Hereward 03 - End of Days (5 page)

‘Close the door,’ Thurstan said.

Once Alric had heaved the creaking door shut, narrow beams of sunlight spiked through the gloom here and there from the unpatched holes in the barn’s roof. The abbot strode to the far end and kicked aside the dry straw that covered the floor in that area. Most of the ground was packed earth, but Alric glimpsed a wooden trap. With a length of hemp rope, Thurstan pulled up the hatch. He lowered himself into the hole that had been revealed.

Following, Alric found himself in a dank chamber cut out of the earth. When his eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, he gasped. Treasure was heaped against the far wall. Gold plate, silver chalices, books and reliquaries encrusted with jewels. He snatched up a familiar gold bowl and turned it over in his hands. ‘This is from the church in Ely.’ His voice was dulled in the enclosed space.

Thurstan took a gold plate and a goblet from the sack he had
carried from his pony and laid them carefully on the pile. ‘All of it, now.’

‘But when …’

‘One or two pieces at a time, brought out of Ely hidden in sacks or tucked inside Jaruman’s tunic when he came to us in the guise of a merchant.’

‘Why, it must have taken weeks,’ Alric marvelled. ‘And yet not a word was said.’

‘Our brothers think it hidden for safe keeping under the church. Only a handful know the truth.’

Alric looked over the riches. ‘Father, I fail to understand. Surely this gold and silver is safer in Ely than here. This ceorl …’

‘Jaruman fears God’s judgement more than he desires any earthly reward. I have known him since he was a boy, and he would die rather than betray this trust placed in him.’

Alric replaced the bowl. His thoughts raced. ‘You fear Ely will fall. You have hidden the church’s gold here to prevent it tumbling into the king’s hands.’

Thurstan nodded, caring little for the note of judgement he heard in the other man’s voice. ‘My duty is to God, and the church we have built, above all else. I must prepare for what may never come to pass, or risk failing the Lord. You know full well what the king thinks of the English church. He takes our gold for his own coffers. He steals our land. He replaces good English abbots with his own loyal Norman priests. William the Bastard would like nothing more than to sack Ely, and to smite us low for the aid we have given to the last of the English. But should he ever set foot within Ely’s walls, he will find little joy.’

‘Why have you brought me here?’

Thurstan hesitated before putting on a smile and taking the younger man’s arm. ‘I sit among Hereward’s men when plans are made and I hear all. But there will come a time, in days darker than now, when news may be thin on the ground. I know, whatever your friendship with Hereward, your
allegiance is to God above all. You are in my trust here. I would be in yours, if there is benefit to the church.’

‘You would have me betray the trust of men I call friends?’

‘I would have you be true to God, and your vows.’ Thurstan peered at him, stern and unflinching.

Alric took a deep breath. How could he fault the abbot? With Hereward missing, surely it was only good sense to prepare for the worst. ‘I will do what I can.’

The abbot smiled. ‘Good. Then we are in agreement.’

They climbed out of the loamy atmosphere and stepped out of the barn. Jaruman waited, his hands clasped in front of him.

‘You must not take the same road home,’ he said in a voice so low it was almost lost beneath the clucking of the hens. ‘My brother has come with news – he waits by my hearth now. This morning the Normans rode out of Grentabrige in force. They are everywhere, like flies on a dead dog. All who travel towards Ely are being stopped and turned back, or worse.’

Alric eyed Thurstan. They did not need to speak to share their concerns. It was not yet winter, but the wolves were drawing closer. What had prompted this new approach?

‘There is another way,’ Jaruman said. He gave directions to a secret track that only the ceorls of Angerhale knew. It would take them east, out of their way by several miles, but then they could take another hidden track that would lead them north to Ely. Alric prayed it would help them avoid the Normans.

They climbed back on to their ponies and set off across the fields. Alric’s stomach was growling by the time they reached the woods. From his sack he pulled a knob of bread to gnaw on as he rode. His mood grew darker with each passing hour.

The sun had passed its highest point by the time they neared a village. He frowned. No sound of mallets or axes. No children at play. No voices of women gossiping with their neighbours. Puzzled, Alric took in the empty fields and the half-cut tree near the firewood pile. He chewed a nail in thought. The atmosphere felt strained, haunted. The abbot felt
it too, for he raised himself up on his mount, his shoulders tense.

‘Should we pass this village by?’ Alric asked.

Barely had the words left his lips before figures began to stagger from the cluster of homes. All of them were women, he saw. They stood beside their doors, staring at the two clerics on their ponies as if they could not believe their eyes. A few children ventured out into the light, but hovered near their mothers as if they were afraid to stand on their own. No men, anywhere. Then, as one, the women picked up their skirts and scrambled towards them through the long grass. Unsettled by the sight, Alric and Thurstan brought their horses to a halt.

As the women neared, Alric saw their faces were drawn and their cheeks flushed. And as they gathered around the two men, he recognized eyes red from hard tears. Despair, that was what he sensed in all of them.

‘Help us,’ one of the woman pleaded, ‘oh, help us,’ and that seemed to release a deluge. All the women cried out as one, pent-up emotions releasing a torrent of words, all fighting to be heard. Alric could not understand a single thing they were saying. The women reached out to him in desperation and clawed at the abbot’s tunic with trembling fingers, until Thurstan held up his hands.

‘Daughters, hold your tongues!’ he commanded. ‘Let one speak, one only!’

The women fell silent. Then one stepped forward. Alric thought she seemed about his age. She wore no headdress. Her brown hair was pulled back and tied with a ribbon and she was not unattractive, he saw; her eyes were large and dark and filled with emotion. Yet she showed a face that was filled with more defiance than all the other women’s put together.

‘Speak, daughter, if you would,’ Thurstan said. ‘What is your name?’

‘Rowena,’ she replied. Her voice did not waver.

‘What is amiss here?’

‘We are lost,’ one of the other women cried. Rowena gave her a rough shove before turning back to the abbot.

‘The Normans came at dawn. They took our men from their beds and marched them away across the fields.’

‘To their deaths?’ Thurstan asked, too harshly, Alric thought.

‘I … I think not,’ Rowena replied. ‘I have seen the Normans take out their anger on the English before, and they cut off their heads in front of their wives and children, or slit their throats and hang them from a gibbet beside their homes.’ Her voice trembled now, but with anger, not misery, Alric noted. ‘No, our husbands were taken for some other reason,’ she continued, wiping away one hot tear with the back of her hand, ‘but though we pleaded we were not told why, or when or if they would be back.’

Thurstan looked to Alric. There was mystery here.

‘Our village is not the first to suffer,’ Rowena said. ‘Two others have been so afflicted, to my knowledge. More, perhaps.’ She clenched her teeth. ‘We have agreed to go into the fields to carry on the work, and do our own duties too, but there are not enough of us. If our husbands do not return by the time the snows come, we will starve.’

Alric looked around the desperate, tear-stained faces and felt a wave of pity. Stories of the miseries the Normans had inflicted were too many.

‘Would that we could help find your husbands,’ Thurstan replied. ‘When we return to Ely, I will see what aid I can summon for your village. You have my word on that.’

It was thin hope, Alric knew, and he could see the women felt the same. But Rowena’s eyes narrowed. ‘You are from Ely?’

Thurstan hesitated, wondering if he had said too much.

‘You know Hereward?’ she pressed.

Excitement rippled through the throng.

‘They say he kills bears with his bare hands …’ one woman exclaimed.

‘… and giants too. And that he chased the Devil out of Ely and stabbed his arse with a spear …’

‘… and has a sword of fire that brings death to every Norman it touches …’

‘Quiet,’ Rowena ordered, her eyes blazing. ‘You know him?’

‘We do,’ Alric replied.

‘He is the last hope of the English,’ she said. ‘He can find our husbands.’

Thurstan’s eyes flickered towards Alric, and then he put on the kind of smile he would show to a child. ‘Hereward is consumed by work of great import—’

‘This is of great import to us,’ Rowena snapped.

‘Do you think he has time to listen to your pleas?’ Thurstan said, still smiling. ‘Or those of every woman in England? His days are taken with great matters. Battles … plans … this is beneath him.’

Rowena flinched.

‘I know Hereward well,’ Alric interrupted, ‘and no man or woman is beneath him. If he could help, he would. But—’

‘You will not ask him.’ Rowena glared.

‘If only—’

‘Then I will ask him.’ She raised her chin, daring Alric to defy her. Thurstan laughed. The woman did not back down. ‘I will travel with you to Ely and make my plea to Hereward himself.’

‘You will not,’ the abbot said, his humour draining away.

‘I will go to Ely, whether you say so or not. I will travel through the woods, at night if I must. Would you see me killed by robbers? Or have my honour taken by Normans?’ She jabbed a finger at the abbot. ‘If I suffer, it will be upon your souls, know that.’

Thurstan opened his mouth, but could find no words to say. Alric raised his hand to his mouth to stifle the urge to laugh. Here the abbot had met his match.

‘Good,’ Rowena said with a nod. ‘Then it is decided. And I will not return until Hereward has agreed to save us.’

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

THE WETLANDS SHIMMERED
in the fading light. Alric shielded his eyes against the glare as he looked out across the last stretch of their journey. In a smoky haze, Ely sat atop the isle rising out of the deceptively placid waters. The church tower stood dark and proud upon the summit. The woods were a blaze of gold and russet and orange, a chill breeze whispering through the branches. Winter was not far away.

He pulled his cloak tighter as he led his pony along the narrow causeway across the stinking bog. Perched on the horse, Rowena peered towards the settlement, a hopeful smile on her lips. Behind them, Thurstan sat in silence upon his own mount. He had simmered with irritation ever since he had been forced to allow the woman to accompany them on the journey home. Soon, though, they would have hot stew and bread and beer and their own beds.

‘I have heard tell of Hereward’s wife, Turfrida,’ Rowena mused. ‘Some said she was a witch.’ She shrugged. ‘That matters not to me. But all said she had the strength of an oak. A worthy wife for a great man like Hereward. Much can be told about a man by the woman he chooses. It is true that she is dead?’

Alric nodded. ‘Slain by Hereward’s own brother, Redwald.’ He felt disgust burn in his chest at the foul murder. Even the fires of hell were a poor punishment for that wretched dog. Redwald had deceived them all, worming his way into the heart of the rebel camp, and then betraying everyone when he decided to throw his lot in with the Normans. Turfrida was a woman with only good in her heart, but Redwald had cut off her head and no doubt taken it to show off to his new allies. How they must have laughed at his friend Hereward’s misfortune. He ground his teeth.

‘I will say a prayer for him when we reach Ely,’ she said.

Alric felt a pang of guilt. Sooner or later they would have to tell her that Hereward was missing. In her village, she would have thought it another excuse to deter her. He hoped she would forgive him.

Once across the causeway, they made their way up the winding path to Ely’s gates. Only then did Alric feel safe. God had granted them a fortress of lethal bogs and dense woods and foul black water that the Normans could never cross in force. If they had made their stand anywhere else in England, the rebellion would already be crushed and his head would be sitting on a pole alongside Hereward’s and Kraki’s and all the rest. For that, he would give thanks every day and every night.

Once the gates had trundled shut behind them and the guards had set the great oak beam to bar them, Alric frowned at a babble of angry voices drifting across the hillside. A crowd had gathered along the street leading past the dwellings and workshops to the minster on the summit. Among the scowls, the monk glimpsed familiar faces, Ely folk, and others from the Camp of Refuge along the hillside, where all those who had sought sanctuary with Hereward had made their home. Kraki and a few of Hereward’s men were all but encircled.

‘Where is Hereward?’ Rowena asked. ‘I would speak to him now.’

Troubled by the confrontation, Alric guided the woman to
one side and said in a low voice, ‘Go to the church and wait. I will meet you there soon.’

‘I will wait. I have nothing but time.’ She looked across Ely’s thatched roofs, marvelling at the activity in the bustling settlement, so far removed from her own quiet village. She set off, taking a path between the houses to avoid the crowd.

Alric and Thurstan walked to the edge of the gathering. Folk were oblivious of them, their anger focused on Kraki and the warriors.

‘Nothing but grief have we had since you came to Ely,’ someone called.

‘You hide the one with blood on his hands,’ another shouted. ‘Give him up.’

‘Still your tongues,’ Kraki bellowed, shaking his axe.

The crowd quietened. Eyes dipped down in fear of the warrior’s fierce demeanour, but Alric could still see anger and resentment simmering in those faces. What could have happened while he had been away from Ely?