Authors: F J Atkinson
He soon picked out a likely route and began to splash knee deep through the chilly water, keeping well away from the many swirling currents that warned of deep turbulence. Complicated but unconstrained, his passage through the swamp proved benign due to low water after a dry summer. Whilst sapping his energy, the many dead trees he clambered over also served him as resting platforms proud of the water.
It was mid-afternoon when he saw a thicker bank of trees ahead of him. They were not water-loving alders, so he knew the marshes were ending. He soon reached dry ground and continued as in the valley by walking alongside the river. Huge-girthed oaks, swathed with deeply etched and gnarled bark, now crowded in around him, darkening the woods further.
He moved slowly, his eyes straining
to see into the gloom. Woodland noises occasionally caused him to stop and squint into the dark, green murkiness beside the river. Soon he came to an area where the trees grew sparsely. Here, the light flooded in to reveal the track
and
the ruin he had travelled days to find. Looking up and down, he was satisfied that nothing stirred. He also realised that he had gained his present position the hard way by approaching from the broken, marshy land to the south. He examined the ground and saw no human trace upon it. Turning his attention to the ruin, he noticed that its walls seemed to be overgrown, craggy, continuations of the forest floor.
The Romans were long gone, but the basic construction was still intact. Not such a ruin after all, he realised, and less work to do than he had been anticipating. The Romans had built the staging post alongside what was then a cleared marching route through the forest. The main structure of the storehouse was above ground, and built to house two guards. Apart from the wooden roof, which had collapsed into its interior, the building was sound. A slow trickle of water wormed its way down a small bluff to the side of the hut, before running across the ground to join a small ditch nearby. Dominic walked over to the down-flow, placed
his hand under the cool shower and tasted the stony but drinkable water. He felt pleased with himself. The site could be made habitable in no time at all. If he worked long days, he would be comfortable within days.
He entered the building and removed the old rotted sections of the roof, throwing them outside for later use as firewood. A soggy, rope-pull attached to a rotting door, was revealed in the floor, and he guessed that he had found the entrance to the storage cellar. He knew he must enter it
, to benefit from the shelter it would provide until he had fixed the roof of the upper building.
The cellar door opened with a stiff reluctance, revealing dusty, stone steps. As Dominic descended, the steps wound in a short spiral, down into utter blackness. He walked cautiously with his bow held outright before him as a makeshift probe for any obstruction. He continued like this for what seemed an age before the bow hit wood. He groped in the dark until his hand touched rough timber. His hand explored until finding an iron ring. He now realised he had found a door.
With both hands he twisted the ring, not really expecting it to budge, and was surprised when both the ring
and
the door moved
.
Not knowing what awaited him, he cautiously peered through the widening crack between door and frame. Nothing, neither sound nor movement could he detect. All was still and black. He pushed the door further until he could squeeze through sideways. He entered a level passageway, and that was when they hit him.
The quiet air exploded into a fit of whirling, rushing madness. He swip
ed around him in the darkness, impotent now, with only an empty bow in his hand. He believed that a deathblow would follow the whirling blasts of air that seemed to alight all over his body, and in desperation, he managed to stumble into the door. He placed both of his hands against its rough edge and heaved it open.
He fell to his knees in the passage, his heart hammering alarmingl
y as he watched the last of the bats leave. He was furious with himself. He didn’t deserve to live. What a ham head. What a fool. Ambushed by flying rats and brandishing a weapon that could not hurt a child. He regained his feet, still cursing to himself. Then, he placed his bow over his shoulder and drew his sword.
A dull orange line at floor level, towards what he judged to be the end of the passageway, caught his eye. He walked slowly toward it, this time using his sword as a probe until he again struck wood. He had found another door. At his feet, the faint light spilled from the gap between door and stone floor. Again, an iron ring, and again success as it turned and the door moved. He knew he must enter, but this time he was equipped and ready. He slid through the gap and adopted a crouching, defensive stance, his sword held in both hands before him.
Immediately he saw the source of the light. The cellar was huge and its domed and fluted roof had several slits built into it which were open to the leafy woodland floor above, and which allowed shafts of diffused light to illuminate the huge area below. Used for storage, a wide, stone square formed the centre of the cellar. Nothing now remained in the square save for leaf litter and a number of
weightless bird skeletons. Dominic’s entry evoked an air change, causing some of the dry leaves and bones to skitter across the floor. Looking round, he could see that stone vaults were recessed into the sides of the cellar.
He observed no movement as he slowly shuffled, crouched and ready, around the cellar, approaching the vaults and turning quickly and purposefully into them. This he did until he was sure he was alone. He now saw that the cellar would offer good shelter and with its one entrance would be easy to defend. He had found his new home.
Simon left his dwelling just before dawn and strolled up to an outcrop on the far edge of the fields. Here, he began to sort stones, putting them in piles according to their shape and size, ready for their use as a walling material later in the year. As a man of sixty-eight years, his contribution to the village workload was now undemanding, but jobs such as this, which he could complete without hurrying, left him with a feeling of usefulness and satisfaction. He assessed the job at hand. If he worked smartly until midday, it would give him an appetite for the stew that his sister was so good at making. Then he could spend the afternoon at leisure, teasing the children and joking with his older friends as they sat talking in the sunshine outside the huts.
Whistling, he began his task, enjoying the dawn chorus as he worked.
A thundering noise, growing in intensity, caused him to look instinctively into the sky. As the rumbling grew louder he realised it was the sound of many riders. Chilled by the noise, his thoughts went to the tales of brutal folk from beyond the Grey Wash that had circulated around the night fires recently and unsettled him greatly. Though he considered the tales exaggerated, they had still delayed his slumber on many nights. He had hoped that the dangers of the world would somehow avoid his village, and they would be free to live their lives in peace, but as he heard the sound of approaching hooves, he thought of the stories.
He knew
the riders could only approach the village along the track that lay below the knoll where he now laboured. Dropping to his belly, he inched slowly up the rise to observe the riders as they passed below, heading up the track towards the village. Like a swelling rip tide, they passed, and upon seeing them, Simon knew his old way of life had ended forever.
The dawn was blood red as the war band rode into the village. The group numbered fifty and was lead by a fat, unkempt, bearded man who viciously heeled his stout pony into a gallop. As he did this, he removed a single-bladed war ax from beneath the secured sheepskin that served as his saddle. Raising the ax, he shouted over his shoulder, ‘No mercy! Kill all except any women or children who will fetch gold at the markets!’
On hearing this, the pace of the group increased and they rode into the boundary of the vill
age in a blur of dust and howls—their need for concealment now unnecessary.
The village had a population of
forty souls—most of them still in their simple dwellings preparing for another day in the fields. Some of the smaller children were already outside at play, but now they stood frozen and transfixed, observing the brutal torrent that swept towards them. They were the first to perish; some trampled and left bleeding and broken in the dust; others callously impaled upon spears or cleaved by the cold iron of the war axes.
Soon, the dusty square of the village began to fill with confused villagers as they emerged to investigate the riot of sound outside
their huts. Awful, keening shrieks filled the air, as mothers and grandmothers ran to attend the critically injured. None of the older women survived the attack. Only younger women and children considered sale worthy were spared, and these confined to an empty hut at the edge of the village where a raider took up guard.
The attack, as was usual against an undefended village, was over quickly and savagely; the men of the village having little time in the confusion to put up anything other than token resistance. Most of these died bravely, brandishing makeshift but ineffective weapons. Much of the village was set to the torch, and bodies left to lie where
they had fallen. A smoldering scene of slaughter remained.
The fat leader, Egbert, walked amongst the bodies with his men, delighting in the scene as he se
arched for the maimed and dying. These, he killed with hacking blows from his ax. After a while, he paused and wiped his hands, greasy with blood, onto his tunic. He shouted to a nearby subordinate. ‘Find ale! This morning we feast, and then we rut with the mares that we spared.’ Raucous laughter now mingled with the moans of the dying, and some of the men ran to an intact store that contained ale.
‘Tomas!’ shouted Egbert. ‘Tomas, where are you, you slug?’ He quickly looked round until he spotted the boy. He beckoned impatiently to him, and then pointed around the clearing. ‘Search the bodies . . . usual things, weapons and gold.’
The boy, who was slight in stature, and aged no more than fourteen, knew better than to delay for even a moment when set a task by Egbert. He quickly scurried amongst the bodies, deftly searching for rings, armlets, bracelets, brooches and weapons. These he placed in a pile at the centre of the clearing. He was glad to see that a tall warrior he knew as Withred, a man who had always treated him fairly, was standing by the pile of low-grade treasure.
Withred belonged to the Anglii tribe and his early life had been lived in Angulus on the shores of the Baltic. The Romans had ignored his land, considering it economically bereft, and had no desire to campaign through the difficult country of marsh and forest. After his parents died in a tribal dispute, his Aunt had taken him into her protection. Their people had worshipped the
Goddess Nerthus, and his aunt had taught him to respect the world around him and all that lived in it, in keeping with their religious beliefs.
Eventually, the tribes had united and prospered, but good arable land had become scarce as the sea encroached inland. Therefore, after his aunt died, Withred decided to join one of the war bands that sailed to Southeast Britannia under the leadership of Hengist and Horsa. Years before, Rome had abandoned the island, leaving it unprotected and soon the northern Scot and Pict tribes had begun to threaten the British settlements further south. It was in response to this threat that the British king Vortigern had invited Saxon mercenaries, such as Hengist and Horsa to aid him. Withred had soon proved himself a fierce warrior and shrewd tactician, and quickly rose in the ranks to become a top ranking member of the mercenaries. Furthermore, his proximity to the British coupled with a linguistic talent had helped him learn their language, and this further increased his standing.
Eventually, the Saxon, Angle and Jute group had turned against Vortigern and a larger scale conquest of the island had begun. Withred had travelled to the eastern fringe of the island to aid the Saxon warlord, Osric, and it was from this time that he had struggled with his new role. Up until then, he had always fought against well-armed men in brutal battle. Now he was accompanying war bands, tasked to destroy and strike terror into the largely undefended British villages. His aunt’s earlier teachings still had a bearing on his actions, though, and although he realised that his present life meant he had to kill, he still felt disgust at the excesses he witnessed on the raids, and refused to kill children, women or the unarmed.
‘That’s it lad.’ said Withred as Tomas approached, ‘Do as the fat one tells you and maybe he will spare you his torment tonight.’
Tomas glanced at Withred and attempted a smile through a
swollen mouth that evidenced a recent slap from Egbert, but Withred had become distracted by the bloodletting that surrounded him, which Tomas knew gave the tall warrior no pleasure.
Tomas had heard whispers around the camp that Withred had been sent by the war chief Osric, to keep an eye on the increasingly wayward Egbert, who had been trusted to lead some of the independent sorties into the countryside. Tomas now saw Egbert approaching so he quickly left and busied himself in another part of the clearing.