Fire of God

By Andy Kluz

History records that England’s last Saxon king, Harold, was killed at the Battle of Hastings but the chroniclers were writing at a time when the new Norman overlords were tightening their grip on the land and were demanding every justification for their brutal invasion. But what if King Harold survived? This is a soaring tale of two childhood friends, one becomes one of the Conqueror’s most trusted and loyal knights, who is given a sword he names Fire of God, the other is the daughter of a captured Moor who rescues a badly wounded Harold from the battlefield and embarks on a desperate flight through a kingdom in turmoil, burning in the flames of William’s self-righteous crusade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9780244023836

Book preview

Fire of God

FIRE OF GOD

By

Andy Kluz

Copyright

Copyright © Andy Kluz 2017

eBook Design by Rossendale Books: www.rossendalebooks.co.uk

eBook ISBN: 978-0-244-02383-6

All rights reserved, Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention and Pan American Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. The author’s moral rights have been asserted.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organisations, events or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Dedication

To my dear friends Arthur and Jon, for their help and support. To my son, Ed, for the cover artwork. To son Will and daughter Rosie for their encouragement and to my wife, Liz, for putting up with my endless lectures on the Norman Conquest.

Place Names

Al Andalus ............. Moorish Spain

Ald Borough ............. Aldborough

Alferetun ............. Northallerton

Awre ............. Forest of Dean

Berecingum ............. Barking

Caester............. Caister by St. Edmund, Norfolk

Cantwaraburg ............. Canterbury

Catraeth ............. Catterick

Cealchythe ............. Chelsea

Cingesbrig ............. Kingsbridge, Devon

Cissceaster ............. Chichester

Cuningstraeta ............. Coney Street, York

Deheubarth ............. South Wales

Dofras ............. Dover

Donnecaestre ............. Doncaster

Dunholme ............. Durham

Dyflinn ............. Dublin

Dyflinnstanes ............. Dublin Wharf

Earninga Straete ............. Ermine Street

Escancaester ............. Exeter

Gibral al Tarik ............. Gibraltar

Glowancestre ............. Gloucestershire

Grantabrycge ............. Cambridge

Hamwic ............. Southampton

Hecheland Hill ............. Blackhorse Hill

Herefordscire ............. Herefordshire

Heortfordscire ............. Hertfordshire

Hindrelac ............. Richmond

Hludlaw ............. Ludlow

Hredham ............. Reedham

Jorvik ............. York

Kernow............. Cornwall

Karrek Loos y’n Koos ............. St. Michael’s Mount

Legacaester ............. Chester

Linclyene ............. Lincoln

Liuerpol ............. Liverpool

Lundenburg/Lundenwick ............. London

Lys Ardh ............. The Lizard

Maeres............. The Mersey

Mancaester ............. Manchester

Marghasyew ............. Marazion

Nordfulk ............. Norfolk

Norwic............. Norwich

Neustria ............. Western France

Pefensea ............. Pevensey

Qurtuba ............. Cordoba, Spain

Rumnea ............. Romney

Sciropescire ............. Shropshire

Selcaestre ............. Silchester

Snotingeham ............. Nottingham

Stanegaeta ............. Stonegate, York

Stoneford Field............. Stamford Bridge

Suthringanaweorc ............. Southwark

South Seax ............. Sussex

Tatecaestre ............. Tadcaster

Temese ............. The River Thames

Theodford ............. Thetford

Usebrig............. Ousebridge, York

Waecelinga Strete ............. Watling Street

Wealas............. Wales

Walingeford ............. Wallingford

Wintoncaestre ............. Winchester

Wirheal ............. The Wirral

Woden’s Ley ............. Wensley

Yarum............. Yarm

Prologue

It was nearly dark when Alys realised it had been a long time since Gunnar shuffled out of the door heading for the privy complaining of stomach cramps and chest pains. In this bone-cold weather he was usually back quickly into the warmth of the home they shared alongside the steep pack horse track between Lord Alain’s great castle and the River Swale. But tonight, she thought, his bowels must have turned to water yet again.

That’s the third time in five days, she quietly said to herself, He shouldn’t make such a pig of himself with those onions. She paused, listening to the distant rushing of the brown river, swollen by yesterday’s persistent rain, the sound was only interrupted now and again by a gentle crackle from the wood she’d just put on the fire. She stood with a slight groan, brushing ash from her coarse, woollen skirt. Old bones, she muttered grimacing as she stretched, arching her back and massaging her midriff with her chilblained hands, Old bones, aches and pains, she sighed and wiped a dribble of saliva from her chapped lips, Better go and make sure the old bugger’s all right.

As she pushed open the door and stepped into the deepening twilight, her mind was drawn back to their first meeting more than twenty years ago when she’d have willingly and cheerfully sunk a dagger in his chest. But, she mused, fate is an unfathomable thing whether it’s God-given or not for over the years it had brought them together again and again as if there was some great book somewhere in which her life had already been mapped out.

She often asked herself the same question, was it the work of the ancient spirits, the tricksy elves, or was it the will of the Christ God? As ever no answer came in to her head, the Old Ones remained silent along with the priests’ Lord of All Things. She thought of Him as far off and unreachable.

Alys, like many people, followed the teachings of the Church but at the same time took care not to upset the old spirits. The stern priests angrily insisted they were nothing more than terrifying demons sent to plague mankind and that people must fight them with the mighty power granted through constant praying to Jesus and His heavenly Father. But that didn’t stop folk leaving a dish of buttermilk or a tasty morsel for the Old Ones or asking for their blessing and at the same time their forgiveness for snaring wild animals in the woods or for harvesting fruits and berries.

For as long as she could remember Alys had had a special relationship with the old spirits. She was what folk back in her native Brittany called elf-wise. For All her life they had whispered ancient secrets to her in the darkness under her bed or rustled in the thatch of the cosy cottage she shared with her father. On windy days they’d dance round the house whipping up eddies of dead leaves and dust, singing to her of ancient days long before Caesar and his iron-clad warriors marched across the land, when people bowed low before great stones and the dead in their dark mounds watched over all.

She never really saw them, they always remained just out of sight, vaguely perceived shadows that were gone in a heartbeat but she felt them, always watching and waiting, sometimes to help and guide her, sometimes to cause mischief. She learnt early on that they can be nasty and vicious or kind and generous in equal measure but above all they were not to be upset.

Alys often wondered whether she had inherited the gift from her mother who had died shortly after she was born. Years later her father had told her that her mother’s last words were that he was to look after her little elf, alfr was she said, an old word used by her northern forefathers. The name alfr stuck and Alys began to develop a growing awareness that she was never entirely alone. Her mother died as her scarlet blood ebbed away and soaked the straw mattress she was lying on. Alfr stuck and with it Alys developed a growing awareness that she was never entirely alone.

Which now set her thinking, if there was something wrong with Gunnar, why hadn’t her invisible companions warned her, as they usually did?

Outside a dying glow through the branches of the leafless trees to the west was all that was left of the setting sun. In the east the first, faint stars were appearing, warning of a frosty night to come. Overhead a sudden streak of light grazed the darkening sky like a far distant fire arrow, it was swiftly followed by another, both disappearing in the blink of an eye. Alys whispered a charm to protect herself against evil and squinted through the bright light from the burning firebrand she carried.

Gunnar had built the privy at the back of the sloping garth as far away from the cottage as possible. He’d woven a screen out of split hazel withies to surround it which afforded a degree of privacy while allowing the stink to disperse efficiently through the loose weave. There was no sound nor movement as Alys approached.

Gunnar, are you all right? she said nervously as she scrambled up the slope towards it, The frost giants will come to touch your bones if you sit out here any longer and that’ll be the end of you.

An owl hooted from the riverside woods and from somewhere up near the half-built walls of the great castle the scream of a small animal was choked off as the jaws of some predator closed over it. Alys shuddered.

Gunnar, can you hear me? She moved closer as cold fingers began to curl round her heart, tightening the skin of her scalp and making her limbs tingle. Icicles of fear stabbed at her soul, now she knew something was wrong.

Then she saw him in the light of her spluttering torch. He was slumped to one side with his soiled breeches round his ankles and his sightless eyes as cold and grey as the winter sea. Gunnar was dead, as dead as a stone, as dead as his dreams of fighting one last battle and his longing to go a-Viking once more, raiding and murdering like his ancestors. Now there would be no invitation from Odin to join him in his feast hall, slain in glory by a noble and worthy enemy as he wielded his old sword, Bonebiter, which even now was hanging from a sooty rafter rusting in the gloom. Instead Gunnar had gone to some nameless afterlife while on the privvy, a grimace of pain frozen on his face for all time.

A part of her felt sorry for him, even though he often wallowed in a sea of self-pity thinking himself an old warrior born a hundred years too late but she also felt a ripple of satisfaction that this was her revenge for the half-forgiven wrongs of the past. She didn’t hate Gunnar but instead felt a curious mixture of emotions which swung between grudging gratitude and respect and a desire to inflict hurt in repayment for all the wrongs of the past. But she felt no real love for him, the one person she did truly love was way beyond her reach.

They call him ‘The Red’ behind his back, Count Alain to his face on account of his red hair although now an excess of wine and good living has given him a florid face to match. Alys would see him from time to time as he went about King William’s business. She felt a muted pride in him, after all he was one of the King’s most trusted nobles. But she also nursed a nagging horror for she knew he had the blood of thousands on his hands. Many times the thought had crossed her mind that he was also called ‘The Red’ for all the blood he’d spilt. It was that ruthless streak that had earned him many manors from Northumbria to Lundenburg. It had also won him a great stone stronghold that was being built on a steep rock towering over the Swale river, a citadel from which Alain could rule out of the reach of the conquered Saxons

It was a lifetime and a world away from the childhood Alys and he shared in their home village home village in Brittany. A lord’s son and the daughter of a captured Moor. Friends forever divided by birthright and set against each other by a half-dead king who the Normans say was killed in battle with an arrow in his eye.

Only Alys, the Count and a handful of others knew the truth about what had happened on that gore-soaked hill on that terrible autumn day so long ago. But it was a truth that had to remain buried forever for if it ever came to the new king’s ears it would cost thousands more lives and lay waste an entire kingdom.

PART ONE

JUGON 28TH JULY 1050AD

One day I’m going to be a great warrior, like my father. Alain was chewing on a grass stem as he gazed into the distance. It had been a while since he had last spoken and Alys thought he had gone to sleep in the afternoon heat. For a moment she was angry he had broken the peace and interrupted her thoughts. I’m going to fight alongside my lord and cut many heads off our enemies. He tried to lower his youthful voice to sound more sinister and bloodthirsty but only succeeded in making Alys smile. She rubbed her eyes and briefly marvelled at the explosion of sparks and flares in her head as her knuckles massaged her eyeballs.

Alys and Alain were sitting in their secret place down by the river, a gnarled willow tree hiding them from watchful eyes in the castle. The hollow, scraped out of the earth, smelt of foxes and of some other animal that Alys couldn’t quite identify. Maybe one of the deer that they often saw in the nearby fields and woods had left a scent mark, she didn’t know but it wasn’t unpleasant. Now and again a soft splash, followed by the rasping cry of a water-bird, came from the deep reed-beds on the opposite bank. She imagined impossibly long legs wading off into the deeper water in search of a morsel to take back to feed gaping beaks in the nest and for a moment was jealous of the bird and its simple, uncomplicated life. She opened her eyes and blinked as the fading patterns were replaced by the bright, summer sunlight beating down through the leaves and branches, dappling the deep grass with pools of light and dark.

Ugh, she said, twisting her mouth in horror, Why must you always dream of killing people?

Her dark eyes peered into his, trying to determine whether he meant it or not. Alain was by nature a gentle soul but she knew there were times when he felt he had to talk like a man and a future lord at that. For a moment he became even more serious, trying to imitate his father.

Because to rule you have to be strong and one day I’ll be the Count of Penteur. He picked up a twig and swung it like a sword at some imaginary enemy.

Alys felt a pang of affection as she admired his blazing hair which looked even redder as beams of light from the late afternoon sun shone through it. She thought of him as a young fox cub, handsome and clever but yet to develop the cunning he’d need to survive in the world of warriors and princes which he would soon be entering. Her girlish admiration was growing into a love which was being intensified by concern for his wellbeing in the hostile years he faced. She wanted to hold him close but knew he’d struggle and run off.

You’ll not want to know me then, she replied. You won’t even wave to me as I work in the fields and you pass by on your great warhorse with your noble nose in the air.

His manner softened as he turned to face her, dropping his stick-sword. Alys, I’ll always be friends with you. A faint hope rose in her heart to be swiftly replaced by a familiar sense of futility. What ever he said he would never be hers, a nobleman and a peasant girl could never be united, their lives had already been mapped out according God’s natural order, at least that’s what the priests said.

He thought for a moment. Let’s swear on it now. He grabbed both of her hands and held them tightly. He thought hard for a moment, putting together the right words. I swear by the sun and Moon that I will never forget you.

Alys’s heart skipped a beat as she realised he meant it, at least at that very moment but she knew in her heart that their wildly different birthrights would keep them apart for a lifetime. A lump gathered in her throat but putting on a brave face, she decided not to shatter the moment.

And I swear too.

By the sun and moon?

Better than that, may I be taken by the elves if I lie.

Alain’s blue eyes darkened and a frown creased his forehead. Not them again.

Alys was a year older than Alain but even at the tender age of eleven she knew that the days of their friendship were coming to an end. Soon he would start training to become a warrior while she would live out her life not straying far from the village she called home. She would almost certainly be married off to one of the local lads, some of whom were already giving her admiring glances, and she’d be required to rear as many children as possible to break their backs working in the fields to keep Alain’s father, Count Eudon, and ultimately Alain, well armed and well fed.

Her unusual looks, dark, dark eyes, black hair and copper skin had come from her father, Yahya. He’d been born far away in the Kingdom of Fez where, he often told her, the sun was so hot it could kill you. It was a place, he said, where there were few trees and little water and where the hills of sand stretched to the edge of the world. On dark winter nights, when the snow lay thickly on the cottage thatch and the world outside was bathed in moonlit silence, he’d sit her on his knee by the hearth and tell her of beasts with humps on their backs and of people who didn’t live in wooden houses but in tents made of cloth. Every now and again they’d move their village to another place where there was a well of sweet water. But her very favourite tales were of another land, far to the east, where the sun rose and where three huge mountains of stone were guarded by an immense, carved monster of rock with a man’s head. He told her that as a boy he had once been taken there by his father to buy horses.

A faint smile danced across his lips and a faraway look would mist his eyes as he told her that once, a long, long time ago there had been a race of magicians who used spells to build the mountains to hide their treasure. His soft, deep voice and gently accented words would paint pictures in her mind until she felt she had herself seen, what he called, the Land of the Great River.

He said on the walls of the caves and tunnels inside the mountains charms had been carved in a long forgotten language which would make stones fall on any creature who tried to set foot there. In the deepest cave, in great stone chests men lay wrapped in magic robes, neither dead nor alive, of this world yet part of another and able to travel to the stars. There they watched over heaps of gold and jewels and guarded secrets unspoken for a thousand years.

Alys was spellbound. She loved her father for his gentleness and his difference. His dark skin wasn’t the only thing that set him apart from the other men in the village. He was wise and knew about leaves and roots that could heal people. He had an ancient scroll of parchment filled with strange scribbles and gruesome drawings of the insides of a man and woman, which he kept hidden in a pot away from the prying eyes of the grim-faced priests because he said their Christ God wouldn’t like them.

The corner of the one-roomed house she shared with her father was filled with bags of dried things and clay vessels containing mysterious sticky liquids that made Alys’s nose wrinkle and her eyes smart. Shrivelled animal paws and mummified birds hung from the rafters alongside bunches of dead leaves and grasses, in particular Alys was strangely disturbed by a large root which looked like a man. Her father warned her never to touch it, he said it was so powerful it had killed the person who had dug it up with a terrible shriek. He called it mandrake.

At first the local people were deeply suspicious of the man who spoke with a strange, lilting accent and avoided him but after he had stopped a woman’s gaping head wound from going bad and mended her broken leg so that it was almost as good as before, they started to come to him with their aches and pains, cuts and bruises. When she was old enough he told Alys the magic wasn’t just in the strange words he muttered when making up his potions but also in the heart of the plants themselves. From that moment he began to pass on his knowledge to her and taught her what some of the squiggles on the parchment scroll meant. They are the words of my fathers, he’d whisper, As old as the mountains of the Moon.

He was equally good with animals, especially horses. In his far-off homeland the animals were revered. Over the generations they had been carefully cross-bred to become swift and agile creatures which he said were able to outrun the wind. It was his eye for matching the right stallion with the right mare, and a stroke of ill-fortune, that had brought him to this cold and damp corner at the edge of the world.

When he was still a boy his mother had died during a plague. The Moorish wise men had done their best but after two days writhing in agony her spirit departed. His father had been a clever and well respected breeder of horses and to ease his deep grief he had been asked to journey across the sea to Qurtuba in Al-Andalus to help the Caliph breed new life into his stables to strengthen his cavalry and enable him to win more territory from the Christian lords of Castile to the north.

His father told him a mounted man wielding a sword or lance against a foot soldier gained the advantage of height and was therefore far more deadly. The Moors had been the first to realise that a stirrup for the feet steadied a horseman in the saddle, freeing his hands to fight. Stirrups had been first used by the Moorish cavalry three hundred years earlier but only now was the idea beginning to spread to other lands where it was beginning a drastic change to the deadly art of warfare. At the same time there was a rapidly spiralling demand for the sleek and beautiful Arab steeds, not just across the lands of the Moors but way to the north where the lords of the dark forests and green hills patiently watched the domains of others and endlessly plotted.

With no relatives in his home town, Yahya had to sail with his father first to the great rock they call Gibral-al-Tarik and then travel overland to Qurtuba. As the years passed and he grew into manhood his father had taught him the closely-guarded secrets of horse breeding and how to deal with their various ailments and injuries.

But the handsome young man also developed a special relationship with horses. He loved them and they loved him and would do anything he asked of them. It was often said in the Caliph’s stables that he had been sired by a centaur. Yahya would smile mysteriously and say nothing.

He had also become a skilled rider and warrior himself, riding out with the Caliph’s cavalry and putting up a brave fight against enemies but he also acquired a reputation for questioning orders. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t see his commander’s point of view, he’d argue his case to the point of stubbornness. It didn’t endear him to the officers and led to speculation that the centaur could have been a donkey.

When he was eighteen and on campaign in the north, he had been wounded and captured by the Christians in a skirmish. His mount had been felled by a crossbow bolt but he managed to leap clear. He astonished his enemies by dragging a knight from his horse, leaping on its back and dodging sword lunges by leaning sideways in the saddle, galloped off. It was obvious to all he was a skilled horseman.

But he’d been severely weakened by a deep sword cut to his arm and was groggy from the fall. He was not able to outrun them. After a short chase a knight had caught up with him and knocked him unconscious with the butt of his lance. He had been bound hand and foot, slung unceremoniously over a horse and taken to Castile. King Ferdinand, realising a Moorish horseman was as useful as a Moorish horse, had sent healers to see him and had given orders he was to be well-treated. But after a few days in a fly-infested cell his arm wound writhed with maggots and had begun to stink. Ferdinand cursed his bad luck and ordered his jailers to let him die in peace.

But the fates had other ideas. Count Eudon was in Castile to buy new horses. Word had reached him in his misty lands to the north that some years previously Castile had started cross-breeding captured Moorish animals with the slower, stockier horses he was used to. The result was a warhorse that was solid and dependable, like the horses back in Penteur, but also swift, agile and beautiful like the Moorish steeds. Along with the other dukes and counts in Normandy and Brittany gnawed by ambition and greed, Eudon wanted fast and reliable warhorses capable of carrying a fully armed knight in his heavy hauberk right into the heat of battle and safely out again should the need arise.

It was the night before he was due to leave when the Count heard about the dying Moor who had shown exceptional skill on horseback. He’s finished, King Ferdinand told the Count, shaking his head in resignation, His wounds are rotting and writhing with maggots, he’s dying from the outside in. It’s a good thing his work here is complete. He raised his head and tapped Eudon on his sleeve with his eating knife. By God’s good grace I have others who’ve learnt his skills so one dead Moor is neither here nor there. He grinned, baring his teeth, Eudon was reminded of a wolf. He raised his voice so others around the table could hear and judge him to be generous. I would have sold him to you, you know that, but alas old friend, his time is up. If you don’t believe me go to see him yourself. If his god lets him live you can have him, the King was convinced his promise would never have to be kept.

As soon as Eudon set foot on the slimy stone stairs which led down to the cells, the stench of putrefaction mixed with the ever-present background stink of urine, faeces and rotting straw hit him. The battle-hardened Count had smelt death and human misery many times before but this stink was as bad as any. The guard unlocked the door and stood aside for the Count to enter. Yahya was lying on a low cot, shivering yet at the same time glistening with sweat in the dim light from a tallow dip. He was still conscious and raised his lead when the Count prodded him. Eudon saw he had removed the bandage which had been used to cover his wound and which was a mass of wriggling maggots, some of which has fallen into the stale straw beside the cot and made the straw move as if it was floating on water.

He should have been dead by now, sir. The guard’s eyes flicked nervously back and forth from the horror of Yahya’s wound to the Count’s face. It’s an odd fact but he seems unconcerned. It’s as if he wants the little devils there. I think he wishes to go as quickly as possible.

Something echoed at the back of Eudon’s mind. He’d seen this before during one hot summer after one of the many skirmishes between Brittany and Normandy when one of his healers had stopped others from cleaning battle wounds. It had been noticed that cuts that had been washed usually turned black and rotted, forcing the healers to amputate limbs. Most died after days of agony. But where maggots had been left, a surprising thing had happened. They had eaten the putrefying flesh allowing the most horrific of injuries to heal. The priests said it was God’s work, Eudon wasn’t so sure.

Yahya looked down at the maggots. Good, he croaked in Arabic, pointing at his wound, Friends. Eudon didn’t understand the words but realised what he meant. He’d lived alongside death all his life and was familiar with the fading spark of life in a dying man’s eyes but hard as he might try, the Moor’s eyes were ablaze with life. Thinking fast and now convinced the Moor would recover, he saw his chance to make Penteur’s cavalry the best, perhaps better even than that of his kinsman in neighbouring Normandy, Duke William, known to many as the Bastard.

Three days later a furious King Ferdinand was told the news that Yahya was improving but he had made a promise in public and couldn’t be seen to go back on it. The Count sweetened the deal with the promise of a consignment of strong, much prized welded swords and a chest of silver and Yahya was released to his care.

A week later, as the first snows of winter kissed the tops of the mountains, the Count, his men, two pairs of breeding horses and the Moor were on the long trek northwards to Jugon. Yahya wasn’t yet fit to ride so he had been made as comfortable as possible in a covered cart. At times the jolting of the wheels over the rough, mountain roads made him wince but he was recovering so quickly that the Count ordered he be hobbled by a chain, just in case he tried to escape. The carter had been given the task of looking after him and to pass the time he had started to teach him French. By the time they reached the cheerless northern lands, Yahya was able to make himself understood.

It was a dark time for the man with sunshine in his soul. The first winter, when the endless, grey curtains of cold rain turned into snow, Yahya imagined he was being punished for some forgotten sin. Day after day he would sit shivering by the barely smouldering fire in the thatched hut he’d been given, praying for release but when none came he finally decided his god had abandoned him.

For the first few weeks no one in the village would have anything to do with him. They’d heard about the dark skinned people of the south but no one had ever seen one. People would fall quiet when Yahya trudged past through the mud, muttering only to themselves when he was out of earshot. But he wasn’t totally alone, the Count’s horses slowly became his friends. As he got to know them, their characters emerged so he was able to judge which pair would produce the best offspring.

He became resigned to his fate so through the long winter worked hard for his new master. Grey day followed grey day, relieved only by the searing white of fresh-fallen snow. Yahya felt that his soul was freezing over. Then, as the sun crept higher in the sky, the damp fields and bare trees began to show signs of new life. The grey was slowly changing into green and before too long the hedgerows were white with dazzling drifts of blackthorn blossom. As spring turned into summer, the meadows round the castle became jewelled with wild flowers and the horses and their foals, freed from the gloom of their winter stables, cantered and rolled in the new grass, kicking their hooves at the deep blue sky. As he felt the warmth of the sun on his skin once again, Yahya’s mood lightened.

He worked patiently through the wet summer for his new master, quietly watching and learning the strange ways of these northmen. By the following winter at least some people were talking to him, the village folk because of his healing skills and the castle blacksmith and stable hands because they’d seen his way with the horses. There were already two foals which looked as if they were going to grow into fine warhorses and another three on the way.

As the shadows lengthened and the first frosts touched the trees, the pair would gallop round the pasture at the foot of the castle rock watched by the Count and Yahya. I shall call that one Eagle, said the Count. He’s swift and agile and it looks to me as if he has the courage and bravery to keep his head in battle.

Yahya smiled at his master, What about the other, sire?

I can’t read her yet. At worst she’ll make a fine mare to breed from.

Yahya had also found a wife. There was a girl in the village with a hare lip. Most folk were just about polite enough but kept her at arms length, others seeing what the priests called the Devil’s mark on her were openly hostile. Yahya saw beyond that when she came to see him for a salve to treat a bruise after someone threw a