CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

BLOOD FLOODED HEREWARD’S HEAD. IN THE THRUM OF ARTERIAL flow, he heard his young brother’s dying screams and the laughter of the Normans hacking through muscle and gristle. Rage, burning hot. And then whispers, the seductive voice of his devil, throwing off the shackles that had been forged so carefully over three years, and rising up in him, filling him, destroying him.

Someone tried to grab him, urging him to restrain himself, to grieve but not to hate, but the words came to him as if through deep water. The warrior threw the arms off him and rounded on the one trying to restrain him. It was the monk. Whatever Alric saw in his friend’s face, he recoiled in horror.

“There must be blood for this,” Hereward hissed. Flames closed in around his vision.

“If you give in to your urges, you will lose everything you have gained,” the monk pleaded.

“It is too late for that. Too late for everything.”

“Please, I will pray for you.…” Alric clutched at his companion’s tunic.

“I do not need your prayers,” Hereward snapped. “Only revenge. He … he was barely a man.” Caught by a rush of grief, he glanced back at the rotting head above the archway. The stink of decomposition drifted down to him.

“Then at least do not confront the Normans now. You will be killed.” The monk let go of the tunic and stepped back, clutching his hands together in desperation.

Hereward’s head swam. His devil urged him to enter the hall and slaughter all he found there, telling him that then, and only then, would the pain be eased; only then would he find peace. The monk sensed his inner battle and grabbed him once again. As if dashing in a skull with a rock, Hereward threw his friend to the floor. Unsheathing his sword, he almost drove it into Alric’s chest there and then to end the sanctimonious pleadings.

Alric threw his arms wide. “Kill me, then. If it will end your rage and save your soul, I give you my life.”

Blood closed over Hereward’s vision and he thrust down with the blade. The monk cried out. His vision clearing, Hereward glared down at a torn robe and a bloody shoulder. Some hidden part of him had twisted the sword at the last moment, but he had been poised to kill the man who had tried to save him.

Sickened, the warrior sheathed his sword and lurched away through the growing gloom. The blood still pounded in his ears, filled with screams and whispers. Stark trees lashed in a howling wind that had blown up from nowhere, and in that gale he thought he could hear the voices too—or was it just the alfar stalking him, ready to steal his life and his soul? The moon was out, and the stars, glittering like ice.

Down winding tracks he ran into the haunted night, and gradually his rage seeped away and his blood subsided and the devil returned to its cave. When his thoughts calmed, he recognized the small, timber-roofed house that had belonged to Berwyn the leatherworker looming out of the dark. Now, though, it was the home of his father.

Standing on the threshold, Hereward felt unsure if he could enter. His stomach had knotted, and though he told himself it was his mounting grief at Beric’s death, he knew he was simply afraid. How had he come to this? So many hearts had been stilled by his sword, and he was frightened of an old man. His father could do him no harm. And he had traveled so many miles across the whale road, just to be here. Why could he not bring himself to go inside?

Cursing his weakness, he called, “Asketil Tokesune.” When there was no reply, he repeated, louder this time, “Asketil Tokesune. It is your son. Hereward.”

A low growl emanated from the quiet interior; it could almost have been that of a beast.

Hereward entered the dark, chill house. Only a few dying embers remained in the hearth. The floor was beaten mud covered with dry rushes, not the fine timber boards of a thegn’s hall, and in the gloom he could see little sign of comfort, no tapestries, no ivory or gold, no cauldron of ale. A gray figure hovered in the shadows near the far wall. When it stepped forward, Hereward felt shocked by how greatly his father had aged. Asketil’s face was the color of ashes, hollow-cheeked and sagging around the eyes so that the shape of the skull could be identified. The thegn’s silvery hair was thinning on top and hung lank around his shoulders. But the warrior felt most struck by his father’s loss of potency. The man of iron who had ranged through the days of Hereward’s youth with fists like hammers and a heart like an anvil had been replaced by a bent-backed, hollow-chested wisp of straw.

Visions flashed through Hereward’s head. Broken bones and bloody noses. Split lips and black eyes. A night of terror buried beneath the boards of the hall while the rats scurried all around. Cruel words delivered from a cold face, accusations of weakness and failure. And then the memories he wanted to keep locked away for ever, surfacing in a rush that took his breath away: those fists raining down on his mother, even while she pleaded and cried until her lips were so pulped that she could not form words, and the sounds like the cracking of dry summer wood, and the wet, sticky splatterings on the boards, and the low moans slowly fading away until there was only silence.

For a moment, Hereward reeled as if he had been struck again. And when the visions finally cleared, his father still stood there with eyes like coals.

“I should have known that in this lowest tide of my life, the harbinger of all that has gone wrong would sail back in.” Asketil spat each stony word.

Hereward fought to restrain himself. He had played this meeting over in his head many times, promising himself he would not give in to rage or accusations. All he wanted was the final spade of earth upon a grave.

“Beric,” Hereward croaked. “The Normans killed him.”

“You killed him.”

Though he recognized the absurdity of the statement, Hereward still felt the blow to his heart.

Asketil continued: “When you took the life of your woman—”

“I did not kill her,” Hereward interjected. “I do not know whose hand held the blade, but Tidhild died at the order of Harold Godwinson.”

“When you took the life of your woman,” Asketil continued as if he had not heard his son’s denial, “and fled like a coward rather than accept judgment of your bloody actions, Beric’s heart was broken. His wits fled. In that boy’s eyes, you were hero, not outlaw.”

Because he saw me as his savior from your hand, Hereward thought.

“He never spoke again after the day you abandoned him. One week ago, something stirred within him, some madness, and he ran to my hall and taunted the knights and threw stones. And they meted out their punishment in the harsh manner that is the Norman way.” The older man flashed a sneering look at Hereward as he went to the hearth. “You failed the boy as you have failed all of us.”

For a moment, Hereward let the words hang in the air. “I have come here—”

“… to beg my forgiveness?” Asketil’s humorless laughter rolled out. “You will never get that.”

“To give you the opportunity to ask for forgiveness.” Hereward’s voice hardened. “So that you can atone for your crimes, and all the matters that lie between us can be laid to rest.”

Asketil whirled. “My crimes?” he snapped. “All the misery that has been inflicted on this house has come from your actions. The shame you have heaped upon me over the years … your crimes as a child … the robbing and the beatings of good neighbors … the mockery you brought to me at court with your misbehavior. And then”—he smacked his lips with distaste—“you took an innocent life in drunkenness or rage, and you forced me to plead with Harold Godwinson, a Wessex man, to intercede with the King on my behalf so our kin would not suffer the greatest shame of all. If your crime had been debated by the Witan, all of England would have learned of my humiliation.”

Hereward hung his head. “I know my failings. You are right to chastise me. I was a weak child, and I gave in to my devils too easily.”

“Blame it on the Devil, but it is you.” Asketil strode forward, bunching his bony hands into fists. “You are black to the core, and you will never be anything else.”

Hereward knew he could have knocked the man to the ground with a single blow, taken his life with one strike, but still he stepped back. “You killed Mother and you blamed her death on an accident.” The words came out blunter than he had intended, but Asketil appeared to be untouched by them. “That night has left a wound in me that I fear will never heal.”

The thegn snorted. “And if not for you, she too would still live.”

The warrior’s chest tightened. Some deep part of him believed every accusation his father made. “How so?”

Unafraid, Asketil pushed his cold face into Hereward’s. “She tried to protect you. You went too far, as you always have, as you still do. You defied my word—”

“I was barely a child,” Hereward protested.

“Black to the core, from the very beginning,” the older man roared. “I saw it in you when you were born. It is your nature.”

The warrior wiped a shaking hand across his mouth. He felt a child once more, waiting for the inevitable. “We should not have these years of loathing lying between us any longer. There is no gain. We must start afresh.”

“And that is why you have come here?” Asketil sneered.

“We are joined by blood—”

The thegn slowly shook his head. “You are not my son. I scarce believe you have any of my blood within you.” He made no attempt to mask his contempt. “Your mother was a whore. Who knows who truly sired you? Some wild beast?”

Hereward felt a rush of anger. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword.

Asketil advanced, unbowed. “I will do all I can to aid the Normans in ridding this world of you.”

“Even after Beric’s death?”

“Because of his death! In the memory of my good son, betrayed by you. If I still had my sword, I would drive it through your heart and make this world a better place. God would forgive me.” Asketil struck the warrior across the cheek with all his strength. Hereward let his hand fall from his sword and turned his face toward his father again. The thegn struck once more.

Hereward swallowed, searching his father’s hate-filled gaze. He could see now that whatever he had hoped for from their meeting would never be. The past could not be laid to rest. The pain could never go away. They both were what they were, and they would always be that way. For a moment he bowed his head, and then he walked to the door.

“Run,” Asketil called after him, “as you always have. You show your cowardly nature in everything you do. Run, for I go to the Normans now and I will stand beside them as they hunt you down.”

When the warrior stepped out into the cold night, he saw a shadow waiting along the track. It was the monk. “What did you hear?” he snarled.

“N … nothing,” Alric stuttered.

Hereward felt sure his companion was lying. But a turmoil whirled inside him and he thrust the monk to one side and ran away from his father, away from his past, knowing he could escape neither.