She watched him make his escape, treading buoyantly to the door, and wondered if that was what he always said. One day, she thought, he would 'come back later' to a cold hearth.
CHAPTER 30
Rolf had been prepared to see a scarred and punished land, but he could never have envisaged the devastation which greeted his eyes as he, Mauger, and eight retainers crossed the Humber and headed into what remained of the Yorkshire Danelaw.
Entire villages had been scorched to the ground, their livestock butchered and their crops destroyed. Charred bodies lay where they had fallen, and many of them were human, with no-one to bury them decently. The few living people they did encounter either fled at their approach on famine-thin legs, or accosted them in desperation, begging for food. They had nothing to sustain them, not even hope, for William had destroyed everything. There was no seed to sow crops, no fruit trees to provide winter stores, no animals to salt down.
Occasionally Rolf found a village which had escaped more lightly than the others, but even here there was a lack of men to do the work. Every male over the age of fifteen had been slaughtered. Terrible indeed had been William's vengeance upon the rebels. It was almost as if he had decided that he could do without the troublesome population of northern England, and with a determined swipe of his iron fist, had swatted it from existence.
Mauger began to have nightmares and Rolf found himself touching the talismans he 'wore around his neck and praying more than he had done in a long time. The loyalty he felt towards King William remained as staunch as ever despite the atrocities, but the admiration which had long been attached to his loyalty died, and in its place grew a cold disgust. He saw starving women and infants and tried not to think of Ailith and Julitta, but his imagination would not be commanded. Time and again he saw their ghosts in the gaunt, skeletal faces cursing their tracks as they rode towards York. Obtaining a single pony stallion suddenly seemed futile, a paltry speck on the road of his life. In his black mood, he would have turned back, but he was so close to Ulf's village by then, that he knew he had to go on. For good or evil, he had to know what had happened.
They approached the village on a hazy spring afternoon, the sun a misty halo in a pale sky. The track was muddy and Rolf was encouraged to see the print of hoof and foot gouged in the mire. Neither pigs nor swineherd materialised to greet them, and at the place where the Odin statue had stood sentinel, there was nothing but a lush growth of nettles. Rolf drew rein and saluted his respect as if at a grave before riding on.
The palisade of wooden stakes was commemorated by a charred circle of ashes, blurring black into the soil. It surrounded fewer than a dozen houses, and these were new structures of fresh thatch and green timber. More black smears and twisted black beams revealed what had happened to the other dwellings. Ulf's village had not escaped the attentions of William's Norman mercenaries. It had been seriously mauled, but it had not been utterly destroyed.
A woman carrying a large water jug from the well was the first person they encountered. Her eyes widened, but she did not panic as the swineherd had once done. Instead she put down the jar and went straight into one of the huts, her step swift but graceful. Rolf recognised Inga, Ulf's daughter-in-law. Moments later Ulf himself emerged from the building. He walked with a stick, his limp severe, but the same iron will was in evidence.
Rolf dismounted and walked over to him.
'So,' Ulf jutted his silver and rust jaw at Rolf, 'your Viking instinct brings you back to see what the ravens have wreaked?'
Rolf drew a deep breath. 'I am grieved for what my countrymen have done, but I tried to warn you what would happen.'
'Aye, so you did,' Ulf said without warmth. 'What do you want?'
'If you still have ponies, I have come to trade for another stallion. The one you sold me broke his leg before he had covered more than one season of mares.'
'Aye, I still have ponies.'
'Will you trade?'
Ulf stared at him for a long time with eyes of winter ice. Then abruptly he swept his arm towards his hut. His tunic sleeve fell away to reveal heavy bracelets of incised silver and bronze on his wrists. 'Enter within and partake of what meagre hospitality I can offer. I am one of the fortunate ones, I still have a roof over my head.'
Once more Inga brought food for the guests, serving Rolf and his men coldly, her mouth tucked in a severe fold and her cat-hazel eyes downcast. The bread was gritty and impure, the boiled stockfish salty and tough. Mauger pulled a face and almost gagged, but a glare from Rolf made him choke down his food and murmur his thanks.
'Your community has survived,' Rolf said, forcing himself to eat, knowing what a sacrifice the old man was making in his pride.
'After a fashion,' Ulf growled. 'There are no villages left hereabouts with whom we can trade. We have to go to York for our provisions and that costs silver. But it is due to you that some of us are alive to grumble about our lot.'
'Due to me?'
'As you said earlier, you warned us about what your Duke would do. I heeded your words above those of my own son and I had our people take all of our winter supplies and animals into the woods and hide them. When the Normans arrived, they found the village already deserted. All they had to burn were our empty houses.'
Rolf ate in silence. There was nothing he could say apart from that he was sorry. He was being thanked and hated at the same time, and the sensation was disquieting. His eye fell on Inga as she went about her duties. She looked beaten down and weary. Her son sat on the floor playing with a chicken's foot, fiddling with the guiders to make the toes move. Of the little girl there was no sign. 'There were many more houses when I came before,' he said to Ulf.
'My son Beorn and our hot-headed young men died fighting a Norman patrol on the York road at the beginning of the troubles. And then, around the time that we had to hide in the woods, many of us took sick of a pestilence and very few recovered. Inga's daughter was among them.'
'I am sorry.' Rolf's glance flickered again to the young woman. He would have pitied her, but her self- contained manner forbade such a sentiment.
'Being sorry will not bring the heart back to this place,' Ulf grunted sourly. 'Have you finished? Then come, I will show you the ponies.'
The new stallion was a glossy, pine-pitch brown which hovered just short of being pure black. He was more sturdily made than the previous bay Rolf had purchased, for he was three years older and in his prime. Fine hairs feathered his hocks and pasterns, but his leg action was high and clean.
'I was saving him for myself,' Ulf announced, 'but there is no-one in this wilderness with the money or need to buy a horse unless it be to eat, and for that they will steal. I keep him close to the compound; I know if I do not, he will finish his life upon some poor wretch's table. Silver is of more use to me now. I can buy seeds and supplies to start anew.'
They settled down to haggle a price, although Rolf did not haggle very hard, for he could see the older man's need. Blood money, he thought, the price of feeling less guilty for the sin of being a Norman.
'There is one other thing I desire of you,' Ulf said as Rolf counted the silver coins out of his pouch.
'There is?' Rolf was alerted to caution by the sudden gruff note in the other's voice.
'When you leave, I desire you to take Inga and the lad with you. There is no future for them in this village save that it be from hand-to-mouth.'
Rolf stopped counting and looked at Ulf in surprise. 'You would entrust them to a Norman?'
'To save them from being killed by other Normans. What if your king's mercenaries should return and ravage again?' Ulf shook his head, his shoulders drooping. 'Even if that does not happen, Normans will still come and lay claim to what is ours, and we are too weak to stop them. What was 'Ulf's land' will become Osbert's or Ogier's.' He spat the French names with contempt. 'How will my grandson fare against them, do you think?'
'You believe they will fare better in the south?'
