But Wulfnoth’s patience has run out. He breaks into a charge, splashing through the water, yelling as he comes, with Cuffa behind him.
A rush of feet, a flash of steel, a roar of anger, a cry of pain. Winter rears up, spooked. The reins slip through Tova’s fingers as her faithful mare tears herself away and crashes through the river, kicking up mud and gravel. Some place in the darkness where Tova can’t see, Guthred is yelling. Merewyn screams as the deaf one seizes her dress, and she’s struggling, waving her arms, twisting and falling all at the same time, trying to get away. More splashing; the horses in confusion go first one way and then the other, getting in each other’s way, narrowly missing Tova, casting up great slews of water.
Between the horses and the enemy there’s nowhere to go. Out of the corner of her eye Tova spots a shadow rushing towards her. She turns, sees Gytha bearing down on her. She steps back. One pace, two. But she’s too slow. The she-wolf seizes the collar of her cloak.
‘Let me go!’ Tova yells, but the woman’s grip is strong. Strong like a man’s. She flails, trying to tear herself free.
Ripping cloth. A hand across her cheek. Hard, sharp, stinging.
Tova yells out, in surprise more than pain, and stumbles back, almost losing her footing on the loose stones of the riverbed. The current tugs at her skirts, trying to drag her down, but somehow she manages to stay on her feet.
Merewyn shrieks as the deaf one stands over her. She scrabbles, spluttering, in the stream, trying to stand up. Her hair and face are wet, her clothes drenched and clinging to her. Too far away for Tova to help her. Gytha comes for Tova again but this time she’s ready. She ducks to one side, out of the woman’s reach.
‘Beorn!’ she shouts as she fumbles at her belt for the hilt of her knife.
Axe whirling, Beorn strikes the tall one high on the arm. An anguished howl as the blade rips through flesh, and Cuffa reels. His seax falls through his fingers and disappears into the black of the river, and Beorn is turning as Wulfnoth rushes towards him, steel flashing silver—
Gytha shouts. Tova turns, gripping her knife, back to face her, at the same time as a cry goes up. Not one voice, but many, all at once, coming from amid the trees on the south bank of the river.
And suddenly she sees what Gytha sees. Helmets, swords, shield bosses, mail byrnies. Too many to count, gleaming in the moonlight as they hurry down the narrow path. Steel clinking, feet thundering. Calling to one another in words she doesn’t understand. Foreign words.
Normans.
Three, four, five, six, seven of them, scrambling one at a time down the narrow, muddy path towards the riverbank.
It can’t be, she thinks. Not now. Not after we’ve come so far.
But it is. They’re here.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Beorn roars as he ducks under a wild swing of Wulfnoth’s seax. ‘Run! Now!’
Gytha is shouting Wulfnoth’s name, desperately trying to get his attention, to warn him of the danger. The deaf one doesn’t seem to have noticed that anything is amiss. Guthred is on his knees in front of him, his hands together and pointing to the sky, pleading for mercy. Halfdan kicks him hard in the stomach.
Tova glances at Merewyn, then back at Guthred, before rushing to her lady’s side. She still hasn’t got up; her eyes are wide and her breath comes in quick, short bursts. Is she hurt or just frightened?
‘We have to go,’ Tova says desperately as she reaches out a hand and drags Merewyn to her feet, struggling against the weight of her drenched clothes. ‘Now!’
She glances up, sees the Normans nearly at the water’s edge, their swords drawn.
‘Now!’ she says again, wrenching at her lady’s sleeve. But Merewyn doesn’t budge; instead she stares, panic-stricken, at the oncoming Normans.
And then, above the din, a voice from somewhere unseen, shouting urgently and for some reason in the English tongue: ‘There he is! That’s him, over there!’
The voice sounds somehow familiar, but she isn’t sure why, and she isn’t about to wait to find out. She pulls harder at Merewyn’s sleeve, and this time her lady does move. They splash through the swirling, frothing, icy water towards Guthred, who is on his knees, doubled over, coughing.
‘The book,’ he splutters, his eyes wide, as together they haul him to his feet. He winces as he clutches his side. ‘We have to go back for it. Where is it?’
‘There’s no time,’ Tova says. ‘It’s theirs now.’
She looks about for their horses, but she can only see Beorn’s, charging off downstream, crashing through the bare branches that overhang the stream.
Gytha is running now; Halfdan too has seen the danger. They splash away downriver in the direction of the mill, chased by three of the Normans. Cuffa’s seax is in his hand once more; he rises to face the men bearing down on him.
Wulfnoth continues to hurl himself at Beorn. Either he hasn’t realised what’s happening, or he doesn’t care.