Hereward 03 - End of Days (43 page)

C
HAPTER
S
IXTY
-S
EVEN

THE GREAT OAK
doors loomed up like the gates to hell. On either side, sizzling torches set shadows dancing across the new stone walls of Wincestre’s royal palace. Silence hung over the outer hall as Hereward waited. His head was held high, his cold gaze fixed ahead, so that the guard in his hauberk and helm, with his sharp sword in his hand, could see that he was not afraid.

When the doors ground open, William the Bastard’s adviser, a thin Englishman in a bright orange tunic, stepped out and bowed. Hereward was pleased that the king had not kept him waiting long. That showed respect.

‘King William welcomes you, Hereward of Mercia,’ the adviser said with a faint sibilance, ‘and grants you fair hearing.’ He paused, moistening his lips, his eyes flickering with uncertainty. ‘The king believes you to be a man of honour. Is that so?’

‘I am.’

The adviser nodded, plucking at his plump lips. ‘My lord would see you … alone.’

‘Without the court? No slithering snakes like you hissing in his ear?’

The adviser pouted indignantly. ‘Yes. That is the meaning of alone, is it not?’

Hereward felt puzzled. He had expected at least a degree of humiliation for all the misery he had inflicted upon the Bastard.

‘But I would ask you to leave your sword here,’ the adviser continued, with an insincere smile.

‘In case I am taken by the urge to gut him like a fish?’

The adviser recoiled in horror.

‘I am a man of honour. The king has vowed to see no harm comes to me. I have taken an oath not to harm him.’ Hesitating, the Mercian weighed the request, then shrugged. ‘Very well,’ he said, unfastening his sheath and laying it, and Brainbiter, upon the flagstones beside the door. ‘See that it is there when I return,’ he said, eyeing the guard.

The adviser stepped aside and ushered him into the king’s hall, closing the doors behind him. William stood in front of his throne, his hands folded behind his back. For some reason he could not fathom, Hereward had always imagined the monarch with the face of his father, the younger Asketil who had beaten his wife to death with his bare fists. But here was a man, if anything, even more imposing. Broad of chest and as tall as Hereward, with arms that looked as though they could crush a man, he seemed a great oak beside the adviser’s sapling. As he sized up his guest, Hereward realized the Bastard, too, must have imagined his own vision of his enemy.

‘I expected the Devil,’ William said.

‘As did I.’

Grinning, the king shrugged. ‘Devils are not the leaders of men, but the ones who whisper in their ears, and their faces rarely show their evil.’

‘There are some who say the harrowing of the north could only be the work of a devil.’

William’s face darkened, but only for a moment. ‘Aye, and some say the same of a man who could leave knights’ heads on poles outside his father’s hall, or set alight the fens themselves.’ Lightening, he beckoned. ‘Come. Drink.’ He walked to the
hearth and poured two cups of wine from a pitcher. He handed one to Hereward. ‘You have humbled the Butcher, and William de Warenne, and Turold too. My army is feared throughout the world, and yet you held it at bay—’

‘And almost brought it to its knees. And I would have, if I had not been betrayed by spineless curs.’

He expected the king to flare in anger, but William only nodded. ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps those betrayals were part of the war, weapons used by a clever leader.’ He sipped his wine, watching the Mercian over the rim. ‘Is it always wise to attack from the front with a spear?’

Hereward sipped his own wine. ‘Cunning, then.’

‘A king needs to be cunning. Courage is not enough. Strength is not enough.’ He swept out an arm. ‘Do you think you can hold a country such as England with only axe and spear and sword, and the heart of a lion? Live in Normandy for a while, Mercian, where there is a knife behind every door and poison in every cup …’ Hereward glanced into his own cup and hesitated. William pushed it back to his lips. ‘… then talk to me about cunning. There, it is about living to see a new dawn. Every day.’

‘I see now why you wanted England.’ The Mercian grinned.

‘And now I have it, for ever more. I am king.’

‘You are not my king.’

William the Bastard eyed him for a moment, cold and calculating. Swilling more wine into both cups, he said, again with a calmness that surprised the Mercian, ‘No. I will never be your king.’ He set the pitcher down and prowled around the hall, staring into the shadows as he chose his words. ‘There was a time, not too long ago, when I was ready to offer terms for peace to you and your men. Does that surprise you?’

‘Aye, it does. I would have thought a man who could turn the north into a graveyard would never consider finding common ground.’

‘The ends matter, Mercian, always. Sometimes a fist, sometimes an open hand, whichever works best.’ He walked back to
the warmth of the fire. ‘Those spineless curs you so despise told me that peace would be seen as a sign of weakness. That the English would think me wounded and rise up. What do you think?’

Hereward peered into his wine for a moment. ‘I think they were right.’

‘You would not have found common ground?’

‘Once, perhaps,’ he said, casting his thoughts back to Ely, ‘when I feared there would be no England left after our war.’

William smiled and nodded. ‘The ends, aye. Leaders always look to the ends.’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘I thought my curs were right then. Now, after all I have seen, I am sure. You have found a place in the hearts of the English, Mercian. They speak of you in the west, and the south, aye, and in what is left of the north, did you know that? A king can put a sword through a heart, but he cannot prise out such a thing as that.’

Here was the meat of it, Hereward thought. He rested one foot on the hearth and waited.

‘You are more of a problem for me now than ever you were in Ely.’ The Bastard studied his face as if he were looking deep inside him. ‘If I let you live, the legend will grow, and sooner or later the English will rise up and follow your standard. If I kill you, the legend will grow faster still.’ He tapped his right hand upon his breast. ‘In the hearts of the English, where I can never reach it. I will never be accepted as king, I know that. You will tower over me in their minds, and grow, and grow. In death, you will unite them as I never could, and then a new Hereward will come along. And another. And another. Each one fired by your memory. And I will spend the rest of my days fighting the same battle, over the same patch of land. That is hell for two devils like us, is it not?’

Hereward nodded. ‘Aye, that is a problem, indeed. I cannot live, and I cannot die.’

‘Only a clever man could solve it.’ The king smiled. ‘You
can
live … as long as you do not live in the hearts of the English.’

‘You said you could not prise me out.’

‘I can kill you in another way. The memory of you.’ Growing animated, William paced around the circle of light emanating from the fire. ‘Would they think you hero if they knew you had taken my gold and fled? Abandoned them to my … cruelty?’ He fluttered his fingers in the air.

‘I would not do such a thing.’

‘Not even to save the lives of your men? And the lives of every man and woman in England?’ He eyed Hereward askance. His voice hardened as he continued, ‘I will not battle for England until my dying day. Nor will I give it up. I would rather see it destroyed. I would do to Wessex, and Mercia … everywhere … what I did in the north.’ He pointed a steady finger. ‘The ends, Mercian. The ends. What would you do to prevent such a thing? Or would you rather be the Hereward that was? The one who slaughtered without thought, who would burn the world down rather than admit defeat? Are you that man, Hereward of Mercia, or are you the leader of the English?’

And there it was. The king had him. He turned away, peering deep into the flames.

‘Aye,’ the king said, his voice softening. ‘No man should have to make a choice like that. But we are not any men. We are … kings.’

Hereward glanced at him, but William did not meet his eye. ‘And if I leave …’

‘You will take your men with you. I want no trace of you upon this isle. And within a day my messengers will ride out from Wincestre to every corner of this land to slay your legend. You will be as nothing. The English will spit upon your name in the streets. But your men will live. And no villages will be burned, and no men and women will be put to death, and in time the English will grow to love me. You will be forgotten. And I will live on in their hearts for all time.’

Hereward bowed his head. What choice did he have? ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

‘If a man does not have honour, he has nothing.’ The king
glowered into the fire. ‘I am not a dog like Harold Godwinson, who promised me this crown, and then took it for his own. You will have my word. Safe passage out of England and into exile. And peace here.’

The logs in the fire sighed. Hereward watched the flames dance, as he had watched the inferno in the fens on the night when he thought he had won. The devil inside him whispered to him to keep fighting. But that devil was shackled now. Alric, his friend, had seen to that, and the monk more than any understood sacrifice. ‘Very well,’ he murmured. ‘For the lives of my men, and for the lives of all the English.’

For a long moment there was silence, and when he glanced up, William the Bastard’s hard face had softened. ‘You were a good leader, Hereward of Mercia,’ the king said in a quiet voice. ‘You deserved better than the dogs who ran with you.’

He ushered him to the door and called for his adviser. On the threshold, he turned to Hereward and said, ‘Take your sword, and go from here, and make your plans to leave. I will provide a ship for you in the east. Go where you will. But we will not see each other again.’ Then he walked away without a backward glance, and the doors slammed shut and Hereward was left once more in the silent hall.

Out in the night, he looked up at the full moon. He felt an odd sense of peace, the like of which he had never experienced before. The fighting was done. His story was over. And now there would be an ending.

Deep in thought, he wandered through the palace gates and on to the road that led past the tavern.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTY
-E
IGHT

THE FULL MOON
limned the rooftops of Wincestre. The town was quiet and the air crisp as the monk prowled past dark doorways and shadowed tracks, peering into every one. He felt haunted by a gnawing feeling of dread that something terrible was about to take place.

When discordant voices echoed across the night, he jerked to a halt, listening. A door slammed and the sounds dimmed. He sighed. Only a drunk stumbling out of the tavern. He saw threats everywhere.

Past a pigsty he wandered, the air rumbling with the sound of the beast’s snores. As the stink of swill faded behind him, his nostrils wrinkled at another reek, faint but too familiar after the last nine years.

In a shaft of moonlight, a dark puddle gleamed.

His chest tightened. Fearing the worst, he followed a trail of spatters into the track beside the tavern. When he saw a figure hunched against the wattle wall halfway along the path, he almost cried out. Yet as he hurried forward with a thundering heart, he saw that it was not Hereward.

The wounded man turned and looked at him with a face as innocent as a child’s. When he smiled, Alric felt his blood run cold.

‘Monk,’ Redwald croaked, pushing himself up the wall. ‘It seems I have had a mishap.’ Alric shifted his gaze from the dark patch staining the front of the tunic to the short-bladed knife the other man gripped in his right hand. And then he looked to the far end of the track and the main road to the palace that lay beyond, and he knew all he needed to know.

‘Aid me,’ Redwald called, reaching out a bloody hand. ‘Find me some linen to stem the flow of this blood. I will yet live.’ When Alric remained rigid, he added, ‘Come – you saved my life once, in Ely.’

‘Aye, and damned myself in turn.’ His thoughts flew back to that night when Redwald had been wounded in the hut by the walls, when the local men had challenged Hereward’s rule. If only he had left Redwald there, to watch his life-blood drain out. But he could not have done so in the eyes of God. Instead he had taken him to the leech, and he had been saved, and Turfrida had died, and misery had been heaped on misery, and all of it because he had been true to God. He closed his eyes and muttered a prayer, shaking as if he were sick.

‘Monk,’ Redwald called again. ‘Aid me, I say. You are a man of God. You cannot turn away from this plea. What if I die?’ His face was blank, like a statue, his true emotions unreadable.

‘What if you live?’ Alric whispered. He knew the answer. He could feel the terrible weight of it crushing him down.

‘Then we will praise God. All life is sacred.’ He shook his bloody hand once again, beckoning for help.

Alric shuddered; he had no choice. Keeping one eye on the knife, he stepped forward. He eyed the spreading stain, and the wounded man’s pallor. He was weak from blood loss. ‘You wait here while you slowly die?’ the churchman said with an incredulous shake of his head. ‘How much do you hate him?’

‘Hate?’ Redwald replied with what seemed like honesty. ‘I do not hate him. He is my brother.’ He frowned, realizing he had perhaps given away his intentions.

With a flick of his wrist, the monk slapped the blade from the other man’s grip. It bounced along the track and slid into
the moonlight at the end. The whalebone angel glowed white. The blade was black.

‘No,’ Redwald cried. Jerking his head to look at the knife, he reached out towards it in desperation.

Alric lunged. Grasping the man’s sodden tunic, he flung him on to the filthy ground and sat astride him.

‘Do not do this,’ Redwald groaned. ‘I am not the man you think.’

Hot tears burned the monk’s eyes. He clamped both hands around the other man’s neck and squeezed. He felt sickened that a part of him was pleased that he would not have to hear any more lies.