Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles Part I The Winter of the Danes, AD 871/872 I, Asser, monk of St Davids in the land of Cymru, have preserved these writings. I collected many such stories in the service of my friend and master, Ælfred, whom men are now calling ' The Great.' Some stories I used in my scholarly work, The Life of King Ælfred. Perhaps you have read it? These tales you now find here were unsuitable for such a book but may hold sufficient interest for the reader to be worth recording. Great Ælfred now is dead these nine years and the land of the West Saxons is held by Edward, his son. Edward is a good soldier but, I fancy, an indifferent King. I have great hopes, on the other hand, for Ælfred's grandson and Edward's son, Athelstan. Time will tell; though I doubt sufficient time will be vouchsafed to me to see the end of all of these things of which I witnessed, if not the start, at least the substance. I am an old man now and have an old man's memory. That which transpired those many years ago, I remember like yesterday: Yesterday, I remember not at all! However, I have always written down what I saw and heard that I deemed of moment and these scribblings have been ever of use to aid and bolster failing memories - my own and others'. It is a wonder to me that it is a man's vanity that holds out against the ravages of age the longest. Teeth, hair, virility; all will have deserted him but still vanity remains. Thus and thus it is that old men grow more mighty in their youth with each passing year. The older they get, the braver they were. The longer ago the deed, the mightier it becomes. Thank God for the humility of the monk's station. By such have I avoided the sin of false pride. In the manner of my late King and comrade, I have rendered these tales in the Anglo Saxon Tongue. Ælfred will be remembered as a warrior and it will soon be forgot that he was a scholar of great merit. He had a gift, you see. He could take the Church Latin of Bede or Gregory the Great and turn into simple, beautiful Anglo Saxon phrases. Yes, Men will remember Ælfred the Warrior, the Ring-Giver: how many will praise Ælfred the Book-Giver, the Law-Maker? Enough!! Those who will may read my book. The rest of you idlers may derive some benefit from these tales. Written at Wiltun in the Year of our Lord Nine Hundred and Eight. Author's Note - The Winter of the Danes Ivar the Boneless, the most famous Viking of his age, disappears from History in the winter of 871/872 AD. History does not relate the origins of his soubriquet. I would like to think that the rough humour of the Vikings could have been referring to impotence. There is absolutely no historical basis for suggesting he was paedophile. His brother, Halfdan, left England in about 876 AD and was replaced by even more ambitious marauders. Like Ivar and Halfdan, Asser, King Alfred's friend and biographer, is an historical reality as indeed are Alfred himself, Æthelred his brother and Archbishop Wulfhere. All others are characters of my own imagining. The Anglo-Saxons used the term 'Danes' to cover all their Scandinavian invaders, whether from Denmark, Norway or the Baltic. I have used the mystery of Ivar's end as a device for this story. I have tried to remain faithful to history but have also used a certain amount of licence. Likewise, I have used Anglo-Saxon spellings and place names - Thetford becomes Theodford. Waneting is modern-day Wantage, Gyldeford is Guildford, Fullanhamm is Fulham, now firmly a part of London. Sceaftensbyrig is Shaftesbury in Dorset, Windlesora is Windsor and Wintanceaster is modern-day Winchester, where King Alfred's statue stands guard outside the cathedral. I have used these styles simply to add 'atmosphere' and to show what a clever bastard I am. If you want to know more about this period I recommend 'Anglo Saxon England' by Sir Frank Stenton. It may be a few years old now and some sections might bear revision, but it is still the best work on the English Dark Ages for both clarity and readability. (N.B. Æthelred is a popular Anglo-Saxon name meaning 'Good Counsel ' The most well known to bear this name is, of course Æthelred Unrede. Not 'unready' in the sense of unprepared but 'unrede' -' no counsel'; a harsh but accurate contemporary pun on the King's name. This Æthelred lived considerably later and should not be confused with Alfred's unfortunate brother) The Winter of the Danes, AD 871/872 "The King has summoned the Fyrd to meet at Reading". My father's voice held an edge of resignation. It was the third time that year that King Ælfred had called out the Shire levies. The House Ceorls muttered among themselves. This must mean the Danes had broken the peace we had fought so hard for, starting at Wealingaford that May. Wealingaford had been my first battle. I had stood in the shield wall that day beside my father as the Danes charged up the ridge. We were Ælfred's sworn men. I could smell the fear, my own among it. The enemy looked huge. Out in front were the naked madmen; those in whom the fighting madness raged to the point they went 'bare-sark', as the Danes say, without clothes. Their skaalds were singing some of kind of battle hymn. They were all noise and frightfulness. That wasn't Ælfred's way. We stood shoulder to shoulder. The King's House Ceorls started the beat, a steady drumming of the great axes upon our shields rising to a climax when we would shout as one, " God Almighty!!" Then the drumming would subside before rising to another crescendo and another shout. Shoulder to shoulder in the shield wall. That is how the men of Wessex fight. I killed my first man that day, I was sixteen years old and I killed and killed. They broke on our wall like the tide dashing upon the rocks; like the rocks we stood. The great axes smote them. The golden dragon banner flew above our heads; we roared our war-shout in defiant unison, "God Almighty!!!!" I have heard old warriors say that there is nothing more frightening than to charge a shield wall. I hope I never have to do it. I was frightened enough to stand amid the carnage, seeing the severed limbs fly and the bright blood's gouting. The pagans came again and again and died for their pains and their courage. Ivar, the one the men call 'The Boneless' led them on. His brother, Halfdan, was their chief but I never saw him on the field that day. Ivar dressed always in black. He wore a necklace of men's knucklebones, sheathed in silver. They say he adopted his garb the day his father, Ragnar Lothbrok, died in Jorvik, betrayed and friendless, hurled into a pit of serpents. Old 'hairy britches' was a savage man and he came to a savage end but he could never compete in cruelty with Ivar, his son. We chased them back to the river that day. There were eight more battles to follow, all bloody, none conclusive. We came to Terms. Ælfred granted them the King's Peace if they stayed away from Wessex so they turned north into Mercia and headed for the Five Boroughs, to winter at Leicester, as we thought. Now it appeared they had broken out and we were summoned to Reading to answer Ælfred's call. There would be no peace that year and no marriage for me while the Danes were abroad. After Wealingaford, my father had called on Ædwig, Thegn at Warmynster, and arranged my betrothal to Elfgirda, his youngest daughter. She was almost fifteen and ripe for marriage and would bring a handsome dowry. I didn't care; I loved her. She was slight and gentle but had a merry spirit in her cornflower eyes. I had known her since we were small. My father's lands in the Sceaftensbyrig Hundred ran by her father's. They were both men of rank, had been House Ceorls to Æthelred, Ælfred's elder brother and King before. When Æthelred had died of pleurisy, Ælfred had released them with honour, preferring younger and, it must be said, more Godly men. Both our fathers had been baptised but the seed of Christianity never fell in more barren soil than those two. They feared no man and no man's Gods, but taking the vows pleased Ælfred, our scholar-King. My father dispatched messengers to rouse our men and the next morning, before the sun had risen over the hills, we were on the march. Besides my father and I were nine House Ceorls and one hundred and twenty men, Cottagers and Freeholders all. The Ealdorman of Sceaftensbyrig does not fight with thralls. Forty miles to Reading as the Crow flies, sixty-five by the winding road and we forced marched it in two days. But the Danes had tricked us. They crossed the Thames above Windlesora and stormed into Wessex, sacking Farnham and only being turned back by a force of levies out of Wintanceaster. They avoided battle but pillaged and burned the villages about before heading back to join with their Ships at Putney, just above London. That was when misfortune struck. Elfgirda and her mother had taken advantage of the peace to visit her sister at Waneting, where she was married to the Thegn's heir. On their return, they had driven east to avoid the Danes, near Reading, so they thought. They crossed the Thames at the Wey's bridge and walked into the rearguard of the Danish raiders at Gyldeford, where the road forks west to Wintanceaster. Their entourage was small. The guards were overwhelmed and the women were taken by Ivar the Boneless. Bad news travels swift as a raven, as the saying goes. We heard the news of the Danish foray and my Elfgirda's capture the following day. The messengers arrived within an hour of dawn, grim news writ in their exhausted eyes. The King ordered us across the river and we marched along its banks towards London. The country thereabouts, once pleasing to the eye, was all devastation. Blackened ruins stood where once were farms. We came across a burnt-out church; the priest was nailed to the door in the Blood Eagle. These pagans hated priests most of all. Below Windlesora, the ruin of the country grew worse. At every habitation, we came across the bodies of women and children, raped and slaughtered out of hand. The army's mood grew grim. For this was the nature of the war in those days. Somehow the Danes always moved faster. Ælfred had ever to raise the Fyrd; the Danes had no such cause for delay, they were an army always. Whenever our host came up with them, they retreated to their ships. The King would command a fleet to be built but that was in the future. For the present we could only pursue on land. And pursue we did. It was a tired army that straggled into Fullanhamm that night. The village had been sacked and burned and we made a cold camp within the ruins. The King sent scouts along the riverbank. They returned at midnight with a prisoner. They caught the pagan after a sharp fight. Ten of ours met six of theirs but they gave a good account of themselves, sending four good Saxons to the Lord before being overwhelmed. The prisoner was a savage. An axe had taken his sword-arm at the elbow and he was weak with loss of blood. Still he spat at us and cursed us in their uncouth tongue. My father sent for me as I had some words of Danish, learned, like my Frankish and Latin, from the old Friar who had tutored us at the Abbey schoolroom in Sceaftensbyrig. They had tried torture and got curses in return for their trouble and his pains. "We are going to kill you," I told him and he shrugged. He knew that. "Tell me what I ask and you may die with a sword in your hand." Thus he would go to Valhalla and not be a wandering ghost, or such were his beliefs. He looked at me closely. "Can I trust you, puppy?" He said. "My oath," I replied and he nodded. "Ask away." "Ivar has taken my Thegn's wife and daughter. Whither is he bound?" "Is the girl young?" "Fifteen, come winter" "Then thank your milksop God. She's too old for Ivar. He dines on younger meat." "What will he do with her?" "Ransom or slavery, it's all one to the Boneless man." "Where will he take her?" "To the winter camp at Theodford, most like. I can tell you no more, now give me the sword, puppy, and make an end." "I will, as I swore. But one more thing; why do men call him the Boneless?" He laughed at this with genuine amusement. "No iron in his sword, puppy, when it comes to women. That's why he's for the bairns! He's a devil in a fight but droops at the sight of tits! Now come, puppy. I would hear the valkerie." I killed him then, with a sword in his hand, as I'd promised. He deserved to die but there was no call for cruelty. I killed him clean. He smiled as he died, but I did not. I told my father what I'd learned and he told the Thegn. "Then they are lost," was all he would say and turned aside from us. I looked at my father and he shook his head. "The King has forbidden ransom," he said and I could hear the sadness in his voice. "Then it must be a rescue," I said. He looked at me as if I was suddenly struck with madness. "The King will send no army into Danelaw for a woman and a girl, boy," he said, but it was not unkind. I nodded agreement. The King would never leave Wessex unprotected, even to rescue the Queen herself. I felt the rage building inside me and hot tears burning in my eyes. I struggled for control and then I said, my voice choked and cracking, "An army would be no good, Father. They would know we were coming and vanish into the fens or back to their ships. I will go alone." My father stared then gave a mirthless laugh. "That's your heart thinking, my son, not your head. Do you think the Danes will stand aside and let you take them? They will kill before you get twenty miles." But my mind was made up. It was all one to me. If I couldn't save Elfgirda than I might as well be dead. The young believe such things and I muttered some such nonsense. My father put his arm about my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. Whatever he saw there I don't know but he shook his head sadly. "Well, you're a man now and must go to Hell your own way," he said. "Go if you must and with a father's blessing. It wouldn't hurt to get the blessing of the Church as well. Bishop Wulfhere is with the King. Go you and make your confession and ask his intercession with St Anthony for your success." St Anthony was my father's particular Saint, invoked on all occasions of great import or solemnity. It was the only bit of Christianity that ever rubbed off on him. So I went to the Bishop and had my blessing. Ælfred heard of my attempt and sent for me. I bowed to my King; we Saxons do not kneel or grovel like the Franks. "Hereward, son of Edmond of Sceaftensbyrig," said the King. "There would be no shame now to give this up and no man here will say you are forsworn. Sometimes it takes greater courage to walk away than to fight. Are you still determined on this rescue?" "I am, my Lord," I replied and the King smiled. "Very well," he said, "So be it." He turned to one of the House Ceorls. "Give this man three of the best horses and such provisions as he needs." He turned back to me and he still smiled. "Go then, Hereward, with my favour." He raised his voice to the host about. "Wessex need not fear when her sons are such men as this!" And my heart swelled with pride as I rode from the camp, the cheers of the army ringing in my ears. I headed due north that first day, skirting the edge of the Danelaw and keeping to the Mercian side. Mercia was all but a Danish fiefdom in those days but still Saxon enough to offer a mort less danger than the lands to the east. I made a cold camp outside Heoretford that night. The impulse that had driven thus far was still hot and bright in my breast but I needed more. The following morning I rode into the town as the gates were opened for the new day. The townsfolk stared, but not too closely. It was obvious I was come from the war with my shield and great axe slung on one of the led horses and a long dagger at my hip. I'm told I was fair of face in those far-off days of youth but that day my face was as thunder. Townsfolk and farmers respect the warrior but do not wish his company unless the enemy is at the gates. This town was no different and I could almost hear the collective sigh of relief when I rode on. I had hoped for news but there was none. The Inn was crowded with drovers come from Warwickshire. They knew nothing of the Danish army that I had not seen myself. They walked carefully around me and said nothing untoward but spat when I said I was from Wessex. These days, now that Ælfred is King of all the English Saxons, Wessex and Mercia are as one. It was not so in the days of turmoil. There were many in Mercia who resented him then, even if he had married their own King's daughter and come to their aid on more than one occasion. Some saw him as prolonging the wars. The Danes came like the plague and, like the plague, they passed on. Of course, it was easier to get rid of the Danes. All you had to do was pay them. As long as you could keep paying, they would pass. For Ælfred and Wessex, the days of danegeld were over. Now he paid them in a different coin - death. The autumn was come to Mercia and with it foul weather. I struggled for the next few days through sheeting rain, driven hard by a blustery west wind. The tracks turned to streams and the winterbournes filled and became rivers again. Leaves snowed thick upon the trackways and my woollen cloak weighed heavy round my shoulders. The horses and I were all thoroughly miserable as we plodded, heads bowed, ever north and east. The country changes after Heoretford. The hills disappear and the woods that cover much of the country to the south and west die out. What is left is heath land and vile fen, where strange lights flicker in the night. It's said these lights are the souls of the unshriven. I know not, nor wish I to discover. I crossed the Cam and came to the land of the North Folk. Angles, cousins to the Saxons, they speak our tongue with a queer lilt. I was now in the Danelaw. There are some that suppose that only Danes live within the Danelaw. It isn't so. Most are Angles in the northern part and East Saxons in the south, in the country above London. Ruled by Danes they may be, but they are English still. They have no reason to love their new masters. They are little better than slaves but they live, at least. My plan, such as it was, was to find a local with a knowledge of Theodford Camp. I reasoned that if I could pinpoint Ivar's quarters, I could get to the women under cover of night. The Danes wouldn't be alert, safe here in their heartland. Surprise would be on my side and if challenged, well, I had my Danish. We don't look so different from them; their clothes may have been a little different but that could be easily remedied. Now they had been here some years, even that distinction had begun to blur. At night and at distance, I reckoned I could pass for a Dane. I had just to get the women out of the camp and back to the horses. We would be away and gone before daylight and, with God's help, back into Wessex in four days, five at the outside. Truth to tell it sounded too simple even to my own credulous ears. And so it proved to be. The first obstacle was to find someone who knew the camp. Theodford Camp sprawled upon the heath, a reeking scar on a rotten landscape. Everywhere was mud, thick and glutinous. A Danish army is not noted for its tidiness any more than for its mercy. The place was like a midden, no, it was a midden. I could discern no order in the camp. Man and beast conspired to produce a stinking chaos. Only God knew how the plague stayed away. The land in those parts is flat and open. There was no hill to provide a vantage point and the woods were sad, scrawny things, providing little cover now the leaves were gone. I made my reconnaissance in the dawn, crawling through sodden bracken and couch grass. I was soaked to the skin before I got half way to the palings that surrounded the camp. These were designed more to keep the livestock in than to keep any invader out. I discovered nothing of use for my efforts. I found a slight depression in the heath to lie up in during the day. From there I could watch any comings and goings from the camp. There were precious few. The only building of significance was a hall at the centre. Not grand enough to be a true Great Hall, it still doubtless served that function for I could see the warriors gathering there as dusk began to fall. I dragged myself back to my camp in the thickest part of the woods thereabout. I was cold, wet and disheartened. As far as I could tell, all within the camp lived there. There were no day-labourers I could woo to point out Ivar's hut to me or say where hostages might be held. As I made my bed of sodden ferns and bracken, all I could do was pray that the morrow might bring hope. At least it brought an end to the rain. A watery sun rose with the dawn as I crept once more to my lookout place. The wind too had died. The camp woke slowly. The sun must have been up two hours and more before the first bleary Dane emerged from the poor Great Hall. It was then that I noticed the girl. She was a skinny, slatternly thing but she was outside the palings. She was rolling a small water butt down to the bourne that skirted the southern side of the camp. It was the kind of stream we call a winterbourne - dry in summer but full throated now with the autumn rain. I guessed it drained into that nightmare of swamp and brackish ponds called the fens. I hadn't noticed it before from where I lay. The land was flat and the cut of this ditch could not be discerned from ground level. If it hadn't been for the girl I wouldn't have seen it at all. She looked to be an Angle from her dress. I didn't think there would be many Danish menials in the camp. I slithered over the wet couch towards her. She didn't see me coming, intent as she was on filling her barrel. Slipping quickly over the edge of the bank, I was suddenly beside her. I covered her mouth with my hand to stop her crying out. "No, master," she cried in Danish, "Please, no more. I am hurt." I hushed her with a gesture. She couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. The bloodstains on her skirts told their own story. "Quiet, girl!" I murmured, for sound travels far in still air. She gasped. "You're Saxon, I took you for one of them." She almost spat this last. "I am Hereward, son of Edmond of Sceaftensbyrig and King Ælfred's man," I told her. By the effect this had I might have well said I had just fallen from the moon or hailed from farthest Tartary. Her eyes grew round and her mouth opened like a trout catching mayflies. "Wessex?" she said at last, "You've come from Wessex?" I nodded my assent. "Great merciful God has heard us! Where is your army? Are you a scout for the King's host? Will you kill them all?" The questions were tumbling from her, words scrambling over each other in their rush to be heard first. I held up my hand for silence. "I come alone," I said and her faced collapsed in misery. She made to turn from me and I grasped her arms and shook her. With a weary gesture she began to remove her skirt. "What are you doing? In Christ's sweet name, I mean you no harm." "Dane or Saxon, it's all one to me now." "I want your help, girl, not your cunny." "And what help can I give?" "Let me explain." And explain I did. We were crouched at the stream's edge, out of sight from the camp as I told her my story. She still had that mooncalf look in her eyes but I could see she was taking it all in. When I mentioned Ivar's name she looked terrified and began to sob. I gentled her with my hand upon her hair, as one would quiet a foal. After a little, her chest ceased heaving and she told me all that had befallen her. Her name, she told me, was Beate. The Danes had taken her that summer with her younger sister from a village on the Medway, far to the south. She was twelve years old, her sister, three years younger. On the first night of her captivity, Ivar had taken her to his bed. She had been too old for the Boneless man. He had stripped her and, on seeing her forlorn little bush of hair, howled like a rabid dog. He raped her then with the hilt of his dagger before casting her, naked, to his men. Since then, they had used her every night. She had fallen pregnant but miscarried three weeks before. I thought her lucky to be alive; doubtless she thought differently. Ivar had taken her sister in her stead. The child had died after a couple of months. Ivar had hurt her until she bled. The bleeding had never stopped. A single tear welled her in her eyes as she remembered. I was moved beyond tears, beyond words. I snarled and spat and cursed his name to Hell. And then I swore a deep and solemn oath. Ivar would die by my hand; there would be no mercy. Beate promised that she would try and discover where Elfgirda and her mother were being held. She told me that there were some women being held for ransom and these had not been harmed as yet. Ivar had little patience, though, it seemed. If no ransom was paid at the first demand, he sold the younger hostages to Friesian traders. The elder became drudges, or worse. I helped her lift the barrel above the bank and watched her struggle back to the camp with her burden. We agreed to meet again the following day. I crawled back to my hideout to continue the vigil. The sun waxed stronger through the day and I must have dozed off in its warmth. Truth to tell, I had not realised the extent of my exhaustion. I slept like a baby and woke a captive. The pricking of a dagger at my nape dragged me from deep slumber. I turned slowly to see the grinning faces. There were three of them. "What have we got here?" The voice was pure Angle. The three of them crouched in my hollow. The grins were still in place but eyes flickered nervously towards the camp. The sleep had left me now and I knew them for what they were - Wolfsheads, lawless men driven out for their crimes. They were poorly armed. Two with daggers, one with a hunting bow. The arrows in his quiver were mismatched and poor things. " I am Hereward, son of Edmund of Sceaftensbyrig and Ælfred's man, " I said, "Whose men are you?" Although I knew the answer. I saw the surprise on their filthy faces. What was a man of Wessex doing here on the edge of Theodford? I seized my chance and swung a boot into the nearest crotch, pulling my own dagger as I rolled away from them. The one I'd kicked collapsed; I swear I burst his fruit. The bowman tried to nock an arrow but his hands were shaking like a man with the ague. I dived at the remaining pair, arms flung, and bore them to the turf. There was time for nothing more. The disturbance had been spotted from the camp and Danish voices rose in the challenge. Abandoning all caution, I sprinted for the trees and my horses. The Wolfsheads scattered, one bent double still and limping. Glancing back, I saw him caught and cut down. A dozen or more Danish warriors were whooping in pursuit of the other two. They looked to be going strong. I caught my horse and one other, the one that carried my weapons, and, vaulting onto his back, I galloped away, leading the spare horse behind. The loss of the other horse, which carried my provisions, was a bitter blow. But a man needs a whole skin to eat. I had my shield and axe, the better of the bargain, as I thought. The worst part was the camp would now be alert. Knowing there were Wolfsheads in the area would make them wary. I could see no chance of meeting Beate on the morrow. After a mile or so I slowed the horses. The land rose slightly, not enough to be called a hill but enough to hide me from the camp. The light was fading as I circled round to the north. I wanted to be on the opposite side from the Wolfsheads. Let the hue and cry go after them! The next dawn found me in a patch of coppiced chestnut looking out on the main camp gate. A sentry stood by the gate, raised up by standing on a wagon bed. He had chosen well for the land was flat as sin and he could see anything that walked, crawled or flew outside the palings. I resolved to wait for darkness and spent the day hungry, in restless dozing. At least there was no sign of the sun and dusk came that bit earlier. The sentry changed at intervals and once or twice I saw horsemen enter and leave. Men may suppose that great sailors like the Danes would be fish from water on the land but not so. Although they fought on foot like us, all I ever saw could ride a land horse as well as their wavehorses. It is we Saxons who make poor cavalry. When Hengist and Horsa, the fathers of our race, first came to these shores, the Britons pressed them sore from horseback. Even today, we have the memory of Mount Badon. Some say the Britons' King will come again but I don't see it. They are pressed back far into the west now, beyond Selwood. My thoughts that day were not on legends but living men. How to get into the camp? If I could only find Beate, she could point to Elfgirda and her mother. But now I lacked a horse. I was at the point of despair. Like my father, I am not greatly moved by the priests' mumblings but now, alone and in peril of my life, I turned to prayer. Now I cannot say that praying brought the answer but I also cannot say that it did not. For, as I knelt in the thicket, it came to me that I could go among the camp as a Herald, come to negotiate for ransom. This device, at least, would gain me admittance to their stronghold and allow me to see for myself where Elfgirda and her mother were being held. I woke before dawn the next day and made my preparations. I wove a wreath of osiers and attached them to a long wand of chestnut, cut from my coppice. I washed myself as best I could and combed out and braided my hair; my beard was not yet long enough to concern me overmuch. I put on fresh woollen trews and brushed my cloak with teasel. As soon as the camp was stirring, I made my approach. I rode towards the guarded gate slowly, my wand held high. As soon as I was within hailing distance I called to them in Danish. "Peace! Peace, I come in peace!" "Who comes?" "Hereward of Wessex, herald to the King!" "Which dunghill cockerel is that?" "Ælfred of Wessex, the cockerel who beat you!" There were obvious signs of hurried consultations and the gates creaked open. I rode in, looking neither to left nor right, but with my eyes fixed on a figure all in black, a silver circlet at his throat. He was tall and slim and would have been fair but for the small pox scars on his face. His hair was the colour of red gold and his eyes like ice. Ivar the Boneless was a well-made man. His lips smiled but his eyes remained cold. "State your business, Ælfred's pup." "Lord Ivar?" "That I am, boy, and more." "My Lord, the King has sent me to discover if you will ransom the Lady Gytha, wife to Ædwig, Thegn of Warmynster, and also her daughter, the Lady Elfgirda. He would also inquire of you of any others you may hold that are of gentle birth." "Ælfred has decreed no ransom." "True, my Lord, for fighting men, but the King does not make war on women, nor wishes them to suffer in his wars." Ivar appeared to consider this. I went on. "You will know, my Lord, that my King is of the Christian Faith?" Ivar nodded and spat on the ground; a casual insult. "It is simply thus," I said. "Our religion forbids us from rape or otherwise to make war on the gentle sex." Ivar suddenly bellowed with laughter. The warriors, standing around and listening to our exchanges, did likewise. "Why then make war? If not for women and plunder, then for what? The pleasure of killing men? Your King is mad and all Christians likewise. We fight for gain, boy, not glory!" "As my Lord pleases." I kept my face still although I was raging inside. "Will you discuss ransom, my Lord?" Ivar shrugged. He stroked his chin with one hand, the other on the hilt of a long dagger at his belt. He looked at me keenly and I was sure he could see through my pretence. His ice-eyes were never still. He took in my garments and my weapons and my obvious youth. "Why did Ælfred send a boy?" "I speak your language a little, Lord." "Hmm, so you do. A little. Come then, and let us speak of terms." With that, he turned his back and strode towards the Great Hall. As I followed him, I caught a glimpse of Beate, eyes round as mill-wheels, lurking at the edge of the crowd. I gave her a brief sign with my fingers, under the guise of adjusting my cloak. The inside of the camp was rank and muddy and stank of dung, wood-smoke and horse-piss. As I looked about, I reckoned there were upwards of three thousand warriors alone. Everywhere I could see thralls and captives forced to menial work. Some sorry looking men were digging a new latrine trench and women were preparing the midday meal on an open range. It looked like flat bread and some sort of broth. Ivar beckoned to me his quarters, a larger hut beside the Great Hall, made of cob and thatched with reeds. He thrust aside the hide that covered the doorway and drew me inside. In the gloom, I could see a sleeping pallet of fur-covered straw and a rough table and brace of chairs. Ivar sat and indicated I should do likewise. Two silent warriors took station at my back. There was a movement among the furs on the pallet and a girl-child, naked as a jay, emerged. Her face was bruised and wracked in misery. I felt my face grow hot with anger and desperately looked away, trying to compose myself. The Danish chief had taken all this in; the direction of my glance and my reaction. He now sought to discomfit me further by calling the girl to him, as a man would call a dog. His hands roamed over the child's body. She whimpered as he thrust his fingers into her. All the while his eyes were on me. A smile played around his lips but never reached those cold, shrewd eyes. "What do you think of my little pet?" I said nothing, but kept my eyes locked on his, trying to ignore what he was doing. The girl tried to squirm away from the insistent fingers and he swatted her, backhanded, across the face to still her. I longed to reach across the table and cut his heart out but I felt the warriors behind me, alert and ready to kill if I moved against their lord. I kept my peace and after a while, he grew bored with his tormenting of the child and shoved her roughly backwards to the bed. He yawned ostentatiously. "So, Hereward of Wessex, tell me your proposal." "I have none, my Lord. I seek only to know if you will offer the ladies for ransom." "And if I will?" " I am ordered to my King's good-brother, the King of Mercia, and arrange for payment." "And if I will not?" "I am to return to Wessex and tell the Thegn his wife and daughter are lost to him." "Tell me, Hereward, are you a man of rank?" "I am the youngest son of Edmond, Ealdorman of Sceaftensbyrig." " And what is your wergild?" "Six hundred shillings." Ivar snorted at this. My wergild was the sum that a man must pay in reparations if he killed me. In Wessex, it was two hundred shillings for a peasant. My father's rank had wergild of twelve hundred shillings. "It would almost be worth that to kill you." "It would be the worst bad luck, Lord, to kill a herald." The warriors behind me stirred again and I knew my words had hit home. The Danes are a superstitious race. Ivar shrugged again. I knew he was toying with me just because he could. It was the nature of the man. Nothing pleased him better than to inflict suffering. I couldn't understand him. He was a mighty warrior, brave as any man, but still he had the soul of a coward, using his strength against the weak. "Eight Talents of pure gold for each limb," he said at last. I pulled a face of great distress. Such a sum was astronomical. It would ransom a dozen Thegns in other times. Mercia had paid barely twice that to buy off Halfdan's army the previous year. I let my shoulders sag. "I fear it is too much, Lord." "Far too much for a pair of fish-wives." Ivar agreed affably. "Far too much for the Queen of Wessex. Still, it is my price, boy. Now get you gone!" Rough hands seized my arms and propelled me through the door. We walked in silence back to the gate. A thrall held my horse and I saw Beate hovering near by. I stopped. "Beate," I said, "is that you?" She was quick to take my cue and ran forward, dropping to her knees at my feet. "Lord Hereward! Have you come to save us?" "I'm trying to, Beate. Where is your mistress?" She looked puzzled for only a moment and then caught on. "They keep my mistress there, sir, in that hut beside the well." She indicated the place in question. Before I could question her further, I was shoved towards my horse and she was sent on her way with a kick. Once back in my coppice, I needed time to think. Certainly I had improved my situation in that I now knew where the ladies were being held. The problem of getting them out seemed as difficult as ever. The hut by the well was at the opposite end of the camp from the gate. It was close to the palings on the eastern side. I was now due north, a mile from the gate; say a mile and a half from Elfgirda. Even if I could get them out, I still lacked a horse and the land to the east was chancy; deep fen and swamp. Here, perhaps, lay my best chance. If we could make it to the fen, it would be almost impossible to track us. I moved my camp eastwards under cover of night. The next morning I was barely four hundred paces from the palings and could see the hostages' hut clearly beside the well. I studied the immediate area inside and outside the camp. My problem was I wanted a diversion that would take the Danes to the western end of the camp, or at least as far as the gate. This would give a few precious minutes to get in and rescue the women. I was also resolved to take Beate with me as well. Her courage deserved no less. The old Saxons believed there is a God who looks after fools and drunkards. Maybe they had the right of it for I enjoyed greater fortune than any man should expect. Who should I see, hiding a little way to my right, but the two surviving Wolfsheads from my encounter days before. I slid over to them, showing my empty hands and urging them to stay still. A germ of a plan was forming in my head. The lot of the Wolfshead is bitter with every man's hand against him. Any can kill him with impunity. Not all are bad men. Some are falsely accused and if their accuser can gather enough oaths to be sworn against them, the victims are outlawed and their lands and possessions forfeit. I took a chance that these were such as would take a second chance, if offered. "How you would like to earn a pardon and become men again?" "Whose men?" "Edmond of Sceaftensbyrig." "You can do that?" "I can and I shall if you will but help me." "Tell us more." I told them all. How I had been into the camp, where my Elfgirda was captive and how I proposed to effect the rescue. "I just need you to demonstrate in front of the gates to distract them while I get a rope on the palings and pull open a gap," I told them. They looked askance. At length, the bowman said, " How would it be if I were to fire the thatch at the far end of the Great Hall?" I seized his arm. "Could you do it?" He smiled at me and his companion likewise began to nod and echo his words with little confirmations of his own. "The weapon may be poor but the arm is true. Many's the prize I've won for archery at the fairs hereabout, before the Danes came." " He did, 'tis true!" "If I can't hit the Great Hall from two hundred paces you may ride me like a mule!" "That you can!" "And if we can fire the thatch and roast a few Danish arses, you should be able to pull down the palings and get to your women." "That you could." "And if we do all that, we will become Edmond's men?" "On that, I give my oath." We swore the oaths then and there. They would fight that night as true men of Wessex. There was better news for me yet. After eluding the Danes that had killed their companion, they had discovered my other horse and provisions. They shifted a little and looked uncomfortable as they explained that they has helped themselves to my supplies but I was too relieved to worry. We repaired to their camp on the edge of the fen and I ate a good meal at last. We resolved to wait until past midnight, after the moon had set. They had to circle to the north while I muffled the hooves of my horse with rags and crept up against the eastern palings. The signal would be their fire-arrow. I would have the horse pull down two or three of the high palings; two would be enough to let me slip through. They would take one horse and ride double, I would take the other for the ladies. We would meet back at their camp and then go into the fen together. They knew the treacherous pathways well. I watched as the bowman, Wulfstan by name, made his preparations. He bound two arrows with straw and soaked the heads with oil from my provisions. I gave him my flint and steel so as to have a spare. We plaited a rope from reeds and waited. Thus it was, in dark as black as the nether bowels of Hell itself that I crept against the fence. I eased the reed rope around two of the palings and tied them to the harness of my horse. I gave a pull and was gratified to feel the stake move. The ground was soft, not yet touched by frost, though the night was cold and the promise of winter hung in the clear air. I should have prayed for rain or at least a mist to hide us. It was too late for that. I swear to you that waiting for the fire-arrow was the worst part. Time seemed to have stopped. I felt the weight of hours that were, in truth, but minutes. At long last I saw a spark away to the north, followed by the fiery trail of the arrow as it arced over the palings and struck the roof of the Great Hall. I sprang up and urged the horse to pull. One paling came easily, the one I'd tried, the other gave a groan and snapped off leaving a jagged stump some three feet high. It was enough. I was through and into the camp, running like a hare for the hut beside the well. A figure appeared in my path and I smashed my axe across his face without a thought. I know not to this day whether it was a Dane or a thrall. Looking to my left, I could see the thatch beginning to burn merrily. Screams and yells were coming from that direction and I saw a second arrow, trailing fire, lodge in the roof of Ivar's hut. I felt a wild exultation coursing through my veins and I bellowed "Beate, to your mistress now!" I reached the hut and hammered the door from its pintles with my axe. I was screaming at the top of my voice, "Elfgirda! Elfgirda!!!" In the dim light within, I saw her. She was kneeling with her arms around her mother, a determined look on her face. She had a brooch pin in her hand and was ready to defend herself. Her mother was weeping. It took her a second to recognise me and her face lit up with joy. She started to speak but I grabbed her hand. "No time now," I told her, "got to go, quick!" Her mother was hysterical and too overcome to move so I hoisted her onto my shoulders and staggered back the way I'd come, to the gap in the fence. I shoved Lady Gytha through and reached to hurry Elfgirda. Beate was at her shoulder, having heard my shout. Then we were out. I mounted Elfgirda and her mother on one horse and swung Beate up behind me. We kicked the horses into a gallop and fled the fire's glare as swift as they would run. "Don't dismount!" I yelled as we rode into the camp. The horses were blowing a bit so I kept them walking in circles. A few moments later Wulfstan and his comrade, Leofwine, came trotting in, broad grins on their faces. "Time to go!" I called to them and Wulfstan kicked his horse into a canter and led us out into the fen. Behind us, we could see the fires blazing, out of control. All was noise and confusion. I reckoned we had a head-start, at least. We kept moving for the rest of that night, stopping only as the light started to grow ahead of us. It was a grim journey. Twice we had to back-track as Wulfstan missed a trail. The fen was cold and a low mist hung above the ground. Often, the horses were trotting to their hocks in water. As daylight came, we found a patch of dryer ground covered in head-high reeds and made camp there. We were all too exhausted to talk much but I was overjoyed when Elfgirda lay down beside me to sleep. "I knew you would come, " she said, as I wrapped us both in my cloak, "I just knew!" And with that, she fell asleep. We woke in the afternoon and I was able, at last, to relate the ladies all that had befallen. I explained the parts that Beate, Wulfstan and Leofwine had played in their rescue and Lady Gytha promised them all a handsome reward when she was reunited with the Thegn, her husband. We had a simple meal of hard cheese and oat cakes and prepared to move off as soon as the light failed. I had agreed with Wulfstan that it was better to travel by night for a day or two. We thought to move south a way before heading west, back into Mercia. Just then, we heard the nose of hoof-beats and one of our horses whinnied a greeting. The sound of voices reached us and, standing on tip-toe, I looked out across the fen to see a figure in black at the head of a dozen or so mounted men. Ivar had found us! There was nothing we could do but make a run for it. Wulfstan grabbed my arm and spoke in an urgent whisper. "Lord Hereward, if we can but draw them off towards that stump, they will have the foulest ground to cross." He indicated a rotting tree-stump that stood alone in a greener patch of ground some quarter mile distant. I nodded agreement and we mounted as before, two to a horse. This time Leofwine rode with Beate and Wulfstan took Lady Gytha, to even up the weight. Elfgirda swung up behind me and I drew courage from the feel of her arms about my waist. We moved off at a canter, sparing the horses. I threw away my shield but loosed my axe, holding the reins one-handed. The Danes were whooping and yelling behind us, Black Ivar in the van. Wulfstan picked his way with care and he called to us to stay exactly in his tracks, the ground hereabouts being most treacherous. I missed seeing Ivar's horse balk and throw him but I heard the shouts of dismay. I pulled to a halt and turned to see that object of my hatred floundering in the fen. I told Elfgirda to dismount and wait for me and I trotted back towards the fallen Dane. He was sinking in the mire. His companions had stopped some yards back and were trying to make a rope of cloaks to throw to him. Already the ooze was up to his chest and the more he struggled, the deeper he seemed to sink. I could have reached him. He was no more than five feet from the firm bank where I stood. We locked eyes. He knew I could save him but he also knew I wouldn't. He was too proud to beg although he could feel his death almost upon him. With a great heave, he drew his sword, to die with it in hand and so enter Valhalla. A figure shot past me, snatching the axe from my hand. It was Beate. She hurled herself into the mire, striking with the axe as she fell. The blow took Ivar's arm off near the shoulder and thudded into his ribs. The sword spun upwards in a bright arc before being claimed by the fen. Ivar's ice-eyes held pure desolation. He was damned to wander as a ghost. Beate raised the axe again but it slipped from her grasp and flew wide, sinking out of sight. I leapt from the horse and waded in a foot or so, grabbing the enraged girl by the cloak. Together we struggled to regain the firmer ground. Only Ivar's face was showing now. He screamed once before he slipped beneath. A single bubble burst upon that foul surface and he was gone. It took us another eight days to make our way back to Wessex. The Fyrd had been disbanded for the winter and the King and his companions were at Wiltun. We rode in on the first day of December, with a light snow falling. My father and Elfgirda's father were there to greet us. The news of our escape and Ivar's death had come before us and there was great rejoicing throughout the whole of Wessex. Ædwig, Thegn of Warmynster, knelt in the snow in front of my horse. "Hereward, my good-son, you are a hero worthy to rival Beowulf himself," he said and there were tears in his eyes. I dismounted and raised him up. He embraced me. "I never thought it possible," he said and I shook my head. "These are the real heroes, my Lord," I told him. "Wulfstan and Leofwine, now of Sceaftensbyrig and Beate of Kent, It was she who slew Ivar and took his sword-arm, at the last." He smiled benignly at the trio and then his eyes fell upon his wife and daughter. I swear he almost knocked me over in his rush to embrace them! My father put his arm about me and smiled in happiness. "I never thought to see you again this side of the grave, my son!" Then the King was there, amusement twinkling in his eyes. "Hereward, son of Edmond, I greet you." I bowed to him. All had fallen silent. "The Hundred at Middletun is in need of a new Ealdorman. Old Cynric has died without an heir. I think it marches by your father's lands. Of course, an Ealdorman has need of a wife, but then I see you have provided for yourself in that direction!" And he roared with laughter. Elfgirda and I were married on the first day of the year, the eight hundred and seventy second since the birth of Our Lord. Wulfstan and Leofwine became Hereward of Middletun's men. Beate remained in Wessex and grew into a lovely young woman, eventually marrying the son of one of my father's House Ceorls, who became, in turn, a House Ceorl to me at Middletun. They live among us still. The wars against the Danes went on and got worse before they got better. But something began in that Winter of the Danes. A new spirit was abroad in Wessex that Ælfred was to forge into a mighty weapon. I take some small pride that I helped place that weapon in his hands.