Hereward by James Wilde Page A

angel. Soon after, it disappeared. I knew that Redwald had stolen it. I could see it in the cast of his features and his quick glances. He felt guilt. And he knew that I knew. But I said naught.’
    ‘Why?’ The monk’s brow furrowed.
    ‘Because he had nothing of his own. Not for him a knife handed down from his father, or land, or gold. And more … who we are’ – the warrior pressed his right hand on his heart – ‘comes from the ones who forged us. When he lost his mother and father, Redwald lost the knowledge of who he was.’
    Alric was touched. ‘So you allowed him to keep the gift your own father gave to you, because it was the only thing he had in all the world.’
    ‘And in that moment we were bound together as true brothers.’
    Alric’s thoughts turned to the many friends who had died in Gedley, men and women who had trusted him, whom he had betrayed through his own weakness. And above all the one death that haunted him more than all others. Tears burned his eyes. Redemption would come hard, he thought, if at all. Could he ever clear the stain on his soul?
    Reluctantly, the monk lurched up the next hillside. He watched the broad shoulders of the man ahead of him, the erect back that defied the savage cold, and he imagined Hereward’s past. A fighting man who betrayed his thegn. A woodcutter’s son who killed in an argument over food, or a woman. From what depths did the inhuman brutality surface? What had driven the Mercian into this cold, inhospitable place in the cruel heart of winter? What business did he have in Eoferwic and how could it prevent many deaths? His crime must have been terrible indeed. He had little faith in God, less in his fellow man. Alric was his final chance.
    At the summit, the monk was blinded by the snow-glare. When his eyes cleared, he saw the sun flashing off two meandering rivers and, in the distance, trails of black smoke against the clear blue sky. He could discern the regular pattern of many houses against the white, and the tower of a great stone church.
    ‘Eoferwic,’ Hereward said.
    Alric’s stomach complained at the fading memory of their last meal, two days gone. ‘And will we stay until the feasting at Christmastime?’
    The warrior chuckled. ‘If your fellow churchmen can endure your whining voice, you can stay until Judgement Day.’ The monk flashed a questioning glance. ‘In Eoferwic, we go our separate ways.’
    Alric felt wrong-footed, just at the point where he had started to entertain hope. ‘These last ten nights, you would have frozen to death in the woods if not for me,’ he floundered.
    ‘True. A small gift of food and a place next to the fire on a cold night are more readily given to a churchman.’ The warrior looked baffled by the other man’s hesitancy. ‘What ails you now? Since we left Gedley you have been cursing every moment you have spent with me. Now you wish to be friends?’
    ‘I wish …’ Alric shook his head, the words dying. What did he wish?
    ‘Besides, we are even. Two nights ago, when we took shelter at the farm, our host crept in, to harm you, I think. I imagine he still prays to the old gods and feared you would discover it and bring the wrath of your fellow Christians around his ears. I sent him away with the flat of my blade.’
    ‘I do not want you to save my life,’ Alric said sharply. ‘I am here to save you.’ And there it was, he realized. But Hereward merely laughed, a rich, full sound rolling over the snowy waste.
    For the rest of the day, they walked on down the hillside and across the wind-blasted plain. Alric struggled through the deep drifts, his face and fingers numb, but his nimble mind turning with a precise gyre.
    The warrior followed the trail of a raven across the sky, the one point of black in the entire vista. ‘The night I was born, there was a great storm,’ he said, speaking almost to himself, ‘and the lightning cleaved in two the great old oak tree beside the hall. My mother said it was