Whether they or we burned the city, I don’t think anyone really knows. Some say it was the Normans, trapped inside their castle, who hurled flaming brands on to the roofs of nearby houses, and shot arrows wrapped in cloth soaked in pitch that they set alight. Why they would have done that, I can’t think. Others say it was an accident, that some drunken fools had built a great pyre on which they planned to burn an effigy of King Wilelm, but the flames grew beyond their control. It doesn’t really matter. Before long half the city was ablaze. Houses, workshops, churches going up like so much tinder. The minster a writhing tower of flame. As soon as we realised what was happening, we gathered what we could and fled. The Normans did the same, abandoning their stronghold, choking as they ran through the streets and out the gates. We were waiting for them. They hardly put up a fight. Some of them had been in such a hurry to get out they had no weapons, no shields. They fell to their knees, pleading for mercy. We killed them anyway.
It was a victory of sorts, I suppose, but it didn’t feel like one. The fire raged all day. When the flames died we realised the damage they’d done. Where the great minster church had stood, there was nothing but ash. The enemy’s stronghold was a smouldering wreck; of the city’s walls there was barely a stretch left standing that we could defend. As we picked our way through the ruins, it became clear that we weren’t going to be able to hold the city, and that there was nothing left worth defending in any case. We’d heard by then that King Wilelm was on his way from the south at the head of a great army of barons and oath men, and we knew we had little time before he was upon us.
We retrieved what little we could from the smoking town; the Danes under Jarl Osbjorn carried their share to their ships. And then, by boat and by land, we retreated as swiftly as we could downriver to that marshy nook of land called Heldernesse, which lies between the wolds and the German Sea. And there we waited while our leaders tried to decide what to do next and how best to take the war to the foreigners.
Gospatric wanted to march forth and meet King Wilelm in battle in one last throw of the dice, but Osbjorn was more cautious. Having already braved a long sea voyage, his warriors weren’t about to risk everything unless it was on ground of their choosing and on terms that suited them. Some had come hoping to win land, but more had come in the hope of plunder that they could take back with them to their homes across the sea. No amount of silver and gold would be worth anything if they were dead.
*
‘What did you do, then?’ Guthred asks.
‘Nothing,’ says Beorn. ‘We did nothing.’
*
For weeks we waited.
Eadgar and Gospatric and Osbjorn each sent out their scouts, men like myself, to keep an eye on the enemy’s movements. We rode out and saw the king’s army; we came back and reported what we’d seen, which was that the Normans showed no sign of seeking battle, but were content to wait while our provisions and spirits ran low.
And running low they were. We heard that the enemy had sent out raiding parties both sides of the Humbre. Groups of twenty, thirty, forty horsemen, who stripped granaries and storehouses everywhere so that the supplies we so desperately needed didn’t fall into our hands. Not just food and ale but also firewood and lantern oil, things like that: all the things an army needed to keep warm and fed as the days grew shorter and the nights colder. And the less we were able to forage, the more had to be rationed, the hungrier grew our stomachs, and the more tempers flared. Men grew irritable; squabbles erupted over half-heard insults. Old wounds were reopened; long-standing feuds between families broke out afresh. There was fighting. Some were injured. Some died. Others swore vengeance. And so it went on.
And still we did nothing. The leaves began to fall and the first frosts arrived, earlier than expected; the land was becoming bare, and we all knew we’d struggle to support ourselves through the winter to come. Sickness was spreading through our camp, not helped by the foul marsh air. Every second man was suffering from flux, it seemed. Some of the Danes talked about making for home before the weather worsened and the seas grew too difficult for sailing, so that they could be back for Yule. They said it laughingly, or so we thought. Meanwhile Eadgar and Osbjorn quarrelled about the best course of action, and quarrelled some more, until they refused to speak to one another. Gospatric and some others tried to forge some sort of agreement, but it was no use.
We should have seen the inevitable coming. Instead we kept going, kept telling ourselves that we would march again soon. But we knew that the king was mustering more men by the week from other parts of the kingdom. His ranks were swelling while ours were dwindling.
It started with the Danes. One day they were there; the next they weren’t. They left without a word, simply abandoned their camp overnight, took to their ships in the murky light of dawn and were gone, as if they had never been. We later learned that King Wilelm had been sending them secret messengers, promising them shiploads of silver and gold, as much as they could carry back with them and more besides, if they broke their compact with Eadgar. Like the grasping craven that he was, Osbjorn accepted.
After that, things only got worse. Shorn of allies and with no real expectation of victory, many in our own army began to question why we were continuing the fight, what we could hope to gain. Whether it was better to desert and beg the king’s mercy. And so, riven by grievances, confined to the marsh country, without anything to strive for, with our leadership in disarray, spirits failing and hopes ground to dust, the rebellion crumbled.
*
‘And what about you?’ asks Merewyn. ‘You haven’t said what you were doing while all this was happening.’