Sword of Vengeance (The Saxon Warrior Series) by Peter Gibbons

Author:Peter Gibbons [Gibbons, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Published: 2024-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

15

Beornoth and his company spent a night at a tavern on Earninga Straet, a small grey thatched wattle building on the edges of East Anglia. It had stables for the horses, ale, beef and a tavern keeper who was not unfriendly to Viking travellers. Beornoth paid the swarthy tavern keeper a fistful of silver to close the tavern to other guests to avoid any trouble, and the company drank tankards of frothing ale and celebrated their victory at Ravensbrook. Dolgfinnr and his men laughed and sang sea shanties and the weathered Viking proclaimed that his luck was returned, and that he was already on the way to building a silver horde large enough to buy a new ship.

Beornoth sat by the fire with Hrodgar, Wuffa and Thered. He ate a plate full of roasted beef and drank cool milk. Tata had cleaned their weapons and sat beside them, sipping on a mug of ale and watching the Vikings sing and drink themselves stupid.

‘Have you been practising with your shield?’ Beornoth asked Tata. The lad looked up through the sheet of hair which covered his hooded eyes and nodded his head. Beornoth had given Tata a shield and told him to practise with it whenever they paused their journey to rest the horses. He would lift the heavy linden wood shield in front of him and hold it steady until his arms and shoulders burned. ‘Good, it will strengthen you. I have something for you.’

Beornoth reached beneath the table and handed Tata a seax sheathed in a leather scabbard. Its hilt was white bone, and Tata smiled nervously as he took the gift and turned it over in his hands.

‘Thank you, lord,’ he said.

‘You’ve earned it. I took it from a fallen warrior at Ravensbrook. Now you carry seax and shield, and if you keep up your weapon practice, you will have the skill of a warrior in no time.’

Hrodgar reached over and ruffled Tata’s hair and the lad smiled bashfully. Beornoth used his eating knife to push a slice of beef into his mouth and shook his head as one of Reifnir’s men stood on a table and drank a full tankard of ale. The liquid ran into his beard and down his chest. When he had finished, he belched and turned the empty cup upside down upon his head, and the room erupted into raucous cheers.

Thered ate in sullen silence and had not spoken since the fight at Ravensbrook. On the journey, he had ridden amongst his own warriors and did not celebrate the victory.

‘East Anglia has paid the price for its betrayal,’ said Beornoth. The words were clumsy, but he and Thered shared the bond of Maldon, and Beornoth wanted the ealdorman to know that he understood his pain. Feelings and such things were not spoken of between warriors, and Beornoth struggled to search his thought cage for a way to tell Thered that he too lived in a fog, in a mire of desire for vengeance and sadness for what they had lost, and what they had suffered.

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