Warriors of the Storm (2015) by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell [Cornwell, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780007504084
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-10-07T22:00:00+00:00

Eight

Later that morning Finan led two hundred and fifty horsemen into the country south of Eads Byrig where they discovered two of Ragnall’s foraging parties. They killed every man of the first and put the second to panicked flight, capturing an eleven-year-old boy who was the son of a Northumbrian jarl. ‘He’ll pay a ransom for the boy,’ Finan predicted. He had also brought back sixteen horses and a dozen coats of mail, along with weapons, helmets, and shields. I had sent Vidarr with Finan’s men to test the newcomer’s loyalty. ‘Aye, he killed well enough,’ Finan told me, ‘and he knows his trade.’ Out of curiosity I had summoned Vidarr and his wife to my house so I could see for myself what kind of woman drove a man to treason and tears, and discovered she was a small, plump creature with beady eyes and a shrill tongue. ‘Will we get land?’ she demanded of me, and, when her husband tried to silence her, turned on him like a vixen. ‘Don’t you hush me, Vidarr Leifson! Jarl Ragnall promised us land! I didn’t cross an ocean to die in a Saxon ditch!’ She might have driven me to tears, though never to treason, yet Vidarr gazed at her as though she were the queen of Asgard.

Finan’s tired horsemen were elated as they returned. They knew they were beating Ragnall’s horde and knew that any ransom and the sale of the captured weapons would bring gold to their purses. Men clamoured to ride, and that evening Sihtric led another hundred men to scour the same countryside. I wanted to keep Ragnall embattled, to let him know there would be no peace so long as he stayed close to Ceaster. We had hurt him badly on the day after Eostre’s feast and I wanted the pain to continue.

I also wanted to speak to my son, but he seemed incapable of speech. He lay heaped with blankets and furs, sweating and shivering at the same time. ‘His fever must burn out,’ Ymma, the gaunt woman who seemed to be the only sister allowed to talk to men, told me, ‘he needs prayer and sweat,’ she said, ‘a lot of sweat!’ When I had arrived at the house, the crippled gatekeeper had bashed the iron bar to announce a male visitor and there had been a scurrying of hooded women rushing to hide themselves as Sister Ymma emerged grimly from wherever she lurked. ‘His bleeding has stopped, thank God,’ she said, making the sign of the cross, ‘thanks to Saint Werburgh’s breastcloth.’

‘Thanks to what?’

‘The Lady Æthelflaed lent it to us,’ she said, ‘it is a holy relic.’ She shuddered. ‘I was privileged to touch it!’

‘Breastcloth?’

‘The blessed Saint Werburgh bound her breasts with a strip of cloth,’ Sister Ymma explained sternly. ‘She bound them tightly, so she would not tempt men. And she put thorns beneath the cloth as a reminder of her Lord’s suffering.’

‘She put pricks on her tits?’ I said aghast.

‘That is one way of glorifying God!’ Sister Ymma replied.

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