A Noose For A Necklace

 

The visit ended much like it started, with warm embraces and comfortable words. I chose not to share the conversation I had with the Lady Aelfwynn the previous night with anyone else. I did not see the need to suck the joy from them as she did me. The weather was mirroring my mood and nobody wanted to leave. We could have stayed another night, but Father Eadric was anxious to return to Aethelstan with all of his news and I propped up my eagerness to leave with his reasons when speaking to my brother and Lady Aelfwynn. Elaina thought it odd and her eyes said as much, but I pretended not to notice.

The rain fell in relentless sheets, turning the Roman road into a churning river of mud as we rode south. Elaina rode ahead, her stolen cloak, a deep green wool stitched with Lady Aelfwynn's dove sigil, clinging to her shoulders like a shroud. The dove's wings flapped limply in the wind, mocking us. A peace banner, I thought bitterly. Peace was a fool's errand, in that, Lady Aelfwynn seemed to be right. Wulfric's shadow stretched across Mercia, Olaf and Sigurd's coming felt inevitable, and the corpse of Constantine's son rotted at the bottom of the North Sea. 

 

There was a fog of uneasiness in the wet grey day, as we rode along the cobbles. I felt like we were being watched, but I didn't want to create a sense of alarm, and I could see nothing in the mist to validate my paranoia. I glanced behind me often, and wondered if Father Eadric felt that way too, or if it was just his nervous disposition causing his head to spin like cart wheel. We rode for about four or five hours deep into the southern forest of the lower midlands, and I spotted an old roman sign that said we were 50 miles from the border of West Saxon territory. All of us were largely quiet the length of the journey aside from the persistent latin mumblings of Eadric. The dreary weather was kind to nobody, the morale was plummeting, and we collectively could not endure the beating rain a moment longer.

"We should've stayed another night," Rurik muttered behind me, his voice muffled by the scarf he'd pulled over his nose. His horse, a skittish gray gelding, sidestepped a puddle as if it were a pit of adders. "I bet there are fjords at home, warmer than this."

Cian turned in his saddle, his grin sharp beneath the dripping brim of his peaked helmet. "Quit whining, pup. You wanted to blood your axe? Here's your piss-soaked glory." He lobbed a clump of mud at Rurik, splattering the boy's cloak.

Elaina wheeled her horse, her face sharp in the gray dawn light as she faced me. "We may as well camp here." She raised an arm motioning to two massive collapsing trees creating a natural shelter to the wind.

I dismounted, boots sinking into the muck, feeling the consequences of my hasty decision making. "It's as good a place as any, I suppose." The hollow between the two ancient oaks was dug in, but the ground was slick with rotting leaves. A stream nearby churned brown with runoff. "No fire," I said, scanning the tree line. The woods were too quiet. No birdsong, no rustle of foxes, just the drum of rain on dead leaves. I could not shake the instinct that someone was watching us. 

Elaina snorted, already striking flint over a pile of dry tinder she'd scraped from under a bug ridden log. "Wulfric's men are fatting themselves in Leicester. Did you forget? We're Aethelstan's envoys now." The spark caught, and flame licked upward, painting her face a sunburnt gold. I saw the light illuminate the girl who'd once burned Rurik's uncle's beard off for laughing at her practicing swordcraft. However, for all of her guts and bravery, she didn't see how being Aethelstan's envoys did not make us any safer. Perhaps the opposite, and I was drowning in that thought as the rain softened the soil beneath me and I leaned the bulk of my weight onto one of the fallen oaks.

Cian crouched beside the fire, warming his hands. He grinned at me and canted his head upward like he could sense my discomfort. "Relax, little lord. Even wolves sleep."

I didn't relax. The woods pressed in around us, shadows dancing at the edge of the firelight. Too exposed, I thought. The oaks offered scant cover, and the stream's murmur drowned out the sound of approaching footsteps. The more I looked at my immediate surroundings the more I thought this was potentially the worst place we could have stopped.

Rurik huddled near the flames, his hands trembling. His eyes met mine, and fed on my nervous energy. "They are all out there, waiting."

"Who?" Cian asked, sharpening his seax with a whetstone.

"Wulfric's men? The Scots? Sigurd? We seem to be collecting enemies..."

Elaina glanced at me, her gray eyes hard. "If they are, they'll regret it."

I said nothing. My fingers traced the hammer pendant at my throat, its edges worn smooth by decades of my grandfather's grip. What would a warlord do? I wondered. Charge headlong into the dark to potentially fight nothing but his own shadow? Or wait, patient as a spider, for the enemy to stumble into his web? Maybe this was all so grand of me to think, and in the larger view, we were insignificant. Not worth anyone's time or effort.

Cian tossed a stick into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. "Remember that time me father got us trapped in Jorvik's sewers? The first time I saw rats the size of hounds...haunting image with him laughing like a madman-"

"Not now, Cian," I snapped.

He raised an eyebrow. "Someone's prickly."

He then stood abruptly, "...right then," his green eyes flickered in the firelight. "I'll take first watch."

"You need rest," I said.

"I need to stay alive. Boredom is the deadliest warrior." He vanished into the shadows, footsteps silent.

The fire crackled, and I closed my eyes, listening to the rhythm of the rain. Memories flickered, my grandfather's voice growling lessons in my ear. "A leader trusts his instincts, boy. The brave die first. If your gut says run, you run. Live to fight another day. If it says fight, you make great slaughter and ask questions later."

But my gut said nothing. Only a hollow ache, cold and unrelenting. I know now it was the realization that I was in the process of growing up, and the barriers that protected me all of my life had fallen. Not only had they fallen, but now they were relying on me to protect them. I was not ready.

About the time the moon reached it's peak, I heard Cian's birdcall. Then the arrows came.

The first took Rurik's horse in the throat. The gelding screamed- a wet, gurgling sound, and collapsed thrashing, its hooves churning mud. Rurik rolled clear from the flailing beast, his face smeared with blood and filth. The second arrow hissed past my ear and buried itself in the oak behind me with a hollow thunk.

"Shield Wall!" I roared, but to whom? Elaina was already moving, a shadow with blades like crescent moons. I watched her for a moment as she gutted the first figure charging from the trees, I heard her shamshir grating against ribs. That man fell, clutching his spilled intestines, and she pivoted to block an axe swing aimed at what I believe was Cian's skull. Steel rang against steel, sparks flying into the rain, all in mere seconds.

I hesitated. The indecision of inexperience. "To the bush!" I grabbed Rurik by the collar, hauling him toward the oaks. He fumbled for his axe, eyes wide.

Again, too late.

A mailed fist cracked my jaw. Stars exploded behind my eyes, and I tasted iron. I stumbled, shield slipping from my grip, and looked up into the face of a tower. The face was attached to a giant, his beard matted with rain, his left eye a milky ruin. A Lothian brooch, a snarling lion pinned his cloak.

"Osbert Uhtredsson," he rasped in Danish, tossing a matching brooch at my feet. It landed in the mud with a wet slap. "King Constantine sends his regards."

A figure, slender and springy lunged at him, it must have been Elaina, but a spear shaft slammed into her temple. She crumpled, and I watched her braid unravel in the muck.

"No!" I lunged forward, only to be forced face first down into the mud by a myriad of arms and hands.

The Dane, Hrodgar, his men called him laughed. "The Vicious One? More like a squawking gull."

Cian fought like his father, Finan- a whirlwind of curses and steel, but the Danes swarmed him. Maybe a billhook hooked his leg, either way he went down hard, and I lost sight of him.

"Bind them," Hrodgar ordered, spitting at my feet. "The priest too. That one goes east."

The Danes descended, their hands rough as they wrenched my arms behind my back. Rurik screamed, thrashing like a wild animal, until a gauntleted fist silenced him. Father Eadric prayed aloud in broken latin, his voice trembling, as they dragged him from the trees.

Hrodgar crouched in front of me, his lone eye gleaming. "Your grandfather took my eye at Tettenhall. He tell you that?"

I said nothing.

He gripped my hair, forcing my head back. "I watched him carve through my brothers like wheat. But today..." He grinned, revealing blackened teeth. "Today, I take his blood."

Elaina stirred, her fingers twitching toward her fallen blades. A Dane kicked her in the ribs, and she curled inward, gasping.

"Leave her," I growled.

Hrodgar laughed. "Or what? What in the world will you do pup?" He stood turning away dismissively, and shouting orders in Danish. "Dress them up! Shackles for bracelets and nooses for a necklace! They will feed the ravens by dawn!"

 

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