body, already stripped and mutilated, the arrows came whipping from behind them again, out of the murk of the dying day.
The column was now spread over almost a mile of road. Skippers and helmsmen pushed and cursed the men into a thicker, shorter line, bowmen on both flanks, carts in the center. “They can't hurt you,” Brand bellowed repeatedly. “Not with hunting bows. Just shout and bang your shields; they'll wet themselves and run. Anyone gets hit in the leg, sling him on a packhorse. Dump some of that junk in the carts if you have to. But keep moving forward.”
Soon the English churls began to recognize what they could do. Their enemies were laden with gear, heavily wrapped and muffled. They did not know the country. The churls knew every tree, bush, path and patch of mud. They could strip to tunics and hose, rush in light-footed, strike and slash and be away before an arm was free of its cloak. No Viking would pursue more than a few feet into the gloom.
After a while some village war-leader organized the growing number of men. Forty or fifty of the churls came in together on the west flank of the column, beat down the few men they faced with clubs and billhooks, started to drag off the bodies like wolves with their prey. Furious, the Vikings rallied and charged after them, shields up, axes raised. As they straggled back, snarling, having caught no one, they saw the halted carts, the ox-teams poleaxed where they stood. The wagon tilts pulled open, their cargo of wounded men a burden no longer, the snow already blotting out the stains.
Prowling up and down the column like an ice-troll, Brand turned to Shef at his side. “They think they've got us now,” he snarled. “But come daylight I'll teach them a lesson for this if it's the last thing I ever do.”
Shef stared at him, blinking the snow from his eyes. “No,” he said. “You are thinking like a carl, a carl of the Army. There is no Army anymore. So now we must forget to think like carls. Instead we must think as you say I do, like a follower of Othin, orderer of battle.”
“And what are your orders, little man? Little man who has never stood in the battle-line?”
“Call over the skippers, as many as are within earshot.” Shef began to draw swiftly in the snow.
“We marched through Eskrick, here, before the snow got bad. We must be a short mile north of Riccall.” Nods, understanding. The area around York was well known from much foraging.
“I want one hundred picked men, young men, quick on their feet, not yet tired, to push ahead now and secure Riccall. Take some prisoners—we'll need them—chase the others out. We will stay there the night. Not much, fifty huts and a church of wattles. But they will shelter a lot of us if we pack in close.
“Another long hundred in four small groups to keep moving up and down on our flanks. The English won't rush in if they even think there might be someone out there to cut them off. Without their cloaks they'll keep warm running. Everyone else, just keep going and keep the carts going. As soon as we reach Riccall, use the carts to block all the gaps between the huts. Oxen and all of us on the inside of the ring. We'll make fires and rig up shelters. Brand, pick the men, get everyone moving.”
Two crowded hours later, Shef sat on a stool in the thane's longhouse of Riccall, staring at a grizzled elderly Englishman. The house was packed with Vikings, stretched out or squatting on their heels, already steaming as massed body heat dried the sodden clothes on their backs. As ordered, none paid any attention to what was going on.
Between the two men, on the rough table, stood a leather mug of beer. Shef took a pull at it, looked closely at the man facing him; he seemed to still have his wits about him. There was an iron collar round his neck.
Shef pushed the mug toward him. “You saw me drink, you know there is no poison. Go on, drink. If I wanted to harm you there are easier ways.”
The thrall's eyes widened at the fluent English. He took the mug, drank deeply.
“Who is the lord you pay your rents to?”
The man finished the beer before he spoke. “Thane Ednoth holds much of the land, from King Ella. Killed in the battle. The rest belongs to the black monks.”
“Did you pay your rents last Michaelmas? If you did not, I hope you hid the money. The monks are severe with defaulters.”
A flash of fear when Shef spoke of the monks and their retribution.
“If you wear a collar, you know what the monks do with runaways. Hund, show him your neck.”
Silently Hund unslung his Ithun pendant and handed it to Shef, pulled back his tunic to reveal the calluses and weals worn into his neck by years of the collar.
“Have any runaways been here? Men who spoke to you of these.” Shef bounced the Ithun pendant in his hand, passed it back to Hund. “Or those.” He pointed to Thorvin, Vestmund, Farman and the other priest, clustered nearby. Following the gesture, they too silently displayed their insignia.
“If they did, maybe they told you such men might be trusted.”
The slave lowered his eyes, trembled. “I'm a good Christian. I don't know about no pagan things….”
“I'm talking about trust—not pagan or Christian.”
“You Vikings are men who take slaves, not men who set them free.”
Shef reached forward and tapped the iron collar. “It was not the Vikings who put that on you. Anyway, I am an Englishman. Can you not tell from my speech? Now listen closely. I am going to let you go. Tell those out there in the night to stop the attacks, because we are not their enemies—they are still in York. If your fellows let us pass, no one will get hurt. Then tell your friends about this banner.”
Shef pointed across the smoky, steaming room to a clutch of the army's drabs, who rose from the floor and stretched out the great banner at which they had been frantically stitching. There, on a background of red silk, taken from the carts of plunder, a double-headed smith's hammer in white linen was picked out with silver thread.
“The other army, the one we have left, marches behind the black raven, the carrion bird. I say that the sign of the Christians is for torture and death. Our sign is the sign of a maker. Tell them that. And I will give you an earnest of what the hammer can do for you. We're taking off your collar.”
The slave was shaking with fear. “No, the black monks, when they return…”
“They will kill you most horribly. Remember this and tell the others. We offered to free you, we pagans. But fear of the Christians is keeping you a slave. Now go.”
“One thing I ask. In fear. Do not kill me for speaking of it but—your men are emptying the meal-bins, taking our winter store. There'll be empty bellies and dead bairns before spring comes if you do that.”
Shef sighed. This was going to be the hard bit. “Brand. Pay the thrall. Pay him something. Pay him in good silver, mind, not the archbishop's dross.”
“Me pay him! He should pay me. What about the wergild for the men we have lost? And since when did the Army pay for its supplies?”
“There is no Army now. And he owes you no wergild. You trespassed on his land. Pay him. I'll see you don't lose by it.”
Brand muttered under his breath as he untied his purse and began to count out six silver Wessex pennies.
The slave could scarcely believe what was happening, staring at the shining coins as though he had never seen money like this before; perhaps he hadn't.
“I will tell them,” he said, almost shouting the words. “About the banner too.”
“If you do that, and return here tonight, I will pay you six more—for you alone, not to share.”
Brand, Thorvin and the others looked doubtfully at Shef as the slave went out, with an escort to see him outside the sentry-fires.
“You'll never see money nor slave again,” Brand said.
“We'll see. Now I want two long hundreds of men, with our best horses, all with a good meal inside them, ready to move as soon as the slave returns.”
Brand pushed a shutter open a crack and looked at the night and the whirling snow. “What for?” he grunted.
“I need to get your twelve pennies back. And I have another idea.” Slowly, intense concentration furrowing his brow, Shef began to scratch lines into the table in front of him with the point of his knife.
The black monks of St. John's Minster at Beverley, unlike those of St. Peter's at York, did not have the safe
