Blood of the Vikings

BLOOD of the VIKINGS Michael Gouda

A bitter gust of wind struck from the north-east quarter and filled the square sail, snapping and cracking the material, while the mast and cross-member groaned at the strain. A plume of freezing water dashed into Harald's face, arousing him with a start from the light doze he had fallen into. The great ship ploughed onwards through the waves, white crests curling at the bows. In the stern, where Harald crouched, wrapped in his woollen cloak, the steersman stood, grasping the wooden shaft of the rudder fixed to the starboard side and directing the ship onwards, ever onwards. Harald looked into the sky. Over his left shoulder the sun rose, shining through the tattered remnants of clouds which fled overhead, harried by the vicious wind, though this was just the right direction that they wished, dead abaft and heading them towards their destination, the green fields and fat monasteries of Angle-land. Some distance away the other two ships rose and fell, keeping companion.

In the bows and peering always into the West, past the great dragon's head prow which curled up and showed them the way, stood Harald's elder brother, Sceaf, his yellow hair blown forward by the wind. Harald wondered what Sceaf was thinking, as jarl he should by right of inheritance have been prince of the tribe back in the homeland but had been usurped in a feud with his cousin. The choice for Sceaf had been to live under his cousin's uncertain dominion - often aspirants to high office led short lives - or to strike out for new land, where he, and those who still swore fealty to him, could live in the way they had always done.

Sceaf had been to Angle-land several times before, had struck while the farmers had lain unsuspecting, had ravished the monastery, killing the monks, and bringing back pieces of jewel-encrusted gold wrenched from the covers of their, so-called, holy books, bishops' croziers, silver crosses - used for Odin knows what purposes. Now his mission would be to land, capture, but this time stay, wrenching the pastures from the feeble inhabitants, taking cattle rather than jewels, women as wives rather than rape victims, young men as slaves.

But this was Harald's first time 'i vikking', a-sailing over the open grey seas, though of course he was no stranger to the sea itself, having spent most of his seventeen years in boats, travelling along the high-sided, razor-sharp rocky fjords of his homeland, up the endless rivers and lakes, from bay to coastal bay. His body swayed in time to the motion of the waves. Soon the twenty men, now lying, huddled together for warmth in the well of the ship would awaken and eat, breaking their fasts with strips of salted fish, washing them down with beer.

Some time the following day one or other of the men, perhaps it would even be him, or more likely sharp-eyed Sceaf, would spy the first sign of land, low and grey on the horizon and they would prepare, first lowering the great sail painted with the ravens of Odin, unstopping the bungholes along the sides of the ship so that they could insert the long oars and row safely into land, their bodies straining with the effort and the proud ship, elegant as a swan, deadly as a wolf, would bring doom - and a new life - to an unsuspecting land.

Someone was shaking me by the shoulder and shouting in my ear. "Egulf, you brainless lump of wood, wake up." I recognised my brother's voice and struggled to wake. I have always been a heavy sleeper but his next remark brought me to my senses quicker than a squirt of winter spring water. "Pirates! Pirates in the bay!" Instantly I felt a clutch of fear in my heart. There had been invasions of pirates before, Norsemen from the North East, Danes from the East and all as cruel as each other. Luckily, as far as we farmers were concerned, the pirates' main preoccupation had been with the monastery along the coast and the treasures that had been stored within. Gold, they had desired and taken, and anyone who stood in their way had been ruthlessly cut down - even the monks whose lack of weapons and holiness had not saved them.

I hoped that this would be their destination this time and immediately felt a twinge of guilt. Almighty God, I prayed to myself, forgive me for such a thought.

I was, of course, dressed. Who would sleep in anything but full clothing in the winter time? Even then, and close to the fire pit in the middle of the hut, towards dawn it was cold enough. I possessed no sword but did have a crude knife which was usually used for farm work, castrating the boars, cutting rope, slicing hawthorn to make fences. It would have to do. I felt for the hand-worn handle and it gave me a little comfort as I emerged into the cold light of day, pushing through the narrow door opening with the others of the village, my father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles and cousins. Those who possessed them were strapping on swords, my brother, Alcuin, holding an axe, others hefting nothing more lethal than a branch of wood.

The cold morning air sharpened by frost struck at my throat. Out in the bay the sun, red and swollen, had just cleared the horizon. Against the pink-stained sky were the silhouettes of three ships, large, square sails hoisted at the masts. Even as we watched, the sails were lowered, crumpling like baggy cloaks though the ships themselves came on, propelled by the oarsmen, ten a side. They were heading, not for the monastery on the headland further north but directly towards the habitation which my family called Ingildtun, the farming village of Ingild, my father.

I did a quick calculation. Of course I could neither read nor write, but numbers I was good at. Comes from counting pigs' testicles, I suppose. Three ships, twenty oarsmen per ship, that made a total of at least sixty armed and ferocious pirates - and Ingildtun contained less than a third more than that, and most of them were women and children. If the pirates were attacking the village, we villagers would not stand any chance.

I caught sight of my father, sword drawn in his right hand, standing on the knoll under the ash tree which marked the southern end of the village.

"There are more than sixty of them," I said.

I saw the worried frown of uncertainty which spread over my father's face. The wind blew his thinning hair into his eyes and he dashed it away with his free hand.

"Take the young children and the women," said Ingild - he was talking to Gudrun, my mother - "along the headland to the monastery. If the pirates go there and leave us alone, you can come back."

But she didn't want to go. "I will stay with you," she said. "I can fight."

Ingild had no time for arguing. He slapped her hard around the cheek so that the red mark of his hand stood out on the whiteness of her skin. "Do as you are told, and take the children."

Weeping, but trying to hide her tears, my mother gathered the youngest children and the other women and led them off towards the north. Some of the remaining villagers looked as if they would have preferred to go with her. Armed with our scarcely more than useless weapons, we lined up on the shore and waited while the three ships advanced out of the sun like huge many legged swimming insects, their prows gaping heads, carved wooden mouths open to consume.

As the keels grated on the shingle, the Norsemen leaped out and ran up the shore, shouting, waving axes, swords and spears. The line of our villagers wavered, broke, reformed as my father commanded them to hold and then collapsed again under the attack. I saw my brother, Alcuin, fall, a spear sticking from his chest and then Ingild himself was struck a terrible blow from an axe so that his head was severed and rolled down the shingle slope towards the sea.

My puny knife, scarcely suitable enough to geld the young boars on the farm, was useless against the Viking weapons. Indeed, seeing the deaths of Ingild and Alcuin, the few of our men remaining, turned and fled up the shifting shingle, harried by swords and axes so that they fell with gaping wounds in their backs. I myself felt a burning pain in the calf of my leg as a sharp blade cut into the tendons and I collapsed, expecting any moment to receive a death blow.

But the shouting passed over me, muscled legs, cross-gartered pounding the shingle on either side. Presumably they thought me already dead and the pursuit went up into the village itself where anyone who had so far escaped the carnage tried to hide in or behind the huts, or failing that, fled towards the open country.

I dragged myself along the foreshore, realising that blood was pumping out from my leg. A long piece of kelp, dark and shiny, lay in the sand and I wrapped it round the wound, remembering from somewhere - the monks perhaps - that seaweed was supposed to be good for injuries. I found a piece of driftwood which served as a stick and I was able to haul myself to my feet and hobble off along the shoreline as far away as possible from the massacre of all those that I knew and loved.

Harald had played his part in the attack, as a young Viking should, even though he had never before been involved in blood battle. He had wondered, on the voyage across the sea whether he would feel frightened, but in the event things had happened so quickly and he'd been so occupied that immediately beforehand that he hadn't had time to be scared. By the time the sun was over the horizon, they were close to land and, as soon as they fell under the lee of the land and the wind was cut off, he and the others had leapt to their allocated oars and strained to bring the ship to land as quickly as possible.

Once grounded, and led by Sceaf, Harald and the warriors, waving their swords and shouting as loudly as they could, raced up the beach and were on the landsmen almost before they could have been aware of their arrival. Admittedly the Angles were lined up along the high tide line - and a sorry bunch of individuals they looked too - but, as soon as their leader had been cut down by Sceaf, they turned and ran. The battle became a rout and it was just a question of how many the warriors could catch and kill before they fled.

Harald chased a young man and hacked at his fleeing back with his sword. He missed but caught the fellow in the back of the leg and with a cry he was down on the shingle, the blood pulsing from the wound. It wasn't the first grievous hurt Harald had seen but it was the first he had caused and the sight suddenly sickened him. The man obviously wasn't dead. Though lying there, such an injury would not have killed immediately, and Harald knew that he should finish him off with a thrust in the back. Somehow though he couldn't bring himself to do it and he side-stepped the body and continued after the others.

Then he felt a sudden surge of shame. This was not the right action of a Viking against an enemy. He slowed, turned and went back to finish the job, but the man had disappeared. The depression in the shingle was there and the bloodstains but there was no other sign of him and Harald knew he had let an enemy escape.

Slowly he turned. There was blood on his sword and Sceaf would be proud when he saw it, but Harald would himself know that he had failed in his duty.

The slaughter was as good as done when he arrived at the village. The few remaining men who hadn't managed to escape into the surrounding countryside had been despatched and the village was theirs. Sceaf made a great speech praising them all and included Harald whose bloodied sword showed without question that his younger brother had joined the warrior ranks.

Later that evening the warriors brought in the women and children who had fled the village before the Vikings' arrival. Apart from some bruising and a few superficial cuts caused when some of the women resisted, they were unharmed. They were mostly terrified and weeping though some, like one who claimed she was called Gudrun, was spitting mad. This one Sceaf took - he always liked a woman with spirit. The Vikings needed women if they were to form a settlement here and the girls also, who would of course grow into women soon. The boys - there were seven of them - were to some extent expendable but, as Sceaf reasoned, if they were to prove tractable, they could make reasonable slaves. The choice was up to them and most seemed to understand that either they worked or they died. They grumbled and some - shamefully - wept, but it was obvious what they had chosen.

There were not enough women or girls for one each and Sceaf was against the idea of sharing. He thought that would probably give rise to jealous squabbling or worse, so, apart from Gudrun whom Sceaf took by right of conquest, the others were settled by lot. It seemed though that, although Harald had just been acknowledged a warrior, he had not been one sufficiently long enough to be included in the lottery. Not that he minded all that much. Harald had not had a great deal of experience with women and, to tell the truth, he was a little afraid of them. They seemed to have strange ideas of reasoning, and logic was foreign to them. They couldn't do practical things like sharpening a sword or steering a ship - or at least he'd never seen one doing so. Of course they did have some elementary skills in preparing and cooking food. It was good luck that someone in the houses had already done this and there was a fine lamb stew waiting in a pot which only needed a fire to be kindled underneath.

It was lucky because the women were in no state at the time to settle down and start on domestic chores. It seemed that the death of their menfolk had upset them so that they might have had thoughts of adding poison to the meal. That was an example, thought Harald, of what he meant about their lack of logic. They had lost their men, now they had others. It was not as if they were left completely alone. Indeed the woman, Gudrun, seemed the most illogical of all. She had been wife of the leader, Ingild, whose head had come bounding past Harald on the shingle. Now she was the woman of the chieftain, his brother, Sceaf, and was she grateful? From the sound of her complaints, most decidedly not!

Harald was fairly sure, though, that Sceaf would soon reconcile her to her loss. His brother had a way with women, and few, if any, left his bed without wishing to return.

The stew was good too.

It was the evening of the second day before I reached the monastery. It had been a dreadful journey. Impeded, as I was, by the wound in my leg, I hadn't been able to make anything but the slowest progress. I had had no food, nor indeed assistance of any sort. The whole countryside seemed like a wasteland. Either the invaders had found and killed everyone or news of their arrival had caused the inhabitants to flee. From time to time I came across deserted houses but they were empty. Anything useful had gone, either looted by the Danes or taken away by their previous inhabitants. It was indeed a wasteland, I thought to myself, and remembered the open damp moor through which I had hobbled with its dangerous bogs that might beset the unwary traveller, the stretches of sterile grass and rank weeds, where the only wildlife were the black hooded crows in their relentless search for carrion and the demented, banshee calls of the stone curlews. And always that persistent wind which blew unimpeded across the flat fenlands, cutting through the thickest of clothing - which I certainly didn't have - numbing fingers and toes, chilling the spine.

At last, though, I came to the monastery, a large and imposing building. Built of stone underneath, wood above with sturdy ramparts and a high square towers in the centre, it stood four-square in the enshrouding mist. Overhanging parapets jutted from the tops of the walls. It was a fair structure looking strong enough for a fortified castle rather than an abode for men of God. The mighty gate set in the middle of the front wall with door jambs and lintel each made from an oak trunk looked sturdy enough to resist any attack.

For a moment I paused to look. Already the dying light was making details indistinct. The only sound was that of the dried stalks in the reed beds as they rattled in the wind. The whole building looked dead and deserted. Had the Danes already been, ransacked the place and gone even further? Or were they there hiding behind the stone walls, waiting in ambush for anyone unwary enough to approach and ask for sanctuary. Surely, though, if the monastery had already been attacked and laid waste, there would have been signs of butchery and looting.

I knew though that I had to approach. I could walk no further and my stomach was a hollow barrel, the hunger giving me visions of strange lights and flashes at the sides of my vision. Pulling on the last reserves of my strength, I hobbled towards the gate and knocked on it, but my fists were so feeble that I doubted whether anyone inside could have heard.

"Help," I shouted. "I need help. Of your Christian charity."

Even with my muddled wits, I thought that this mention would reassure any monks who heard that I wasn't a pagan Dane.

A small wooden peephole, high up in the main gate, flipped open and I could just about make out a face with a tonsured head leaning out and staring down at me. I breathed a sigh of relief. A Christian monk.

"Who are you?" The voice sounded wary and suspicious.

"Egulf of Ingildtun," I said. "I have been wounded by the Danes. I beg for sanctuary."

"Egulf," said the voice. "A true Angle name, and Ingildtun I know. What is the news from there?"

Was this man going to keep me outside while we chatted of news and intelligences? "My leg is badly cut," I said. "Please, brother, I need assistance."

There was a pause and then the peephole snapped shut. A further pause and the wooden door creaked open, just enough for me to slip through before it was pushed shut and the great wooden bar dropped into place to make it secure. It was dark inside though a single torch flickering in a bracket on the wall showed that I was in a passage. There was enough light to make out his features. He was young, perhaps no older than me. His nose turned up at the end giving him the look of a cheeky child, but his expression was severe and his thick eyebrows gave him a serious look. A face of contraries.

"I'll take you to the Abbot," said my monk.

I followed him along various passages, through a great hall which, in the darkness seemed tall enough to have no roof at all and at last to a room. I was made to stand at the doorway while my monk went to the man sitting at a table and whispered in his ear. The Abbot was a thin, grizzled man with a beard, more hair under his chin than on top of his head - and that wasn't counting his tonsure. He was surrounded by such a collection of rush lights and candles that it was almost like a miniature forest fire and I swear I could feel the heat from the doorway. At last he looked up and I saw a pair of dark, almost black eyes which, if I had been doing anything wrong, I knew would have been able to pierce into my very soul and see the murkiness therein.

He beckoned and I approached, my eyes downcast to avoid those eyes.

"You are Egulf of Ingildtun," he said, his voice deep and rumbling, like thunder over the hills when a storm is in the offing.

"Yes, my lord," I said, not sure how to address an abbot.

"Call him Father Abbot," said my monk and I felt an elbow in my ribs.

"You say the Danes have attacked your village?"

"Yes, Father Abbot," I said obediently, my eyes still fixed downwards and this time seeing on the table a piece of vellum covered in black squiggles. Though I could neither read nor write, I had enough knowledge to know that this was writing, for I had seen it once before when a priest had visited and brought with him a Holy Bible. But what really caught my attention was the painted first letter, all gold and red and blue, with ornate whirls and curlicues, and the gold caught the lights of the flickering candle flames and seemed to move.

"Were there many of them?"

"More than sixty, Father Abbot," I said.

"You had time to count them?" For a moment he sounded suspicious and I raised my eyes to meet his.

"There were three ships," I said. "Ten rowers a side. Ten by three by two. Sixty men."

He stared at me. I could tell he wondered that I could play in this way with numbers. "How did you learn to multiply?" he asked.

"My father made me count the pigs," I said. I did not think it seemly that I had first learned with gelded boars' bollocks.

Then his voice grew gentler. "How fared the good villagers?"

"They were cut down," I said. "My father and my brother and my uncle. Perhaps all of them. I could not see."

"Did no one escape except for you?"

"My mother and my sisters and all the women were sent away by my father before the attack. They were making for the monastery for sanctuary. Have they not arrived, Father Abbot?"

"No, my son," he said. "No one has arrived here from the village. You are the only one with news."

I looked up at him. His eyes seemed gentler now. "How was it that you escaped?" he asked.

"I was cut down and fell. They must have thought I was dead because they left me."

Suddenly I felt faint. The hunger and tiredness overcame me, and my leg throbbed. My eyes dropped and the black squiggles on the parchment moved and squirmed like worms. The lights around me seemed to grow brighter and then dimmed. As I staggered and almost fell, I heard the Abbot say, "Catch him, Brother Edwin," and then I knew no more.

I awoke to find myself lying on a bed. It was softer than any I had ever felt before for at home a bed of rushes on the hard floor is all we ever use. Someone - Brother Edwin - was tending my leg, washing it with warm water. I was glad he had removed what remained of the kelp bandage while I was still unconscious. I had a feeling it would have been painful. He saw that I was awake.

"This ointment," he said, "is made from hedge woundwort. It will help you heal. The seaweed was good. What made you bind it with that?"

I shrugged, feeling for a moment, at peace. "I had heard it was good for cuts," I said.

He plastered my cut with ointment which stung for a while before settling down and giving a feeling of warmth.

"Now," said Brother Edwin, "I will wash the rest of you. And then perhaps some food."

My stomach rumbled at the thought so that I scarcely realised that he was stripping me of my clothes. They were rank and old and some tore as he took them off. With a soft cloth and more of the warm water, he washed me from the head down. Then he rubbed on some soft substance. "It is made from the plant, soapwort," he said. "It is good for cleaning."

The soft strokes and the lather worked up with his hands gave me a comforting feeling. Even more as he approached my middle parts and my member sprung up as he soaped the hair in my fork and his hand rubbed my cock. Embarrassed I tried to hide it with my hands but he took them away.

"It is natural," he said. "It is a fine, strong member." He clasped it in his hand. "See I it is so wide and thick I can barely enclose it."

He washed my testicles and then I felt his hand, slippery with the soap, go underneath me and clean my hole. A finger inserted and I groaned at the feelings it gave me. If possible my cock grew even harder and was now pointing straight into the air. My fevered body seemed concentrated into those two parts my cock enclosed in one of Edwin's soft hands, my arse skewered on the finger of his other. I felt such a joy and passion as I had never experienced before, the build-up of physical intensity until it was impossible to contain and I released with a great shuddering cry my ecstasy.

Brother Edwin washed away the soap and the evidence of my coming. He said nothing and I was anxious.

"Have I done something wrong?" I asked.

Brother Edwin smiled but I sensed there was a sadness behind the smile.

"No, Egulf," he said, "you are entirely innocent."

And so began my life in the monastery. Brother Edwin looked after me in all ways. He tended my wound until it healed, though, because the tendons had been damaged, I walked with a limp for ever more. He made sure that I ate well, better than the other monks for, he said, I was undernourished and needed building up.

The Abbot must have known and presumably approved of our friendship - for that is what I came to believe it was. However he said nothing and Edwin and I never repeated that first activity. Not that I was unwilling and indeed I presented as many opportunities as I could when we were alone together, brushing against him, laying my hand on his arm - and on one occasion on his thigh. But he always removed himself from my touch, gently and not so I would see it as a rebuff.

Perhaps the Abbot had forbidden it for, as Edwin told me, all the monks confessed everything to him. I wondered whether the Abbot permitted our closeness so that I could be a temptation to Edwin, a temptation he must resist for sometimes I saw in his eyes a great longing and I wanted more than anything to hold him close, body to body, face, chest, stomach, loins - especially loins, but it was not to be. Still I hoped that I would some time overcome his resistance. I suppose I was a very real temptation and perhaps cruel to him, though I didn't see it so at the time.

He started to teach me to read letters and I would sit next to him on the writing desk in the scriptorium, close so that our thighs touched while he wrote the squiggles that made up words and I copied them onto scraps of waste vellum, like the first lines of the paternoster.

Thu ure father, the eart on heofonum, sy thin nama gehalgod.

Occasionally we heard news of Ingildtun, though now it was a Danish settlement and no doubt they had given it some outlandish pagan name. But there was no news of my mother and my sisters and I grieved for them, assuming they had been slaughtered by the pirates.

But all in all it was a good time though I found the offices of the day sometimes irksome, especially the night ones. My habit of deep sleep made getting up in the middle of the night a torture and I would often have to rely on Edwin to get me into chapel on time, and then to keep me awake during the long - and sometimes I must admit - tedious saying of prayers and psalms.

Sometimes I found the Abbot's eyes fixed on me and that woke me up quicker than a cold bucket of water.

There was talk of my becoming a novice but I knew I hadn't really a calling to become a monk and live for ever here. It was too restricting. I knew my body would crave for sleep, my mind needed the freedom of the hills, the open countryside, the strictness and the rigidity of the Rule would make me want to hit out, to shout, to scream - and yet I would have to hide it all under a composed exterior. It could never be my life. Yet, for the time being, until my leg healed, I waited patiently. He taught me the letters and how to read and write though my penmanship was never of the best. And he showed me the dried herbs and tisanes which were good for healing and made me learn their names. And my friendship with Brother Edwin grew.

In Sceafby, the new name for Ingildtun, there was less tranquility. Some of the captured women settled down to their new life but others hated the men they had been assigned to. There were frequent quarrels and Sceaf was often called to arbitrate between man and woman. Indeed his own relationship with Gudrun was fraught with bickering and altercation. Sometimes he would come to Harald looking tired and dispirited. "You are lucky," he would say, "that you have no scolding woman to shorten your life."

The houses they had taken over were strange, being circular around a central fire, rather than the rectangular longhouses that the Danes were accustomed to. But it had to be admitted that the roofs were better and kept out the rain most efficiently. Sceaf decided that he could learn some things from these Angles.

Food though was scarce. It was winter time and there were no crops of course in the fields or even in the store houses. In their excitement at the successful outcome of the landing and the raid, the Vikings had celebrated with numerous feasts for which the existing stocks of animals had been slaughtered recklessly. By the time of the winter solstice, the men were complaining as well as the women. The young children howled because their stomachs were empty and dark looks were directed at Sceaf, the chieftain who could not feed his people.

"How do they expect me to conjure up food from nowhere?" demanded Sceaf of Gudrun.

"Why did you kill all the animals?" Her accent was strange but the language spoken in Denmark at this time was mostly understandable by the Anglo-Saxons and vice-versa.

The criticism was valid but Sceaf ignored the question. It had been a mistake but one he was not prepared to admit to. "Where did you Angles get food from if you ran out in the depths of winter?"

Gudrun was silent. She hadn't always got on well with Ingild. He, like Sceaf, had been overbearing and an occasional bully, but she'd become used to him. This new man in her life was, if she allowed herself to admit it, younger, considerably more handsome with his plume of blond hair and beard and a much better performer in bed. But his experience at being in charge was minimal and he'd made mistakes. She didn't want to find herself with yet another man if Sceaf was toppled from his present position. That he was a pagan and called upon strange deities like Odin and Thor meant little to her. Nominally a Christian, the change to this new religion had been comparatively recent and many Angles still had the feelings that the old gods were around somewhere as well, especially in the sacred places which had for so long been respected in the beliefs of her ancestors.

"The monks have stores of grain and food," she said. "In times of hardship they are prepared to help us out."

Sceaf clapped his hands. It was the solution. He smiled at Gudrun. Tomorrow at first light they would set out for the monastery, but now he would reward Gudrun in the only way he knew how. He rolled her onto the truckle bed and started. Her protestations were only perfunctory.

Livid bands of scarlet cloud stained the sky in the east as the band started out the next morning. "Red sky in the morning, sailors' warning," thought Harald, and then, "but we're not sailors any more." Three of the older men, whom Sceaf thought he could trust, were left behind to look after the women and children, though where they could run to was anyone's guess. The Vikings took some bread and the last remains of the dried meat with them.

According to Gudrun, it was only a day's journey to the monastery and they set out in good heart. Only the barren landscape stretched to the horizon in three directions - the sea providing the fourth - and stunted trees were the only things that broke the monotony of the plain. Later it clouded over and by midday, when they came across a small stream and stopped to break their fast, the sun had disappeared. The cold water was stained with the dark brown of peat and from this the Vikings were able to slake their thirst, saying thanks as they did so to the Water Maidens for their gift.

A lightness in the leaden grey of the cloud cover was the only thing that showed them which way was east and they strapped on their swords, picked up their spears and set off in this direction.

A red kite flew above their heads and Harald wondered whether it was an unlucky omen. They made good progress and tramped through the dry heather with the wind moaning around their ears,

Towards evening it clouded over again, black clouds threatening from the west. A sudden crack of thunder startled them and a jagged spear of lightning left a stink of ozone in their nostrils. Soon the rain started, driving needles of water in a deluge which rapidly soaked them all and Harald shivered as the chill reached his skin. It was impossible to see where they were going so Sceaf made them stop and they settled down for the night, wrapped in their cloaks and huddled together for warmth.

For Harald his companion was perhaps a little too close for comfort. A bristle-bearded lump of a man, named Arnbjorn, who smelled of grease and pig dung, grunted in his ear. "You're softer to cuddle than that shrew of a woman I won in the lottery." Two large hands roamed down towards Harald's fork and he felt something hard prodding at the crack of his arse.

Hurriedly Harald got up and moved to where his brother lay, stepping over, and receiving curses from, several sleeping forms. "What is it?" grumbled Sceaf.

"That Arnbjorn," said Harald. "He wanted my arse."

Sceaf laughed. "You'll have to lose it some time," he said, but made room for Harald to lie down beside him. "I'd take it myself, but Gudrun seems to satisfy me at the moment."

The following morning they were up before dawn; it was too cold to sleep. They chewed at the remaining strips of meat and finished off the stale bread. Their clothes were damp but at least it had stopped raining. As the light brightened they could see what the darkness had hidden, the lofty walls of the monastery not much more than a mile ahead. Gudrun had been right. The monastery was but a day's journey from Sceafby.

As they approached though, and could make out more details the building didn't seem the easy pickings that Sceaf had thought. The stone walls looked unclimbable and the main door was made from stout oak.

"So, how do we get in?" asked Sceaf.

"Perhaps if we knock they'll let us in," said someone with a guffaw.

Sceaf stared at him and the man subsided looking abashed.

"But perhaps your idea is not as stupid as it sounds. We will take off our battle helmets and cover our heads with our cloaks, then make our way in twos and threes."

In peace and looking like pilgrims, the men crossed the moorland towards the welcoming mound of the monastery.

Two by two the monks filed out from the chapel to the refectory. It was, according to Brother Edwin, the Feast Day of St Elfgifu. Feast Day sounded good and I wondered what additions to the daily diet would appear.

There was a banging on the outer door. "That must be the pilgrims," said Edwin. "They are early. We did not expect them until the evening."

"Should you not let them in?" I asked.

"It is not my turn on the gate," said Edwin. "Brother Edburgh will open it."

Suddenly I had a premonition of disaster. "Why are the pilgrims here today?" I asked.

"It is the Feast of St. Elfgifu," said Edwin, as if that explained everything, and then, because my expression was one of bewilderment. "He was killed by raiders from the North. We have his bones here and once a year at the evening office they are exposed. They cure the sick."

"But why should the pilgrims arrive so early in the day?" I asked. It was scarcely an hour after dawn and we had not yet broken our fast.

But before Edwin could even open his mouth to attempt an answer, there was a disturbance from the front of the monastery. Sudden shouts, cries of pain, screams which sounded barely human. Along the passage that led from the door to the chapel appeared men armed with swords and axes. I recognised them immediately, not individually of course, but in the mass as the pirates who had attacked our village.

"Danes," I said, almost under my breath but Edwin heard.

He grabbed me by my arm and pulled me into the concealment of a niche which housed the statue of some saint or other. There was scarcely room for both of us and I feared bits of us must stick out and give us away. But the Danes were not looking to the sides. Their gaze was fixed on the High Altar where the gold cross stood, where the Holy Bible with its cover encrusted with precious jewels lay and in front of which the Abbot stood, a solitary figure whose dark eyes glared with holy indignation. Huddled to his side, the other monks clustered.

The Abbot stood in the way. his eyes fixed on the blond-haired Viking with the sword. "Do not pollute God's holy altar with blood."

"War God Tiw will welcome blood on his altar," roared the man and plunged the sword through the Abbot's body.

There was a collective gasp of horror. One monk, I couldn't see who it was, but with courage born of fear, lunged at a Viking - a gross, fat bottomed lout with a beard that looked like a besom broom - and stabbed him with a knife. It was a fatal blow and a fatal move for the rest. The blond leader shouted, "Kill them all," and the Vikings fell on the remaining monks, hacking and stabbing until there was a pile of bodies in front of the altar. We looked with horror, Edwin and I, from our vantage point behind the saint.

When no one moved, the leader commanded, "see if there are any more," and waved his hand around. Instantly the Vikings started to peer into corners and alcoves and I knew that we would be discovered before long.

Then, Edwin whispered, "Stay where you are, Egulf," and I felt his lips on mine in a brief kiss, before he slipped out from the shelter and raced down the chapel away from the altar and towards the front gate. He might have escaped except that, as he reached the exit from the chapel he turned and shouted, "God will have his revenge."

Instantly every one was after him and in a minute the chapel was empty, save for the murdered corpses and me, cowering behind a stone saint. There was a brief pause and then a cry and I knew that my friend, Edwin, had been caught and slain. He had given up his life so that I might have a chance of escape.

Not that I was safe. The Vikings would return I was sure. The relics on the altar were too valuable to ignore and when they came back I would be discovered unless I found somewhere else to hide. I prepared to slip out from my hiding place when I heard a sound, a sound of retching. In the far corner someone was puking up his guts. I tried to dodge back but the statue of the saint betrayed me. He hadn't been securely positioned in the alcove and as I nudged him, he teetered and fell, crashing to the floor, breaking into parts, his head rolling across the chapel.

Instantly the figure in the corner stood up and I could see it was one of the Vikings. He wore a brown cloak and had one of their pointed helmets on his head. He was young, probably no older than me, certainly not old enough to grow a beard. His face was white but his sword was sharp and pointing at my chest.

We stood, frozen into stone, it seemed, material more secure it must be admitted than my traitorous saint.

"Who are you?" he asked, in his barbaric accent which was only just understandable. "You are not a monk."

It was true. I wasn't of course wearing a habit, not did I have the tonsure.

"I was here for sanctuary," I said. Then boldly, for I knew I was lost, "Fleeing from the Vikings."

The boy gave me a long look, then he said, "You'd better hide then for you have been taken again."

I took a couple of steps towards the exit, limping as always.

"What's the matter with your leg?" asked the boy.

"A Viking cut me down as he attacked my village. It healed but left me with a limp."

The boy made a sound. He was looking at me strangely and was about to say something. But there were noises from the passage. The Vikings were coming back. "Quick," said the boy. He took me towards the altar where the monks lay dead, together with one Viking. The boy pulled off the Viking's cloak and picked up the helmet which was lying beside the body. "Put them on," he said, jamming the helmet over my head. It was too big for me and slipped down covering my eyes. Then he wrapped the cloak around my body. It stank of sweat and pig's fat. I could see nothing except the ground immediately in front of me but I felt his hand grasping my arm and pulling me towards the passage.

Suddenly we were surrounded by bodies, hot and sweaty, and I could hear guttural voices talking of death and dying, plunder and jewels, food and provisions.

"Harald," said someone, sounding like the person in charge, "take a man and search for the store rooms."

The boy - his name must be Harald - pulled me away. I heard his voice. "Do you know where the stores are?"

I nodded, the helmet jerking up and down and cracking down on the bridge of my nose. "The second door on the left down the passage," I whispered.

I couldn't quite understand what I was doing. These men were enemies, murderers. They had killed the Abbot, a man I had respected, if not slightly feared. Worse, They had killed Brother Edwin, my friend. How could I be aiding these heathen pillagers? Bit what else could I do?

I showed Harald the commissariat where the sacks of grain were stored, winesacks, flour bags, salted and dried meats. They had been given as tithes by the people around but were often, when times were hard, been redistributed. As I showed Harald the provisions, I told him a little about the months I had spent in the monastery, but all too soon the Vikings returned.

"Well done," said a voice, "Now we will need a cart to carry this stuff."

I couldn't see who spoke but assumed it was the leader, Sceaf. I tried to walk like a warrior but my limp must have betrayed me.

"And what have we here?" My helmet was wrenched off my head, my cloak stripped to show my homespun trousers and tunic.

"He's not a monk, Sceaf," said Harald. "He was kept as a slave by them, in the kitchens." That was hard on the brothers. Admittedly I had helped with the cooking, but hardly as a slave. "Give him to me as my bondsman."

"But he's a cripple," argued Sceaf. "You'd do better with a whole man."

"He can read and write and has some knowledge of herbcraft."

Sceaf hesitated and I knew Harald had won.

"He's a poor looking specimen but he might be useful."

And so I was returned to Ingildtun, or Sceafby as I had to learn to call it - and met up again with my mother whom I had thought dead these months past. She seemed to have become reconciled to the killers of her husband and I noticed on his return from the monastery that Sceaf had given her a jewel set in gold. I did not tell her that it had, in all likelihood, been wrenched from a Bible off the Holy Altar.

In this way my life started up again, and in truth it was not very different from the one I had lived before. Most of the time I worked with the pigs because I was good with them and they bred easily and the Vikings liked the meat.

Harald was my owner but much of the time we would walk and talk together as equals though we did not always agree.

One night while we were sitting around the fire, I asked him about the gods he swore by.

"Thunder and War," he said. "They are the greatest."

"Oh Thor and Tiw," I said dismissively, for by now I knew their names.

"You scorn the Gods," said Harald.

"There is but one."

"You mean there is but one Great God, Odin the One-Eyed."

"No," I said. "The one god that the monks tell us about. There is none other and he is all-powerful, all-knowing. And his Son is called Christus."

"So there are two," said Harald, "the One God and his Son."

That puzzled me not a little. I had not thought of this. "He died for us," I said, more positively. Of that I was certain. The monks and priests had been most insistent.

"Odin's son, Baldur, was killed," Harald said. "Treacherous Loki killed him with the mistletoe bough."

I shook my head. "Christus was killed by men," I said. "They hung him on a tree."

"That isn't possible. Men cannot kill Gods. You've got it the wrong way round. Gods can kill men and often do."

I wracked my brain for anything the monks had said, anything to refute the blasphemy. "Christus died that we who believe might live."

"So how was it that the monks died when my brother stuck his sword into them?"

"They live after they die," I said uncertainly.

"You have that right at least," said Harald. "In the halls of Valhalla, the brave who die in battle are waited on by Valkyries. I don't know about monks. I think it's only warriors." He paused, then added boastfully, "I am a warrior."

I looked at him. "And in the monastery?" I asked, "When you puked at the sight of blood, was that the action of a warrior?" But I said this in a low voice as I did not wish anyone else to hear for I was his friend. I looked at how the feeble light of the flame caught the angle of Harald's chin, the flattened plane of his cheek, the jut of the bone above and the hollow shadow of his eye. Had we been alone I would have touched him.

Another day when we were alone in one of the smaller huts, the subject was more merry. I had learned some riddles from the monks and I asked him one.

"A strange thing hangs by a man's thigh, hidden by a garment. It has a hole in its head. It is stiff and strong and its firm bearing reaps a reward. When the man hitches his clothing high above his knee, he wants the head of that hanging thing to poke the old hole (of fitting length) it has often filled before."

Harald listened carefully. Then a broad smile spread over his face. "I know what it is," he said.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Remember it is the holy monks who made the riddle."

That gave him some room for thought. "Hangs by a man's thigh... hidden by a garment." He felt at himself between his legs and I knew that he fingered his cock through the material of his trousers. "It has a hole in its head. Certainly it can be stiff and strong." I could see from the shape that it was becoming so indeed. "It must be," he shouted. "It must be - a cock!"

"Oh dear," I said reprovingly and wagged my finger at him. "What a mind you must have, Harald. The answer of course is a key. What a simpleton, not to know the answer is a key!" I teased.

"I'll show you who is a simpleton," he said and flung himself at me and we wrestled. I suppose we were about the same strength though my leg, of course, was weak where it had been cut, but my upper body structure and arms were strong and developed. I managed to clasp him round the chest with his arms trapped so that he couldn't escape in spite of his struggles. But then he cheated - not that we had any rules in our games. His arms were down at his sides and he managed to twist so that he was sideways on. This meant that his right hand was on a level with my balls. He grabbed at them and held on. It wasn't a painful grip but it was persistent and he was laughing in my ear. "It could have been a cock. Let me go, Egulf, or you lose your balls."

So, letting go I grabbed at his cock and balls and took hold of a mighty handful. There we were rolling on the dusty floor holding on to each others cocks, me from the back and he from behind his back. And we both were laughing and in my hand I felt his cock grow large and knew that mine was growing too. I heard his voice in my ear, "It can be stiff and strong." I was lying on top of him and we lay top and tailed as it were.

Suddenly he raised his legs capturing my head between them and now my face was near the fork of his legs and I could see the swelling that his erection made in his trousers. But I still had hold of his cock with one hand and I squeezed it, feeling its hardness. Then, because his legs were in the air, locked behind my head, with two fingers of the other hand I found his arse and poked him. He gave a cry, not of pain but of excitement and immediately he did the same to me, and now his hand was scrabbling at my waist band, going inside so that, when his hand next found my cock, I knew that he had hold of the actual flesh.

This was enough for me and I found his and fumbled it out from the restricting clothing. There it was just in front of my face, just in front of my mouth with his legs forcing my head closer and closer until two must meet together.

With my fingers pushing against his arse, no, now I had pulled down his trousers and my fingers were in the hole and he was groaning and his cock was just in front of my mouth and then it was inside, and I felt the hardness of him, and the softness of the skin and he was inside my mouth.

Suddenly he was quiet, no struggling, no twisting, except that he found my cock and I felt warmness and wetness enclose it and fingers inside me, reaching up and finding something so wonderful and exciting that only Brother Edwin had found before. And we were forcing our cocks into each other's mouths and hands were stroking and rubbing and fingers extending and finding until with cries we both came. My mouth was filled with his coming and I pulsed into my friend's and we lay together, there on the floor exhausted but in some strange way fulfilled.

Epilogue

It started in blood, with the deaths of Ingild and Alcuin and even with Egulf's own whose leg wound soaked into the beach. Then came the death of Arnbjorn and the Abbot and Brother Edwin. The monks and many of the villagers died. And it seemed that the letting of blood would never stop. But the blood was to continue in another way.

Egulf's mother, Sceaf's wife soon became pregnant. The child, a son, was half Viking, half Saxon. There were other 'halflings' as well. Harald took a wife when he found a spare woman, and so did Egulf for Sceaf was wise enough to realise that fellow villagers were more reliable than slaves. In time most of the men had families and children and Ingildtun, or as it came to be known, Sceafby grew.

So in this way the blood of the Vikings became mixed with the blood of the Saxons. Sailors became villagers, fishermen farmers. And there would come a time when there would be no Vikings, no Saxons, just Angleland-men. Gudrun persuaded Sceaf that the God, Christus, was the most powerful - even though he had been hung from a tree and Odin lost face, though burials sometimes showed, with the inclusion of grave goods, that the old customs still persisted. In time the Old Gods would be forgotten and all would be termed Christians.

Harald and Egulf had a special relationship and often they would leave their families and go off together into the countryside to walk or to hunt, or just to be together. Sometimes they would make up riddles because they knew where that would lead - not that they often needed riddles as an excuse.

THE END