Two huge hands took me by the hips, and a loud voice grunted in Danish.
‘Erm … my name is Carl Two-tongues,’ said a different voice – a kind-sounding voice, if that was possible. ‘Olaf has asked me to translate … I am sorry you have to suffer—’
‘Just translate!’ snarled Angdred.
‘Very well. You are my sweet piglet,’ began Carl – his voice becoming harsh as the hands on my hips gripped harder and stinking breath like rotting fish warmed the back of my neck. Then a sound like a butcher’s mallet thunked behind me and the hands fell away. Olaf made a small mewing noise, and the Danes suddenly shouted with fury – immediately turning and holding their torches up – peering into the forest in front of me. Then one of them staggered backwards and dropped his torch – gurgling and groaning horribly, with an arrow in his throat.
‘The bitch!’ shouted Angdred. ‘Find her!’
But the Danes ignored Angdred, who shouted at Carl to translate his orders. The torch-Dane who only moments before was purple with laughter was now pale with dread – forcing his dying comrade’s fingers to close around the hilt of his sword.
Angdred leapt over the log and kicked the sword away – pointing angrily into the trees and shouting with rage. To my amazement, the unwounded Dane simply stood and drove a dagger into Angdred’s throat, then retrieved the sword and, with tears in his eyes, tried to hold his comrade’s fingers around the hilt. But the wounded Dane had died, and the Dane who had knifed Angdred now stood over him as he lay on the ground, clutching his throat as gouts of blood splashed between his fingers.
Without a word, the Dane stamped down onto Angdred’s head, then hacked with his comrade’s sword until the body stopped moving. Then he continued to chop, two handed, until the head came away completely – and I might have thrown up except there was too little in my still-groaning stomach.
Two other Danes stood and watched, as the first finished the job. Then they all turned to me.
Then the kind voice spoke again from behind me, but it spoke in Danish. Carl Two-tongues he had called himself, and as he spoke, I saw fear come into the eyes of the Danes. They muttered quickly in their ridiculous tongue, sounding like pigs grunting in swill, then they swept up the two torches lying on the ground and ran.
Leaving me in darkness.
Not quite darkness. There was still a faint red glow before me from the dying fire behind – I could no longer feel its warmth on my naked flesh and, despite it being summer, I began to shiver.
‘So,’ said a voice, ‘ … the Lord of the Land?’
‘Valla,’ I said, in relief, submitting to her sarcasm. ‘I knew it was you who shot the Danes … thank you.’
There was a silence, and the red light seemed to be dying further. Then I flinched as a dagger traced my spine.
‘I was tempted to let the big Dane have his way with you,’ she said, the tip of her dagger moving slowly between my buttocks and then pausing at my nuts and pressing a touch harder, ‘to teach you the horror of rape.’
‘Thank you,’ I repeated, desperately trying to squirm aside, but I was staked so tightly I couldn’t move an inch.
‘Do you promise never to rape?’ she asked me.
‘Of course,’ I replied.
‘I want a promise that comes from the heart,’ she said. ‘Not just desperate words under threat of a gelding knife.’
‘You’ll have to take the knife away then,’ I replied, and to my small amazement, she laughed.
Chapter 4
The Chain of Valla
It seemed an age, yet it had only been an hour or so since we’d sat in front of her cave with its turf and wicker extension. The coals of the fire were still smouldering deep and the dog thumped its tail at our return. The ordinary night noises of the forest told us the Danes were gone, so we felt safe enough to rebuild the fire and think once again of the food that Valla had been preparing.
The broth had boiled down a little too thick but still tasted magnificent, despite the absence of salt – fasting and fear had given me a noble hunger. We ate in silence straight from the small cauldron and shared a wooden mug of spring water.
After a while, I asked her, ‘Where did you learn such skill with the bow?’
‘From my mother.’
‘Your mother?’
Valla said nothing further, and I remembered her uncanny claim – of being two hundred and forty-two years old. Then again, I had grown up hearing about the witch of the wood, whose name was indeed Valla, but she was supposed to be an old crone. I found it impossible to believe this young woman could be the same – and yet, she had a manner and an effortless skill that was as far beyond mine as my father’s, or Brother Waldo’s. The hair rose on my neck as I recalled stories of shape shifters and other mysterious creatures and I crossed myself.
‘What did you do that for?’ demanded Valla.
‘ … Do what?’
‘Make that stupid gesture with your hand. You’re not a Christian are you?’
‘All men are Christian these days,’ I replied. ‘Long has it been so, in these parts.’
‘No Christian god walks among these trees,’ replied Valla, who had collected some bluebells and was twisting their stems into a chain. ‘The old gods are still strong here, ruling rock, brook and tree. They suffer not the eastern invader.’
Until very recently, I would have had only an academic interest in such a conversation, but my own communications with God had given me, I believed, a far deeper appreciation of His reality in my life.
‘I have spoken with God,’ I said softly, remembering, staring into the fire.
‘You?’ she sneered, as she completed her chain of bluebells and placed it around her head like a floral crown. ‘And what did he tell you? That you were born to rule … that you were entitled to rape?’
Despite my gratitude to Valla, I was beginning to find her obsession a little tedious.
‘Why are you so concerned with rape?’ I demanded. ‘It can’t be that bad … not for a woman.’
She stared at me for a thunderstruck moment and then her eyes flashed with anger – but in that second the dog started growling and we both glanced up at a man standing on the edge of the firelight, holding a sword.
‘Forgive me father,’ said the man, dressed in the woollen breeches and skins of the Danes, but wearing a thrall’s collar and speaking our tongue in a strange manner.
Valla and I leapt to our feet, but the stranger made no move to attack.
‘I have sinned,’ he continued, speaking to himself it seemed. Then he tossed the sword onto the ground and held up his hands in token of parley.
‘I am Carl Two-tongues,’ he said. ‘May I share your fire?’
∞ ∞ ∞
Carl was a monk he told us, who had been raised near Gyrwu – somewhere far to the north – and kidnapped by the Danes on one of their summer raids.
‘They slew many of my brothers, but spared me,’ he said, drinking some of the thick broth, ‘and as I quickly learned their tongue, they found me useful.’
‘You were a slave?’ I asked.
‘A thrall, yes,’ said Carl, touching his iron collar. ‘And worse.’
Valla and I glanced at each other, both understanding him but knowing not how to respond.
‘I was raped many times in the last three years,’ Carl continued. ‘ … by