I realised the forest had gone silent. The whips and twills of birdsong had stilled and a brooding sense of anticipation seemed to descend. I peered intently back towards the path and then heard the sound that has terrified fugitives forever.
Dogs.
Or at least, a dog. The noise was still some distance away, but it was the unmistakeable excited yapping of a hound intent on a trail and struggling to be let off the leash. Why were they hunting me, I wondered, and immediately knew the answer. Vikings couldn’t have cared less about one boy who’d escaped the carnage – this was Malgard’s doing. He’d realised my corpse was not lying with the rest of the family and so he was hunting me – to finish what he had begun. And in that moment I all but despaired. How could I escape Malgard and Angdred, allied with Danes. My life surely was over and tears dripped anew as the hideous scene of slaughter returned to me once again, but now my imagination placed my own rent and twisted body beside my father and brother.
Voices.
I could hear Danes laughing and calling in their weird, oafish tongue as the yapping took on a new excited frenzy. I couldn’t see them but I could picture the men encouraging the dog as it raced back and forth across our spoor – probably in the place I had dropped the dog to the ground when the girl reappeared. It would not be long before they started pushing off the path towards me and I prepared to flee.
At that moment there was a loud howl of bestial pain, and then silence – followed by angry shouting and I saw men charging into the forest in the opposite direction to where I lay. The shouting subsided, and a minute later, the girl reappeared beside me.
‘This way, quickly … bring the dog.’
She took off to the east and I jumped up to follow, the whimpering dog once more in my arms and licking my face. The rest had done me good, and combined with my urgent need to escape, seemed to give me greater strength to bear him.
For some time we passed through forest, sparse with trees but thick with bracken and bramble and I took the opportunity to eat some barely ripe blackberries, still hard and a little tart. The girl walked in front of me, ten paces or so, and turned angrily on me whenever I spoke. Her skin, where it showed through her cloak of pelts, was brown as though used to the sun and she seemed very certain in her movements – almost like a warrior. Once again I found myself speculating about her and where she might have sprung from – and why she was so different from every other maid or lady I had encountered in my life.
Before I knew it I was uncomfortably aware that my manhood was straining against the rag which wrapped it, but before I could rearrange myself, the girl halted and said, ‘We shall rest a moment. Put the dog down.’
The cloak had been drawn back over my shoulders and the rag was slipping. Suddenly, the dog was the only thing between me and the girl and there was no way I could lower him to the ground without being profoundly shamed.
‘Put the dog down,’ she repeated, but I stood there dumbly as the dog started whimpering again. The girl stared piercingly for a moment, then her eyes hardened and she turned away.
Quickly, I placed the dog on the ground then turned away myself to retie my rag and pull the cloak tight. I wasn’t sure whether she was aware of my condition which, if anything, was getting worse.
‘Why are men such animals?’ she asked.
‘We’re not animals,’ I responded. ‘Do animals know grammar and geometry?’
‘Men know rape,’ she replied. ‘Grammar, geometry and rape.’
With that she padded back the way we had come and listened once again, but the birdsong was undisturbed. After a few seconds she appeared satisfied, then leaned against a tree and pulled a waterskin from a satchel. She poured water into her hand and held it for the dog to lick. Then she drank herself, and at last she tossed the almost empty skin to me.
Finally, my condition had subsided enough for polite conversation and I asked the question that had plagued me since we escaped the Vikings on the path.
‘Did you kill the hunting dog?’
‘Of course,’ she replied, as though I were a simpleton. ‘I shot him from the far side of the path, let them see me, then ran into the forest. Then I doubled back … the oldest of fox tricks.’
‘But why kill that dog when you’re so intent on keeping this one alive?’ I asked, genuinely puzzled by her.
‘Are you really such a fool?’ she asked. ‘Or are you simply one of those men who cannot bear silence and must endlessly fill it with empty braying?’
I have to say, I was not accustomed to being spoken to in that manner – not by women at least – and a flush of anger washed over me. I had a mind to threaten her – to remind her that I could overpower her, if I wished, but I held my temper and mustered all my dignity.
‘I am Brand, son of Holgar … reeve and thegn of Stybbor. Have a care how you address me, else you earn my wrath.’
And to my annoyed surprise, she laughed.
‘Reeve and thegn,’ she sneered. ‘Why don’t you explain that to the Danes? Maybe they’ll apologise for killing your family and chasing you.’
With that she took off to the east again and, not sure as to whether I was still welcome to follow – or whether I wanted to follow – I picked up the dog and waited uncertainly until she turned and beckoned. And as no alternatives presented themselves …
We went east for another hour or so and eventually I realised we were following a narrow path, like a game trail, which picked its way around rocks, in and out of glades until the ground began to rise and a small spring splashed out of a wall of stone.
There was a feeling of peace and remoteness about the place and, without discussing it, we fell onto the grass and drank deeply from the natural stone basin, from which cold water trickled away into a fen.
‘The Arwan broads are not far from here,’ said the girl. Then, doubtless responding to the look on my face, continued, ‘Fear not. The Vikings cannot come … there is nothing but fen and marshes between here and the sea for many miles. They will not carry their dragon boats across the mud, so I am safe here.’
‘You live here?’
‘Here … and other places.’
On the southern side of the hill was a small cave which had been extended with a frame of branches covered with turves to make a small chamber, out of the weather. At the entrance was a screen woven of dried reeds and a pit of ashes surrounded by a ring of blackened stones. All around us was a field of bluebells that filled the air with a sweet and pleasant smell.
I laid the dog near the fire pit and stretched my aching back.
‘I shall catch something for us to eat,’ said the girl, reaching into the chamber and pulling out a small iron cauldron. ‘Fill this with water and gather firewood. Also herbs … they grow wild.’
‘Wait!’ I said, and she turned impatiently.
‘I don’t know your name.’
She considered me a moment, as though weighing the consequences of a hard decision.
‘I don’t know your name,’ she said. ‘Neither do I wish to know.’
With that she was gone, leaving me humiliated and angry. Who was this girl to treat me like the meanest villein when I was, by right of my lineage, the chief official and lord of the entire district.