“Don’t go near their spears, princess. The dogs look calm but those Saxons look foolish with fear.”
“If it’s you they fear, Axl, old man that you are, I’ll soon show them their great error.”
She walked towards them boldly. The men gathered around her and as she addressed them they threw suspicious glances towards Axl. Then one of them called to him, in the Saxon language, to step closer to the torches, presumably so they could see he was not a younger man in disguise. Then after a few more exchanges with Beatrice the men allowed them through.
Axl was puzzled that a village which from a distance looked to be two orderly rings of houses could turn out to be such a chaotic labyrinth now they were walking through its narrow lanes. Admittedly the light was fading, but as he followed Beatrice, he could discern no logic or pattern to the place. Buildings would loom unexpectedly in front of them, blocking their way and forcing them down baffling side alleys. They were obliged, moreover, to walk with even more caution than out on the roads: not only was the ground pitted and full of puddles from the earlier storm, the Saxons seemed to find it acceptable to leave random objects, even pieces of rubble, lying in the middle of the path. But what troubled Axl most was the odour that grew stronger and fainter as they walked, but never went away. Like anyone of his time, he was well reconciled to the smell of excrement, human or animal, but this was something altogether more offensive. Before long he had determined its source: all over the village people had left out, on the fronts of houses or on the side of the street, piles of putrefying meat as offerings to their various gods. At one point, startled by a particularly strong assault, Axl had turned to see, suspended from the eaves of a hut, a dark object whose shape changed before his eyes as the colony of flies perched on it dispersed. A moment later they encountered a pig being dragged by its ears by a group of children; dogs, cows and donkeys under no one’s supervision. The few people they met stared silently at them, or else quickly vanished behind a door or shutter.
“There’s something strange here tonight,” Beatrice whispered as they walked. “Usually they’d be sitting in front of their houses or perhaps gathered in circles laughing and talking. And the children would be following us by now asking a hundred questions and wondering if to call us names or be our friends. Everything’s eerily still and it makes me uneasy.”
“Are we lost, princess, or are we still going toward the place they’ll be sheltering us?”
“I’d been thinking we’d visit first the woman about the medicines. But with things the way they are, we may be better going straight to the old longhouse and keeping out of harm’s way.”
“Are we far from the medicine lady’s house?”
“As I remember it, not far at all now.”
“Then let’s see if she’s there. Even if your pain’s a trivial thing, as we know it to be, there’s no sense in feeling it at all if it can be taken away.”
“It can wait till the morning, Axl. It’s not even a pain I notice till we’re speaking of it.”
“Even so, princess, now we’re here, why not go and see the wise woman?”
“We’ll do so if you particularly wish it, Axl. Though I’d have happily left it for the morning or maybe the next time I’m passing through this place.”
Even as they were talking, they turned a corner into what appeared to be the village square. There was a bonfire blazing at its centre, and all around it, illuminated by its light, a large crowd. There were Saxons of all ages, even tiny children in their parents’ arms, and Axl’s first thought was that they had stumbled upon a pagan ceremony. But as they stopped to consider the scene before them, he saw there was no focus to the crowd’s attention. The faces he could see were solemn, perhaps frightened. Voices were lowered, and collectively came through the air as a worried murmur. A dog barked at Axl and Beatrice and was promptly chased away by shadowy figures. Those among the crowd who noticed the visitors stared their way blankly before losing interest.
“Who knows what concerns them here, Axl,” Beatrice said. “I’d walk away except the medicine woman’s house is somewhere near. Let me see if I can still find my way to it.”
As they moved towards a row of huts to their right, they became aware of many more people in the shadows, silently watching the crowd around the fire. Beatrice stopped to talk to one of them, a woman standing in front of her own door, and after a while Axl realised this was the medicine woman herself. He could not see her well in the near-darkness, but made out the straight-backed figure of a tall woman, probably in her middle years, clutching a shawl around her arms and shoulders. She and Beatrice went on conferring in low voices, sometimes glancing towards the crowd, sometimes at Axl. Eventually the woman gestured for them to enter her hut, but Beatrice, coming up to him, said softly:
“Let me speak with her alone, Axl. Help me take off this bundle and wait out here for me.”
“Can’t I be with you, princess, even if I hardly understand this Saxon tongue?”
“These are women’s matters, husband. Let me talk with her alone, and she’s saying she’ll examine my old body carefully.”
“I’m sorry, princess, I wasn’t thinking clearly. Let me take your bundle from you and I’ll be waiting here as long as you wish.”
After the two women had gone inside, Axl felt a great weariness, especially in his shoulders and legs. Removing his own burden, he leaned against the turf wall behind him and gazed over at the crowd. There was now a growing restlessness: people would stride from the darkness around him to join the crowd while others hurried away from the fire, only to return a moment later. The blaze illuminated some faces sharply, while leaving others in shadow, but after a time, Axl came to the conclusion these people were all waiting, in a state of some anxiety, for someone or something to emerge from the timber hall to the left of the fire. This building, probably some meeting place for the Saxons, must have had a fire of its own burning inside, for its windows flickered between blackness and light.
He was on the verge of nodding off, his back to the wall, the muffled voices of Beatrice and the medicine woman somewhere behind him, when the crowd surged and shifted, letting out a soft collective growl. Several men had emerged from the timber hall and were walking towards the fire. The crowd parted and quietened for them, as though in expectation of an announcement, but none came, and soon people were pressing around the newcomers, their voices building again. Axl noticed that attention was focused almost entirely on the man who had come out last from the hall. He was probably no more than thirty but had about him a natural authority. Although he was dressed simply, as a farmer might be, he did not look like anyone else in the village. It was not just the way he had swept his cloak over one shoulder, revealing his belt and the handle of his sword. Nor was it simply that his hair was longer than any of the villagers’—it hung almost down to his shoulders and he had tied some of it with a thong to prevent it swaying over his eyes. In fact the actual thought that crossed Axl’s mind was that this man had tied his hair to stop it falling across his vision during combat. This thought had come to Axl quite naturally, and only on reflection did it startle him, for it had carried with it an element of recognition. Moreover, when the stranger, striding into the midst of the crowd, allowed his hand to fall and rest on the sword handle, Axl had felt, almost tangibly, the peculiar mix of comfort, excitement and fear such a movement could bring. Telling himself he would return to these curious sensations at some later point, he shut them out of his mind and concentrated on the scene unfolding before him.
It was the bearing of the man, the way he moved and held himself, that so set him apart from those around him. “No matter that he tries to pass himself off as an ordinary Saxon,” Axl thought, “this man is a warrior. And perhaps one capable of wreaking great devastation when he wishes it.”
Two of the other men who had emerged from the hall were hovering nervously behind him, and whenever the warrior drifted further into the crowd, both men tried their best to stay near him, like children anxious not to be left behind by a parent. The two men, who were both young, also wore swords, and in addition, each was clutching a spear, but it was evident they were quite unaccustomed to such weapons. They were, moreover, stiff with fear and seemed unable to respond to the words of encouragement their fellow villagers were giving them. Their gazes darted about in panic even as hands patted their backs or squeezed their shoulders.
“The long-haired fellow is a stranger arrived only an hour or two before us,” Beatrice’s voice said close to his ear. “A Saxon, but one from a distant country. The fenlands in the east, so he says, where he’s lately been fighting sea raiders.”
Axl had been aware for some time that the voices of the women had grown more distinct, and turning, saw that Beatrice and her hostess had come out of the house and were standing at the door just behind him. The medicine woman now spoke softly, for some time, in Saxon, after which Beatrice said into his ear:
“It seems earlier today one of the village men came back out of breath and his shoulder wounded, and when prevailed upon to calm himself told of how he and his brother, together with his nephew, a boy of twelve, were fishing at their usual spot by the river and were set upon by two ogres. Except according to this wounded man these were no ordinary ogres. Monstrous and able to move faster and with greater cunning than any ogre he’d ever seen. The fiends—for it’s by that name these villagers are talking of them—the fiends killed his brother outright and carried off the boy, who was alive and struggling. The wounded man himself got away only after a long chase along the river path, the foul grunts coming closer behind him all the while, but he outran them in the end. That would be him there now, Axl, with the splint on his arm, talking to the stranger. Wounded though he was, he was anxious enough for his nephew to lead a party of this village’s strongest men back to the spot, and they saw smoke from a campfire near the bank, and as they were creeping up to it, their weapons at the ready, the bushes opened and it seems these same two fiends had set a trap. The medicine woman says three men were killed even before the others thought to run for their lives, and though they returned unhurt, most of them are now shivering and muttering to themselves in their beds, too shaken to come out and wish well these brave men willing to go out now, even with the darkness coming and the mist setting in, to do what couldn’t be done by twelve strong men in broad daylight.”
“Do they know the boy is still alive?”
“They know nothing, but they’ll go out to the river even so. After the first party returned in terror, for all the urging of the elders, there was not a single man brave enough to join a further expedition. Then as fortune would have it, here’s this stranger come into the village seeking a night’s shelter after his horse has hurt a foot. And though he knows nothing of this boy or his family before today, he’s declared himself willing to come to the village’s aid. Those others going out with him are two more of the boy’s uncles, and by the look of them, I’d say they’re more likely to hinder that warrior than be of help. Look, Axl, they’re sick with fear.”
“I see that right enough, princess. But they’re brave men all the same, to go out when they’re so afraid. We chose a bad night to ask this village’s hospitality. There’s weeping somewhere even now, and there may be a great deal more before the night’s passed.”
The medicine woman seemed to understand something of what Axl had said, for she spoke again, in her own language, then Beatrice said: “She says to go straight to the old longhouse now and not show ourselves again till morning. If we choose to wander the village, she says there’s no telling how we may be greeted on a night like this.”
“My own thoughts exactly, princess. Then let’s be taking the good lady’s advice, if you can still remember the way.”
But just at that moment the crowd made a sudden noise, then the noise became cheering, and the crowd shifted again, as if struggling to change shape. Then it began to move, the warrior and his two companions near its centre. A low chanting started up, and soon the spectators in the shadows—the medicine woman included—joined in. The procession came towards them, and though the brightness of the fire had been left behind, several torches were moving within it, so that Axl could catch glimpses of faces, some frightened, some excited. Whenever a torch illuminated the warrior, his expression was calm, gazing to left and right to acknowledge words of encouragement, his hand once more on the handle of his sword. They went past Axl and Beatrice, continued between a row of huts and out of view, though the muted chanting remained audible for some time.
Perhaps daunted by the atmosphere, neither Axl nor Beatrice moved for a while. Then Beatrice began to question the medicine woman on the best way to reach the longhouse, and it seemed to Axl the two women were soon discussing directions to some other destination altogether, for they pointed and gestured into the distance towards the hills above the village.
They finally set off for their lodgings only when quiet had descended over the village. It was harder than ever to find one’s way in the darkness, and the occasional torches burning on corners seemed only to increase the confusion with their shadows. They were proceeding in the opposite direction to that in which the crowd had gone, and the houses they passed were dark with no obvious signs of life.
“Walk slowly, princess,” Axl said softly. “If either of us takes a bad tumble on this ground, I’m not certain there’ll be a soul coming out to help us.”
“Axl, I think we’ve lost our way again. Let’s go back to the last corner and this time I’ll be sure to find it.”
In time the path straightened and they found themselves walking beside the perimeter fence they had seen from the hill. Its sharpened poles loomed above them a shade darker than the night sky, and as they went on, Axl could hear murmured voices somewhere above them. Then he saw they were no longer alone: high up along the ramparts, at regular intervals, were shapes he realised were people gazing out over the fence into the dark wilderness beyond. He had barely time to share this observation with Beatrice before they heard footsteps gathering behind them. They quickened their pace, but now a torch was moving nearby and shadows swung rapidly before them. At first Axl thought they had stumbled upon a group of villagers coming in the other direction, but then saw that he and Beatrice were entirely surrounded. Saxon men of varying ages and builds, some with spears, others wielding hoes, scythes and other tools, were jostling around them. Several voices addressed them at once, and ever more people seemed to be arriving. Axl felt the heat of the torches thrust at their faces, and holding Beatrice close to him, tried to locate with his gaze the leader of this group, but could find no such figure. Every face, moreover, was filled with panic, and he realised any careless move could bring disaster. He pulled Beatrice out of the reach of a particularly wild-eyed young man who had raised a trembling knife in the air, and searched his memory for some Saxon phrases. When nothing came to him, he made do with a few soothing noises, such as he might have made to an unruly horse.
“Stop that, Axl,” Beatrice whispered. “They won’t thank you for singing lullabies to them.” She addressed one, then another of the men in Saxon, but the mood did not improve. Shouted arguments were breaking out, and a dog, tugging on a rope, broke through the ranks to snarl at them.