He can’t hold out for ever, she sees. His shield droops, exposing his face. Into that opening the giant lunges. The stranger ducks again, and the blade misses by a hair’s breadth. But the Norman hasn’t finished yet. He throws himself at the stranger, hammering upon his shield, hacking splinters from the boards.
And Tova sees that the stranger won’t last much longer. One leg slips out from beneath him as his foot loses purchase on the mud. He falls to one knee—
‘No!’ Tova cries out.
Reason gives way to instinct. Before she knows it she’s rushing forward, wielding the sword in both hands, breathing hard, feet pounding the dirt, her eyes stinging and blurred with the sweat running into them. Summoning all her strength, she raises the blade as high as she can, fixing her gaze on the giant’s mailed back, picturing in her mind how she’ll bring it crashing down, and again and again, until he lies prone and she can ram the steel through his mail and his flesh, through his ribs and into his heart—
He hears her coming; his head whips round. Her heart all but stops as he starts to turn. It’s too late to change her mind. She heaves the blade, screaming without words.
The point tears through his sleeve below the mail, biting into flesh. A glancing blow. He howls and staggers back. Tova yelps as the weight of the weapon pulls her through the stroke, off balance. She staggers sideways, almost tripping over her own feet, somehow manages to stay upright. The giant turns to face her again, and she sees the promise of death in his eyes.
This is it, she thinks. Her feet have taken root. The sword lies heavy in her hands. She knows that she has to lift it, has to try somehow to defend herself, but she can’t.
Unable to fight and unable to run.
He steps towards her, raising his sword for the blow that she knows will pierce her neck or crack her skull, slice her open or run her through—
And he stops.
His mouth hangs open as if in surprise. Wide eyes gaze without seeing. His lips tremble but make no sound. Then his sword falls from his grasp; his legs give way, and he sinks first to his knees before finally crashing to the mud.
Tova backs away slowly. At any moment she expects him to rise. But he doesn’t. A broad gash decorates his neck. Blood trickles down his back, pooling on the ground, where it mixes with the dirt and the water.
Dead.
And not just him. All five of them. Every single one, in little longer than it would have taken Father Thorvald to intone the Paternoster.
The stranger stands, his fingers still curled around his axe’s handle. Even in the darkness she can see the blood spattered across his tunic and his face.
Five men dead by his hand, and not a scratch upon him. Five knights of Normandy. Warriors whose skill at arms she has heard so many tales about.
His brow gleams with sweat. Beneath it, his eyes are hollow pits. Like a wolf’s, Tova thinks, and she knows because she happened to see one prowling in the dusk not that long ago, a week before Christmas. Except that these eyes are less friendly. Her mother often used to tell her that you could glimpse a person’s soul by meeting their gaze, but if that’s true then it seems to her that his has already fled.
Tangled hair hangs in lank strands, clinging to his forehead and to his cheeks. His clothes are threadbare, torn in places and frayed at the hems. On his arms, countless scratches and grazes, as if he has been dragged through a briar patch.
A wild man, she thinks. One of those outlaws who are said to dwell in the marshes and the hills and the woods, who prey upon travellers, who waylay messengers, purse bearers and reeves. She has heard the rumours.
‘Put it down, girl,’ he says. ‘You don’t want to fight me.’
At first she doesn’t know what he means. She stares back at him, too frightened to do anything else. There’s a scar on his lip that she guesses he has carried for some time. Another beneath his right eye that looks more recent. Crooked nose. Gaunt face.
That’s when she realises she’s still clasping the sword. The cord of the grip digs into her grazed palms, and her arms are tiring under its weight.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he says as he lets his axe fall to the ground. He raises his hands, his palms facing outwards.
Slowly she lowers the blade, then drops it. Her heart is still pounding; she can barely feel her feet.
Then suddenly Merewyn is at her side, throwing her arms around her, asking if she’s hurt, if she’s all right. Tova nods and tries to speak but she can’t find the words. She’s shaking, and doesn’t know how to stop.
But for this stranger she’d be dead. That Norman would have run her through, cut her apart. How close she came, she realises suddenly.
She glances at the still bodies of the enemy, then swallows to moisten her throat.
She can hardly believe she’s still alive. ‘You killed them.’
‘I didn’t have any choice,’ he says. ‘They’d have killed you otherwise.’
‘Who are you?’ Merewyn asks, her voice trembling.
He keeps his distance, like he’s afraid of something. Like he’s wary of getting too close.
‘No one,’ he says. ‘Just someone trying to survive.’
‘Do you have a name?’
‘Beorn.’
‘Just Beorn?’