‘Let me,’ Redwald whispered.
‘Take care,’ Hereward said. ‘The guards may still be alive. The knights could leave the hall at any time-’
‘Brother,’ Redwald interrupted with a grin, ‘trust me.’
‘I trust you,’ the warrior replied. He felt a burst of pride at the other man’s bravery.
Redwald wriggled through the narrow gap, and a few moments later the rebels heard the groan of the bar lifting from the gate. Once the way swung open, the men flooded inside the enclosure. Hengist padded around to the rear of the hall, Hereward and Alric darting behind. From within came the sound of drunken singing and laughter. Fools, Hereward thought. The Normans had too quickly drowned their misery at the day’s dismal outcome. But then they did not understand the English, and the fire that burned in their hearts, or the weight of their hatred.
Edging past the pit where the waste and rotting food was tossed, along the side of the chicken hut, Hengist ducked down at the hall’s rear wall and moved a pile of wood. A hole had been dug behind it, just big enough for a man to squeeze into the space beneath the hall’s timber floor where the straw had been stuffed to keep out the winter cold. Hereward nodded approvingly. Once again he felt impressed by the risks that had been taken by the men the Normans had put to work. He found a grim humour in the thought that the invaders had turned good men into their slaves and thereby brought about their own demise.
The warrior sent Alric to fetch one of the torches. When the monk returned with the sputtering brand, Hereward handed it to Hengist and whispered, ‘You know what to do.’
‘Aye. With joy in my heart,’ the other man replied, his face cold.
As they made their way back to the front of the hall, Alric caught Hereward’s arm. ‘You are not alone. I will pray for your soul.’ The monk’s face looked like stone, but his eyes swam with passion.
‘Then pray hard, monk.’ Clapping his arms around his friend, Hereward squeezed tightly. He held the embrace for a moment, and then, without a word or a look, turned and loped to the front of the hall where the rebels waited in the shadows along the palisade.
Grasping his axe with both hands, Hereward strode to the side of the door and waited. His men darted into a tight semicircle around him. The warrior looked across the row of faces, seeing courage and fear, the iron of defiance and the fire of righteous fury. The English were ready. And now there would be blood.
Hereward closed his eyes. In his mind, he pictured Asketil within the hall, his father’s fists beating his mother to death. The warrior remembered the way her blood had drained along the lines of the timber boards, creating an indelible stain that had haunted him every day he had spent there. He recalled the deep wound of his grief and his long belief that it would never heal. And then he felt his rage, his old companion, begin to simmer, and then boil, and then rise up through him. With a whisper, he summoned his devil.
The acrid scent of burning whipped in on the breeze. Wisps of grey smoke began to curl out from under the mud-coloured wattle-and-daub walls of the hall. And then the night filled with a roaring as if a great beast had been woken. Orange sparks glowed, whisking up towards the starless sky. Tongues of flame licked out from the base of the walls. Within the hall, a panicked din erupted. Feet thundered towards the door.
Coughing and spluttering, the first man burst out into the night. Hereward swung his axe. The head spun through the air and bounced across the mud and wet leaves. Blood drenched the warrior, but he barely recognized the sensation. His thoughts had washed away on a tranquil sea, his vision narrowing to that small doorway. Things emerged, familiar shapes that could have been shadows or monsters or memories, and each time he swung his axe. The bodies piled around his feet in the growing red pool. When the commander, Aldous Wyvill, lurched out, his gaze locked on the warrior’s face for a moment and his lips curled back from his teeth in horror at what he saw before the axe fell.
As the smoke billowed out in clouds, the warrior stepped back to give the others a chance. They lunged in one after the other, hacking with their axes or thrusting with their spears, their faces dark and emotionless. The only utterances were the prayers and screams of the Normans.
When the landowner staggered out, Hereward recognized the expensive clothes and the soft body and dragged him to one side before he could be cut down. Frederic fell to his knees, sobbing in fear.
Flames tore through the hall, cleansing it of its ghosts, and soon the intense heat drove the rebels to the edges of the enclosure. No other Normans emerged. When the roof fell in with a resounding crash, the fire whirled up towards the black sky in a gush of golden sparks. And the beast roared on. Hereward flashed back to the night Gedley had burned, the moment when the trajectory of his life had changed. A fleeting thought of Harald Redteeth whistled through his head, and he wondered where his hated enemy had gone. The red-bearded mercenary would never have allowed himself to die in the conflagration. But they would meet again, he knew, and then he would take his revenge for Vadir’s death.
But this was a night for a bonfire of the Normans’ vanity. They thought they could hold England in their fist and slowly choke the life from it. Now, as they felt the first cold fingers of terror on their spines, they would have to accept that the war had not yet ended.
Frederic of Warenne lurched to his feet, searching for a way of escape. Seeing none, he covered his mouth with his hands and began to shake. His fine clothes were smeared with ash. Hereward stood before the landowner and peered deep into his face. For a moment, the warrior thought he was looking at his father, the pull of deep tides inside him growing stronger and more violent.
‘Who are you?’ Frederic croaked, his gaze fixed on the skull of ash.
‘You know.’
Frederic began to cry.
‘Some say war turns us into beasts,’ the warrior continued, refusing to lower his coruscating gaze. ‘But men do it to themselves. Are we all devils? Is this hell?’ He shook his head, not knowing the answer, nor caring. ‘Know this: I see no angels anywhere, though the churchmen tell us we were all made in God’s form. Prove me wrong. Renounce your lands. Return to William of Normandy and tell him he should leave England before judgement is pronounced upon him. For these are the End-Times. The last days. His. Yours. Mine.’
Frederic’s eyes flickered to one side, his cunning thoughts clear.
Hereward smiled. ‘No, that would never happen. For men never give up power unless it is taken from their dead hands.’ He beckoned to Guthrinc.
‘Aye?’ the rebel answered.
‘Give the thief of land your axe.’
Frederic’s brow knitted. When his fingers closed around the haft, he looked at the weapon as if he had never seen one before. ‘What is the meaning of this?’
‘I am a knight now. An honourable man.’ Hereward could see in Frederic’s eyes that the landowner already knew what had happened at Burgh. As the warrior had anticipated, his uncle had informed the Normans. ‘No murderer, despised by all who hear his name. No common outlaw. A knight. I walk shoulder to shoulder with you, and all the Norman invaders.’ He nodded towards the axe. ‘We shall have a wager of battle.’
Frederic’s mouth fell open. ‘A trial by combat?’
‘And thereby solve this dispute between us, as the law demands.’
The landowner shook his head. ‘No.’ He tried to hand the axe back to Guthrinc. ‘I… I do not recognize your knighthood. It was conferred by a spiritual lord. Not by the king.’
‘Raise the axe,’ the warrior said.
Frederic threw the weapon to the ground as if it had burned him.
‘Pick up the weapon and fight. You have no choice.’
Dropping to his knees, Frederic clasped his hands together. ‘Have mercy.’
Hereward could feel Alric’s eyes upon his back. As the warrior raised his axe over his head, the landowner’s sobs cut through the roaring of the conflagration. ‘Is this hell?’ Hereward asked.
The axe drove down.
CHAPTER FIFTY — EIGHT
Blades of ice hung from the branches, glittering in the early morning sun. After the first hard frost of the winter, the wetlands shimmered white as the column of riders made their way along the frozen track from the
