The Rood and the Torc Page 34

  “This morning, early. At first light.”

  Aelfin and Kristinge both looked to the door of the hall. The sun was already above the horizon. The raid was at least an hour ago. If they had come by boat, they would be long gone down the river.

  “How many?” Aelfin asked.

  The boy looked confused. He lowered his head.

  “How many raiders?!” Aelfin shouted. “Did you see them?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Can you count?”

  The boy shook his head no. But before Aelfin had finished cursing, he stammered, “As m-m-many as there are c-c-cows in the East field.”

  “About fifteen, if I remember,” said Ceolac, the first of the warriors to be up and alert.

  “Did they come by boat?” the chieftain asked.

  “From the woods,” the boy answered. “From the sunrise.”

  “Eastward into the forest,” Ceolac guessed. “Renegade robbers from the Jute villages eastward.”

  Aelfin snarled. “Maccus,” he summoned. “Ceolac.” The two thanes were on their feet. Despite the mead they had consumed the night before, they had already begun to strap on their blades in anticipation of a coming battle. They looked almost eager.

  “Can we catch them?” asked Maccus who had also heard enough of the conversation to know what was afoot.

  “I do not know,” Aelfin answered. “They did not come by boat, but they have a long lead on us.” He turned to the peasant boy. “What have they taken?”

  “They killed my cousins, and my uncle is badly wounded also.”

  “What have they taken?”

  “All the cows.”

  “My lord,” interrupted the young chieftain Eomaer, who had walked up behind Aelfin. “We have horses. The raiders will be leading their plunder. Possibly on foot. They will not be swift. We can catch them.”

  Aelfin looked at Eomaer for a moment, then nodded his head. “We go at once. Let the men of Dronrip ride with Eomaer, and those of us who can sit astride a horse will join him. Come, we pursue this band of raiders.”

  At once, more than a dozen warriors were on their feet rushing toward the door of the hall. Others were lacing their boots, or searching for weapons. Kristinge sat watching as Aelfin reached the door ahead of Maccus, Ceolac, and Eomaer. Then the chieftain stopped suddenly and turned as if something had just dawned on him. When his eyes came to rest on Kristinge, Kristinge froze. “Come,” Aelfin said, a gleam in his eyes. “This shall be your war band.”

  Kristinge hesitated. Other thanes were looking at him. He could see the impatient expression in Aelfin’s eyes. To hesitate now would be a sign of fear in front of the warriors—warriors who would one day be asked to follow him. And what would Aewin think? Kristinge jumped to his feet and grabbed his sword. A moment later, he was out the door and chasing the others across the village. All of his tutelage under Ceolac and Maccus was to be tested.

  It took little time to get the horses out of the stable and ready. Before Kristinge knew what was happening, more than twenty thanes and warriors were riding down the cattle ramp and onto the fields east of the village. Eomaer and Aelfin were in the lead, with others of Eomaer’s thanes close behind. Maccus, Ceolac, and Kristinge, less experienced on a horse than those from the Dronrip war band, followed in the tail of the pack. They rode hard to the edge of the fields where the raid had taken place. There they stopped. Two young peasants lay still on the ground, dead or nearly dead. An older man, still clutching his staff, sat leaning against a tree groaning from countless wounds. Kristinge recognized their faces, but did not know names. He turned away. Behind him, he could see women making their way from the village, the sounds of their weeping already audible from a distance. But Aelfin did not delay to wait for them. The tracks of the raiders were not difficult to follow. It was a large band, and they were leading many cattle.

  “They are moving swiftly, but on foot,” Eomaer said, looking down at the tracks.

  “We are fortunate they have not come upriver by boat,” Maccus responded. Though not a warrior, Kristinge understood the comment. The most effective raids came by ship, moving swiftly and silently upriver, attacking then disappearing with the currents long before any response could be mustered. These were the Viking raids, of which the Danes were masters.

  “They could not have taken this many cattle in boats,” Ceolac said, shaking his head at Maccus’ comment. “These raiders were not interested in gold and silver. They came for food.”

  “Whatever else they thought,” Aelfin cut off the conversation, “they did not expect that we would have a full mounted war band in the village this night. Come. Let us make them regret that mistake.”

  They put their heels to their horses’ flanks and were soon off. The trail took them through the small wood beside the river and into the fields and low hills beyond. As Aelfin had said, the raiders did not expect to be pursued on horseback. The pursuers had not ridden long, perhaps an hour, when they caught sight of the first straggling cow left behind by the raiders.

  “They know we are coming, else they would not have left one,” Maccus interpreted.

  “Then they cannot be far ahead,” Aelfin said. “Be ready.”

  Aelfin was right. They came over a low rise and saw the band of raiders a short distance ahead still making their way down the back side of the hill. The chieftain turned to Eomaer. “Kristinge shall lead the attack. You take some and ride ahead to see that they do not escape us.”

  Eomaer nodded. He called eight of his warriors by name, and they veered off to the right. Aelfin turned to Kristinge, who was now realizing that there truly was going to be a battle. The terror of that realization had not yet overcome the thrill of the chase, but soon would. “We outnumber them and are better armed,” Aelfin said loudly so that all could hear. “The battle will be swift, and our victory complete.” Then he spoke to Kristinge. “When we approach, they will have to turn to face us. When they do, we dismount and attack.”

  Kristinge nodded blankly. His hands were feeling cold and wet. He reached for the hilt of his sword but couldn’t get a good grip. Ahead, the raiding band had abandoned the cattle and were fleeing as fast as they could. Already, Eomaer was passing them on their right flank.

  “Give the command,” Aelfin said.

  Kristinge took a deep breath. This, he reminded himself, was what he had been practicing for with Maccus and Ceolac. “To the attack!” he called.

  His voice was not as loud or authoritative as he would have liked, but the warriors responded. Urging their mounts forward once more, they charged down the hill. In moments they were upon the fleeing band of raiders. When they were but a dozen yards away, the raiders finally turned to fight.

  “To your feet!” Aelfin shouted, reminding Kristinge of the command he should have given. Kristinge slipped from the side of his mount, and nearly tumbled to the ground on legs that had been turned to rubber. With him were fifteen warriors from Ezinge. Another nine were now past the raiders and had turned to attack from the other side. The enemy numbered only thirteen. They were clustered in a haphazard half-circle, with a wild array of old spears, axes, and swords. Hungry men, perhaps, but not trained warriors. They were shouting to one another in a heavy Jutish dialect.

  Then the clash began. Attacking downhill, the Ezinge war band bore into the outnumbered host like an avalanche. Kristinge, however, had no time to watch. He found himself face to face with a terrified youth of no more than sixteen summers, tightly gripping an old chipped battle ax. For just a moment Kristinge stood paralyzed, as the human features of the young man burned into his memory. When the ax came swinging at his exposed arm, he almost didn’t step back in time. The second swipe was closer, and Kristinge had to leap out of the way to avoid a gaping wound in his chest. It was enough. He knew the rules of battle. It was kill or be killed. In the first few seconds he had almost been a victim. He looked at his opponent more warily now, knowing what another mistake could cost him. Trying to remember what Maccus and C
eolac had taught him, he raised his own heavy broadsword and brought it slicing down toward the chest and midsection of his opponent just as the young man stepped in for another attack. It was a well timed blow. Kristinge’s blade was much longer than his enemy’s ax, as were Kristinge’s arms, giving him a double advantage. How the young Jutish raider escaped the blow, Kristinge did not know, but his sword sliced only through thin air leaving him stumbling off balance. The youth was immediately back on the attack and Kristinge struggled desperately to get out of the way. Suddenly, he was fighting for his own life. The ax came sweeping toward his head. Lurching to his left, he rolled away from the blow as it hummed past his shoulder. Rather than fighting against his own momentum, he instinctively spun his body all the way around with a great blind two-handed sweep of his heavy sword. Guided perhaps by blind luck, he felt the blade connect, but knew not what he hit for the motion sent him tumbling down the hill and crashing into the legs of another warrior.

  Terrified, Kristinge struggled to regain his feet. He looked up to see Maccus staring down at him with a broad grin. The sounds of fighting were already over. Kristinge rose slowly to his knees, then stood. Behind him his own opponent lay on the ground clutching his belly, unable to stop the bleeding from the huge gash across his mid-section. Kristinge pulled his eyes away. He surveyed the battle field. Thirteen raiders lay defeated on the ground. Not a single member of his own war band had fallen. Only one warrior from Dronrip had received a small wound on the head, not from an enemy weapon but from stumbling into a rock. The battle was over.

  It was Aelfin who raised the victory shout. Others joined, until the blood-stained hill resounded with their jubilant sound. Before Kristinge knew what was happening, he had been lifted over the heads of the warriors and set again upon his horse.

  “Hail the battle-leader!” Aelfin shouted.

  “Hail the battle-leader,” the war band echoed.

  “Hail the new chieftain.”

  “Hail the new king.”

  The shouting lasted only a few minutes. The real celebration would wait for their return to Ezinge. The warriors soon turned to their work. The booty from the battle was small, for the raiders were not rich. As Aelfin had guessed earlier, this was a band of hungry robbers, not a well-trained war band. Their purses yielded but a few coins, and few of their weapons had any worth. Only two swords were of value. The others would be cast aside, or the metal forged anew for other purposes while the bodies of the fallen enemies were left to the beasts. It took longer to gather the cattle that had been scattered by the fighting. Kristinge, who had more experience with such matters than any of the warriors, started to help but Aelfin would not let him. He set him atop his horse while others did the work. Fortunately, the animals had wandered only as far as the edge of a nearby wood. When the old matriarchal cow was roped, the rest followed.

  It was an hour or more after the battle before all were ready. The victors traveled more slowly on the way back to Ezinge. The horses were tired from the hard ride earlier, and the company was no longer in a hurry. Nor did the task of leading the cattle speed their travel. It was after midday when they arrived back at the village. To Kristinge’s surprise, there was already a celebration waiting for them at the mead hall. Aelfin had sent word ahead with two of Eomaer’s riders, and all of Ezinge knew in advance of the victory. Still, it was many minutes before Kristinge realized that he was the returning victor, the honored hero. All were talking about the great two-handed blow with which he had felled the leader of the enemy war band. By the evening meal in the mead hall, Dyflines had already composed a song which he sang to the cheers of the warriors.

  Had not Aewin been there throughout it all, watching her newly betrothed with appreciation, Kristinge might have fled the celebration before it even began. He knew nothing of the battle, and was under the impression that he had almost been killed, not that he had won a great fight or done anything to change the battle’s outcome. As for the foe he had faced, it had been but a young man and not a war-leader. But these things mattered nothing to Aelfin or Eomaer or even to Dyflines. It was fodder for the chieftain’s plans, and inspiration for the poet’s songs. And so the feasting continued, nearly matching the night before, and the two war bands were happy. And Kristinge, once again finding Aewin at his side, forgot for the time about the battle and the face of the dying Jutish boy.

  The next day, to the disappointment of the torc-bearer, Eomaer and Aewin left to return to their clan-village. They promised to return before the next moon, and that Eomaer would encourage other chieftains to follow Kristinge. Two near-kin he had, who ruled clan-villages southward along the coast would almost certainly follow Kristinge. Neither had any great love for Aldgisl, and less had they for Réadban. “Wigmaer, especially, would be a worthy one to have at your side,” Eomaer said, as he stood beside his horse at the bottom of the terp. “He is wise, and has given me good counsel since my father died. And a good warrior too. I do not think he has yet sworn his allegiance to any. He is my mother’s cousin, and though some years my elder has been a friend since youth. He would not disdain to hear a word from me.” He turned to Aelfin. “Added to the messages already sent by you, perhaps my word would prove enough to sway them toward Kristinge.”

  “If he is as worthy as you are,” Kristinge replied before Aelfin had a chance, “then he is indeed a good—” he paused. “A good chieftain.” Almost he had said a good thane, but he could not yet think of himself as a king, and thus to call somebody his thane—especially one who was already a chieftain—did not come easily off his tongue.

  Eomaer smiled and bowed. Then, in a single fluid motion, he mounted his horse and prepared to ride homeward toward Dronrip. Aewin paused a moment longer. She looked toward Kristinge, but her proud eyes were clouded and he could not guess her thoughts. She had said little to Kristinge those past two evenings, and even now she spoke no words of goodbye. He offered her his arm to lift her upon her horse, but whether she saw it or not, she did not take the offer. In a motion as graceful as her brother’s she swung herself astride her mount and turned it southward. A minute later, the company was out of sight. And Kristinge, though he had known her but a few hours and had not had even a moment alone with her, stared long after her. He missed her almost at once.

  The days that followed went well for him and for Aelfin’s plans. Perhaps it was that the story of Kristinge’s victory spread—growing in color and embellishment as it traveled outward from Ezinge—or perhaps it was just the timing of the earlier messages sent out by Aelfin that had come to fruition. Within a few days the chieftains in Wijnaldum and Wieuwerd, cousins of Eomaer, imitated Eomaer’s example and promised their swords to Kristinge’s service. And in the week that followed, a number of other chieftains of small villages joined as well. Kristinge’s war band was growing and so was Aelfin’s ambition. New messengers were now sent out to villages more distant, with the word that Finn’s torc had returned to Friesland and now sat on the neck of his rightful heir. Even Kristinge began to grow excited by the signs of success. By the first light snowfall of autumn, he had at his command over three hundred warriors including fifty horses and trained riders. Never having gone to war he had little real idea of how large a war band that was, but Aelfin told him it was substantial.

  “You are now the third most powerful chieftain in Friesland,” he said with a broad grin.

  Kristinge thought back on Luxeuil, and the many monks who were descended from chieftains. Many he had known from ruling families among clans and tribes across the north. Sons of Irish warlords, and Saxon kings. Offspring even of the rulers of the Franks. He wondered what they would think of him now. Some of them, he knew, had made lifetime vows of monastic life. But others had been sent to Luxeuil only to be educated. One day they hoped to return to their people, perhaps to rule. Was it such a bad thing, aspiring to be king? Kristinge wondered.

  As promised, Eomaer returned a fortnight after his departure, but to Kristinge’s disappointment he did not bring
Aewin with him. Snow had fallen the day before, and this time it had not melted. The land was covered by an ankle-deep white blanket. Eomaer was worried by the weather. “Travel will grow difficult soon,” he said, when he had warmed up beside the hearth fire and shared the mead cup with Aelfin, Kristinge, and a number of their thanes.

  Aelfin nodded. Kristinge saw that he, too, was worried. His words were slow in coming, but when they came they revealed the cause of his concern. “We are not yet enough.”

  “And once the snow sets in, we will hear from nobody else until spring.”

  “But what of the three hundred?” Kristinge asked.

  “Still too few,” Aelfin repeated. “We count enough to make Aldgisl or Réadban wary. That is all. Not enough to oppose them. Only enough to attract their attention. And perhaps their anger.”

  “Have they yet heard of Kristinge’s presence?” Eomaer asked.

  “I do not think so. If they had, they would be in Ezinge already with their war bands at our throats. That is one blessing of winter. Travel is slow for them as well as us. Perhaps no word will reach them until spring, and even if it does they will likely wait before they respond. Still, it is only a question of time. Word travels through Friesland. With each day, the risk grows greater. Careful as we have been, there will be some chieftain who receives our message who has sworn his fealty to Aldgisl. Then Aldgisl will hear soon enough of what we do. Or when the traders begin to travel, they too will bring rumor of our doings.”

  “Should we wait a time?” Kristinge queried. Aelfin’s words had made him nervous. It was the first time he had seen the chieftain’s confidence falter. “Should we abandon our plans?”

  Aelfin frowned and shook his head. “It is too late.”

  It was Eomaer who broke the mood with a laugh. “Let them outnumber us two to one. Finn’s torc shall not be taken from Kristinge’s neck while I live. We have thanes among us who can fight three of Aldgisl’s hired warriors.”