the sentry called as the young man rode by.
In the enclosure, the wind dropped a little, but the bitter cold still ate into Redwald’s bones. At least he had done good work, and he would be rewarded, if not now, later. Barely suppressing a grin, he threw back his hood to reveal a face that still had many childlike qualities. The curly brown hair, the apple cheeks and full pink lips suggested an innocence which he used to his advantage around the court. He had seen at first hand what a hard place it was, filled with strong, cunning men all seeking their own advantage in a constant shadow-game. But he would not be broken by it. He would survive.
Clambering down from his horse, the young man stamped the snow from his leather shoes, and clapped his hands together and blew on them. The guards had already slipped away in search of fire and mead. Their footprints joined the tramped paths leading to the doors of the newly built timber-framed houses jumbled tightly together across the enclosure, every thatch and wooden roof creaking under a thick white blanket. The Palace of Westminster, King Edward’s new home and the culmination of years of devout dreams, sprawled across most of Thorney Island on the banks of the Thames to the west of the City of London. The earls and the king’s thegns complained about the bitter wind blowing off the river in winter, but Redwald had heard that Edward had been directed to build there by God.
And looking at the vast silhouette looming up beyond the palace buildings, the young man could almost believe it. The stories burned in his head: that a fisherman had had a vision of St Peter at the site, that the ageing king had heard angels and had set about the building of a monument to God with an energy that dwarfed that of much younger men. Redwald recalled the gossip that the monarch had never lain between the thighs of his wife and the new abbey was all that the old man cared about in life. Studying the outline, he thought he understood the king’s mind. Every day Redwald had watched the best stonemasons in all Europe raise up the grandest church in the world to replace the one used by the Benedictine monks, and Edward had been there, overseeing the construction arch by arch, column by column. Following the lines, even in the dark he could see it was almost complete; only the roof and part of the tower remained unfinished.
The hairs on Redwald’s neck tingled erect; it was more than a sacrament, it was a sign of power, earthly power, for if you could build such a thing you could do anything.
‘Do you have it?’ The excited woman’s voice cut through the howl of the wind.
Redwald turned to see the queen stumbling eagerly through the snow, a thick woollen cloak of madder-red protecting her from the elements. Though Edith had passed her thirtieth year, the young man still saw the beauty of her youth that had enticed many a male. Some would say the king, almost twice her age, was a lucky man, he thought. But he would not wish it for himself: though she stood behind the throne, she might as well have been seated upon it. He recalled hearing the lash of her tongue as she chastised her attendants, and sometimes, in her quieter moments, he remembered seeing the cold determination in her face. But then Edith was a Godwin, of Wessex, and many believed that family was England, in essence.
‘I do,’ Redwald replied with a quick smile, eager for praise, ‘but it did not come easily.’
‘Quickly, then. Bring it into the warm.’ The queen turned on her heel and marched back towards the king’s hall.
Calling for one of the boys to take the mounts to stable, Redwald fumbled with frozen fingers to remove the small oaken chest from the back of the weary packhorse. He half expected it to glow, or to feel warm to the touch, but the iron hinges were unbearably cold. Holding the box tight to his chest, he navigated the slippery paths to the hall.
He eased through the doorway and sighed in gratitude as warmth washed over him. Flames blazed high in the great circular hearth in the centre of the lofty room. Two slaves continually fed the fire with logs to keep the winter at bay. The orange glow washed over the tapestries hanging on the walls, the Opus Anglicanum unmatched anywhere in Europe, but the illumination did not reach the shadows that clung to the broad rafters. After the hardship of his journey, Redwald relaxed at the sight of the works of art on display: the breathtaking fresco painted on the eastern wall depicting the Stations of the Cross, the casket carved from whalebone, the gold plates studded with jewels and intricately engraved, the ivory cross filled with carved angels. Surely, as the king’s guests said when they saw them, there was no place grander than England in all the world.
Throwing off her cloak, the queen beckoned to Redwald and pointed to the long table where he should lay the casket. As he put the box down, a booming voice rang through the hall: ‘More old bones?’
Redwald beamed as Edith’s brother, Harold Godwinson, strode across the room; a stablehand had once suggested to him that Harold never walked slowly anywhere. Powerfully built, with a strong jaw and a handsome face, his jet-black hair gleaming in the firelight, the Earl of Wessex flipped open the lid of the box to reveal a yellowing tibia. ‘As I thought. What is it this time?’
Redwald hung on the older man’s words. Harold was everything he dreamed of being: confident, wealthy, powerful, charismatic; safe.
‘The shankbone of St John the Baptist, brought from far Byzantium by a good Christian merchant,’ the queen replied, clapping her hands together with excitement. ‘It is said it can bring a dead man back to life.’