Gemini Thunder (24 page)

In short, he looked after the king’s money.

Before Hywel’s father had succeeded as king, he appointed a permanent guardian for his son, knowing that as part of the royal family of Wessex his life would be constantly under threat. This guardian was a strong, fearless, and silent man called Classen, and from an early age he had watched over the young Hywel as he grew into manhood. Only five years older than Hywel, Classen’s strength and fearless attitude were inherited from his father, who had been Aethelred’s personal bodyguard and had died alongside his king at the battle of Ashdown.

Classen’s silence was due to a birth defect.

He was a deaf mute.

Wherever Hywel went, Classen would follow. They became inseparable and could communicate perfectly with just a look and minimum sign language. Thus, when Hywel was appointed as a trainee to Alfred’s court, Classen came, too.

This saved Hywel a great deal of sweat and toil because during this campaign they carried Alfred’s treasury with them in a number of very heavy leather saddlebags.

Which one of them never left.

The money was in the form of gold pieces specifically struck by Alfred before the invaders arrived in order to ensure he could pay for whatever services he required. Each coin bore the crowned head of Alfred on one side and an elaborate cross on the other.

On the strictest terms the king was the only person allowed access to the hoard, with Hywel keeping a tally of every gold piece taken and its destination.

There were many strong rumours that there was an even bigger cache of gold coins kept as a back-up and hidden near the old Wessex palace in Wantage where Alfred was born, but no one knew for sure except, possibly, Hywel and Classen.

And nothing, not even the most brutal Viking torture, would ever get them to reveal its whereabouts—if it existed. Like all those closely associated with Alfred, their loyalty was beyond question, even for the vast sums of gold carried in those saddlebags.

In Winchester they both slept on the saddlebags and carried them through the tunnels on their backs, with Classen carrying twice as much due to his great strength. They were never more than two steps behind Alfred and Elswith through the tunnels, and leaving Chippingham was the same. Their hoof beats were never more than a few seconds behind the king’s as they made for the Summerland Levels, the saddlebags secured on their horses. When they arrived at the hovel on Swifty’s Island, the bags were once more sat on, slept on, lived on by Hywel and Classen, and the only time one of them was opened was when Alfred paid Ike Penbarrow for his services. Now the two of them took up residence with the saddlebags in Tintagel Castle.

These gold coins were everything to Alfred, and the only way he could retain his existing army and pay for food, horses, new recruits, or mercenaries. With the Viking forcing him to the west, he had no access to other funds or the process to make more. Some noblemen and local ealdormen would perhaps help, but raising and maintaining a full fighting army took a great deal of money. If those saddlebags were lost or stolen, Alfred’s brief reign would be history, his remaining days precarious.

And the biggest band of merciless, daring, renegade killers-for hire and mercenaries in the land, under the cunning command of the master thief Jack Cat, were on their way to join him.

True to his word to King Alfred’s emissary, itself a rare event, Jack Cat and his merry band of fight-hungry renegades left the Offa’s Dyke region of Mercia the following morning to ride to Tintagel Castle. On the way they would pass quite close to Combe Castle.

It was an opportunity the renegade bunch couldn’t ignore.

As he cantered along at the head of his men, Jack motioned Patch to him. ‘Since we’re in the pay of the Wessex king, why don’t we have a look at these vaunted Viking as we pass by and see what they’re made of, eh? Earn a few gold pieces now?’

‘Careful,’ said Patch. ‘There’s five thousand of ‘em. That’s big odds even by our standards.’

Jack chuckled and eased the reins of his horse until Arrow and Baby Giant drew alongside. They were in agreement. He dropped further back until the madman Bullwhip caught up. He, too, liked the idea.

Within a day’s ride of Combe Castle, they began to meet a steady stream of frightened people who had left their settlements and hamlets in the vicinity of Combe Castle. Many of them had fled with nothing as the screaming Viking attacks had suddenly poured down onto their homes. The horrendous stories of the brutality grew ever more lurid, and with each telling, the band of misfits licked their lips in an increasing desire to engage the raiders.

Such is the mind-set of the mad mercenary.

The Vikings, however, had changed their tactics. Instead of wholesale slaughter they now only killed the old, infirm, and babies. The able-bodied and young men and women were being captured to ship back to the lowlands to be sold into the slave, or as it was known by the Viking, the
trell
trade.

A half a day’s ride from Combe Castle, Jack called a halt on the northern fringes of the mighty Savernake Forest. Unknown to them, they were immediately picked up by the watching pica. The Wessex veneficus would soon know about them. Making camp, Jack Cat placed sentries, then sent two men on to scout the ground. In the early hours of the following morning, the scouts returned.

Although the Viking were evenly spread around the grounds leading to Combe Castle, there were opportunities aplenty for booty. The invaders had done their work for them in gathering all their spoils in great piles outside their tents and corralling hundreds of horses stolen from everywhere within raiding distance. They had also built pens for holding those Celts they intended to ship back as slave barter.

‘If Alfred is mustering an army way down at the tip of the country, the one thing he will require is plenty of horseflesh,’ the canny renegade leader mused to his men. ‘I reckon there’s much gold in providing him with horses, eh, Patch?’

Patch nodded and then spat; his one eye glittered maliciously.

‘They can’t all march back up the country, take too long. Besides, they’ll need horseflesh for carrying stores and pulling carts.’

‘The scouts also said them Viking were drunk on the local mead.’ Jack stroked his stubble reflectively. ‘I’ve had some of that stuff myself. Couldn’t fight a rabbit after a night on that poison.’

‘The last thing they’ll be expecting is someone to attack ‘em or try to steal their horses,’ rumbled Baby Giant, tears beginning to course down his cheeks at the thought of it.

‘What are we going to do with the horses?’ Arrow asked, looking along one of his deadly shafts to check its alignment.

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Jack Cat. ‘And I’ve come up with an idea. Not knowing the area, I can’t say it’ll work for certain without looking around.’ He winked conspiratorially. ‘But if it don’t, it’s only death. Nothing we haven’t encountered before, eh, comrades?’

Bell alighted on Twilight’s shoulder and chirped in his ear. He was sitting in the feasting hall of Tintagel Castle with Alfred, de Gaini, and Baron de Lyones. In the background out of earshot, Hywel and Classen dozed on their saddlebags.

‘A message?’ Alfred was getting used to Twilight’s pica lookout system.

‘Yes and an interesting one. There is a large party, two hundred or so, of what I can only guess are mercenaries heading this way.’

‘Good,’ said Alfred, rubbing his hands. ‘This is just what we want. Our army has increased to over three thousand now with more coming in every day.’

‘I only wish they were all soldiers,’ said de Gaini. ‘Since we sent out the message of Viking non-appeasement to all the monasteries and religious orders in Wessex, we have also been inundated with monks and priests of every description. News of the treatment of the Druids at the abbey of the Order of Lacock has spread fast due to our emissaries, and they are deserting their monasteries and churches in droves. This is the only place they can find safety from the Viking. When faced with a howling berserker with a double-handled axe in his hand, as we found out at Winchester, a devotional supplication isn’t very effective. Of the three thousand men here, my liege, at least four hundred are priests of one kind or another.’

‘Are they in the way, Edward?’

‘They are. And apart from distracting the soldiers with their individual version of hell on earth and trying to convert them, each one eats enough food for four men. Some of them even start their chanting at three o’clock in the morning. The sentries have complained because they can’t hear if anyone is approaching, and none of us can get a good night’s sleep.’

‘What is to be done with them?’ Alfred looked at each one of them in turn. His gaze stopped at Twilight. The astounder shrugged.

‘We could try to put them somewhere, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Somewhere safe from the Viking yet out of our way here.’

‘Any suggestions?’ Again from the king.

Twilight chuckled. ‘You’re asking me to suggest somewhere. You all know that I’m not exactly full of humility when it comes to the devotions of these priests. I am the sworn enemy of all such people. Perhaps one of those uninhabited islands where the gannets and terns cover everything with guano. A dousing in that would do most of them good.’

Everyone laughed.

‘Ireland?’ suggested de Gaini.

‘The few fishing boats around here capable of such a journey have been laid up for the winter,’ replied the Baron de Lyones. ‘Even then it would require a vast fleet to carry that lot. Because of all the food they eat, each one is twice or even three times the size of an ordinary man. They’d need a boat each.’

More laughter. Alfred wiped a tear from his eye.

‘I really shouldn’t be laughing against the church,’ he said. ‘I am the titular head of the Holy Christian church in Wessex. In effect I’m laughing at myself, although to be truthful, in these difficult times it’s good to just laugh.’

‘We can stop them chanting so early in the morning, tell them to leave the soldiers alone, and even try to limit the amount of food they eat. Other than that we have to look after them,’ said de Gaini.

‘There is something else they can do,’ said Twilight. ‘Something useful.’

They looked at him, unsure if another joke at the expense of the priests was about to come.

‘If you give a man a fish or a loaf of bread, you will feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish or grow barley, you will feed him for the rest of his life.’

They digested this for a moment.

‘So we teach them to fish and grow barley?’ replied Alfred.

‘Precisely,’ answered the astounder. ‘There are plenty of uncultivated meadows around here for the barley and enough fishermen to show them how to hold and cast a hand-line. This will provide the castle with more much-needed food. It will also keep them out of the way of the soldiers.’

‘And they can pray and chant as they go,’ mused de Gaini.

‘Interesting,’ said the king. ‘Is there a monk or priest who is a natural leader, someone they will respond to as their spokesman?’

The Baron de Lyones scratched his head.

‘There’s one young man who seems to lead some of them in prayer groups.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Bede,’ replied the baron.

‘Tell Bede he’s their leader and I will hold him responsible for their actions,’ said Alfred decisively. ‘And get every one of them fishing and tilling the soil right away.’

Jack Cat carefully parted the low branches on the edge of a copse of willows. Spread out in front of him in the bright moonlight was a series of open meadows leading up to Combe Castle on a low hill in the distance. In the meadows the evening fires had burned down to gray ashes outside the makeshift shelters and tents housing the slumbering Viking.

Jack pointed to a dozing sentry off to their left and another one to the right. Secure in their tenure, the Viking hadn’t seen fit to place any more.

Patch and Arrow alongside him nodded and slipped away. Minutes later they were both back, wiping blood from their daggers. The sentries had disappeared.

The horse pens were behind the dead sentry on the right, the human pens behind the dead sentry on the left. The penned humans would be a problem if they saw Jack and his men—they would shout to be released and alert the Viking. Jack had no interest in them; there was no reward for releasing them.

Except as a diversion when their getaway was underway.

Jack had split his force into four groups of fifty, and his plan was simple. He estimated that each of the ten horse pens held about fifty horses.

The first group, led by Bullwhip, would release horses from five of the pens over on the far side, round up about two hundred, and drive them to the north of the estate. The second group, led by Patch, would release horses from the other five pens on the near side and also round up about two hundred and drive them to the west. Fifty men could probably just about control two hundred horses providing they were kept calm and didn’t stampede. That would leave around three hundred horses running wild around the place. At this point the third group, led by Baby Giant, would open the pens holding the Celts kept for slave trading and they would then scatter in all directions, running for their very lives. The wild horses and the freed Celts would provide plenty of distractions for the Viking, who, by now Jack hoped, would be charging around everywhere in the confusion.