Knights of the Hawk (54 page)

With every step we took towards Jarnborg’s gates, my heart thudded harder in my chest, and my throat grew drier as my doubts began to multiply. All it needed was for one person to challenge us, and they would surely see through these feeble disguises of ours at once. And mine was feeblest of all. While the Englishmen’s longer hair would allow them to pass, at a glance, for Danes, my own, cut short as it was in the French style, clearly marked me out as a Norman. Fortunately one of the corpses had been wearing a helmet with a chain curtain to protect the neck. It was a little too large for my head, but it was better than nothing.

The palisade loomed ever larger before us. Yesterday, from half a mile away, it had seemed formidable enough. Now that we were almost upon Haakon’s winter fastness, however, it became clear just how powerful a position it commanded, perched as it was atop the rocky promontory. Gradually I began to make out the rough shadows of two sentries standing atop the gatehouse, behind the parapet, with spears in hand, the points presented to the sky. They saw us as surely as we saw them. Recognising us for the party that had been sent to the spring, straightaway they called down to whoever was manning the gates. With a long creak of timbers, those great doors swung open. This was the moment of reckoning. All our careful planning would be for naught if we failed here.

Loose pebbles crunched beneath my feet as I led my horse up the track towards the open gates, and I breathed deeply to try to still the pounding in my chest, convinced that someone would hear it.

The sentries on the gatehouse called out something that might have been either a greeting or a challenge; I guessed it was the former, because Magnus, at the head of the column, raised a hand in acknowledgement. He and Ælfhelm passed beneath the gatehouse’s arch, followed by Eithne and the girls, and then Godric and myself. Two fair-haired boys, both no older than thirteen or fourteen, their cloaks huddled about them to guard against the cold, stood just inside the gates. From the red rims around their eyes, the sorry-looking expressions on their faces and their unsteadiness on their feet, I reckoned they were suffering from having overindulged the previous night. Perhaps that was why they had been placed on gate duty this cold morning, as a punishment for their drinking, and perhaps if they had been more awake then they might have spotted that we were not the same men who had ridden out from the fortress earlier. But, as I’d often found, folk will often see only what they expect to see. The thought that we might attempt such a ruse wouldn’t even have entered their heads, and so they had no reason to pay us close attention.

Nevertheless I dared not meet their eyes, but instead fixed my gaze on the way ahead, concentrating merely on putting one foot in front of the other, and on coaxing my stubborn horse on. Behind us, I heard the great oak gates creak as they were closed once more.

We were inside Jarnborg. Against the odds, against even my expectations, we had done it. I could scarcely believe it. Under the very noses of Haakon’s men, we had slipped inside his precious stronghold, his so-called iron fortress, against the walls of which Magnus’s assault had been broken and scores of his loyal followers had been killed. The place that not so long ago we had considered all but unassailable.

All was deathly still, and strangely so, considering that it had to be more than an hour since first light. Usually by this time I would have expected to hear shouting and laughing as men trained at arms in the yard, and the steady ring of hammer upon anvil as a farrier worked at his forge. But there was none of that. Save for those at the gate, no one seemed yet to have risen. Instead there was only an eerie hush, broken occasionally by a dog’s bark or a cock’s crow, as if the whole of Jarnborg were still asleep, its defenders all snoring soundly in their beds.

‘Where is everyone?’ I murmured to Eithne once we were far enough away from the gate and the sentries posted there that we could talk without fear of being overheard.

Even as I spoke, through the lingering mist, I spied an array of tents, more than I could easily count but numbering in the scores, arranged in rings around burnt-out campfires. A few men had emerged from them, but not many, and they looked barely able to stand. They sat upon the muddy ground outside their tents, groaning and holding their heads in their hands. One lay curled on the ground, his dog licking his face, eagerly trying to wake him from his stupor, while a pair of hogs that must have escaped their pen wandered the wreckage in search of morsels. Everywhere the ground was littered with wineskins and ale-flasks, with chicken bones from which strings of flesh still hung, with half-eaten hunks of bread, wooden bowls in which the remains of some kind of bean stew had frozen, browned apple cores, broken clay cups, knives and skewers, iron ladles, spoons carved from antler and bone, and empty casks half the height of a man, some of which had been overturned.

‘There was a feast last night,’ Eithne said at last, after passing on my question to the other girls. ‘A celebration.’

‘A celebration?’ Godric put in, frowning. ‘Of what?’

A smile crossed my face then, and I had to stifle a laugh as, even before Eithne had the chance to explain, I realised what had happened. Our ploy had worked better than I could ever have dared imagine.

Hardly had our two ships been sighted leaving his shores, she said, than Haakon had ordered two dozen barrels of ale brought up from his cellars, and another dozen of wine, and haunches of meat and rounds of cheese and all manner of other foodstuffs from his storehouses. There had been dancing and there had been singing, as the Dane and his followers savoured their victory and fell about with laughter at how he had driven us off with mere words, at how he had frightened us into fleeing. And so it had gone on most of the way through the night, until, insensible with drink, they had eventually given themselves up to sleep.

The deceiver had himself been deceived. He had been too ready to believe in appearances, and so he had let down his guard. He had underestimated us, underestimated our cunning. Now we would make him pay for that blunder.

A thrill awakened within me: a thrill of a kind I hadn’t known in what felt like an age. All the doubts, all the fears, all the misgivings that I’d harboured suddenly fell away. With every heartbeat, as I stared out across the yard and the debris left over from the feasting, my confidence grew.

For that was when I truly began to believe that we could do this. Victory was ours for the taking. All we had to do was to seize the opportunity we’d been given.

‘What now?’ Ælfhelm growled under his breath. He kept glancing about, as if expecting hordes of foemen to descend upon us at any moment.

‘Now we find my woman,’ I said, knowing that we had no time to lose. The past few days at sea had taught me that once this early fog did start to lift, it lifted quickly. Already it was decidedly thinner now than it had been when we’d ambushed Haakon’s men. Whereas before we could barely see further than a stone’s throw, now I was able to see on the far side of the enclosure the faint outlines of barns and storehouses, halls and workshops, stables and chicken-pens. Above the palisade to the east, meanwhile, the sun’s disc was struggling to make itself shown, its feeble light just about visible through the gloom.

Earlier, with Eithne’s help, I’d described Oswynn to the slaves, and asked if they knew her. It was as I’d feared when Haakon showed me the marriage-band on her finger. He wasn’t keeping her as a mere house-servant, or a dairymaid or corn-grinder or washerwoman. As if I’d believed for a heartbeat that he would. Rather, she was one of the chosen few he often liked to take to his bed. They were quartered separately from the other thralls, in a building close by his own hall, from which they could be readily summoned at a moment’s notice whenever Haakon’s lusts consumed him. My blood boiled at the thought.

‘They’re well treated,’ Eithne had added. ‘They’re fed well, better than his other slaves, at least, and he makes sure they always have the finest clothes—’

I’d stopped her before she’d been able to go on. Eithne hadn’t been with us when we’d met Haakon the previous day. She hadn’t seen the bruises decorating Oswynn’s cheek, or how thin she looked.

Those thoughts were foremost in my mind now, as I bade Eithne ask the slave-girls where I could find this building where Oswynn was being held. No sooner had she finished speaking than they began pointing in the direction of a long stone-and-thatch hall in the far corner of the enclosure, and the squat, low-gabled house that stood beside it.

So near. Little more than a hundred paces stood between myself and Oswynn. My throat was dry and I swallowed to moisten it. Soon I would be able to hold her, as I hadn’t held her in three long years.

‘Go with the girls,’ I told Eithne. ‘Get word to the other slaves. Tell them there’s going to be a battle, but that they have nothing to fear from us. They’ll be safe provided that they stay out of sight of Haakon’s men. So long as they’re ready to leave this place when his hall goes up in flames, I can guarantee them freedom. Can you remember all that?’

‘I think so,’ she replied, somewhat stiffly. ‘I’m not stupid, you know.’

‘Then don’t waste time quarrelling with me. Go now.’

Her eyes betrayed her anxiety, but she did as she was told without further argument. I watched the four of them go, still carrying those pails lest anyone looking on suspected there was something awry.

‘Come on,’ I said to the others. ‘We can’t tarry here.’

A cock crowed, heralding the morning, but that was the only sound to break the stillness. Leaving the horses tethered to a post, we trudged across the muddy yard towards that low building. Icy water seeped into my boots, making my toes numb, as we skirted our way around the tents and the men camped there, walking with purpose but at the same time trying not to make it seem as though we were in a hurry.

Two of Haakon’s huscarls were posted outside the entrance to the stone hall, decked out in mail hauberks that fell past their knees. Their long-handled axes and bright-painted round shields rested up against the wall and they were pacing about, rubbing gloved hands together and blowing into them to try to warm them, muttering to one another and occasionally snorting in laughter. They must be the only people in the whole of Jarnborg, I reckoned, who were not still nursing the effects of the previous night’s feasting. They both cast a glance in our direction as we approached. I tensed, but then after a few heart-seizing moments they turned away to resume their conversation, and paid us no more attention. And why should they? We were, by all appearances, merely four of their countrymen, stretching their limbs on a cold winter’s morning. If they’d seen us at close hand they might have thought differently, but most likely they saw our helmets and guessed we had simply decided to rise early for some sword practice in the yard. Perhaps if they had dwelt on that assumption a little longer, they might have questioned why it was that we four were so keen when everyone else in camp still lay huddled in their blankets. Perhaps then their suspicions might have been aroused. Obviously they were too concerned with other things, however, since no challenge came.

We rounded the main hall, past the stables and the mounds of dung that had been shovelled into heaps outside, towards that low-gabled house. There was no sentry guarding the entrance here, but the door was stout, built of oak or some other heavy timber, and fitted with a sturdy iron lock and ring-handle. I glanced back over my shoulder to see if those two huscarls had followed us, but could not see them, although I heard their laughter from around the corner. Satisfied that no one was watching, I descended the steps towards the door, which was slightly below the level of the ground. I gripped the cold handle, gently twisting it until I heard the latch lift, then pushed, slowly but firmly, more in hope than in expectation, for I didn’t expect to find it unlocked.

But unlocked it was. Silently, without so much as a creak of hinges, the door swung open, much to my surprise. Truly God’s favour was shining upon us that morning.

Without further hesitation we ventured inside. A small, sparsely furnished chamber greeted us. A pair of stools stood in the middle of the floor, on one of which was a lantern, the candle within burnt down to its last inch, while on the other rested a knife with a short, curved blade and a thick handle, and a crude wood-whittling of what I supposed was meant to be a horse, since it had a head and mane and bridle, and the beginnings of a saddle, but for some strange reason the animal had not just four legs, but eight. There was no sign of anyone. Perhaps the sentry had gone to find another candle to work by, in which case we probably didn’t have much time before he returned.

Another door led off this small guardroom, but Magnus tried it and found it locked. ‘No luck,’ he said.

‘We’ll break it down,’ Ælfhelm said as he shrugged off his cloak. ‘Let me—’

‘No,’ I said sharply. ‘If you do that, someone’s bound to hear. You’ll end up bringing every single sword-Dane in this place upon us.’

‘What do you suggest, then?’

I glanced about the chamber, in case perhaps the key had been left lying somewhere, though I knew it was a futile hope.

‘If we had a fishhook we could pick it,’ Magnus said, glancing around as if half expecting one of us to have one hidden somewhere on our person. ‘Or a nail, maybe. Anything like that.’

I looked doubtfully at him. Somehow it seemed unlikely that one of noble birth such as he, the usurper’s son, would have had reason to learn the art of lock-picking. ‘And you know how to do that, do you?’

‘No, but we could try.’

‘I’ve seen it done, when I lost the key to my chest last winter,’ Ælfhelm put in. ‘Dubgall the smith’s son showed me how.’

‘You’ve done it before?’

‘No, but if a boy of eleven can manage it, then it can’t be that difficult, can it?’

‘We don’t have time for this,’ I said with mounting frustration. I didn’t know who Dubgall the smith’s son was, and even if he happened to be the wiliest thief in Christendom, I didn’t much care, for he wasn’t here, and this was no time for us to begin teaching ourselves his craft. At any moment the Dane whose wood-carving that was could return.