Knights of the Hawk

Twenty

We sat in near-darkness on one of the benches that ran along the long sides of the hall, while Magnus crouched by the dwindling flames of the peat fire, his tufted woollen cloak drawn close about his shoulders. The air was suffused with the smell of damp thatch and rotting timbers. Instead of rushes as we tended to use in England, I noticed the floor was covered with a loose scattering of woodchips and moss, which clearly hadn’t been replaced in some time, if the mouse-droppings everywhere were anything to judge by.

‘His fortress is far to the north of here, among what are known as the Suthreyjar,’ Magnus said, satisfied now that we hadn’t come to taunt him, and having accepted my offer of silver.

‘The Suthreyjar?’ I asked.

‘The islands that lie off the coast of northern Britain,’ Snorri offered by way of explanation. ‘They used to be under the control of the jarls of Orkaneya and the kings of Mann, but now they are havens for pirates, the dominions of petty warlords. Those are dangerous seas that surround them, and yet that’s the way one must travel to reach Ysland and the frozen lands beyond.’

‘Haakon is one of those pirates,’ Magnus said, and there was spite in his voice. ‘And one of the more powerful among them, too. He likes to call himself a jarl, but no king ever bestowed that title upon him. He makes his living in the spring and autumn by preying on the trading ships that sail the waters close to his island fastness, and in summer by raiding along the shores of Britain, sometimes selling his services to noble lords and kings in return for rich reward.’

‘How did you come by this knowledge?’ I asked.

Magnus was silent for a moment. In his eye, though he tried to hide it by turning away, I spied a glimmer of a tear. ‘I know’, he said, speaking quietly now, ‘because, to our misfortune, my brothers and I tried to purchase his services for a campaign of our own.’

‘You did?’ Snorri said with some surprise. ‘You, a warrior?’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘He made off in the night with all the booty we had captured on our raid, leaving myself and my brothers unable to pay our men for their service.’ He took a deep breath. ‘A fight broke out. My eldest brother was killed, the other gravely wounded. He did not die straightaway, but fell into a fever and left this world three days later. I alone managed to escape with my life, together with a few of my oath-sworn followers, as well as some who had served my brothers.’

‘You never told me this,’ Snorri said.

‘And why should I have done? This was three summers ago, before I even knew you.’ Magnus turned back to me. ‘So, you see, he took something from me as well. Something more valuable than gold or silver or weapons. He took the lives of my brothers. It’s because of him that they’re now dead, and I find myself reduced to this.’

A moving story, to be sure, although he was not alone in having such a tale to tell. In a similar way Eadgar had taken from me my lord and all my loyal brothers in arms on that night at Dunholm. What I wanted to know was the one thing Magnus had not yet told me.

‘Where is Haakon’s fortress?’ I asked.

‘I do not know the name of the island, although I know how to find the fjord in which it lies.’

‘You’ve been there before?’

‘Once,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen his stronghold on its crag by the sea. Jarnborg, he calls it.’

‘The iron fortress,’ Snorri murmured.

Magnus nodded. ‘It might as well be made of iron, for all the success that men have had trying to capture it. It’s all but unassailable, protected on three sides by high cliffs rising from the water, and approachable only by a narrow neck of land, but it’s so steep and uneven that you could never lead an army up it.’

‘Could you take me there?’ I asked.

‘Take you there? Why?’

‘To claim back what’s rightfully mine.’

‘With this army?’ he asked, nodding at the various members of my retinue. ‘Four men, yourself included, and one girl?’

‘And as many others as I can hire.’

He snorted derisively. ‘Hosts numbering in the hundreds have marched against Jarnborg and failed to take it. What makes you think you can do it with five?’

‘It needn’t come to an assault, if Haakon is willing to deal with me.’

Magnus shot me a look as if to suggest that was unlikely, and in truth I didn’t really believe it either. For what could I possibly offer that he would accept in return for Oswynn?

‘Haakon doesn’t give up anything willingly,’ Magnus said. ‘I’ve met him, so believe me when I say this. Whatever he has of yours, you won’t get it back without a fight.’

‘Then join me,’ I said, more confidently than I had any right to, given that I knew little of this fortress Magnus had spoken of, in particular the condition of its defences, or the number of spears that guarded its gates and walls. But I was desperately in need of allies, and it seemed to me that fate had led me to this man. ‘You mentioned you still have followers who remain loyal to you. I could use their swords.’

‘You’re asking me to risk my neck on such an expedition?’

‘Why not?’

‘Many reasons,’ he muttered. ‘Not least of which is that I don’t know you, Fleming.’

‘I’ll admit to having little knowledge of war, but even I know that this is not the season to go campaigning,’ Snorri put in. ‘Assuming that you could gather the men and the ships for such a voyage, all Haakon has to do is withdraw inside this fastness of his, where, if he’s sensible, he’ll have provisions to last until spring. Do you really plan on besieging him for the next half a year, battered by the winter winds, bedding down night after night on frozen ground?’

I glared at him. The old Dane wasn’t helping. ‘Think instead what you stand to gain,’ I told Magnus.

‘And what might that be?’

‘Vengeance,’ I said, hoping to appeal to his baser instincts. ‘Honour. Make him pay the blood-price for your brothers’ deaths. If he’s as powerful as you say he is, he must have wealth stored away in a hoard somewhere, too. All that can be yours.’

‘Don’t you think that if I considered this possible, and had the means for it, I would have tried already — without your help?’

‘Perhaps. But there are ways of achieving victory without resorting to siege or a direct assault.’

Not many came to mind, admittedly. I was thinking, I supposed, of how we had slipped inside Eoferwic to open the gates to King Guillaume’s army two years ago, of how we had distracted the enemy by burning the ships at Beferlic last autumn, of how we had negotiated with Morcar to bring about the downfall of the rebels at Elyg. On each of those occasions it was not sheer weight of numbers that had won us the battle, but cunning and not a little daring. I had done it before. I could do it again.

Magnus sat, chewing upon his lip, slightly and almost imperceptibly shaking his head.

‘Assuming that you were to join me,’ I said, ‘how many men could you marshal, do you think?’

‘Twenty, perhaps thirty, given time and depending on who is willing. I have my own ship, too, although she leaks and is in need of some repair.’

That was a not inconsiderable host for one man to command. I had been expecting him to say five, or a dozen, perhaps, not more than that. Excitement stirred within me, as I had a sense suddenly of what was possible.

‘How many is Haakon likely to have?’

Magnus shrugged. ‘Assuming that he’s expecting a quiet winter warming himself by his hearth-fire, not many. A full ship’s complement of fighting men, at least.’

Around fifty, then, at a guess. They would be his household retainers, his hearth-troops, his best and strongest warriors: his huskarlar, to use the Danish word, which I only knew because it was essentially the same as the English huscarlas. Perhaps twice the number that Magnus and I could muster between us, then, although of course as the defenders they would hold a distinct advantage over us. Still, those were far from insurmountable odds.

‘There’s one thing of which you haven’t yet spoken,’ Magnus said. ‘You’ve told me what I might gain from this, but what about yourself?’

‘As I’ve told you, all I want is to take back what was stolen from me,’ I said. ‘I’m not interested in Haakon’s hoard, his horses or his ships.’

Magnus sat for a few moments in silence, staring into the hearth while he fingered the pitcher of ale. On his hand, I noticed, lit by the fire-glow, was a gilded signet ring engraved with the emblem of a dragon or some other winged beast, which for some reason seemed strangely familiar. The roof-beams creaked as the wind gusted. Outside in the street, geese were honking, perhaps being driven to the city in time for a market tomorrow.

I turned to Snorri. ‘What about you? Would you join us?’

‘Me?’ he asked. ‘I’m no warrior, nor have I ever been. I’ve no interest in pursuing feuds that aren’t my own, and I’m too old for such adventures in any case. I’d only slow you down. All I want is to get back home and spend Yule in my own house.’

‘I understand,’ I said, disappointed though not surprised. He had already done me a great favour by bringing me here. Another ship would no doubt have proven useful, but then again I supposed that to do this we only really needed one. ‘What do you say, Magnus?’

He hesitated, no doubt weighing up in his mind how much he could trust me.

‘I cannot promise anything,’ he said after a short while, ‘but I’ll send word to my followers in the morning, and see whether they are willing to come with me. If enough of them are eager, then we sail.’

It wasn’t the definite answer I’d been hoping for, nor did I sense much conviction in his tone, but it was something. Of course I would rather have an ally on this expedition, but if the only choice was for myself and my small band to go alone, then that was what we would do. How I thought we could possibly confront Haakon and storm this iron fortress of his, I wasn’t sure. One thing of which I was sure, however, was that we would find a way, as we had always done. We had to.

I bade farewell to Snorri and his crew the next morning. I was surprised they were leaving so soon, but understood there was no sense in delaying while the winds were still favourable, especially given how far he had yet to travel to reach his home, which he told me was in distant Ysland. Hrithdyr’s hold was full, except that the quernstones and casks of wine had now been exchanged for bundles of the shaggy woollen cloaks that seemed to be considered fashionable in these parts.

‘The tufts lend them the appearance of fur, see?’ he said, proudly showing off one that he’d kept for himself. ‘For those who are too poor to afford deerskin or sealskin or ermine pelisses, it’s the next best thing. They’re almost as warm, too. In Ysland, these fetch many a penny. Enough for Snorri to feed himself and his kin through the winter, at least.’

I had to admit it didn’t look much like fur to me, but if that was what folk wanted to wear, who was I to argue?

‘Take care,’ I said. ‘Especially with men like Haakon Thorolfsson roaming the seas.’

‘I’ll take care, don’t you worry about that. Besides, once we’re beyond the Suthreyjar, the only thing we have to fear is the ocean.’

One of his crewmen shouted to him then. He bade me safe travels in turn, then stepped down from the quayside as the wide-bellied vessel cast off from her mooring. I called my thanks, and saw him wave in reply, then I watched from the wharves as Hrithdyr slipped out downriver, towards the sun-glistening sea, until she was out of sight.

It took several days for word to reach Magnus’s followers, scattered as they were across the lands that lay upriver of Dyflin, and another few for word from them to return. In the meantime Magnus showed us to his ship, which was grounded a half-mile downriver from the city, close to where the shipwrights had their slipways and their boathouses, drawn up on to the shore above a beach of mud and shingle and covered with an oilskin sheet. He called her Nihtegesa, which was English for ‘night terror’, the name that his people gave to the fear-dreams that cause a man to wake suddenly, drenched in sweat and with heart pounding. Not that she looked capable of striking dread in anyone’s heart.

‘This is your ship?’ I asked when the tarpaulin was drawn back by Magnus and two of his retainers. I did not know much of ships, but I knew enough to be able to tell when one was seaworthy, and Nihtegesa was clearly not. The topmost strakes on both sides were dry and crumbling, while a few others were cracked and darkened with rot; they would need replacing, as would the rigging. ‘How long since she was last out on the water?’

‘A full year, nearly,’ Magnus said.

‘We’d almost do better to buy ourselves a new ship,’ Serlo muttered, a little unkindly perhaps, though I would be lying if I said that the same thought hadn’t briefly crossed my mind.

‘And you have enough coin for that, do you?’ Magnus ran a hand over her timbers, stroking her gently as if she were a horse, at least where barnacles hadn’t encrusted her timbers. This was the first time I had seen him without a wine-jug either in his hand or close by, and he seemed a little brighter of spirit for it. ‘All she needs is a little care, and she’ll float again. Besides, she used to belong to my father. She’s all I have left of his, and I’ll not sail to war in any other vessel.’

At eighteen benches in length, she was fairly small for a warship, but she was sleek and, to judge by the waterline on her hull, would sit high on the waves. I had not measured her, but she looked to be around seven times from prow to stern what she was in beam, which were generally agreed to be the ideal proportions when building a boat with speed in mind. Assuming that Magnus was right and she could be repaired in good time, she ought to be quick enough to outpace any danger we might happen to run into. I had never fought from the deck of a ship, and had no desire to, if I could help it.

‘He reckons it’ll be a week’s work to patch her up well enough to ride the waves,’ Magnus told me later that day, after he’d had one of the shipwrights who plied their trade nearby examine her. ‘Possibly as much as ten days’, though he couldn’t be sure.’

We would have to be content with that, I supposed, and hope that the winds didn’t change in that time, because if they did then we might be waiting a while longer still. At least Magnus seemed more favourable towards this expedition than he had the other evening. The very fact that he was seeing to the repair of his ship was a sign of that, although I was wrong to assume his opinion of me had changed for the better.

‘I know what you are,’ he told me that night as we shared a pitcher of ale in one of Dyflin’s many taverns. It was late; the others were already abed in the rooms on the up-floor, and so we sat alone at a table in an otherwise all but empty common room.

‘You do?’ I asked, surprised, and not just because of what he’d said, but because he had said it in the French tongue.

‘I know you’re no Fleming, and that your name isn’t Goscelin.’

‘Snorri told you, did he?’ I ought to have known better than to trust the Dane, for all he had helped me.

There was fire in the young man’s eyes. ‘You’re one of them. One of the Devil-fiends who stole our kingdom from us, who ravaged our land with fire and sword.’

I would be lying if I said that his words didn’t sting. But after all these years I was well used to hearing such things from his kind. I wasn’t going to waste my breath trying to explain to him that England was King Guillaume’s by right, as the Pope had confirmed by giving his blessing to our invasion. Of course that did not by any means excuse the violence he had visited last winter upon the Northumbrians when he had scoured their lands. But whether I agreed with his actions or not, the fact remained that he was the lawfully crowned king.

‘If you’re so sure,’ I asked instead, ‘then why are we still talking? Why don’t you kill me now and be done with it?’

‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

I rose from my stool and nodded in the direction of the door. ‘I’ll fight you right now, if that’s what you want, but not here.’

Out of the corner of my eye I’d spotted the tavern-keeper, a slight, grubby man with hair that was a tangle of red curls, glance in our direction. He sensed trouble and wanted no part of it. Better, if we were to do this, for it to be out in the street.

‘Sit back down,’ Magnus growled. ‘If I had even the slightest chance of besting you, I might be tempted to try my luck. But I’m not as foolish as all that. I’ve grown up in the company of warriors. I know a swordsman when I see one.’

I remained standing. ‘What, then?’ I demanded. I probably shouldn’t have been provoking him, in case he changed his mind and decided he did want a fight after all. Because of one killing I had already been forced to leave England; I didn’t want to have to flee this place because of another. ‘If you’re not looking for a brawl, what do you want with me?’

Magnus rose so that we faced each other, eye to eye. ‘Do you know what you and your bastard duke took from us?’

‘Tell me,’ I said, even though I suspected he was about to do so anyway.

‘Because of you,’ he said, almost spitting, ‘I find myself an outlaw, a wanderer, treading the paths of exile, in flight from my own country, my halls and my home. And now you dare to ask for my help?’

‘I have no quarrel with you,’ I said. ‘We have an enemy in common, and, so far as I am concerned, that makes us friends.’

He didn’t seem to be listening. ‘For years we fought against your kind, and what good has it done us?’

I wasn’t sure if he expected me to answer that or not, and so kept quiet.

‘All that struggle,’ he went on, ‘all that hardship, and all for nothing. Even if I did manage to kill you, what would it change? It wouldn’t help us regain what is rightfully ours. The taking of one Norman life would not undo the slaughter your countrymen have wrought.’

I disliked his tone, but his reasoning at least showed he had a wise head upon those shoulders. Wiser, indeed, than those of many older and, one would have hoped, clearer-thinking Englishmen I had encountered in these last few years.

‘Did you fight for Eadgar Ætheling?’ I asked.

Magnus’s cheeks flushed red, not with ale but with anger. ‘That pretender? What makes you think I would ever march under his banner?’

‘Then who? Wild Eadric, was it?’

‘Eadric?’ he echoed, frowning. ‘Are you trying to insult me?’

‘You tell me, then. King Sweyn? Morcar?’

‘Enough,’ he said, cutting me off. ‘I didn’t fight for any of them. I fought for myself, for my brothers, and for my family.’ He stopped then, frustration writ upon his brow and in the set of his teeth. ‘You still don’t have the slightest notion who I am, do you?’

My patience, too, was running thin. ‘Should I?’

He sat back down upon his stool and buried his head in his hands. An anguished groan escaped his lips that spoke at one and the same time of grief and fury, loss and pain. His shoulders trembled as he spoke.

‘I am Magnus,’ he said, so quietly that I could barely hear him, ‘son of Harold.’

It took me a moment to comprehend what he was saying, a moment that stretched into an eternity as, dumbfounded, I stared at him.

‘Harold?’ I asked. Only one man by that name came immediately to mind, but surely it couldn’t be true. ‘You mean the-?’

The oath-breaker and usurper, was what I’d been about to say, but stopped myself in time. Even I was not so stupid as to deliver such an insult to the man’s own son, even if both charges were true.

‘Harold Godwineson, by God’s grace king of the English people,’ Magnus said, his voice rising. ‘I am his eldest surviving son, and the heir to his realm. The realm that your bastard duke, Guillaume, stole from us!’

He was almost in tears as he said this last. That was when I remembered where I had seen the design on his signet ring, so long ago that it could have been another life entirely, and yet it was not that long ago at all. That same dragon mark, or rather its reverse, I had seen imprinted in red sealing wax on a letter written by Magnus’s mother, Eadgyth, who had taken holy orders after the death of her husband, and retreated to an abbey in Wessex.

‘By rights you should call me king,’ Magnus said. ‘By rights Eadgar and all those who flock to his banner should be swearing themselves to my service and bending their knees before me. By rights England belongs to me, and yet here I am, king of nothing. Nothing!’

How many men had falsely laid claim to England’s crown in recent times? First there had been the oath-breaker Harold and his namesake, the King of Norway, and then, after each had perished to the sword, there had been young Eadgar. There was talk, as well, that Sweyn, the Danish king who last year led his raiding-fleet to Northumbria in support of the ætheling, had secretly been plotting to turn on his English ally and seize the kingdom for himself.

And now Magnus added himself to their number. Five false claimants in as many years, and those were just the ones of whom I’d heard. But where was his retinue? What host did he command?

The tavern-keeper was glancing nervously towards the door, I noticed, probably contemplating whether or not to go and fetch help. His look of confusion suggested he wasn’t familiar with the French tongue, and no doubt that ignorance was only adding to his alarm. It was as well that there was no one else in the alehouse at this hour to hear Magnus’s ravings, or surely our arguing would have spilt over into a brawl by now, and then the tavern-keeper would indeed have reason to be worried.

But the storm had passed. Magnus was weeping now, his hands covering his eyes and hiding his tears. ‘“Hu seo thrag gewat,”’ he said between sobs, ‘“genap under nihthelm, swa heo no wære.”’

How that time has faded away, dark under night’s curtain, as if it had never been. I recognised the phrase from an old poem, one of many that Ædda, who was almost as fond of words and verses as he was of the horses in his care, had once recited to me. But I didn’t know what to say to it, and so for a long time we sat in silence.

Magnus Haroldson. Hard to believe that the usurper’s own flesh and blood was sitting here before me. I recalled having heard in passing about the raids that he and his two elder brothers had launched upon the coast of Wessex, whilst we were occupied fighting the king’s wars in Northumbria last summer. Nothing much had come of those raids, and they had been repelled with little difficulty and with great injury inflicted upon the invaders’ small band. Indeed, on one of those occasions the brothers’ own countrymen, the folk who lived in those parts, had stood against them and helped drive them out. If the object of those expeditions had been to reclaim the crown that their father had for a brief few months worn, then they served as an example of the low regard in which the English folk held the house of Godwine. Little wonder, then, that such bitterness lingered.

Eventually, I signalled to the tavern-keeper to bring us another jug of ale, which after a moment’s hesitation he did. It was thin and a little too bitter for my taste, but it was better than nothing.

‘Not so long ago I happened to cross paths with your mother, Eadgyth,’ I said, remembering that visit we had paid to the nunnery in Wessex a couple of years before.

To have any chance of confronting Haakon and claiming Oswynn back, I needed Magnus as an ally, and for us to set our differences aside, yet at this moment I was close to losing him. Somehow, I had to try to win back his confidence.

‘My mother?’ he asked, eyeing me suspiciously. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I met her, and spoke with her, too.’

‘Spoke with her where? Does she still live at the abbey at Wiltune?’

So he knew of her whereabouts. ‘This was a couple of years ago, but yes. She is safe there, and seemed in good health, too, though she grieves for your father, and greatly misses her sons.’

‘She told you that?’

I nodded. That last part I had made up, although Magnus would never guess that. Fresh tears ran down his cheek.

‘I have not seen her in more than five years,’ he said. ‘Not since she and my father left Lundene to face your duke in battle. He forbade me and my brothers from going with him, said we were too young, though I was already fifteen winters old then and they were older still. I would rather have suffered death in the shield-wall than endured the pain of exile.’

There was silence for a while. A cold draught gusted in as the door opened and two red-haired men with thick arms and broad shoulders entered. I guessed they were brothers for they shared the same wide brows and prominent ears. They caught me staring at them and I turned away. I had no wish to cause trouble here tonight.

I looked Magnus in the eye. ‘You will not win back your father’s kingdom,’ I said, as gently as I could, in a low voice so that the Irishmen wouldn’t hear.

He shook his head, but it could not be denied. These were words he needed to hear.

‘You can’t,’ I went on. ‘Not now. That battle is over. England belongs to King Guillaume. But you can win back your honour and your pride. And I will help you do it.’

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why would you help me?’

‘Because Guillaume is my king no longer,’ I said. ‘Like you, I’m an outlaw, an exile, lordless and landless. All I have left are oaths, and the loyalty of those with me. I’ve spent long enough fighting wars on the behalf of others, risking my life for precious little reward. But no more.’

‘How do I know I can trust you?’

‘Isn’t it enough that we share an enemy?’

‘If we’re to fight alongside one another, I want to know who’s guarding my flank.’

That was only fair, I thought. He had been honest with me regarding who he was, and now I would be honest with him in return.

‘Snorri was right,’ I admitted. ‘My name isn’t Goscelin. I’m no Fleming, nor am I a simple traveller.’

‘Then who-?’

‘Listen and I’ll tell you. My name is Tancred.’ I paused for a moment to see if that meant anything to him, but it looked as though I was to be disappointed. ‘I’m the man who won the gates at Eoferwic, who fought Eadgar on the bridge and almost killed him. I’m the one who gave him his scar. I was the one who led the attack upon Beferlic, who fired the ships and helped destroy his storehouses. If it weren’t for me, the ætheling you hate so much would be master of England by now.’

He had fallen quiet by then, his lips pursed, and I took that as a sign that my words had had their desired effect. I’d been relying on the supposition that even if news of the rebellion on the Isle hadn’t yet reached his ears, he’d at least have heard the tales of how Eadgar and his allies were routed in those great battles. And it seemed I was right.

‘If there’s anyone who can help you do this, it’s me,’ I said. ‘That’s why you should trust me.’