Soon, I thought, the bloodshed would be over and we could all live our lives without fear once more.
But then Eadgar raised his army and sent his messengers throughout the kingdom, urging every Englishman who could hold a spear or a spade or a pick to take up arms against the Normans, and it started again, only this time it was worse than ever. More raids, more killings. Not just lords and reeves but also messengers and monks, traders and stonemasons, blacksmiths and hired men: anyone who was suspected of having consorted with the foreigners or taken their coin was a target.
If you weren’t with them, the wild men seemed to think, then you must be against them. There was no sense to it, no sense at all.
Those were miserable, desperate times. In some villages crops were left to spoil in the fields because so many ran off to join the rebellion. Meanwhile the Normans brought in more and more warriors to protect them from ambush and to guard their castles and their halls, unruly, boorish men, quick to anger, who made folk afraid wherever they went. People worried about what would happen when Eadgar and the Danes were defeated, and what that would mean for them, and if there would be further reprisals. If you think that across the kingdom all Englishmen were praying for the ?theling to lead his army to victory, you’re wrong. They were praying simply that the fighting didn’t come their way. The last thing they wanted was another war.
I had the confidence of the Normans by then; they saw they could rely on me and they sent me on ever more difficult tasks. The king was calling out his barons, marching north to head off the threat posed by Eadgar and his allies the heathens, who had captured Eoferwic. And so that autumn I was sent on ahead of the king’s army, with instructions to make my way into the city and seek an audience with the Danes’ leader, Jarl Osbjorn, and deliver a message—
*
Beorn fixes him with a sharp look. ‘A message?’
‘An offer,’ Oslac says, ‘from King Wilelm. For weeks I carried word back and forth between Osbjorn and the Normans as they tried to forge an agreement.’
The warrior advances upon him. ‘You?’
‘Yes, me. And I’d do it again, if I had to.’
‘You brought down the rebellion. You handed this kingdom to King Wilelm.’
‘I saved you from yourselves. I was doing what I could to bring an end to a hopeless war, if you’d only been able to see it.’
*
Besides, if you want to blame anyone, blame the Danes. You should have known from the start they weren’t trustworthy allies. This isn’t their land; they weren’t about to give their blood to defend English homes and halls. All they wanted was enough booty to fill their holds and to sail home as rich men. And that’s what we gave them.
We thought that would be it. We hoped that when Eadgar’s army fell apart, that would be the end of the bloodshed. No more thoughtless murders, we thought. No more needless suffering.
But it wasn’t.
As you know – as Beorn has told you – there were still some who refused to believe that it was over. They wrought ruin throughout the kingdom, striking suddenly from nowhere with fire and sword, spreading terror wherever they went. This time they were experienced warriors: men born to the sword, who had stood in shield walls, who had fought at H?stinges and Dunholm and Eoferwic, for whom killing was the only trade they dealt in.
And it wasn’t just Normans who died at their hands. It was English folk, too: men like my father, whose only misdeed was that they’d come to terms with the fact that things were different now. That a new king sat on the throne. All they wanted was to live their lives in peace, to keep their wives and their children from further hardship. To save themselves from yet more grief. But the rebels didn’t care. They slew those folk anyway, without thought and without pity.
There was one whose name was known everywhere, whose cruelty was unsurpassed. He took pleasure in others’ pain; he never offered mercy even when his victims pleaded for it. It was said that if ever you managed to cut him he would shed ice, not blood. There was no love in his heart, no compassion, no Christian kindness. Only hatred. It consumed him. People called him a godless fiend, a shadow-walker, a night-wraith. Long after everyone else had given up the struggle, still he kept up the slaughter, leaving only blood and ashes in his wake as he burned and pillaged from shire to shire.
He never stopped. He wasn’t ever going to stop. He was going to keep on fighting and killing, killing and fighting, no matter how insignificant each of his victories were, or how hollow. No matter if all his friends and loyal companions deserted him. He didn’t care. He had one goal, and he would pursue that goal above everything else, for ever and ever and ever, until his dying breath. Until the world’s end.
His name was Cynehelm.
*