Knights of the Hawk

Twenty-eight

As impatient as we were, nevertheless we dared not emerge until we could be sure it was safe. Across the yard the war-horns continued to blast out their warning notes, hooves thudded upon turf, men shouted to one another, dogs barked in excitement. But no more axe blows came, and no longer could I hear footsteps outside the hall.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, I climbed across the crude barricade we had thrown up. With Godric’s help I lifted the bar from across the door and tentatively opened it, by only the smallest fraction at first, but enough to be able to see out. I half expected to find at least one of the Danes left guarding the entrance to the hall, but there was no one.

Elsewhere across Jarnborg, all was disorder. Men, some only half-dressed, were scrambling from their tents into the morning light, struggling to their feet, running back and forth, swigging from leather flasks to lend them courage, hurriedly tugging on leather jerkins and mail shirts, belting scabbards upon their waists and snatching up spears and shields and whatever other weapons they could find to hand. Meanwhile their lords were yelling for order, trying to gather their hearth-troops around their banners even as they poured out through the gatehouse: an unruly horde sallying forth with blades drawn and raised to the sky.

And then, striding out from the great stone hall, came Jarl Haakon himself, he of the black-dragon banner. He wore a helmet with a nasal-guard, so his face was partly hidden. Nevertheless I recognised him not just by the greying braid at his nape and the keenness of the eyes that stared out from beneath his helmet’s gilded rim, but also by the rings of twisted gold he wore upon his arms, by his silver-gleaming hauberk, and by the dozen or so huscarls guarding him. His cheeks were red as he barked instructions to those around him, doing his best to ignore the hounds who were racing around him and his men, their tails up, occasionally leaping up to paw at their chests and lick at their faces. They sensed that something was afoot, and they wanted to be a part of it.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Magnus, who was behind me, but I waved him silent.

Haakon’s stable-boys brought him and his retainers their horses. Without hesitation they mounted up and rode out, bellowing at all the others making for the gates to get out of their way. The black dragon was flying to battle, flying to vanquish his foes and drive them from his shores once and for all.

Or so he thought. Hooves thundered as he galloped through the midst of his followers, closely followed by his huscarls, and still I kept my gaze upon them until they had disappeared through the gatehouse arch, with the rest of his army charging on foot in their wake.

‘Come on,’ I said to the others as the last of the enemy filed out from the fortress. Even in the short while that we had been holed up inside this hall, the mist had lifted considerably. The skies had grown lighter, and there was even a small patch of blue through which the sun was breaking. If we were looking for a portent, there could be few better than that.

Throwing the door open, I ran up the wooden steps into the yard, which was strangely quiet now. Only a few stragglers remained: those for whom the previous night’s celebrations had proven too much. Bleary-eyed and pale of face, they staggered about in search of weapons. Some were doubled over, spewing forth long trails of vomit on to the muddy ground. They didn’t notice us; or else, if they did, they didn’t think anything of us. They had more pressing concerns.

‘Where are you going?’ Eanflæd called as she came rushing after us, clutching her skirts to avoid tripping on the steps. ‘What about us? Are you just going to leave us here?’

‘You’ll do best to stay here, where you’re safe,’ I replied. ‘We’re going to find Oswynn.’

‘And then to burn this place to the ground,’ Magnus added grimly.

I tossed the keys to her and she caught them neatly in two hands. ‘Lock yourselves in if you have to, if you feel safer that way, although that door won’t hold much longer,’ I told her. ‘We’ll come back for you, I promise.’

‘Wait,’ she said, just as we were about to set off. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Tancred,’ I replied. ‘And this is Magnus. Haakon wronged us both, and we’re here to take our revenge upon him. But we have to go now, or else everything we’ve done so far will have been in vain.’

She seemed content with that explanation, and she would have to be, for that was all the information I was prepared to give her then. I signalled to the others and we set off across the yard, past the stables, towards Haakon’s hall. Taking care not to make a sound, keeping low so as to be less easily spotted, we moved along the side of that long stone building towards the gable end where the two huscarls had been posted earlier. I led the way, creeping towards the corner of the hall, where some dozen or so empty barrels were stacked. I crouched behind them, peering through the slightest gap, and saw that of the two guards, only one remained, looking more than a little agitated as he glanced around, his long-handled axe in hand. He was probably a few years younger than me, around the same age as Magnus, round-faced and looking uncomfortable in his hauberk.

‘How do we get past him?’ Ælfhelm murmured, startling me, for I hadn’t noticed him beside me.

It was a good question. The entrance to Haakon’s hall lay in full view of most of the rest of the fortress, and I couldn’t see how we could kill him without attracting unwanted attention.

‘I have an idea,’ Magnus said. ‘Wait here.’

Before I could say anything to dissuade him, he was rising to his feet and darting back the way we had come.

‘Magnus,’ I hissed in warning, but he was already too far away to hear me. Rather than heading back towards the building where the bed-slaves were quartered, though, he disappeared instead around the far end of the hall. Silently I cursed him for not telling us what he had in mind, for leaving us here.

That was when I heard what sounded like his voice, calling out in what must have been the Danish tongue from the far side of the hall. Ducking as low as possible so as not to be seen, I watched the entrance to see what the young door-guard would do. Whatever it was Magnus had said, suddenly the Dane was turning towards the source of the noise. Again the Englishman called out, and this time it was enough to draw the guard from his position. He ventured round the corner and out of sight.

This was our chance.

‘Now,’ I said as we scrambled from our hiding place, making for the doors to the hall. I thrust them open, and burst inside, with the two Englishmen behind me, into a long, dark feasting-hall. The wreckage of the previous night’s celebrations lay everywhere: broken pitchers, abandoned ale-cups and drinking horns, rushes stained with the contents of several men’s stomachs, and, suspended on an iron spit over the still-smoking hearth, the almost bare carcass of what had once been a pig, but was now hardly more than bone, with scraps of charred meat hanging from it. A putrid stench of piss and vomit filled the room, causing the bile to rise in my throat, but somehow I managed to hold it down.

Nothing moved, save for the mice scrabbling among the rushes in search of crumbs of food, and a scrawny cat that was licking its lips as it padded the length of the long trestle table that stood on the dais. A pair of torches in sconces mounted on the walls offered the only light. Apart from us the hall was empty. Behind us I heard the door open and I tensed, my hand leaping to my sword-hilt, but it was only Magnus.

‘Is he-?’ I began.

‘Dead,’ he confirmed.

I nodded. ‘Build up that hearth-fire, and do it quickly,’ I called to the three of them as I took one of the torches from the wall and marched towards the dais end of the hall, where I saw a flight of stairs leading up. ‘Anything that you think might burn, throw it on. We don’t have long.’

Haakon’s bedchamber would most likely be on the up-floor. Hurriedly I picked my way through the remains of the feast, over ale-soaked bedrolls and puddles that might have been water but which could well have been piss, then ran up the stairs, shouting: ‘Oswynn!’

No answer came. Reaching the top, I found myself in what must have been Haakon’s bedchamber. The faint light of my torch flickered across the roof-beams and the sloping thatch above. Richly embroidered tapestries in bright hues hung upon the walls to keep out the draughts. A squared tæfl board lay on the floor, the ivory and jet playing-pieces scattered everywhere.

And then, at the far end of the chamber, I saw the bed, and curled up beneath the blankets and the furs, sobbing, a figure I knew only too well, for I would have recognised that black hair anywhere.

‘Oswynn,’ I said. ‘Oswynn!’

There was a stand for the torch at one side of the hall, and I set it down there before rushing over to her.

‘No,’ she said as I approached, shaking her head wildly and retreating further beneath the coverlets, and I wondered if she’d mistaken me for Haakon. ‘No, please.’

‘It’s all right,’ I said as I knelt down at the bedside. ‘It’s me.’

She raised her head from the pillow then and looked at me through red-rimmed eyes, a fearful look upon her face. For long moments all she did was stare at me in shock, as if I were an apparition, but then her expression began to soften as recognition took hold.

‘Tancred,’ she said, sitting up suddenly and blinking as if she couldn’t believe what she saw. ‘You came.’

‘I came,’ I replied, smiling gently.

In truth I could hardly believe it myself as she threw her arms around me and I held her close for the first time in nearly three years, wondering how it could have been so long, feeling her form beneath her rough linen shift, thinner than I remembered, and breathing in the sweet scent of her skin. She began to cry, and that was enough to set me weeping as well. Tears cascaded down my cheeks, and they were tears of relief, tears of love, tears of joy. After all this while, all this searching, hoping, dreaming, we were once more together. I thought of all those bleak hours in recent months when I’d despaired of ever being able to find her again, when the grief and the pain had been almost too much to bear, and I remembered the darkness that had often descended upon me. A darkness that now was banished. For here she was.

‘I didn’t think you would …’ she began, but couldn’t go on as a fit of sobbing overtook her. ‘He told me you’d left,’ she said once it had subsided. ‘He said-’

‘He was wrong,’ I said. ‘Whatever he told you, it was a lie.’

I gazed into her soft, glistening eyes, wondering what she must have seen in the past three years, what she must have endured, though at the same time I did not even want to imagine.

‘Come on,’ I told her. ‘We have to go.’

She wiped a hand across her moist cheeks as she raised herself, somewhat stiffly, I noticed, from the mattress. Haakon had hurt her and for that, I promised myself, I would make him suffer, just as soon as I caught up with him.

‘Go where?’ she asked.

‘Anywhere but here. My friends have ships. They’ll take us to safety, if we can only get out of this place.’

To tell the truth I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to reach them, given that the whole of Haakon’s army lay between us and the bay. As always, getting inside was the easy part. But I knew that somehow we would do it. We had to, for the only alternative was death.

Taking Oswynn’s hand in mine, I led her towards the stairs, lifting a sealskin cloak from where it lay atop a chest and wrapping it around her shoulders, then taking the torch from its stand. Down in the feasting-hall the hearth-fire was crackling and smoking. Godric, Magnus and Ælfhelm had tossed armfuls of the drier rushes on to the smouldering embers, and now bright flames were sparking into life, already causing some of the larger kindling and timbers they had thrown on it to blacken and catch light.

‘Grab that torch,’ I said to Godric, pointing towards the second of the two wall-sconces, and to Magnus and Ælfhelm: ‘Take some of those timbers from the fire.’

They didn’t need telling a second time. This was the moment we had been waiting for. The moment when we would send our message to Haakon, when we would destroy his famed stronghold, and all he held dear.

We carried those firebrands out into the open and then tossed them high up the thatch on both sides of the hall so that it would catch all the quicker. Then, while Godric went to fetch Eanflæd and the other women from the building where we’d left them, Ælfhelm, Magnus, Oswynn and I set about spreading flame to some of the other storehouses, sheds and outbuildings that abutted the palisade.

I knew it wouldn’t be so long before we were spotted. And so it proved. Of the two hundred or so warriors who must have comprised Haakon’s army, only perhaps a score still remained in Jarnborg, and they were clearly the worst afflicted, since many were barely able to stand and even now were continuing to spew the contents of their stomachs all over the yard. No sooner had they seen us, however, and realised what we were doing to their lord’s halls than they raised a cry and began coming at us: a swarm of wild spear-Danes and sword-Danes and axe-Danes in various states of undress, some in only their trews, most without even a shield to protect themselves.

We, however, were armed and ready for a fight, eager to free our sword-arms, our blood already up.

‘Stay back!’ I yelled to Oswynn as the enemy charged. ‘Stay behind us!’

Some tripped over their own feet as they ran, while others could only manage an ungainly stagger, which meant that instead of all attacking together, they came in ragged fashion, in ones and twos. The first of them rushed towards me, yelling wordlessly, aiming a swing at my shoulder. Steel shrieked as I met his weapon with my own, and then I was turning the flat of my blade against the edge of his, forcing it down and out of position, before jerking my elbow up and into his chin. Stunned, he staggered backwards, and instantly he was forgotten as I spun out of the path of the next man’s axe and whirled about his flank. This one was not quick either in wits or on his feet, and before he’d even realised where I had gone, I’d sliced across the back of his thigh, sending him sprawling.

‘No mercy,’ I shouted. ‘No mercy!’

The battle-calm was descending, the sword-joy filling me, and I gave myself over to instinct as I stepped deftly from one opponent to the next, cutting, parrying, thrusting, scything through their midst, as easily as if it were a dance. All about me the blade-song rang out. I was dimly aware, at the far end of the enclosure, of Eithne and a band of the slave-girls, a dozen of them and more. With knives in hand they rushed from one of the buildings. Even as we tore into the enemy from the front, they assailed them from behind, hurling themselves into the fray, setting upon those Danes who had tripped and fallen, plunging steel into their throats, and I was laughing as I saw we were winning, cutting them down on all sides, wreaking a ruin amongst Haakon’s troops, filling the morning with our fury.

The fire was taking hold now, sweeping across the thatch of the feasting-hall and the other buildings. Bright tongues of flame licked at the sky, while thick clouds of black smoke billowed up, wafting across the enclosure, stinging my eyes and making me cough, but I did not care as I released the anger that for so long had been building and let my sword do its work, until suddenly the enemy, the ten or so that remained, were falling to their knees, or else fleeing across the yard.

Behind me I heard Oswynn scream, and my heart all but stopped as I turned, thinking that she had found herself some trouble. They were not screams of alarm or pain, though, but of hatred. In her wide eyes was a fury I’d never before witnessed. Rushing forward, she snatched up the sword of one of the fallen Danes, and then, as he tried to rise, stamped her foot down on to his chest, pinning him to the ground. He gave a yell, but it was short-lived, as Oswynn gripped the hilt in both hands and drove the point down, hard, into his face, all the while shrieking in triumph as tears streamed down her cheeks. Her teeth gritted, she tugged it free, then plunged it into his chest where his heart would be, and again and again and again, until finally I managed to drag her away.

‘He’s dead,’ I said, though still she struggled. ‘Oswynn, he’s dead!’

Eventually I was able to prise the weapon from her grasp. I tossed it aside and she fell into my arms, pressing her face against my shoulder, weeping uncontrollably. By then the fight was all but over, and those few who hadn’t surrendered were being chased down by the slave-girls. In all the years I’d trodden the sword-path I’d never seen anything like it.

‘He was one of Haakon’s friends,’ Oswynn said. ‘Sprott, his name was. Many times he-’

But whatever it was she had been about to say, she couldn’t go on, for fresh tears spilt forth.

‘It’s all right,’ I said, caressing her head. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’

What she had seen and what she had been made to do, I didn’t want to imagine. It was a wonder that anything of her old spirit remained. At least she had not forgotten how to wield a blade. A long time ago I’d gifted her with a knife and spent long afternoons teaching her how to use it, so that she would be able to protect herself if ever she needed. A keen learner, she had picked up the rudiments far quicker than many boys, and I was pleased to see that those skills were as sharp now as they had been then.

‘Lord,’ I heard Godric call, and looked up to see him returning with Eanflæd and the other two women close behind him.

Haakon’s hall was by then nothing but a writhing, twisting tower of flame, a beacon blazing out across the fjord. Around it the many stable buildings and workshops that we had also fired were aflame, and even some that we hadn’t, as the breeze spread glowing ash from one to the next. Smoke swirled all about, growing thicker with every heartbeat. Jarnborg, Haakon’s home, his pride, his so-called iron fortress, was burning.

This was no time to revel in our achievement, however. We had to leave while we still could, before any of his men rushed back to rescue their prized possessions from the blaze.

‘This way,’ I called, waving to Oswynn but also to Godric, Ælfhelm and a grimacing Magnus, who was hobbling, the leather of his shoe covered with blood where he had been wounded. He was clearly struggling, and I knew he would never make it out of Jarnborg alive on his own. But I wasn’t about to leave him. Together we had planned and plotted this victory, and together we had risked all. Together we had fought, and together we would see it through.

‘Go with them,’ I said to Oswynn, meaning Godric and Ælfhelm. I picked up a spear that a dead Dane had no more use for and thrust it into her hands. She could hardly go without a weapon, and that would be better suited to her than a heavy sword. ‘You’ll be safe so long as you stay close to them and don’t leave their sight.’

‘No,’ she said, her eyes beseeching. ‘I want to stay with you.’

‘Don’t argue with me,’ I said. ‘Not now.’

I wiped away the tear rolling down her cheek and kissed her then, kissed her hard, savouring the feel of her lips pressed against mine, and with that I tore myself away from her embrace.

‘Go,’ I said. As she turned, a shiver ran through me, for I remembered only too well what had happened the last time I’d left her to the protection of others. But it would be different this time.

I rushed to Magnus, placing one arm under his shoulder and lending him my own for support, allowing him to take the weight off his injured foot. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ælfhelm hurrying towards us, and I knew that it was the oath binding him to his lord that had made him turn back. At the same time Godric too was hesitating, as if uncertain what to do.

I waved them on. ‘Lead the women away from here,’ I shouted. ‘Get them to safety. Go!’

Fortunately the huscarl soon saw sense. After a moment’s hesitation, he turned, raising his sword and pointing it towards the gatehouse. I was relying on him, as doubtless the most experienced warrior among us, if not necessarily the best swordsman, to keep his head.

The guards at the entrance, seeing how we had possession of the place of slaughter, had already fled, leaving the gates open. All we had to do was reach them. One step at a time, I helped Magnus across the yard, through the mud and the puddles, around the bodies of the slain. The usurper’s son wasn’t heavy, but he wasn’t light either, and I soon felt the strain on my back and shoulders.

‘Thank you, Tancred,’ he said through clenched teeth when we were rounding the pig-pens and halfway to the gatehouse.

‘Don’t thank me until this is over,’ I replied curtly. ‘We haven’t survived this yet.’

Close by the gate, Eithne was marshalling the slaves, yelling at them to follow Godric and Ælfhelm and Oswynn. As well as women and girls, there were a few men and boys, I saw now, all recognisable by their short-shaven hair and all armed, some with spears and axes taken from Danes they had killed, but most with fish knives and meat cleavers, hayforks and iron pokers, implements that in the right hands were as good as any weapon.

‘Lord!’ Eithne shouted when she saw me. Quick-thinking as ever, she ran to the horses that we’d tethered not far from the gate. The sight of the flames, the smell of the smoke and the clash of steel had spooked them, but she clearly had a way with the animals, for by the time we’d reached her she’d managed to soothe one so that it would let Magnus mount it. Together we helped him into the saddle. He winced as he placed his injured foot in the stirrup.

Teeth gritted against the pain, he clasped my hand in thanks. ‘I’ll live,’ he said. ‘So long as I can hold a sword, I’ll fight.’

Eithne and I turned our attention to the other horses, doing what we could to calm them before mounting up and slicing through the ropes tying them to the post. Then the three of us kicked on, cantering through the smoke, beneath the gate-arch and on down the track, riding hard to catch up with the rest of our party.

The wind buffeted my cheeks and stunted trees flashed past on either side. The mist was clearing; from here I could see through the trees, all the way down the slope towards the bay. Between the bare branches I glimpsed Nihtegesa and Wyvern drawn up on the shore, with hundreds of footprints streaking away from them across the sand, leading towards drier land.

Where battle had been joined. Already on both sides the ordered lines of the shield-wall had broken and men were running among one another, hacking and thrusting and laying their enemies low, filling the morning with howls of agony and cries of rage, with the clatter of steel upon limewood and the screams of horses. Across the bloodstained field lay crumpled bodies in their dozens, with their weapons and their pennons lying beside them. And then, in the middle of the fray, I caught sight of Haakon’s banner, the black dragon with the burning eyes and the axe in its claws. It was all but surrounded, with both Eudo’s tusked boar and Wace’s rising sun harrying it, although from such a distance I couldn’t pick out either the Dane or my friends amidst so many mail-clad warriors.

‘For Robert!’ I yelled. Those on foot ahead of me heard our hoofbeats and my cries and made way. I kept looking for Oswynn and Ælfhelm and Godric, but I didn’t see them, and I could only suppose they were somewhere further ahead. ‘For Robert de Commines!’

‘On!’ Magnus cried, exhorting our band. Cheers erupted from the slaves as he and I rode past them to lead the charge. ‘On, on, on! For Eadmund and for Godwine!’ yelled Magnus, and I guessed those must be the names of the two brothers he had lost.

We had reached the flatter, open ground at the foot of the promontory on which Jarnborg stood. Ahead, three foemen were stumbling away from the fray: one clutching his arm; another whose face was entirely covered with blood and was missing several of his teeth; a third who had lost an eye. Too late they saw us coming. Too late they raised their weapons. My steed did not falter as I brought my weapon to bear, slicing across the shoulder of the first at the same time as Magnus battered his blade across the second’s helmet. The last, the one with the missing eye, threw himself to one side, just in time, and we left him for those behind to finish as we rode on across the open meadow, towards the heart of the fray, towards the dragon banner, which was beginning to waver as our forces pressed at it on all flanks, from the front and from behind.

Worse was to come for Haakon, too. Some of his followers had decided their lives were worth more than their oaths to their lord, for suddenly they were breaking and running. They hadn’t been expecting a battle this morning; they had no stomach for the struggle, nor in truth were they in any fit state to wield a blade, and their nerve was failing them. Their side still held the advantage in numbers but, as I’d found, numbers alone will not win a battle. Confidence is everything, and theirs had been shattered. Where bloodlust and battle-fury had reigned, now there was only fear. And just as one man’s resolve can provide inspiration for his sword-brothers, and make their hearts swell with belief both in themselves and their cause, fear can do the opposite. So it was then. Man by man, the enemy host crumbled. As each spear-Dane saw his companion deserting his side, abandoning the struggle, so he too realised his efforts were in vain. He saw the hordes of Englishmen and Normans bearing down on him with sharpened steel in their hands and death in their eyes, and he fled, spreading his panic in turn to the next man and the next and the next, until, like sparrows fleeing the hawk’s shadow, suddenly the enemy were scattering, running anywhere they could, so long as it was away from their foes.

Into that tumult, roaring, swearing death upon them, invoking God and all the saints to aid us in the slaughter of our enemies, Magnus and I charged, with the rest of our small army behind us. On horse and on foot, men and women alike, we hurled ourselves against the enemy tide, adding our numbers to those of our allies, striking out to left and right, losing ourselves to anger, to the wills of our blades, revelling in the joy of the kill. Over the heads of the enemy I glimpsed the dragon banner on the move, heading further inland, across the boggy valley to the higher ground and the safety of the woods that lay at the heart of the island. Somehow Haakon had managed to break out from the midst of the Englishmen and Frenchmen surrounding him. I made out his gleaming mail, bright beneath the morning sun, as he struck out with only his standard-bearer and a bare handful of his loyal huscarls for protection. They were on foot, having clearly lost their horses during the fighting, and were now running like the rest of their countrymen. Like cravens.

We had done it. Hard though it was to believe, we had done it. In every direction I turned, the rout was under way. Haakon had been not just crushed but humiliated.

‘Lord!’

I glanced about, saw Pons waving to me, his sword in one hand, his helmet in the other. Blood was smeared across the front of his hauberk, his hair was flattened against his head, and there was a broad grin on his grimy face. Some fifty paces further away, Wace and Eudo and their knights had managed to surround a group of Haakon’s huscarls, and I took them for such because of the long-handled axes that they each bore. These they now threw down on the ground as a sign of their surrender.

‘Where’s Serlo?’ I asked Pons. ‘Dweorg? Sceota?’

‘I don’t know, lord. I lost sight of them during the fighting.’

I glanced about, but could not spot them anywhere. I could only hope Serlo was all right.

‘We need to get after Haakon,’ I said. ‘We need to finish this.’

‘He won’t get far,’ Pons replied. ‘Where can he possibly go?’

He had a point. Even if the Dane did escape into the woods, sooner or later he would have to show himself if he didn’t want to starve. When he did, we would be ready, waiting to cut him and his retainers down. He had fought and he had lost, and he would die by one means or another, sooner or later.

At the same time, though, I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until that murderer, that defiler, that vile heathen lay lifeless with my sword buried in his gut. For three years already I’d thirsted for justice. No longer was I to be denied.

I glanced at Magnus, and he at me, and saw that he was of the same mind.

‘Vengeance,’ he said.

I nodded in agreement. Wheeling about, I coaxed my horse into first a canter and then a gallop, drawing all the speed I could from his legs as we took off across that field of death in pursuit of Haakon and his band. All around rose the familiar battle-stench of blood and shit and mud and piss and horse dung and vomit, all intermingled.

‘Haakon,’ Magnus yelled, trying to catch his attention as we left the scattered, crimson-soaked corpses behind us and charged across thick tufts of grass. The Dane’s standard-bearer had at last thrown down the cumbersome banner and we rode over it, trampling the once-proud dragon and axe into the mud.

‘Come and face us, you whoreson,’ I called out. ‘You can’t run from us!’

The ground was soft and once or twice my mount almost stumbled, but nevertheless we were quickly gaining on them. They were five in number: his erstwhile standard-bearer, a fair-haired boy who could not have seen any more than twelve summers; his three hearth-troops; and, lagging a little behind them, the Dane himself, half running and half limping in a way that suggested he must have been wounded in the battle. They still had a few hundred paces to go until they reached the safety of the trees, and they must have been beginning to doubt whether they could manage it before we fell upon them.

To my flank there came a piercing shriek and a yell. Magnus’s horse must have tripped, for I glanced over my shoulder and saw it had gone down, and he with it. Hooves flailed and turf flew, and in the midst of it all the Englishman was struggling to extricate himself from the saddle.

‘Magnus!’ I said, but he didn’t seem to hear me. He had other things to worry about.

As did I. Brief thoughts of going back to help the Englishman were swiftly forgotten. Something much more important was at stake. It fell to me now to kill the Dane, to claim revenge on behalf of us both. That was the promise I’d made myself. Here was my chance to make good on it.

‘Haakon!’ I roared.

With every heartbeat I was growing closer, while the clash of arms and the shouts of men were growing more distant. He couldn’t ignore me any longer. At the sound of his name this time he stopped and turned to face me. Even though the nasal-guard of my helmet obscured my face, he must have recognised me.

He must have seen, too, that there was no longer any use in running. Fixing his gaze upon me, he drew his bloodied sword and stood his ground as I charged towards him. He realised that his time had come, but he was proud. I’d heard long ago that amongst the heathens to die without a weapon in one’s hand was the worst dishonour, for it meant they would not be permitted to dine with their gods in whatever afterlife it was they believed in. Whether that was true or not, and whether that thought was in his mind, I don’t know. More probably, like any man whose life had been spent travelling the sword-path, he considered it nobler to go to his grave fighting, a warrior to the end, rather than suffer the coward’s death and be cut down from behind.

A howl left his lips as he ran, staggering, at me, his sword raised high, his golden arm-rings shining. His braid had come loose and his greying hair flew behind him. He realised, I think, that I was responsible for burning his hall, for destroying everything he had spent so many years fighting to gain. He knew now what I had felt that night at Dunholm, when so much had been taken from me, when my own world had crumbled about me.

Our blades clashed with a shriek of steel, and then I was past him, turning sharply before coming at him again. I parried the blow he aimed at my horse’s neck, and the one after that, and the one after that, trusting in the steel not to shear, all the while waiting for my opportunity to come, as I knew it must. Waiting for him to give me the opening I needed. Blood trickled from a gash at his hip, and each movement he made seemed unsteadier than the last. He was slow to turn, and slower still between each sword-stroke.

‘Die,’ he yelled in that coarse voice of his, and he was weeping now. Weeping because he knew that his end was near. Weeping because he knew that I was toying with him. ‘Die, you bastard, you Norman filth! Die!’

He swung at my thigh, but it was the swing of a desperate man. Again I met his blade with mine, and this time I was able to force his down, out of position, before backhanding my sword-point across the side of his head. He was only just within my reach and so I managed only a glancing blow, but it was enough to rob him of his balance and send him to the ground with limbs flailing and teeth flying. His sword slipped from his fingers, falling away uselessly into the grass. I slid from the saddle and stood over him. He gazed back up at me, rasping heavily, his eyes moist. A bright gash decorated his cheek, and a crimson stream ran from the corner of his mouth.

Some way off, Danish voices shouted out in despair. So desperate had they been to reach the sanctuary of the woods that his remaining huscarls hadn’t noticed that their lord was no longer with them. Not until it was too late. They turned, and began rushing back to try to save him, but they were too far away to do anything.

I pointed the tip of my blade at the pale skin at Haakon’s neck. ‘Aren’t you going to plead for mercy?’

He stared up at me, not in fear but in something more like resignation. ‘Would you grant it if I asked for it?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘But I want to hear you beg.’

He smiled that humourless smile I’d seen before. Of course he would not beg. Nor, had I been in his place, would I.

‘She moaned like a whore,’ he said instead.

‘What?’ I’d thought he might ask me to make his end quick, or say any number of other things, but I hadn’t been expecting that.

‘Night after night, she moaned when she was in my bed, when I was inside her. She was my favourite. Did you know that?’

‘Enough,’ I said. Tears welled in my eyes, and my throat stuck. ‘No more.’

‘I loved her,’ he murmured, a hint of sadness in his tone. He closed his eyes as if recalling some long-cherished memory. ‘Yes,’ he said with a heavy sigh, ‘I loved her.’

I couldn’t bear to listen any longer. Summoning all my strength, all my hatred, I plunged my sword into his throat, thrusting it hard so that it tore through flesh, sliced through bone, and I was roaring as I did so, roaring for all the world to hear, allowing the anguish that for so long had been buried within my heart to finally let itself be heard, until there was no more breath in my chest, and I had nothing left to give.

Gritting my teeth, I ripped the blade free. My heart was pounding, my whole body trembling and dripping with sweat. Falling to my knees, I wiped the moisture from my eyes and gazed down at Haakon’s bestilled, bloodied corpse. In that instant, all the grief and pain and doubt and despair that for three years had plagued and tortured me were at once dispelled.

It was done.