The Way Between the Worlds Page 9

  Slipping away from his companions, Rollo smartened himself up, groomed himself and his horse and set out to meet his king.

  The conversation between the king and his spy took place in a quiet spot away from the king’s encampment, and the only eyes that observed the two men together were those of the king’s close guard. The king’s short, strong body was covered by a plain cloak, his reddish fair hair concealed beneath its hood.

  ‘You have done well, Rollo Guiscard,’ the king observed as Rollo rose from his bow.

  ‘Thank you, My Lord King.’

  The king’s broad, ruddy face creased into a smile. ‘I was right, was I not, to fear an incursion while my back was turned?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely right.’

  ‘Right, too, to have sent you here as my eyes,’ the king went on. ‘Few men would have so quickly appreciated what Edgar Aethling was about when he came racing up here, sore because I had just booted him out of Normandy.’ He nodded sagely. ‘But you did, didn’t you? You guessed he would persuade Malcolm that the time was ripe to invade the north of England.’

  Suddenly, the pleasant expression was gone, wiped away, and a look of fury filled the king’s face. ‘He had the king’s ear, curse him, for the man is married to Edgar’s sister. Curse her too!’ He added a string of oaths, his red face glowing scarlet. Then, calming himself, he went on: ‘Thanks to you, word reached me before too much harm was done. Now, we have a treaty –’ he put heavy, sarcastic emphasis on the word – ‘and all is right with the world, is it not?’

  Rollo, fairly certain the king did not expect an answer, did not provide one.

  But for a soft creak from the expensive leather of the king’s boots as he paced restlessly to and fro, there was silence for some time.

  Then William stopped and turned to face his spy. ‘I have another task for you, Rollo Guiscard,’ he said softly.

  Rollo bowed. ‘My Lord King?’

  ‘England is open to such attacks all the time the border is weak. There are tracts of land where no men live, Rollo, and there the tough and ruthless border barons seek to make their own petty kingdoms.’

  I know, Rollo thought. All the details were in my report to you.

  ‘I shall stamp my authority on these lands,’ the king went on. ‘I shall first take Carlisle, for it lies all but abandoned, and if I do not seize it, Malcolm will.’ He had resumed his pacing, one fist repeatedly punching into the opposite palm, but now he stopped and once again faced Rollo.

  ‘I will take my army into the north-west next spring,’ he announced, ‘as soon as the roads are fit to travel and the days begin to lengthen. In the meantime, I want you to go there and discover how the land lies. Who holds the town, if any man does, what the fortifications consist of, how many men may be drawn up against me.’ He went on talking for some time, succinctly outlining his plans.

  ‘I understand, My Lord,’ Rollo said when he had finished. He guessed there was more to come and, after a moment, the king spoke again.

  ‘I have heard tell of a man they call Hawksclaw, although his true name is Thorwald. He is, they say, of Norse descent, and he seeks to carve out his kingdom from other men’s lands, as did his forefathers.’

  Rollo, too, had heard of Thorwald, known as Hawksclaw. The name was whispered along the border country with a mixture of fear and awe.

  ‘It may be that the territory I aim to stabilize in the north-west is not of concern to him,’ the king went on, his tone soft and thoughtful, ‘but I will not take the risk.’ His pale eyes shot to meet Rollo’s. ‘You know what I want of you.’

  ‘I do, Lord.’

  ‘Good,’ the king murmured. ‘Very good.’ He reached beneath his wide cloak and untied a small bag of soft brown leather from his belt. From inside it came the chink of coins. He handed it to Rollo. ‘Take this on account,’ William said. ‘You will be rewarded in full when this business is over and done with.’ His eyes still intent on Rollo, he added softly, ‘I do not forget my debt to those who serve me loyally and efficiently.’

  ‘As I well know, My Lord King,’ Rollo agreed. His service to the king was slowly and steadily making him a wealthy man.

  Believing the meeting to be over, Rollo prepared to be given his leave and the king’s traditional parting blessing to those in his favour. But the king made no move; instead, he said, lowering his voice, ‘When your task in the north-west is complete, there is something else.’ He beckoned Rollo closer, and then spoke right into his ear.

  As he listened, Rollo’s eyes widened and he felt a stab of fear.

  The king finished speaking and stood back. He was watching Rollo closely, as if gauging his reaction. ‘My Lord King, that is . . .’ Rollo sought for the right word. ‘Astonishing,’ he managed.

  ‘Astonishing, yes,’ the king agreed grimly, ‘but true, nevertheless. Or so I am told.’

  ‘And so many died,’ Rollo murmured, his whirling thoughts concentrating on the human tragedy.

  ‘It was treason,’ the king said sharply. ‘The result could have been far graver than it was. The intention is perfectly clear.’

  ‘Indeed so, My Lord,’ Rollo agreed hastily. He squared his shoulders and faced his king. ‘What would you have me do?’

  As the king told him, Rollo felt something deep inside him tremble with atavistic dread.

  After the king had led his army away on the long road home, Rollo covered his tracks, melted into the background and, leaving the Forth behind him, set off south for Carlisle. He had plenty of money – the king had made sure of that – and he completed his brief list of purchases in a string of small towns and settlements along his route. Nobody would recall a man who bought a modest amount of food, or a single blanket, or a warm winter cloak, but a gossip with nothing better to do might repeat the tale of someone who splashed out a bagful of coins all at once and bought out the shop.

  He already had a good horse. Strega was a bay mare, nondescript and with no memorable markings, and she was neither particularly tall nor of noticeably fine breeding. She was, however, tough, strong and virtually unshockable. She and Rollo had been together for some time, and he had chosen her name in memory of the powerful witch women out of the legends of his native Sicily.

  As he grew near to the lands around the great firth that divided Scotland from England, he stopped to disguise his appearance. He was deep in the northern forest, the autumn was well advanced and he had not seen a living soul for over a day and a half. He darkened his blond hair with a mixture of mud and ash, drawing it back off his face and fastening it with a length of twine. Stubble grew long on his chin, and he darkened it to match his hair. Then he took from his pack the stained and torn tunic that constituted his poor traveller’s disguise, covering it with an equally ancient and travel-stained cloak.

  As he began his exploration of the district, he set up a series of refuges. Working almost exclusively alone, as he did, he only had himself to rely on and, if he encountered danger, he had to be sure there was somewhere to hide. In a modest-sized town some distance from Carlisle, he paid out rent in advance for a tiny room in a busy inn, speaking briefly to the proprietor – in truth, far too busy a man to be very curious – and describing himself as having family business in the area which would often take him away for several days at a time. It was not likely he would ever need it, but there was no way of knowing. Better to have a room he never used than to need such a bolt hole and not have one. Then he set off into the wilds of that sparsely-populated border country and found an abandoned farmstead, where he made a shelter in an old barn. He discovered a scatter of ancient ruins and spotted a place where he would be protected from the weather. In each place, he left supplies of basic foodstuffs and containers of fresh water. Elsewhere, he sought out tracts of woodland where the trees grew close together and the pine needles lay in a deep carpet. In an emergency, he knew he could survive in such places, even with winter coming on; he had done so before. He memorized each location, making quite sure he could find t
he places again if he needed them.

  When he was satisfied that he had done all he could, he set off for the populated areas and, for the first time in weeks, re-entered the world of men.

  Through the deep quiet of the winter months, Rollo set about discovering everything he could of the area which the king wished to fortify and make his own. He found a land fed by one broad river and many tributaries, creating a boggy terrain that would be difficult to negotiate unless you knew the safe paths. As he stood one December morning, gazing out over a wide expanse of waterlogged ground, frost and patches of ice slowly melting in the weak sun, he thought of Lassair. She had found the firm ground across the fens from Ely to the mainland, and in so doing had saved their lives. In a sudden stab of loneliness, he thought he would have given almost anything, just then, to have her by his side.

  Ruthlessly, he pushed her to the back of his mind. She wasn’t there, and he was incapable of summoning her.

  The ancient town of Carlisle was the focal point of the region. William’s plan was sound, for a fortification there would enable his soldiers to guard the major road out of western Scotland. But Carlisle was, Rollo discovered, in ruins. Destroyed by the Danes two hundred years ago, it was still a place of half-collapsed walls and devastated dwellings open to the elements. The biting wind howled through the many open spaces like a demon, and a man more susceptible to the power of the spirits would have been fearful.

  Rollo, in the guise of a poor merchant, put up in a dirty, tumbledown inn beside the road leading out of the town to the north. He feigned an injury to his leg, an excuse that enabled him to remain there for two weeks, hobbling around and asking discreet, careful questions. There were rumours of a powerful, brutal lord who had designs on the town, and the few inhabitants were very afraid that his arrival would turn an existence that was barely tolerable into something far worse. If the lord deemed you unimportant to his schemes, they said, you would be lucky to escape with your life.

  The lord, as Rollo had already guessed, was referred to by everyone as Hawksclaw. Nobody knew much about him, other than that he lived in the wild lands to the north-east, in what some said was a ruined castle. They whispered, wide-eyed, that he had no wife but kept seven women captive, one for each night of the week, and by them had a gang of bastard sons as cruel and ruthless as he was.

  Listening to the tales, believing perhaps a third of what he was told, Rollo recognized what he must do. He knew that many of the English did not like their new Norman masters, and he could well appreciate why not. But here in the north-west, if the alternative to William’s rule was a ruthless, lawless brigand who made up the rules as he went along, then surely the choice was obvious. Rollo’s own attitude, had anyone asked him, was that at least William’s firm hand kept the country peaceful. William did not care what men believed, what they thought, which god they worshipped; as long as you worked hard, kept the peace and paid your taxes, in all likelihood the king would leave you alone. Moreover, he would fight off the country’s enemies, as a king should.

  Such were Rollo’s thoughts as, step by careful step, he made his plans to kill the man known as Hawksclaw and so leave Carlisle and the north-west safe and ready for the king’s arrival.

  It should have been foolproof. So thorough had Rollo’s preparations been that he believed he knew his enemy’s routine down to every instant of the day. Hawksclaw was not a hard man to read: he was a bully and a braggart, and he kept his men obedient to him through brutal cruelty. Rollo had formed the opinion, after having watched the man’s stronghold for a week or more, that the removal of their charismatic but vicious leader would be the end of the threat posed by this particular private army. Hawksclaw’s men, he believed, would creep away once he was dead. It did not seem likely that any of his sons would assume their father’s mantle. They numbered not the ‘gang’ that the people of Carlisle had claimed but in fact only three, one of whom was a boy and one crippled. The remaining son looked as if he had suffered too much from his father’s casual brutality and appeared to be a weak, indecisive man.

  Rollo slipped into the stronghold for the final time late one night. It did indeed look like a ruined castle, but the days of its strength and power were long gone. The outer walls were breached in several places, and the wooden gates had been repaired many times, latterly in what appeared to have been a half-hearted fashion. Rollo’s previous forays had enabled him to memorize the interior layout, which consisted of a central yard – foul with mud, ordure, puddles of yellowish water and dozens of animals, from scrawny hens to skinny, disease-ridden wolfhounds – surrounded on three sides by rows of two-storey buildings made mostly of wood. These structures were, in general, crudely made, filthy dirty inside and slowly falling apart. On the lower level there were stables, a small forge and several storerooms, most of them half-empty. Above were a series of dilapidated alcoves that stood open on the side facing the yard, the only privacy for those within provided by flimsy wooden shutters or badly-cured animal skins. One corner of the stronghold was built of stone, and it was here that the lord had his private chambers. They were on the upper floor, reached by a wooden staircase that led up from the yard. There was a wide hall, in the centre of which a fire burned in a circular hearth, and, off to one side, a bed chamber. The whole place stank like a midden built over a latrine.

  There were usually a handful of dispirited men hanging around and sometimes more; Rollo had once counted fifty. It appeared that not all of Hawksclaw’s fighting force were permanently billeted with him, which made sense because, for one thing, the lord would not have to feed them all if they did not live with him, and, for another, if they were spread out, there was less danger that every one of them would be wiped out in a single attack. Sometimes Rollo had seen a group of woman, huddled together, one of them looking fearfully over her shoulder and another sporting a swollen, weeping black eye.

  It was clear from the demeanour of Hawksclaw and his men that they felt sufficiently secure in their lonely stronghold not to fear attack. The place was minimally guarded, and it was easy for a man of Rollo’s experience to slip in and out unseen by the pair of young men – little more than boys – who habitually leaned against the gates and bragged to each other of their prowess in the saddle, in the field of combat and, most frequently, in the bed of whichever of the women they claimed to have most recently forced themselves on.

  On that last night visit, the two young guards had been replaced by an old veteran with a huge beard and a long scar through one eye. He had made himself comfortable, slumped down in a corner out of the wind, and appeared to be fast asleep. Passing him silently, Rollo slipped through one of the wider breaches in the walls and, for a few moments, stood in the deep shadows looking out across the yard. There was not a soul, human or animal, to be seen. He made his soft-footed way up to the chamber where Hawksclaw slept. There was a gaping hole in the stone wall, inadequately covered by a torn piece of leather, and sufficient moonlight came through for Rollo to see quite clearly. He approached the pile of animal skins that served the lord for a bed and stood for a moment looking down at the sleeping man under his thick blanket. Even in the relaxation of sleep, the face was cruel and hard. His mind cool and detached, Rollo killed Hawksclaw as he slept.

  He was on his way out of the room when he heard a faint sound. Spinning round, he saw a girl spring up from the floor on the far side of Hawksclaw’s bed, where she must have been hidden from view, curled up and asleep. She was naked, her body sinewy and slim, her small breasts firm and high. Long black hair flowed down her back, and her dark eyes were blazing. She sprang at Rollo, and he felt a searing, burning pain in his chest, about a hand’s breadth above his heart.

  He grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled it from her hand, biting his lips against the cry of agony as the steel was wrested out of his flesh. Instantly, her hands were at him, her fingers scrabbling for his eyes, and he grabbed her wrists, forcing her hands away. She tried to kick him in the groin, but he sensed the a
ttack coming and, grasping her around the waist, flung her to one side so that her flying feet found only empty air. He knew she would kill him if she could.

  Among his victims, no woman yet featured. He did not wish to kill one now, even a wild demon like her. Bunching his right hand into a fist, he hit her on the side of her head, and she went limp. He carried her across to the bed and laid her beside her dead lord. The night was cold, so he was careful to cover her well with the heavy woollen blanket.

  For a moment he stood staring down at her. He had not hit her hard, and already she was stirring. He turned and left.

  The wound in his chest became inflamed, and he believed he would die.

  While he was still able to travel, he’d put many miles between himself and Hawksclaw’s stronghold. He did not believe the dead man’s followers posed any serious threat to the king’s plans to take the area, but they were more than capable of taking lengthy and agonizing revenge on the man who had killed their leader. If Rollo were to be caught, death, when it at last came, would be nothing but a relief.

  He had made his way to the most desolate of his refuges, a mystifying ruined building like nothing he had ever seen before. It was rectangular in shape, not very large, and at one end were three squat pillars. The site was overgrown, and chunks of stone lay all over it. There were the remains of a hearth, and, beside it, a pit dug into the earth. The building must once have been underground, for even now, although open to the wide sky, it lay beneath the surface of the surrounding land. It was reasonably safe to have a fire there – by day at least – and by using dry fuel it was possible to keep the smoke to a barely visible minimum. Rollo had adopted the pit as a sleeping place, lining it with dry leaves and dead grass and building up the earth in front of it so that, once within, he was sheltered from the wind and the rain. He took to setting many of the stones that littered the site into the fire during the day, and then placing them in his pit when he extinguished the fire at nightfall. Some nights, when the temperature did not fall too dramatically, he was quite warm.