glazed over abruptly and rolled back in his head. The faintest of gasps escaped his lips as his sword-hilt slipped from his limp fingers and tumbled with a dull clang to the hard floor, and then he too collapsed forwards, landing in a crumpled, bloodied heap, revealing the knife in the back of his neck.
In the doorway stood the one who had killed him. Godric. As if it could possibly have been anyone else.
‘You seem to be making a habit of this,’ I said drily.
‘Of what, lord?’ Godric asked.
I bent down to drag the Dane’s corpse away from the doorway, lest anyone walking by should see it, although of course we could do nothing about the blood pooling amidst the woodchips.
‘Help me move him,’ I said to Ælfhelm, who was closest to me. ‘If you take his legs, I’ll take his shoulders,’ I added, before answering the boy’s question: ‘Of striking down your opponents from behind. You know that sooner or later you’re going to have to learn how to kill them from the front as well, don’t you?’
‘At least I did kill him, lord,’ he replied. ‘Now you owe me again.’
I glanced up. ‘For what?’
‘For saving our lives.’
I supposed that was only fair. ‘I’m sure I’ll have the chance to repay the favour before long. Now, close that door,’ I said, and tossed him the ring of keys that I’d removed from the foeman’s belt. ‘Lock it, too. I don’t want his friends stumbling upon us.’
Godric didn’t need telling twice, but did as instructed, while the huscarl and I hauled the Dane’s corpulent frame through to the second chamber. No sooner had the women set eyes upon the dead guard, than they began shrieking, loud enough to wake the dead. It was a good thing that the door was indeed closed. As it was, I could only hope that no one heard.
‘Keep them quiet,’ I told Godric and Magnus as we laid the potbellied one down on one of the benches and then covered him over with some of the coarse blankets.
The women quickly shut up as the others approached, but I didn’t want them to fear us. We needed their help, just as we had needed the help of the water-carriers. Ælfhelm fetched the lantern, and brought it in so that we might have some light.
‘Tell them we don’t mean them any harm,’ I said to Magnus. ‘Tell them we’re looking for someone.’
‘Who are you?’ the middle one of the three women asked after I’d finished speaking. Dark-haired and generously endowed both in chest and in the hips, which I supposed must be how Haakon liked them, she regarded us uneasily. ‘What do you want with us?’
I stared dumbly at her. For some reason I’d assumed that, Oswynn excepted, we would find only Danish and Irish girls, since they were the most often captured and traded in these parts. She had spoken, though, as I had, in English.
‘We’re here to kill Haakon,’ Magnus said. ‘We want nothing from you, we swear upon our lives.’
Her eyes held an expression I couldn’t read, although it was somewhere between shock and joy, and closer to shock. ‘You’re going to kill him?’ she asked. She had a voice like a summer’s breeze, I thought: warm and soft and light.
‘If we can,’ I answered.
‘The four of you, alone?’
‘We have friends on their way,’ I said. ‘There’s no time to explain everything. What do they call you?’
‘Eanflæd,’ she replied.
A pretty name, I thought, for a girl who, even though I was in the middle of searching for another, I admitted was attractive.
‘Tell me, Eanflæd, do you know of an English girl by the name of Oswynn? Do you know where I can find her?’
‘Oswynn?’ she repeated, and my heart stood still. ‘Y-yes, I know her.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Haakon took her, last night.’
‘Took her where?’
She looked at me as if I were stupid, and I suppose I was, but only because love had made me that way. ‘Where do you think?’ she asked. ‘To his chamber. After the feast was over, he called for her-’
I held up a hand to stop her from going on. How we were going to get inside Haakon’s hall, when there were two of his household warriors posted at the entrance and undoubtedly countless more inside, I didn’t know. Soon, of course, they would spot
All these thoughts were running through my mind when the knocking began. At once I stopped still. There were men outside, shouting in words I didn’t understand, pounding on the oak door.
A shiver ran through me. Some of the dead man’s friends must have heard the women’s screams, and had come to find out what was happening.
‘Quiet,’ I hissed, pointing at Eanflæd. ‘Not a sound.’
She nodded and then whispered in the ears of the other two, in whatever language it was they spoke. There was no other way out of this place. I swore violently, under my breath.
‘I could talk to them,’ Magnus offered.
‘And say what?’ I countered. Would the Danes be so dim-witted as to mistake his voice for that of their pot- bellied friend? Even if they did, how was he to explain why the door was locked, or the reason for the screaming?
Outside, the pounding grew more insistent, the shouts louder and angrier. They couldn’t yet know there were four of us, or guess who we were, or why we were here. All of those things they would soon work out, however, as soon as they came through that door, saw our barricade, realised that they didn’t recognise our faces and that we didn’t speak their tongue. When that happened, we could abandon all hope of leaving this place alive.
Every man’s luck ran out eventually. There were few truths greater than that. We had done well to make it this far, but I ought to have known this could only end badly. Now we would pay the price for our recklessness.
Yet I would not give up easily. Not without a fight.
‘Barricade the door,’ I said. ‘Bring that cooking-pot across, and anything else we can use.’
The inner of the two doorways could only be locked from the outside, which meant we had no choice but to make our stand in the small guard-chamber. While Magnus and Ælfhelm together manoeuvred the iron cauldron across the floor, Godric and I set the heavy bar in place across the door, so that even if they did manage to unlock it, they would still have to break it down.
‘What can we do?’ Eanflæd called from the other room.
‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘except pray for our sakes that they don’t get in.’
I helped Magnus and Aelfhelm overturn the cauldron on to its rim so that it would be more difficult for our foes to tip over, and then we set about piling whatever other obstacles we could find against the door. Some of the benches were fixed to the walls, but some were not, and we dragged those that we could in front of the doorway so that anyone coming through would with any luck trip and make it easier for us to kill them.
There was a jangle of metal as the enemy tried the lock. I heard it click, and heard, too, their cries of success, short-lived as they were as the foemen found the door barred against them. The oak rattled against the stout bar, and through the gap between the door and its frame I heard them shouting. How many were out there, it was impossible to say, but from the noise I reckoned there had to be at least half a dozen already, and such a commotion would only attract more. What they thought was happening in here, I could only guess. Maybe they thought that their friend the wood-whittler had allowed his lusts to get the better of him and had decided to have his way with his lord’s most prized bed-slaves.
In the other room, one of the women began shrieking again, and I cursed.
‘Keep her quiet,’ I called through to Eanflæd, although by then it was already too late.
Sooner or later the enemy would break through and slaughter us. They had to, for they were many and we
