I imagined the fire raging inside his heart: a fire sparked both by the enemy besieging him, and by his own countrymen for having undermined and betrayed him. He could just as easily have sent his sworn swords out to wreak the same destruction, but instead he chose to risk his own hide and lead these raids in person: so that he could show himself to be doing something of worth, and give enemies and allies alike cause to respect and fear him.
He and I were more similar than I’d realised. We both strove for recognition for our deeds, and struggled against the weighty oaths that bound us. Both of us had at one time led whole armies into the field, yet now found ourselves in somewhat humbler circumstances, lacking the respect we craved and which for a while at least we had commanded. But pride could be a dangerous thing. It could make a man blind to reason and at the same time sow the seeds of his own destruction.
‘If what you’re saying is true, and he sees himself as the man who will drive us all back across the Narrow Sea,’ I asked, ‘why is it that we haven’t heard of him before now? Where has he been these past five years?’
Godric shrugged. ‘No one knows.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He and his retainers claim he fought both at H?stinges as well as under Eadgar ?theling’s banner, but no one who was there on those campaigns remembers seeing him. Some say he took ship with a band of Danes shortly after the invasion and has been raiding across the German Sea, and others that he stayed in England, where he roamed the forests, waylaying travellers on the roads and growing rich on the spoils.’
The feared Hereward was little better than a bandit, then, albeit one with pretensions to greatness. Not that that made him any less dangerous; the fires burning in the distance were testament to that. I continued to watch the silent smoke rising, its tendrils coiling around one another and turning the blue skies raven-black: his warning to us. I knew then that there would be no mercy, and that whether or not Morcar held true to his word, this was a struggle that we would be fortunate to survive.
It was near sunset by the time we finally reached Alrehetha and the newly built guardhouse that stood watch over the marshes. The ground was too soft for any castle worth the name to be erected, and so in place of a mound and tower a simple ringwork had been erected, not unlike the hill forts that the ancient folk had left behind them and which we often saw on our travels around the kingdom. A stout palisade ran the length of the circuit, atop low earthen banks, at the foot of which lay broad ditches, in some places as much as fifty feet wide, into which the fen-water had been channelled, so that any would-be attacker would first have to swim beneath a hail of arrows before beginning his assault.
Not that we expected any such attack. The enemy had nothing to gain and everything to lose by sallying from the Isle. Defending the opposite shore of the marsh, running along a ridge of higher ground, stood stout ramparts and palisades, behind which the enemy were no doubt watching and making ready to repel our assault. Between them and us lay two miles of gold-glistening fen, and so I couldn’t judge the condition of those defences or of the men who held them, but even without seeing them at close hand I knew it was a hard task that we faced. I wondered how many men the enemy had posted there, and whether they feared the battle to come, as we did, or whether they believed in the power of St ?thelthryth to lend strength to their sword-arms and, in Hereward, to give them someone who would deliver them victory.
In the morning I ventured down to the marsh’s edge together with Robert, Eudo and Wace to see for ourselves the bridge about which so much had been said, and upon which rested any hope we had of capturing Elyg. To call it a bridge was, to speak honestly, to give it a grander name than it deserved, for it wasn’t a single structure but many, linked together to form a continuous path from our shore, by way of a few patches of dry ground that stood proud of the fen, to the Isle. Where the marsh was shallowest, dykes had been built up from gravel and earth before being overlaid with turf, or else sturdy posts had been driven into the marsh-bed to support timber causeways. Across the deeper parts, meanwhile, rowing boats, barges and makeshift rafts made from barrels had been lashed together, and then wooden planks secured across the top of them, so that they formed pontoons perhaps thirty or forty paces in length. These were then linked with rope and chain so that together they made a kind of floating road.