Just me and a dead man alone out there in the marsh. Or so I thought.
I heard them before I saw them. Heard their guttural voices speaking the Saxon tongue. I pulled the oar from the water and held it still, my heart thumping against my breastbone in time with the drips falling from the oar blade. The coracle slowed and stopped, as I twisted on the thwart, peering through the tall reeds around me for any movement. Sound carried unnaturally far in the marsh, so that I could not know if the men I had heard were within spitting distance or an arrow’s flight away. Yet I did not hear the dip of oars and so thought they must be walking along the spine of gorse-crested land ahead, which I could just make out through the reeds.
Laughter now, and more voices, one growling, low and ominous as thunder. Another with a weariness to it. This man trying to make peace between the others, perhaps. But all of them louder than before. Closer. And if they came to the brow of that ridge, they must surely see me below them, and if they had spears or bows, I would make an easy target before I could put any distance between us. Yet, even knowing that, I was too afraid to move. I sat there, gripping the little craft’s sides as we bobbed on the still water. And the Saxons drew nearer with every shallow breath.
Hide. Quickly.
I wanted to. My mind demanded that I do something, but my limbs refused to move. I couldn’t breathe.
Hide. Now!
I leant forward and slowly, softly, sank the oar blade back into the water and propelled the craft towards the bank. If I could hide in the lee of that ridge, the Saxons might pass by, never knowing I was there. But they were almost upon me, their gruff voices grating in the heavy marsh air.
Faster!
I sculled as quickly as I dared, given the sound of the oar sweeping its knots through the water, and barrelled into the thick vegetation of the bank, the craft tipping forward so that I had to thrust the oar down into the mud to stop myself falling overboard. Behind me, the corpse rolled and tipped on the edge, but I threw myself across the thwart, grabbing fistfuls of cloak before Eudaf the cobbler was given to the lake.
A shout from the other side of the ridge. They had heard me. They were coming.
I scrambled back over the bench and took up the oar, but looked up to see the Saxons coming down the bank, tearing through thistles and blackthorn. Shields and spears and fierce, bearded faces. Heathen voices yelling ungodly words.
I spun the coracle and worked the oar through the water, then heard a splash and the coracle bucked beneath me and I was being pulled backwards, my efforts with the oar useless. Another savage buck and I fell against the willow ribs. Hands on me then, snarled in my habit and in my hair, and I was on my back being hauled through the cold water, reeds breaking off in my hands as I grasped at them. Onto the muddy bank. The reek of warriors. The blur of fair beards and hair and teeth as they dragged me through thorn and briar, up onto the ridge, barking like ravens.
I screamed in terror and shock and called God’s wrath upon them, though they showed no fear nor understanding. Then one of them hammered his fist against my face and my lip popped like a pea pod, spilling blood into my mouth and down my chin. I yelled still, spitting blood as they threw me down and stepped back to see what they had caught.
There were three of them, two grizzled-looking, scarred warriors and one younger man, perhaps my own age, with the little square-headed hammer amulet of their god Thunor hanging at his throat. These warriors from across the Morimaru were the men who had taken Britain from us and I knew they would kill me now. My only chance was to wriggle free and run, but in the heartbeat that I moved, the biggest of the three warriors knew my intention and stepped forward, turning his spear to slam the butt into my shoulder, knocking me back down. Pain replaced fear and I lay on the wet earth looking up at the sky, the click of reed buntings all around me, and I saw a marsh harrier high up, its pale underside blending with the wan day, and even in that moment, as I waited for death, I wondered if it was the same bird which I had seen earlier.
The leader of these Saxons growled something at me. An order or a curse. For a moment I looked into his eyes and all I saw there was cruelty. My life measured in no more than a dozen sour breaths. And so I closed my own eyes and commended myself unto God.
‘Lord of Heaven, receive me,’ I said. And in that breath, I saw my mother’s face, the memory flooding me with sadness, and when I opened my eyes the spear blade was blurred by tears.
The spear fell. The Saxon’s mouth hung open, his eyes bulging in their sockets as he gurgled and choked on a froth of bloody bubbles. Then he toppled to the ground beside me, and I am certain I looked as shocked as he that the Lord of Heaven had made good my threats and struck him down.
The other two Saxons crouched and raised their shields, turning away from me, which was when I saw the arrow embedded in their dead companion’s side. The elder of the two warriors roared a challenge at the reeds, fear keeping him hunched behind his limewood shield, anger filling his beard with spittle as he yelled.
No one replied. The only answer the Saxon received was an arrow which streaked from the reed-bed and took him in the shin, making him screech in pain, though he kept his shield up and his head down. It was too much for the other Saxon, who turned and ran, though he did not outrun the next arrow. It thumped into the back of his neck and burst from his windpipe in a spray of gore.
That young man was dead before his thin beard touched the grass, and I got back on my feet and moved away from the remaining warrior, who paid me no heed now. This last Saxon had more sense than to turn his back on his unseen enemy. Not that he could have run far with that arrow in his leg. Blood stained his trews and trickled in rivulets across his shoe as he yelled challenges at the hidden bowman who was the cause of his unexpected misery. He spun the spear in his hand and thrust it into the ground, then drew his sword, whose iron gleamed in the dull day. He roared to his god, Woden, and keeping his shield high, limped down the slope towards the reeds, repeating his chant of ‘Woden! Woden! Woden!’
The next arrow thunked into his shield. The one after that took him in his right eye. He staggered three more paces and dropped, gone from this life to the next, and I made the sign of the Thorn at the devastation wrought by that warrior upon whom I had yet to lay eyes.
There was a rustling and movement of the reeds and I held my breath as the archer came out, using the bow to force a way through the tall stalks. Then I muttered an oath which would have seen me punished with cleaning the byre for a month back at the monastery. The archer, this killer who had slaughtered three Saxon wolves, was a young woman.
‘You owe me two arrows, monk,’ the woman said, having collected all but one of her shafts and examined them to see which could be used again and which would first need repairing. She was on her knees now beside one of the Saxons, bent over him, her face hidden by unruly auburn tresses, and I realized that she was spitting onto the dead man’s hand, trying to loosen the ring on his middle finger.
‘Though you’re not a real monk, are you?’ She looked up at me, her grimace becoming a grin as she twisted the ring over the knuckle and pulled it off. ‘You’d be shorn.’ She put the ring into the drawstring purse beside the arrow-bag tied to her belt. ‘From ear to ear. But you’re not. Why do your kind do that?’ she asked. ‘And why are there no women on Ynys Wydryn?’
I couldn’t find the words to reply. I was as shocked as a fish in a net pulled aboard a boat. I stood there slathered in mud, a hand pressed to my bleeding lip, watching this young woman who had undoubtedly saved my life. My stomach heaved. Were it not empty, I would have puked into the grass.