During the night, all nine of the men that were fellow prisoners with me were taken away. The guard captain reluctantly told me that they were getting the ship ready for sea and the other men were destined for work in the fields and with the blacksmith.
Just before dawn I awoke from a cramped and fitful sleep by the tramping of heavy boots on the deck above.
‘Pig. Pig, come out.’ a voice shouted into the space below the main deck.
Instinctively I knew who it was that called and the flame that burnt within me flickered, for just an instant. Crawling I moved to the hatchway and gazed into the bright light from a lantern. From beyond the lamp came a noise not unlike an animal’s growl, hands reached down, caught my arms from behind and heaved me onto the deck. The person I most dreaded meeting stood before me, his stump of a right wrist cradled across his chest.
‘We meet again Pig.’ said Brent, his face pressed close towards mine. ‘By some god-bothering trickery, I have been ordered to take you with me on our voyage of fortune.’
Others on the deck pressed around Brent to watch, but none dared to come too close.
‘I have no room for passengers, so you will be useful, or in defiance of my orders, by the gods you will be fish bait.’ he paused for breath. ‘I have had the misfortune to come across you twice in my life and each time has caused me pain and problems. It will not happen again. If you run off, or give me trouble, your men will pay your penalty. I personally will attend them and roast them slowly upon the spit that we use for pigs and oxen.’ he said, then added. ‘Do you understand!’ his voice rose to a scream.
‘Yes.’ I managed to say and my voice surprised me with its strength.
“First we will teach you never to play with fire again.”
The possibilities of what he said were just sinking in, when the men behind me gripped harder, forcing me to arch my back while a third pair of hands ripped my shirt open to the waist.
In front of my eyes floated the brightness of a fiercely glowing branding iron. It had been crudely fashioned in the shape of their runic letters to read Slave.
The pain was indescribably excruciating as the iron was laid against and then pressed into the flesh of my naked chest. I could smell the searing and burning of flesh. I could hear and feel the crackling and popping of fat. For an instant I fell unconscious, but before I did, I realised that the pitiful noise that rang in my ear was my own desperate scream.
The next thing I remember was hitting the hard deck followed by the icy shock and the agony of a bucket of cold sea water as it hit my wounded breast.
‘No need to tie him, just keep him out of my way.’ ordered Brent looking at one of the older warriors of the crew.
And he turned away to get on with the task of getting his ship ready. ‘We leave on the tide.’ he declared to anyone listening.
My breath came in shuddering sobs as I was lifted onto a rowing bench. Every movement was agony, even breathing. The thought of heaving on the loom of a heavy oar filled my scorched heart with dread.
Through the pain, I was surprised at the way Brent had suddenly switched from cruel brutality to the perfect image of a prudent, professional seafarer and ship’s master. Only his narrow, coldly-pale eyes betrayed what had now become the hidden man. Which one I wondered, was the real person? Or was it possible that two people were mixed inside the one body shell. The speed with which he so completely changed, marked him as someone to be very wary of, but I knew that already.
The old man to whom Brent had spoken stood before me, shaking his head and stroking a thick, iron-grey beard. ‘I’m known as Ivar. You’ve been given to me as slave. But it looks like you’ll not be of much use to anyone for a while.’ he pulled my shirt aside to inspect the wound. ‘British! They’re softer than warm tallow.’ he sneered.
I thought I’d be beaten, but he left me to rest while he pitched in to help load the various stores which included food, barrels of water, spare wooden spars and planks. By the time they’d finished, the incoming tide was beginning to lift the burdened keel clear of the shingle. The crew and the warriors chanted a song to their gods as they gathered around to push the ship into deeper water before they all clambered aboard.
They were certainly a fiercesome sight, heavily built and clothed in heavy skins of a dark fur. Around their bodies they wore tunics of chain mail that glistened like the scales of a fish, and upon their heads the majority had polished iron helmets with hinged cheek guards and mail neck protectors.
Brent’s helmet was like this but it had been better finished, polished like a mirror and inlaid with intricate patterns of gold that caught the early sunlight. There was a gleam in his ice-blue eyes as he called the men together around the base of the sturdy mast.
The broad beam of the ship’s waist was crowded with the assembled men, altogether some four or five dozen of us. Some of them sat on the casks and boxes that hadn’t yet managed to fit into the shallow space below the deck. Many of them looked at me with open distaste and some with a curiosity, as one would perhaps peer into a pool of vomit.
I ached all over, but the painful burning of my chest surmounted all my other problems. In my misery I wished that very deck could swallow me up or the sands of time could be poured back, against the will of nature. An image of Deaks passed through my mind, his poor deformed body twisted in awful pain by his ritual slaughter. The thought of what happened to him, gave me the strength to push back at my problems. He’d given me my life and I’ll damned well use it I vowed. Things could be much worse I thought, trying to look at things positively. It could be a twist woven into my fate that would enable me to learn first-hand, the rigours of life at sea, the arts of ship handling and sailing.
Against the tightness of the blistered wound, I forced myself to sit upright and to square my shoulders before the master’s icy stare that swept across all of us.
‘We will sail in company, my lucky lads.’ Brent-one-hand announced with a smile. ‘Just our ship is provisioned to sail into the southern seas at the moment, another will join us later. But for now, we will be joined by six vessels from the second fleet to raid the British town of Watchett on our way past.
Brent went on to explain that the army that had been given the task of smashing Alfred’s hold on Wessex had been destroyed by the trickery and cowardly actions of an allied enemy force. To avenge the deaths of many good men, he intended taking the combined fleet into the small harbour town and burning as much as could be burnt, drinking as much as could be drunk and stealing away everything that was worth a light. It was a stirring speech, the ignorant heathen around me cheered and bellowed like the rabble that I thought they were.
At first my temper began to boil, but as the speech continued, Brent’s words fanned the smouldering glow of my warrior spirit. Perhaps here would be a chance for escape. I must watch carefully and be prepared.
What was not mentioned, was the fact that Watchett possessed a busy mint which made good silver coins for Alfred and the kingdom of Wessex. It was obvious to me that this was the real purpose of the Viking visit. Silver, would give barter power with the merchants that we would need to visit on our way to and from the Southern Sea areas.
The sun had climbed well into the sky by the time all seven ships had assembled. We were leading the way and the six smaller ships formed up behind, two abreast.
The tide was turning in our favour, but the wind was still contrary and blew to us from the eye of the western horizon. With the cumbersome rig of the Viking ship, it wasn’t possible to use the sails. We were ordered to ready our oars and to sweep, at an easy rate, in time with the beat of a booming drum skin.
Having only a very vague notion of what was expected, I closely watched the nearest man and copied his actions as best as I could. Within an hour, the pain and discomfort of my burnt flesh began to ease as a numbness crept over me and I found I could manage the long heavy oar reasonably well. My hands though, unused to this type of work, suffered and before long they were blistered and sore.
To ease the pain, I let my mind wander where it would and my thoughts settled on the lovely Hild. Would I see her again I thought, but decided most probably not. After all, we were from vastly different backgrounds and cultures. Or were we? Were we so very different, she was a Christian, albeit secretly, I felt a yearning in my body to see her, to touch her again. My thoughts strayed to that fisherman’s hut and our magical meeting the night before. I was no longer a virgin and I felt a warmth from deep inside my belly flow into my groin.
The oar inexplicably twisted, biting deeply into the water and made me miss the rhythm of the stroke. The oarsmen behind me also faltered, and those farther back in the row of twelve men became fouled with each other. Old Ivar ran swiftly between the lines and beat me soundly across the shoulders with a long cane until I was back in time with my neighbour. My spirit wavered, but knowing that they wanted me to break, spurred me to a stronger resolve.
As I became more confident, I managed to look around. To the south we were passing the beach head where I had once stood with Edmund and my Lord Odda, watching one of these fearsome vessels work its way eastwards, up the channel. It all seemed quite unreal, rather like turning the pages of an illustrated book. Within the ship, preparations were well in hand for the coming raid. Those that were not occupied with the oars, packed quivers with hunting arrows, fitted new handles to the viciously curved heads of war-axes and passed around skins of strong mead-wine to the rest of the crew.
Everyone drank wine, except me of course, and how my throat was parched. But there was no way that I would beg for water. I would have to wait until I could take it.
Brent, while all this was going on, was busy supervising the moving of pieces of stored gear around the ship to adjust the vessel’s trim. He was also keeping a careful eye on the coast that we were passing and the position of the ships following along behind us.
Another of their mighty longships, a sister ship, was to have left with us. But I’d heard amongst the crew’s chatter that it was held up with some repairs and would follow later.
At Brent’s direction, the helmsman followed the contour of the land and the flotilla of smaller craft kept station on us. As we rounded a high jagged headland a large bay unfolded before us and we could clearly see the smudge of smoke that marked the settlement of Watchett that was about half way along it. We continued along the line of our course, standing out to sea as we passed the small town.
The rhythm set by the drum had become noticeably slower as we cruised by, then there was an urgent call that had the oarsmen of one side stopped. Ponderously, the heavy ship swung around in a wide arc to give a heading back towards the town’s narrow quayside.
At the same time as we manoeuvred, Brent had a group of crewmen haul at the ropes that lifted the boom with its bright, square sail until it was fully spread, snapping and cracking in the fresh westerly breeze. Light ropes from the two corners at the foot of the sail, were led towards the stern and threaded through eyes that had been let into the ship’s side. Some crewmen men hauled the ropes tight and fastened them to horned cleats. The thunderous cracking of the great sail stopped and we felt the ship surge forward on the power of the wind. Our oars were drawn in and laid along the benches, I found the weight of the thing curiously awkward and earned another few strokes from the cane when I almost lost it.
The pale sun was sliding quickly into the greyness of the sea behind us, and the darkness of another early winter’s night began to spring from crouching shadows.
I would have given my life to have been able to send the poor people in the village some warning. I would gladly have sold my soul to have sent some sort of word ahead of us through the gathering gloom. But I could do nothing.
The ebbing flow of the tide had almost completed its run when the crew silently loosed the sail and hauled it down. We heard the soft sigh of a sandy bottom against the probing nudge of our keel and a crewman leapt over the soaring prow with a mooring rope and grapnel, his wiry body silhouetted briefly upon the starry purple sky. The warriors silently readied themselves and soft splashes on either side of us told of the arrival of the other raiders.
Ivar pushed through the gathered pirates and grabbed me by an aching arm.
‘Come servant. You shall carry my shield.’ he thrust the heavy wooden shield into my grasp. ‘And, in case you feel homesick, I’ve a leash for you.’ he laughed.
Firmly he fastened a length of small link, iron chain about my neck with a clasp. He gave it a tug to demonstrate the effectiveness to his comrades. I clenched the muscles in my neck but choked painfully as he brought me heavily to my knees.
A brutal, gloved fist hit the side of my face starting blood from an old cut.
‘Silence. Don’t make a sound...Not one.’ hissed Brent’s voice in my ear. ‘If you do, I will rip out your tongue and when we get back home, do the same to your men.’
But with a throat so thoroughly parched, I couldn’t make any sound beyond a croak. Try as I might, as we dropped over the side into waist deep swirling water, I couldn’t send any form of warning call to the people of that silent village which nestled so comfortably onto the banks of its narrow river estuary.
Stumbling over rocks I was half dragged to the newly uncovered shore. The beach, higher up, was formed from flat rocky slabs and these were covered with still wet, slippery seaweed that caused a few curse laden, slithering tumbles. I hoped that someone ahead heard us and, not to miss an opportunity, I slipped several times, allowing Ivar’s heavy shield to clatter on the rocky foreshore.
The settlement was very quiet. Unnaturally so I thought. I slowed down truing to listen, it seemed hopeful that we had been discovered and even yet, Brent’s plans could be undone and I might be rescued. A sharp tug on the chain about my neck forced my tired legs to shamble after my tormentor.
Uneventfully, we reached the corner of the first house and a group of pirate warriors kicked in the door and, finding it empty, proceeded to wreck and burn it. They were getting into the spirit of things, yelling and dashing about, looting as they went and leaving the rude dwellings in a shambles of burning wreckage as they moved on. Brent, suspicious of the quiet, sent a group of men away to search and loot some local farmsteads.
In the fitful moonlight, I thought I saw a movement farther up the road behind an odd looking hedge. But it must have been a trick of the shadows for, as the moon dived into the darkness of thick cloud, I realised that there shouldn’t have been a hedge there at all. Not across the lane. It took several moments for my tired mind to realise what it was. It was a barricade, and all the townsfolk had fled for cover and safety. As far as I could see, no one else had noticed anything untoward.
Steadily, a trail of havoc in their wake, the raiding party made its way up the lane behind a striding Brent. He certainly seemed to know exactly where he was going, which bore out my own theory regarding the mint and its silver.
We began to round the bend that would lead us, without warning, straight into the villager’s rustic defences. I hoped that they had provisioned themselves well with both arms and courage. The smoke from the burning cottages swirled about us, driven into the gully that formed the banked sides of the lane by a cold night breeze.
Brent and one of his men were the first to discover the British resistance. As we rounded the sweep of the corner a cacophony of sound and pebbles was thrown down against us. Several men fell to the well aimed, slingshot missiles, their bones cracking with the closeness of the range. Those in the lead tried to turn away from the onslaught but immediately found themselves confronted by the advancing column of enthusiastic looters coming up from the village.
It was a decided first round win to my countrymen. I could have cheered. Brent succeeded in turning the tide of his followers, their withdrawal left the lane littered with dead and wounded.
I listened to the cheers of my countrymen with a shudder. The murderous band of Vikings was forming up behind a roughly made shield wall, with their archers closed ranks behind them.
Again they charged up the hill to round the curve in the track. But this time they were organised and under control.
The barricade of timber, rocks and earth was eerily silent as we approached it. No move of resistance met the aggressive, taunting yells of the raiders. A flurry of small rocks fell on us from the steep banks of the track, but none of them with the force and precision of the recent onslaught. For a moment my thoughts ran along the same lines as Brent’s obviously were. The defenders had fled.
The men, finding themselves suddenly unopposed began to mill about and some petty bickering broke out amongst them. Brent called them together and formed them into two columns and detailed a small party to deal with the wounded and dead.
‘You shall not pass Norseman.’ came a shout from higher up the lane.
The voice was clear and strong from the top of the bank to our right. A glow of torchlight silhouetted a tall figure as he came to the top of the grassy slope. Even before I saw his face I recognised the voice and knew it belonged to a man called Goda, a skilful Thane from the west who had the job of overseeing the work of the King’s moneyer.
‘I say again. You shall not pass.’ called Goda in a voice which silenced the Viking raiders. ‘Before you is the loyal army. And they have sworn to fight to the death.’ the Thane then swept an arm toward the waterfront. ‘Behind you, a company, just arrived from Cynwit, is formed up to cut off your retreat.’
My heart soared and I was about to call to him when Ivar dragged me to my knees with the chain. His sword rested against my neck. ‘Not a word, pig.’ he warned.
Growls of frustrated anger rumbled among the raiders as the translated message was passed to them. Someone to my left began hammering on his shield with the butt of a dagger. A call taken up by all the men in our shield-fortified square until it sounded like the roaring voice of Thor himself.
Brent recovered quickly from the surprise and shoved his way through the shield wall, his standard bearer close on his heels. Holding his sword high, he silenced his men. Then he turned to Goda, and spoke in good English.
‘We will pass. British Pig.’ he spat into the dust. ‘Lay down your weapons and stand aside.’
‘Threats!’ Goda’s voice chopped at the words like strokes from an axe. ‘Idle threats from the mouth of a dog who captures children and torches their hovels.’
‘Hah!’ Brent’s cold eyes sparkled in the firelight. ‘Bring the British cubs forward.’ he called with a grim smile.
There were just three of them, almost rigid with fear. I had not seen their capture, but they must have been hiding down in the village. The eldest, a girl, was no more than ten and the other two, perhaps her brothers, were about six or seven. As they were dragged past me, sobbing and struggling like puppies, I managed to call softly to one of the boys.
‘Take courage, little one. They’ll not harm you.’
He returned my words with a look of pure horror, as though they had been the thrust of a dagger. It hadn’t occurred to me how shocking my voice, with its local accent, must have sounded to the young and desperate ears. Children were prized slaves in the Viking villages because, with a little training, their small fingers could be turned to the monotonous task of making chain-mail for the bands of warriors.
The next few moments tuned my heart to ice.
‘The children...British pig.’ called Brent gesturing with a casual sweep of his arm.
Each small and struggling body was held and dwarfed by a leering warrior.
Brent turned back, to face Goda. ‘I say again. Lay down your feeble sticks and stones and let us through.’
Goda, his features strained and his voice tightened by the obvious threat, turned his head slightly to look at a young woman. She was held tightly by the arms of her husband.
‘You’ll not hurt them. Any more than I could.’ Goda called. ‘They are only babies, they can cause you no harm. Let them come to their mother.’ the Thane nodded towards the trembling young woman.
‘Kill them.’ said Brent, without so much as a sideways glance.
Three little lives gurgled into nothing as short knife blades were drawn across three tender throats. The soft, quivering parcels of warmth slid into widening pools of dark blood.
A shrill, hysterical scream of madness clawed from the throat of the young woman who had been their mother.
‘For that, you heathen devil, I will personally hasten your end.’ shouted Goda as he swept away. The torchlight flickered and abruptly vanished as the flames were extinguished.
From behind us we could clearly hear the unmistakable chanting of British warriors as they moved to close the road below us.
Brent was trapped. And I would have to watch my chances carefully to escape and not be mistakenly cut down with the rest of the heathen mob.
At our feet, littered around the road, were the weapons and equipment of the earlier slaughter. Not more than a half-stride distant was a water skin, beneath it I glimpsed the dull shine of a small steel blade. I managed to croak the Norse word meaning drink to Ivar and pointed at the water skin. He nodded gruffly. In one movement, I had the bottle in my hand and the short, slim bladed dagger folded into my tunic. I twisted off the wooden stopper and the sweetest of waters washed into my mouth, slicing across the dryness of my throat. As I swallowed I looked around, nobody had seen my furtively concealed prize.
If we got close enough, I promised the slender blade a home between the ribs of the man I now thought of as Brent-the-Childkiller.
I watched my target carefully as he divided his troops and sent one rank, shields locked, slowly forward to test the resolves and strength of the defenders on the hill above us. He had obviously reasoned that the warriors behind us were seasoned troops that were probably disciplined and loyal and therefore the most difficult route.
The softer target should have been before us. But Brent had failed to recognise the anger he had unleashed with his callous murdering of the innocent children. The warriors that had been sent forward were literally cut to ribbons by the folk who met them. By a long way, the most savage of receptions were those handed out by the women in the defending British lines. Inflamed by the horrific sight that they had all witnessed, they threw away any conventions of battle and fell upon the Viking warriors like a spiked blanket of demons. Of the ten men given the order to advance, none were able to return.
Brent moved swiftly, he knew his position was nearing desperate. He chivvied and bolstered the spirit of his men until they were growling with the blood lust. He moved close among us, strutting like a fighting cock, but any movement of my own to get near to him was instantly halted by a choking tug on the chain about my throat.
Under Brent’s leadership, the whole company of raiding warriors surged up the hill, driving into the thin ranks of the valiant village Fyrd. Ivar pushed his way into the front with me held rigidly before him, the heavy shield still lashed tightly to my left forearm.
By the light of the fires and torches, I saw that I was recognised by some of my countrymen that were nearest to us.
But oh! The horror of horrors. It wasn’t rescue that they intended. Traitor was on the lips of those before us. The bellowed accusation crashed through my mind and left me reeling. My courage seeped into the air, where it was taken by the wind, I struggled to deflect the blows and missiles that came toward me until my arm felt like lead and my head buzzed with the confusion.
Suddenly, we were through. Clear ground opened before us and Brent was urging his men onward, pushing inside the earthwork ramparts and running toward the workshops of the moneyer. Four men went with Brent into the building and, wearing huge grins, reappeared almost immediately. Between them the men carried three, obviously heavy, iron bound chests by their rope handles.
‘He is like the very devil.’ I whispered to Ivar. ‘How did he do that so quickly?’
‘Ha!’ cackled the bearded old man. ‘He took a leaf out of your book and came here a while ago, dressed as one of your damned Christian wizards.’ he laughed. ‘Found out all we needed in a twinkling.’
I looked around at the tired, anxious faces. There were perhaps a little more than half of us left. Unless Brent knew of another way out, all the killing would have been for nothing. Except as one more defeat of the heathen butchers for the British.
At a loping run, we were led through the labyrinth of rampart walls. And without a false turn or hesitation, we were led directly to a low archway, with a heavy wooden gate. A hiss of an axe blade and the headless torso of a terrified lone sentry sank to the mud. Stamping boots kicked the grisly corpse aside and, with a gust of cool damp breeze, we were through the gateway and at the head of a steep, narrow path. The sheer sea-cliffs dropped away just inches away from the edge of my boots, surging downwards toward the invisible flat slabs of rock that I knew lay below me in the darkness.
Ivar must have divined my thoughts, for he tightened the chain and whispered harshly. ‘If I should happen to fall, there’ll be two corpses for the ravens and sea worms to feed on.’
With my right hand hidden behind the heavy shield, I made sure that the knife was securely hidden in the waist band of my breeches. Then, carefully feeling my way, I stepped out along the pathway ledge to follow behind the others, and we went down to the beach and the ships.