murderers and evildoers. You would have men go to hell while only slaves go to heaven. Well, it is not to be. I am Ordwulf, son of Frithuwulf Churlslayer! My faith is in Vali, archer son of Woden, god of vengeance! Stand back, foreigner, lest you taste my steel as well. .’
This last was shouted at Caol who had taken another step forward, hand on his sword. The old man raised his double-edged battleaxe and brought it level with his chest, his eyes glinting with some mad fire. Fidelma again motioned Caol to halt. She wanted to end this confrontation without bloodshed.
‘If you will not listen to your son, Ordwulf, then listen to me,’ Eadulf said quietly, his hands held out in a non-threatening fashion.
‘Listen to another betrayer of the manly faith of his people? Why should I listen to you, Eadulf, sometime of Seaxmund’s Ham, sometime of the South Folk, who once followed the true path of Woden and the great gods of our people but who has turned to crawl after a god of weeping slaves.’
‘I am not going to justify my faith to you, Ordwulf. Nor am I going to appeal to you to give up vengeance in the name of that faith, the same faith that your sons now follow. I will simply say, that vengeance taken in this fashion will not soothe your troubled spirit.’
‘Neither will forgiveness, slave follower,’ sneered Ordwulf.
‘No, it will not,’ Eadulf agreed, keeping his voice low and calm. ‘We agree that vengeance is required. But let our vengeance be what we call justice. It is not only desirable but also necessary. The only thing we need to agree on is how this should be achieved. Killing a person is easy. Letting an evildoer live and bringing them to justice so that everyone can see that justice has been served is another matter and more rewarding.’
Ordwulf looked uncertain. ‘I do not understand you. . it sounds as though you have a honeyed tongue, Christian.’
‘This land that you are exiled in is a country with laws and judges, where a man does not have to seek out vengeance for himself and his family. The laws and judges do that. The killing of your wife should have been brought before the judges so that those responsible could be punished. It was not. Time has passed on. Yet it is not too late and if this man’ — he gestured to where Brother Drón was still bound to the tree — ‘was responsible, let us take him back to Cashel, to the courts, and to the judges, where, if judged guilty, he will be pronounced so throughout the land. . That is justice and that is proper vengeance.’
‘And will I then be allowed to slay him?’ demanded Ordwulf.
‘There is no such punishment here but the punishment is worse.’
‘What can be worse than being despatched into the arms of the goddess Hel, and taken to a world of eternal darkness and pain?’
‘What is more painful than to live with your guilt proclaimed to all who know you, to live suffering in the knowledge of what you have done, and to spend every waking moment trying to compensate those whom you have injured?’
Ordwulf stood for a moment and shook his head slowly. ‘That is no punishment for the likes of him. Yesterday we entered the month of Solmanath, sacred to our goddess of love Sjofn. It was the month that Aelgifu and I met and when we married. Yesterday, at first light, I took cakes to the foot of an oak near here and offered them to the gods. I swore that in a few days, when the feastday of Vali, the god of vengeance, was celebrated, that thing there’ — he nodded to Brother Drón, now whimpering quietly against the oak — ‘or I should be dead. That he be taken in the arms of Hel or I be feasting in the hall of heroes with Woden. No words, Saxon brother; no more words now.’
The old man’s grip on his battleaxe tightened.
‘Mark me, boy,’ he called to Berrihert, ‘mark me well, and see what a warrior should do when his mother is violated. This is for you, my love, my Aelgifu, this is for you. .’
He raised the great battleaxe high over his head.
Brother Drón let out a wailing scream.
Everyone seemed unable to move, as if rooted to the spot by the terrible inevitability of the scene.
Then Ordwulf’s eyes grew wide, as if in startled surprise. An expression of pain re-formed his features for a moment. He gasped and lurched forward a step and then dropped to his knees, the axe falling to the ground at his side.
No one, it seemed, could move as they stared at him, not understanding what was happening.
A low shuddering breath came from the old man.
Eadulf took a pace forward as if to go to his aid.
The pain-stricken eyes flared at him.
‘No!’ came the old man’s cry. His features had turned grey. He was on his knees, resting back on his heels, his chest rising and falling rapidly. The eyes turned to the young man at Eadulf’s side. ‘Berrihert. . my son. .’
The old man was fumbling blindly for the haft of his battleaxe, unable to make contact with it. His voice was pleading.
‘My son. .’
Brother Berrihert swallowed and then stepped forward to his father. He bent down and picked up the axe and placed it in his father’s trembling hands.
The old man looked up at him with misty eyes and, even in pain, he smiled.
‘Thank you, my son.’
Berrihert nodded and stepped back to Eadulf, who was the only other who knew what was about to happen. Fidelma gazed at them uncertainly, wondering whether to order Caol to rush forward and seize the axe, but she saw Eadulf shake his head warningly at her.
Ordwulf, by some amazing feat, using the axe as a fulcrum, had struggled to his feet. He took several deep breaths.
‘So soon?’ the old man gasped. ‘Yet it is time.’
Then, with a swift motion, fuelled by an inner strength that came they knew not whence, he raised the battleaxe once more over his head, a swift upward thrusting movement, his head going back, eyes staring at the heavens.
Ordwulf’s voice rang out in the tiny glen, one last long, loud shout of defiance.
‘Woden!’
Then he fell abruptly backwards, stretching out on the green grass by the tiny stream, the axe falling uselessly to his side.
Eadulf was hurrying forward even while the body was falling.
A moment’s examination and then he looked up to Fidelma and shook his head. ‘Some seizure, I think,’ he muttered. ‘He was elderly and the exertion. . well, his heart was old.’ He glanced to Brother Berrihert, who stood silently with bowed head, and smiled sadly. ‘At least his death was one a warrior would wish. He has gone to his hall of heroes, standing on his feet, weapon in hand and the name of Woden on his lips. It would be as he would have wanted it, Brother Berrihert.’
The young man nodded sadly. ‘I will light a candle for his soul and pray that God looks kindly on Woden’s hall of heroes.’
Eadulf reached forward and laid a hand on the young man’s arm. ‘Who knows but that any god whose followers believe in truth, justice and doing good to one’s fellows in this life, is but another manifestation of the one God we of the Faith believe in?’
He had been speaking in Saxon the while and now he turned, while Berrihert bent down to his father’s body, and swiftly explained matters to Fidelma and Caol.
Caol cut Brother Drón free.
Finding himself still alive and Ordwulf dead, it was surprising how swiftly Brother Drón recovered his arrogance.
‘That foreigner was a maniac,’ he shouted. ‘I shall demand compensation for this indignity. I am a guest beneath the roof of your brother, lady, and it is your task to protect me as it was your task to protect the abbot. You have failed and I shall demand. .’
Before anyone knew what was happening, Brother Berrihert had risen from his father’s body, taken a few swift strides to the outraged Brother Drón and, with an open hand, smacked him hard across the right cheek, so that the man staggered a few paces and the cringing fear returned to his face. Caol moved forward to intervene but Brother Berrihert made no further aggressive movement.
