were few. Nonetheless, if this was my day to die, then I was determined to take as many as I could with me to my grave.
Swords drawn, we stood facing the door, watching it shudder. I imagined a horde of flaxen-haired Danes lining up outside, each waiting for his turn to test his shoulder against the timbers. Then, without warning, the pounding ceased. I glanced at the others, raising a hand so that they knew not to speak. But the respite was only brief. The silence was broken by the unmistakable sound of an axe-blade biting into wood. Again the door shook. It wouldn’t be long.
‘I didn’t think I’d ever go to my death fighting shoulder to shoulder with a Norman,’ Magnus said to me in what was barely more than a whisper. ‘But you have been a steadfast ally, and for that I thank you.’
‘And you,’ I replied solemnly, without looking at him, without glancing either to left or to right. My gaze was fixed firmly on the door as I waited for the timbers to give way and for the first of our foemen to burst through. ‘May God grant our sword-arms strength.’
Neither Ælfhelm nor Godric spoke. Possibly they were both lost in prayer or thought, rehearsing in their minds what they would do when the enemy came upon us, imagining how they would strike and how they would spill Danish blood. Or possibly they simply realised, as I did, that there was nothing more to say.
All I could think about were the things I regretted. Not being able to see Oswynn one last time. Not taking my vengeance upon Haakon for what he had done. Bringing Godric with me on this expedition. For all that recent weeks had changed him, he was still not much more than a boy, eager and full of promise. Now that promise was to be snuffed out because of me.
Beneath my helmet my brow was running with sweat. It trickled off my brow, stinging my eyes. The dim lantern-light played across the surface of my blade and lit up the turquoise stone decorating the pommel, and I felt the cord wrapped around the hilt digging into my palm as I gripped it tight. Like Rollant defending to the last the pass against the pagan hordes of King Marsilius, so I too would go bravely to my death. This was my stand, my Rencesvals, I thought bitterly.
The door timbers flexed as the axe struck again. The door couldn’t hold much longer, surely. In another few blows splinters would fly, the enemy would be through. And then the slaughter would begin.
‘Stay close,’ I murmured. ‘Don’t let them draw you out. If they break through the barricade, fall back to the second room. Remember that each one we cut down is another corpse that his friends will have to climb over before they reach us. We will hold fast. We will fill the morning with their blood.’
I almost followed that by raising a cry for Normandy and for King Guillaume, so familiar had those words grown in recent years, so instinctive had they become, just as the movements of the thrust and parry, the cut and the slice were ingrained through long hours of practice into my limbs, into my soul. But I choked them back, realising even as the phrases formed upon my tongue what an affront to Magnus it would be to utter them, and indeed how little they now meant to me. The friends and allies, present and absent, who had supported me in this endeavour were the only men, the only causes, in whose names I now fought.
For Magnus and Ælfhelm. For Godric, Serlo and Pons. For Aubert, for Eudo and for Wace.
The door flexed once more. The hinges made a terrible shearing sound, and the bar that we’d set in place trembled. Another blow followed, and suddenly the planks were cracking along the grain, buckling under the force of the impact. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the sweetness of the air roll across my tongue, quelling the fears that dwelt at the back of my mind and burying them deep, doing my best to still my fast-beating heart and allow the battle-calm to overtake me, steeling myself for what was to come. Readying myself to meet my God.
Then the sound of steel upon oak ceased, and I opened my eyes, expecting to see the first of the foemen staggering beneath the lintel. The first who would die.
But though the shouting continued, the door still stood. At first I couldn’t understand what was happening, why the enemy seemed to have given up. I glanced at the others and saw the same bewilderment in their expressions. Only then did I hear the horns sounding out across the camp: a series of rapid, insistent blasts followed by a single sustained note. Again the pattern was repeated, and again, and a fourth and a fifth time as well. And though their words were a mystery to me, I realised from their tones that the Danes standing beyond the door were suddenly crying out for a different reason: no longer out of haste to break down the door and discover what was going on in this hall, but in confusion and alarm.
Feet thudded upon turf, steadily growing further away from us. From the din that was erupting outside I reckoned the whole camp had to be rising. It didn’t take me long to guess the reason why.
They had come.
Twenty-eight
As impatient as we were, nevertheless we dared not emerge until we could be sure it was safe. Across the yard the war-horns continued to blast out their warning notes, hooves thudded upon turf, men shouted to one another, dogs barked in excitement. But no more axe blows came, and no longer could I hear footsteps outside the hall.
Trying to make as little noise as possible, I climbed across the crude barricade we had thrown up. With Godric’s help I lifted the bar from across the door and tentatively opened it, by only the smallest fraction at first, but enough to be able to see out. I half expected to find at least one of the Danes left guarding the entrance to the hall, but there was no one.
Elsewhere across Jarnborg, all was disorder. Men, some only half-dressed, were scrambling from their tents into the morning light, struggling to their feet, running back and forth, swigging from leather flasks to lend them courage, hurriedly tugging on leather jerkins and mail shirts, belting scabbards upon their waists and snatching up spears and shields and whatever other weapons they could find to hand. Meanwhile their lords were yelling for order, trying to gather their hearth-troops around their banners even as they poured out through the gatehouse: an unruly horde sallying forth with blades drawn and raised to the sky.
And then, striding out from the great stone hall, came Jarl Haakon himself, he of the black-dragon banner. He wore a helmet with a nasal-guard, so his face was partly hidden. Nevertheless I recognised him not just by the greying braid at his nape and the keenness of the eyes that stared out from beneath his helmet’s gilded rim, but also by the rings of twisted gold he wore upon his arms, by his silver-gleaming hauberk, and by the dozen or so huscarls guarding him. His cheeks were red as he barked instructions to those around him, doing his best to ignore the hounds who were racing around him and his men, their tails up, occasionally leaping up to paw at their chests and lick at their faces. They sensed that something was afoot, and they wanted to be a part of it.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Magnus, who was behind me, but I waved him silent.
Haakon’s stable-boys brought him and his retainers their horses. Without hesitation they mounted up and rode out, bellowing at all the others making for the gates to get out of their way. The black dragon was flying to battle, flying to vanquish his foes and drive them from his shores once and for all.
Or so he thought. Hooves thundered as he galloped through the midst of his followers, closely followed by his huscarls, and still I kept my gaze upon them until they had disappeared through the gatehouse arch, with the rest of his army charging on foot in their wake.
‘Come on,’ I said to the others as the last of the enemy filed out from the fortress. Even in the short while that we had been holed up inside this hall, the mist had lifted considerably. The skies had grown lighter, and there was even a small patch of blue through which the sun was breaking. If we were looking for a portent, there could be few better than that.
Throwing the door open, I ran up the wooden steps into the yard, which was strangely quiet now. Only a few stragglers remained: those for whom the previous night’s celebrations had proven too much. Bleary-eyed and pale of face, they staggered about in search of weapons. Some were doubled over, spewing forth long trails of vomit on to the muddy ground. They didn’t notice us; or else, if they did, they didn’t think anything of us. They had more pressing concerns.
‘Where are you going?’ Eanflæd called as she came rushing after us, clutching her skirts to avoid tripping on the steps. ‘What about us? Are you just going to leave us here?’
