The Splintered Kingdom (41 page)

At once Annest came back in, with the greying man behind her. Together they helped me sit back down upon the bed, bringing me a second, tattered blanket that they wrapped around my shivering shoulders. My forehead still ached and I held my palm against it, rubbing the place where the pain seemed to be coming from to try to relieve it.

Annest fetched more wood from outside and added it to the fire-pit, building it up until I could feel the warmth of the flames upon my skin. While she did so, the man went to the chest and produced what looked like a strip of bark, grey in colour. With his knife he carved off a portion about the size of my thumb, which he pressed gently into my hand. When I looked at him questioningly, he cut another piece, which he placed in his mouth and began to chew upon, exaggerating the movements of his jaw so as to demonstrate what I was supposed to do. Finally understanding, I did as he had showed me, grimacing at the bitter taste and the rough feel of it against my teeth and tongue. Father Erchembald
sometimes gave a concoction of dried willow-bark boiled in water to those who came seeking remedies for fevers, swellings and other ailments, and I supposed that this was much the same.

Having chewed upon the strip until my jaw was tired, I lay back down. Soon my headache receded, and my last thought before I drifted into sleep was that willow-bark must be good for treating that too.

They took good care of me over the couple of weeks that followed: Annest and her father, as I decided he must be, who it seemed went by the name of Cadell. To begin with I grew worse, with bouts of sickness coupled with a burning ague. In my few moments of wakefulness I struggled, and failed, to recall the last time I’d felt so ill. Within a few days, however, the sweating and the shivering had subsided and my appetite returned. The more I ate of their food and drank of their ale, the more my strength was restored to me, until after perhaps a week my fever had lifted and I was able to venture outside once more, to help gather and carry in wood for the fire and water for the pot. I was still not as fit as I would have liked, and prone to fits of coughing, but simply being on my feet did me some good.

As well as my dried braies they found me a linen shirt, frayed at the hems, and a tattered deerskin cloak that might well have belonged to the man’s father, if not his grandfather too, so many times had it been patched and restitched. Neither Cadell nor Annest wore any shoes and so they had none spare to offer me, but I was content to go barefoot, my blisters and sores being close to healed by then.

And so I gathered my strength, until the morning came when I knew it was time for me to leave. To say that I was fully recovered would have been a lie, but I’d tarried in this place long enough already. As long as there were battles to be fought and the fate of the kingdom remained at stake, I could not rest. Somewhere my brothers in arms, my lord and my king needed me, and it was my duty to do what I could to help them. And so I had to return.

The Welshman and his daughter knew it too; they had seen me
growing restless over the days and they did not try to stop me – as if they could. At first I’d been hoping to leave without disturbing either of them, while they still dreamt, but the girl was a light sleeper and woke at the first sound of my rising. I’d hardly made it halfway to the door when she shook her father awake.

‘Estrawn,’ Cadell said as he rubbed his bleary eyes. That was the name by which they had come to know me.

‘I must go,’ I replied, feeling that I ought to say something even if they could not understand me. ‘I need to get back to my people.’

‘
Aros titheu
,’ he said, pointing a finger sharply at me as he cast off the blanket covering him and climbed from his bed, making for the trestle table that stood against the wall. He gathered some of the crumbling cheese and a few ends of bread from the previous evening’s meal into a scrap of cloth and tied it to the end of a sturdy stick that rested by the door.

‘
Dos ragot a Duw ath gatwo
.’ His face was solemn as he held it out to me.

A parting gift. As if he and Annest hadn’t already shown me enough kindness. Lesser folk might have left me to die, but they had troubled to shelter, feed and clothe me, and it wasn’t right that their compassion should go unrewarded. I wished I had silver or something more useful to give them in return, by which I could show my gratitude. Save for the clothes on my person, however, I had nothing. Guilt made my throat stick and I had to choke it back.

I accepted the stick with the food bundle. Both smiled warmly; Annest threw her arms around me; her father clasped my hand. In that way we bade each other farewell, and I stepped beyond their door into the breaking dawn. Their house stood alone, sheltered from the wind in a shallow cleft between two rises, overlooking a pasture where goats grazed. Of any other cottages, a church or a lord’s hall nearby, there was no sign, and the same was true of any road or track that I might follow. The sun was rising so I knew at least which direction was east, which was good, since from what I recalled of my flight in that rough direction lay Mathrafal, and I had no intention of walking back into the lions’ den if I could possibly avoid it. If Scrobbesburh had fallen or lay under siege then
it was pointless trying to seek refuge there, while to the west was nothing but a bleak land of mountains upon mountains, or so I had heard from those who had ventured into those parts, with the sea beyond them. With that in mind I headed south, knowing that somewhere that way was Earnford.

I turned to gaze back just once. The house was by then nearly out of sight, a mere speck of brown upon the green hillside. Cadell and Annest still stood outside the door, and I waved to them, hoping they would see me. Whether they did and whether they waved in return, I was too far away to be sure, but I liked to imagine that they did before I turned and was on my way.

If Eadric’s men had been looking for me this past fortnight, there had been no sign of them in the valley where Cadell and Annest lived. Unless they planned to scour the entire land this side of the dyke I reckoned they must surely have given up the hunt by now. With luck and with God’s grace that meant I would find myself in no trouble on my travels.

And so it proved as I struck out across the country. Or rather there was no trouble of the hostile kind, although with only my instincts to guide me the going was slow and frustrating. Quickly I began to appreciate how much I had relied upon Ithel and Maredudd’s knowledge of the country the last time I had been in these parts. Several times I was forced to turn back or change my course when faced with slopes to steep to climb or descend, streams that were too fast to swim or too deep to wade across: when that happened I often had to go several miles out of my way to find a ford or, on occasion, a bridge. But having lived through the battle at Mechain, having survived imprisonment by the Welsh, I was not prepared to risk my neck without good reason. I was determined to make it back home, to Earnford and to Leofrun, and to do so whole, not to die from my own recklessness in this empty and godforsaken land.

There was little forage to be found and so I was careful not to eat all my bread and cheese at once. Ædda had once taught me something of the various berries and mushrooms that grew in the
woods, namely which ones a man could eat without killing himself or causing him to empty the contents of his stomach. Still, I did not trust my memory and so I preferred to go hungry rather than take a chance. Nor for the most part did I venture near the few villages and manors that I came across; I couldn’t rely on those there being as friendly as Cadell and Annest had, to one who by his speech was clearly a foreigner.

On my travels I met few people: a shepherd with his flock upon the hills; a wandering priest with a wooden cross around his neck, riding on a donkey; peasants out gathering armfuls of firewood from the copses on their lords’ lands. Most were understandably wary of a lone traveller approaching them, especially one of unkempt appearance such as myself, and tried to avoid me when they could.

‘Hafren?’ I would ask on the occasions that they did greet me, that being how they referred to the Saverna in the Welsh tongue. After a moment’s thought they would sometimes point me in the direction they reckoned I needed to go, though just as often they seemed to have no idea, or else would reply in words I did not know. Thus, like a blind man I found my way: gradually and with not a small amount of guesswork.

Eventually, however, I came upon the Saverna, which was less wide here than at Scrobbesburh. The waters were unusually low for that time of year, too, and so I crossed it easily by means of a ford before making east for the dyke, which thankfully was not much further. Turning then, I followed the course of that great earthwork southwards. Gradually the rise and fall of the hills grew more familiar, and while still I could not say exactly where I was, home felt closer by the hour. With renewed vigour I spurred myself on, even though my legs were weary, until I found myself stumbling along the same valleys through which we had pursued the Welsh band that had raided my manor, so long ago that it might as well have been years.

I thought of seeing my hall again, of holding Leofrun close to me, of seeing all the others. What would they say? Had they heard anything of what had happened in these last couple of months? How could I begin to explain everything?

That final hour was the most painful. Although they were not
yet bleeding as they had after the march to Mathrafal, my feet were blistered and every step was an ordeal. My cloak was ripped in several places from when I had fallen through a clump of brambles; bruises and scratches decorated my chest and my arms. I had not eaten in two days, the few crumbs of bread and cheese having lasted only so long. My legs could barely support my weight, but I forced myself onwards, knowing that soon I would be in my hall, with my woman to help soothe my aches and meat and ale to fill my stomach, and all would be well.

It seemed as if an eternity had passed before I glimpsed Read Dun in the distance, which marked the western bounds of my manor. Now at last I knew which paths to take. I rounded the hill’s wooded slopes as the sun broke from the clouds, slanting down through the leaves and branches. My heart was pounding while joy and relief welled in my eyes. Finally I emerged from the trees to look upon the place that was my home—

Or had been. For where houses had once stood, now there were only fallen, fire-blackened roof-timbers and heaps of ash. The church, the mill, even the palisade upon the mound and my hall within: all reduced to dust and smoke and memory.

All at once my strength fled my limbs. Helpless, I sank to my knees. My breath came in stutters, catching in my throat. I could not tear my gaze away, refusing to believe it was true and yet at the same time unable to deny what lay before my eyes. My hands clutched at my face, tore at my hair; sounds of anguish escaped my lips, and it was anguish of a kind I had never before known, as if a spear had first been driven deep into my chest, then twisted so that it pierced my heart before at last being wrenched free. I could not move, could not do anything at all as tears of what would have been happiness at coming home spilt over into torrents of desperation and defeat. Of anger at the men who had done this, at myself for not having being here to prevent it.

Everything for which I had fought so hard was coming undone, the tapestry of my life unravelling into loose threads that by themselves held no meaning.

For I had returned, but Earnford was gone.

Twenty-three

IN DESPERATION I
stumbled through the charred wreckage of my manor, calling: ‘Leofrun!’

But there was no sign of her, nor indeed of anyone left alive. Corpses lay by the banks of the river where, to judge by the blood-stained grass, it looked as if a few of the villagers had made a stand. Men and women alike had met their ends here, their bodies stripped of their clothes and shoes and anything else of worth, left in the open, under the rain and the scorching sun, to rot and become food for the carrion beasts. Many of their faces were so crumpled and bloodied that I no longer recognised them, although had Leofrun’s been among them I felt sure I would have known.

Kites and crows picked at them, pecking at eye sockets, digging their beaks into pallid skin, tearing away glistening red strings of flesh, and I ran at them, screaming wordlessly to try to make them go away. With a flap of wings and a chorus of calls the Devil-birds rose up into the air, only to descend upon another corpse a short way off, and no matter how much I chased and waved my arms at them I could not make them leave. The stench of decay hung everywhere, like a deathly mist that had settled over the valley. Flies swarmed and crawled everywhere.

Among those corpses that were recognisable were the grey-haired swineherd Garwulf, whose fingers had played so nimbly on the strings of the crwth at every feast, and the girl Hild whom young Lyfing had died trying to protect. Where before her hair had hung as far as her waist, now it had been cut to her shoulders and in places much shorter, savagely and raggedly, as if someone had taken
a knife to it, and what was left was matted with blood that ran from a deep gash across the back of her neck.

Neither of them had deserved to meet their ends in this way. None of this was supposed to have happened.

Fire had been taken to the wheatfields, blackening the earth and burning all of what would have been the harvest, while the pastures were strewn all about with the stricken carcasses of cattle, sheep and goats. Whoever had done this had not been interested in taking anything back with them, only in delivering death and letting the fullers of their blades run with the blood of my people. This had been no mere raid. This had been a massacre.

I came to the ruins of what had once been the priest’s house. ‘Father Erchembald,’ I called. ‘Ædda!’

There was no answer. The priest’s herb-garden had been trampled, the small vegetables ripped from the earth. The roof had been torn off the house before they burnt it, for clumps of straw lay scattered about. Often men hid purses of silver and other objects of value within the layers of thatch, and no doubt that was what the raiders had been searching for. Not that they would have found much. Unlike some priests I had known, Father Erchembald hadn’t been much given to hoarding. Whatever fortune came his way he was always careful to share, and in the same way it seemed he had shared the fate of his entire flock.