‘I didn’t think I’d ever go to my death fighting shoulder to shoulder with a Norman,’ Magnus said to me in what was barely more than a whisper. ‘But you have been a steadfast ally, and for that I thank you.’
‘And you,’ I replied solemnly, without looking at him, without glancing either to left or to right. My gaze was fixed firmly on the door as I waited for the timbers to give way and for the first of our foemen to burst through. ‘May God grant our sword-arms strength.’
Neither ?lfhelm nor Godric spoke. Possibly they were both lost in prayer or thought, rehearsing in their minds what they would do when the enemy came upon us, imagining how they would strike and how they would spill Danish blood. Or possibly they simply realised, as I did, that there was nothing more to say.
All I could think about were the things I regretted. Not being able to see Oswynn one last time. Not taking my vengeance upon Haakon for what he had done. Bringing Godric with me on this expedition. For all that recent weeks had changed him, he was still not much more than a boy, eager and full of promise. Now that promise was to be snuffed out because of me.
Beneath my helmet my brow was running with sweat. It trickled off my brow, stinging my eyes. The dim lantern-light played across the surface of my blade and lit up the turquoise stone decorating the pommel, and I felt the cord wrapped around the hilt digging into my palm as I gripped it tight. Like Rollant defending to the last the pass against the pagan hordes of King Marsilius, so I too would go bravely to my death. This was my stand, my Rencesvals, I thought bitterly.
The door timbers flexed as the axe struck again. The door couldn’t hold much longer, surely. In another few blows splinters would fly, the enemy would be through. And then the slaughter would begin.
‘Stay close,’ I murmured. ‘Don’t let them draw you out. If they break through the barricade, fall back to the second room. Remember that each one we cut down is another corpse that his friends will have to climb over before they reach us. We will hold fast. We will fill the morning with their blood.’
I almost followed that by raising a cry for Normandy and for King Guillaume, so familiar had those words grown in recent years, so instinctive had they become, just as the movements of the thrust and parry, the cut and the slice were ingrained through long hours of practice into my limbs, into my soul. But I choked them back, realising even as the phrases formed upon my tongue what an affront to Magnus it would be to utter them, and indeed how little they now meant to me. The friends and allies, present and absent, who had supported me in this endeavour were the only men, the only causes, in whose names I now fought.
For Magnus and ?lfhelm. For Godric, Serlo and Pons. For Aubert, for Eudo and for Wace.
The door flexed once more. The hinges made a terrible shearing sound, and the bar that we’d set in place trembled. Another blow followed, and suddenly the planks were cracking along the grain, buckling under the force of the impact. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the sweetness of the air roll across my tongue, quelling the fears that dwelt at the back of my mind and burying them deep, doing my best to still my fast-beating heart and allow the battle-calm to overtake me, steeling myself for what was to come. Readying myself to meet my God.
Then the sound of steel upon oak ceased, and I opened my eyes, expecting to see the first of the foemen staggering beneath the lintel. The first who would die.
But though the shouting continued, the door still stood. At first I couldn’t understand what was happening, why the enemy seemed to have given up. I glanced at the others and saw the same bewilderment in their expressions. Only then did I hear the horns sounding out across the camp: a series of rapid, insistent blasts followed by a single sustained note. Again the pattern was repeated, and again, and a fourth and a fifth time as well. And though their words were a mystery to me, I realised from their tones that the Danes standing beyond the door were suddenly crying out for a different reason: no longer out of haste to break down the door and discover what was going on in this hall, but in confusion and alarm.
Feet thudded upon turf, steadily growing further away from us. From the din that was erupting outside I reckoned the whole camp had to be rising. It didn’t take me long to guess the reason why.
They had come. Nihtegesa and Wyvern had come, and not a moment too soon.
Twenty-eight