Hereward 03 - End of Days, page 35
‘Gold, that is what you smell. Riches beyond imagining.’ Kraki’s eyes gleamed. He leaned in and said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Constantinople.’
Hereward’s eyes narrowed. ‘The richest city in the world.’
‘Aye,’ Guthrinc muttered, ‘and the most dangerous. They say every man plots against the other there, and they smile to your face while they slip a knife in your back.’
‘Yes!’ Kraki said, animated now. He jabbed a finger into the tall man’s chest. ‘And what it needs is men who know how to wield an axe to cut through all that sly dealing.’
‘You think there is a place for us there?’ Hereward asked.
‘Aye, in the Varangian Guard. The emperor’s own army. The best, the fiercest fighting men in all the world. They pay good coin for a strong right arm. And for a man like the great Hereward, whose name crosses the whale road faster than any ocean-stallion, that would be coin whose like we have never seen afore.’
Guthrinc fingered his chin. He eyed Hereward. The Mercian looked back. After a moment, they both smiled. Kraki punched a fist into a palm. ‘This is not fleeing, now. This is battle-sport.’
At the prow, Hengist broke away from tormenting Herrig the Rat and gave a shrill whistle. On the quayside, the wall of Normans parted as Alric strode to the water’s edge.
‘At last,’ Kraki growled. ‘Now we can be away to better days.’
Hereward eyed the monk. Since they had left Wincestre, he had been worried about his friend. It seemed as if a shadow hung over him, but he would not talk about what ailed him. ‘Do not be hard on him,’ he whispered to the Viking. ‘In heart, he is as much a warrior as any man here.’
Kraki nodded. ‘He is a spear-brother. But I can still kick his arse.’
When Alric climbed aboard, Hereward thought he seemed brighter than he had done in days. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked, suspicious.
‘Teaching the children at the church,’ the monk replied with a faint smile.
‘You and the children,’ Kraki snorted. ‘What ruin have you set in their minds?’
‘Ruin?’ This time the monk grinned. ‘The ruin of William the Bastard, perhaps.’ Wiping his forehead, he flopped down on a bench. The others gathered around him. ‘I told the children a tale of the true king, Hereward, who will wait across the waves until the hour of greatest need, when he will sail back and stand by his folk. William may spread his poison throughout the land, but given time it will fade. The children, though, will remember my tale for all time, and it will grow in the telling and spread across all England. Hereward, and all that he fought for, will never be forgotten.’
For a long moment, silence hung over the ship, and then the men cheered as one, and slapped the monk’s back. Alric flushed, surprised by the acclamation.
‘I told you we needed a man with some wits,’ Kraki boomed. ‘Now we are well set for the riches that await us. To Constantinople, brothers,’ he roared, ‘and to glory!’
Soon after, the ship set sail. As it ploughed through the grey waves, Hereward stood astern and watched the land of his youth slip over the horizon. He thought of the suffering, and the deaths, of the victories and the feasts, of Turfrida, and of his son who would grow without a father to ruin his days. And then he turned and looked to the east, and he grinned.
‘To Constantinople,’ he murmured. ‘To glory.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Wilde is a man of Mercia. Raised in a world of books, he went on to study economic history at university before travelling the world in search of adventure. Unable to forget a childhood encounter – in the pages of a comic – with the great English warrior Hereward, Wilde returned to the haunted fenlands of Eastern England, Hereward’s ancestral home, where he became convinced that this near-forgotten hero should be the subject of his first novel. Hereward was a bestseller. Wilde indulges his love of history and the high life in the home his family have owned for several generations in the heart of a Mercian forest.
Also by James Wilde
HEREWARD
HEREWARD: THE DEVIL’S ARMY
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HEREWARD: END OF DAYS
A BANTAM PRESS BOOK: 9780593065020
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409043607
First published in Great Britain
in 2013 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © James Wilde 2013
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James Wilde, Hereward 03 - End of Days
