The Winter of the Danes

The old Saxons believed there is a God who looks after fools and drunkards. Maybe they had the right of it for I enjoyed greater fortune than any man should expect. Who should I see, hiding a little way to my right, but the two surviving Wolfsheads from my encounter days before. I slid over to them, showing my empty hands and urging them to stay still. A germ of a plan was forming in my head. The lot of the Wolfshead is bitter with every man's hand against him. Any can kill him with impunity.

Not all are bad men. Some are falsely accused and if their accuser can gather enough oaths to be sworn against them, the victims are outlawed and their lands and possessions forfeit. I took a chance that these were such as would take a second chance, if offered.

"How you would like to earn a pardon and become men again?"

"Whose men?"

"Edmond of Sceaftensbyrig."

"You can do that?"

"I can and I shall if you will but help me."

"Tell us more."

I told them all. How I had been into the camp, where my Elfgirda was captive and how I proposed to effect the rescue. "I just need you to demonstrate in front of the gates to distract them while I get a rope on the palings and pull open a gap," I told them. They looked askance. At length, the bowman said, " How would it be if I were to fire the thatch at the far end of the Great Hall?" I seized his arm. "Could you do it?" He smiled at me and his companion likewise began to nod and echo his words with little confirmations of his own.

"The weapon may be poor but the arm is true. Many's the prize I've won for archery at the fairs hereabout, before the Danes came."

"He did, 'tis true!"

"If I can't hit the Great Hall from two hundred paces you may ride me like a mule!"

"That you can!"

"And if we can fire the thatch and roast a few Danish arses, you should be able to pull down the palings and get to your women."

"That you could."

"And if we do all that, we will become Edmond's men?"

"On that, I give my oath."

We swore the oaths then and there. They would fight that night as true men of Wessex. There was better news for me yet. After eluding the Danes that had killed their companion, they had discovered my other horse and provisions. They shifted a little and looked uncomfortable as they explained that they has helped themselves to my supplies but I was too relieved to worry. We repaired to their camp on the edge of the fen and I ate a good meal at last.

We resolved to wait until past midnight, after the moon had set. They had to circle to the north while I muffled the hooves of my horse with rags and crept up against the eastern palings. The signal would be their fire-arrow. I would have the horse pull down two or three of the high palings; two would be enough to let me slip through. They would take one horse and ride double, I would take the other for the ladies. We would meet back at their camp and then go into the fen together. They knew the treacherous pathways well. I watched as the bowman, Wulfstan by name, made his preparations. He bound two arrows with straw and soaked the heads with oil from my provisions. I gave him my flint and steel so as to have a spare. We plaited a rope from reeds and waited.

Thus it was, in dark as black as the nether bowels of Hell itself that I crept against the fence. I eased the reed rope around two of the palings and tied them to the harness of my horse. I gave a pull and was gratified to feel the stake move. The ground was soft, not yet touched by frost, though the night was cold and the promise of winter hung in the clear air. I should have prayed for rain or at least a mist to hide us. It was too late for that. I swear to you that waiting for the fire-arrow was the worst part. Time seemed to have stopped. I felt the weight of hours that were, in truth, but minutes.

At long last I saw a spark away to the north, followed by the fiery trail of the arrow as it arced over the palings and struck the roof of the Great Hall. I sprang up and urged the horse to pull. One paling came easily, the one I'd tried, the other gave a groan and snapped off leaving a jagged stump some three feet high. It was enough. I was through and into the camp, running like a hare for the hut beside the well. A figure appeared in my path and I smashed my axe across his face without a thought. I know not to this day whether it was a Dane or a thrall.

Looking to my left, I could see the thatch beginning to burn merrily. Screams and yells were coming from that direction and I saw a second arrow, trailing fire, lodge in the roof of Ivar's hut. I felt a wild exultation coursing through my veins and I bellowed "Beate, to your mistress now!"  I reached the hut and hammered the door from its pintles with my axe. I was screaming at the top of my voice, "Elfgirda! Elfgirda!!!"

In the dim light within, I saw her. She was kneeling with her arms around her mother, a determined look on her face. She had a brooch pin in her hand and was ready to defend herself. Her mother was weeping. It took her a second to recognise me and her face lit up with joy. She started to speak but I grabbed her hand. "No time now," I told her, "got to go, quick!" Her mother was hysterical and too overcome to move so I hoisted her onto my shoulders and staggered back the way I'd come, to the gap in the fence. I shoved Lady Gytha through and reached to hurry Elfgirda. Beate was at her shoulder, having heard my shout. Then we were out. I mounted Elfgirda and her mother on one horse and swung Beate up behind me. We kicked the horses into a gallop and fled the fire's glare as swift as they would run.

"Don't dismount!" I yelled as we rode into the camp. The horses were blowing a bit so I kept them walking in circles. A few moments later Wulfstan and his comrade, Leofwine, came trotting in, broad grins on their faces. "Time to go!" I called to them and Wulfstan kicked his horse into a canter and led us out into the fen. Behind us, we could see the fires blazing, out of control. All was noise and confusion. I reckoned we had a head-start, at least.

We kept moving for the rest of that night, stopping only as the light started to grow ahead of us. It was a grim journey. Twice we had to back-track as Wulfstan missed a trail. The fen was cold and a low mist hung above the ground. Often, the horses were trotting to their hocks in water. As daylight came, we found a patch of dryer ground covered in head-high reeds and made camp there. We were all too exhausted to talk much but I was overjoyed when Elfgirda lay down beside me to sleep. "I knew you would come, " she said, as I wrapped us both in my cloak, "I just knew!" And with that, she fell asleep.

We woke in the afternoon and I was able, at last, to relate the ladies all that had befallen. I explained the parts that Beate, Wulfstan and Leofwine had played in their rescue and Lady Gytha promised them all a handsome reward when she was reunited with the Thegn, her husband. We had a simple meal of hard cheese and oat cakes and prepared to move off as soon as the light failed. I had agreed with Wulfstan that it was better to travel by night for a day or two. We thought to move south a way before heading west, back into Mercia.

Just then, we heard the nose of hoof-beats and one of our horses whinnied a greeting. The sound of voices reached us and, standing on tip-toe, I looked out across the fen to see a figure in black at the head of a dozen or so mounted men. Ivar had found us!

There was nothing we could do but make a run for it. Wulfstan grabbed my arm and spoke in an urgent whisper. "Lord Hereward, if we can but draw them off towards that stump, they will have the foulest ground to cross." He indicated a rotting tree-stump that stood alone in a greener patch of ground some quarter mile distant.

I nodded agreement and we mounted as before, two to a horse. This time Leofwine rode with Beate and Wulfstan took Lady Gytha, to even up the weight. Elfgirda swung up behind me and I drew courage from the feel of her arms about my waist. We moved off at a canter, sparing the horses. I threw away my shield but loosed my axe, holding the reins one-handed. The Danes were whooping and yelling behind us, Black Ivar in the van. Wulfstan picked his way with care and he called to us to stay exactly in his tracks, the ground hereabouts being most treacherous.

I missed seeing Ivar's horse balk and throw him but I heard the shouts of dismay. I pulled to a halt and turned to see that object of my hatred floundering in the fen. I told Elfgirda to dismount and wait for me and I trotted back towards the fallen Dane. He was sinking in the mire. His companions had stopped some yards back and were trying to make a rope of cloaks to throw to him. Already the ooze was up to his chest and the more he struggled, the deeper he seemed to sink.

I could have reached him. He was no more than five feet from the firm bank where I stood. We locked eyes. He knew I could save him but he also knew I wouldn't. He was too proud to beg although he could feel his death almost upon him. With a great heave, he drew his sword, to die with it in hand and so enter Valhalla. A figure shot past me, snatching the axe from my hand. It was Beate. She hurled herself into the mire, striking with the axe as she fell. The blow took Ivar's arm off near the shoulder and thudded into his ribs. The sword spun upwards in a bright arc before being claimed by the fen. Ivar's ice-eyes held pure desolation. He was damned to wander as a ghost. Beate raised the axe again but it slipped from her grasp and flew wide, sinking out of sight. I leapt from the horse and waded in a foot or so, grabbing the enraged girl by the cloak. Together we struggled to regain the firmer ground. Only Ivar's face was showing now. He screamed once before he slipped beneath. A single bubble burst upon that foul surface and he was gone.

It took us another eight days to make our way back to Wessex. The Fyrd had been disbanded for the winter and the King and his companions were at Wiltun. We rode in on the first day of December, with a light snow falling. My father and Elfgirda's father were there to greet us. The news of our escape and Ivar's death had come before us and there was great rejoicing throughout the whole of Wessex.

Ædwig, Thegn of Warmynster, knelt in the snow in front of my horse. "Hereward, my good-son, you are a hero worthy to rival Beowulf himself," he said and there were tears in his eyes. I dismounted and raised him up. He embraced me. "I never thought it possible," he said and I shook my head. "These are the real heroes, my Lord," I told him. "Wulfstan and Leofwine, now of Sceaftensbyrig and Beate of Kent, It was she who slew Ivar and took his sword-arm, at the last." He smiled benignly at the trio and then his eyes fell upon his wife and daughter. I swear he almost knocked me over in his rush to embrace them!

My father put his arm about me and smiled in happiness. "I never thought to see you again this side of the grave, my son!" Then the King was there, amusement twinkling in his eyes. "Hereward, son of Edmond, I greet you." I bowed to him. All had fallen silent. "The Hundred at Middletun is in need of a new Ealdorman. Old Cynric has died without an heir. I think it marches by your father's lands. Of course, an Ealdorman has need of a wife, but then I see you have provided for yourself in that direction!" And he roared with laughter.

Elfgirda and I were married on the first day of the year, the eight hundred and seventy second since the birth of Our Lord. Wulfstan and Leofwine became Hereward of Middletun's men. Beate remained in Wessex and grew into a lovely young woman, eventually marrying the son of one of my father's House Ceorls, who became, in turn, a House Ceorl  to me at Middletun. They live among us still. The wars against the Danes went on and got worse before they got better. But something began in that Winter of the Danes. A new spirit was abroad in Wessex that Ælfred was to forge into a mighty weapon. I take some small pride that I helped place that weapon in his hands.