The Halls of Heorot, Part 1, Chs 1 and 2

“Those who know how to win are
much more numerous than those
who know how to make proper use
of their victories.” 
~Polybius (205 BC - 118 BC)



Chapter 1
         From the bow of the ship, the wall of cliffs looked impassable to all save the most agile of mountain goats.  These dotted the dark face of land, leaping to impossibly small ledges, balancing on tiny hooves.  Where the sea met rock, waves crashed against stone, sending fountains of water and froth high into the air.  At the top of the cliffs, a line of dark trees—the beginning of a much larger forest—could just be seen.
         I clutched at the bow railing, leaning against the wind.  A cloak of thick wool protected me from the frigid spring air, magnified by the mist of freezing ocean spray.  We had sailed for nearly a month, battling raging storms, disease, starvation.  For this land.  This impenetrable wall of stone.
         We had sailed into a wide bay, where the curve of cliffs protected our trio of ships from the worst of waves.  To the west, the cliffs continued unchanged, but to the east, there seemed to be the hint of sand and trees below the cliffs.  I guessed that’s where we would beach the longships.  It would be very, very good to have my feet on solid ground again.  My fragile body and constitution were not made for long travel at sea.
         Behind me, orders were shouted, though the wind blew away the actual words.  In an instant, the longships banked towards the east and we moved parallel to the cliff face.  I turned my head to watch the land slide by.  Soon, it would be our land, and my people.  All my life I had been groomed to be the queen of a kingdom.  When first I had married Beow, I thought my father had seen me unworthy of rule, but now as I looked upon this land, I realized he had seen me capable of not just being queen of our safe hall, but of being queen of a hall in an unknown land.
         We had left the hall of my father with five ships.  One ship had sunk in a storm, and the other, in a second storm, had been blown far off course.  We had no way of knowing whether those people survived to turn back, or had also sunk.  We had started out with nearly two hundred thanes and thralls.  Now, between the three remaining ships, we had only fifty of each.  But our ships were not nearly empty.
         Although Beow had asked for slender, elegant warships, my father had given him knorr, ships designed to carry heavy loads of cargo.  They were much broader than the warships, the dragon ships, and not nearly as elegant as the ceremonial barges the wealthiest jarls and kings used to travel on calm rivers.  In fact, they were rather ugly.  But they were able to be fitted with a shelter for the women, and the in the center of each ship we had stored food enough to last us the journey, supplies for setting up our home, and weapons.  And between the three remaining ships we had at least thirty horses.  I know settlements had been started on less.
         Still, although we had traveled with relative ease, despite the loss of two ships, I was ready to go back onto solid ground, to spend the night with a wood and turf roof over my head that would keep out all light and rain.  Before this, the longest time I had ever been on a ship was the half a day it had once taken to row up a river to a sacred sacrificial ground for winter rites.  This was our thirteenth day aboard, and I was infinitely ready to be rid of the constant roll of the ocean, the smells of men and animals, and hard, mouldy bread.
         “It is time you went inside.”
         I glanced over my shoulder.  My husband Beow stood just behind me.
         “We will land soon,” he explained.  “And we know nothing of the people who dwell here.”
         “Surely they will be no match for our thanes.”
         “No, but until we quell any opposition, I would prefer that you stay safely on board.  Go and care for our son.”
         I sighed, glanced one last time at the beach, and nodded.  “It will be as you wish, husband.”
         From the cramped shelter at the back of the ship, I listened to feet running about on the deck.  Equipment crashed, men shouted.  Then came a sharp jerk, and the longship ceased to move.  I listened as feet moved the length of the ship, then silenced as they disembarked.
         In the sudden quiet—the only sound the slosh of waves against the hull of the beached ship—I wrapped a shawl tightly about my shoulders and shivered in the dark.  I wondered how I had possibly become accustomed to the wet dark, the smells of salt and rotten food and dirty bodies.
         I remembered clearly my father’s hall.  It was neither huge, nor especially grand, but it not only represented the greatest power in the land, but also the place where I had been born and raised.  My nurse had kept a close eye on me as I played on the beach, running as fast as my short legs could carry me away from the waves.  My mother walked with me in the forest, speaking of the people at court, teaching me the ways of nobles, preparing me for marriage.  Compared to the cramped space of the longboat, my memory made my father’s hall into a vast gathering place of nobles, thanes, skalds, merchants, and distinguished visitors.
I already missed my mother, and the court of my father’s hall.  Even my father I missed, and the loud laughter of the mead hall in the evenings.  I wondered if I had made a mistake.  I wanted my son to know the smoke-darkened walls of my home, the gray-green ocean, our strong horses.  Perhaps I had made a mistake in thinking it did not matter where I birthed, as long as I did birth.
         I wondered what the strange land outside had in store for us.  My husband had brought us to this place on my father’s order, in order that we might meet with the people across the sea, create an alliance, and establish a presence here, if there were no kingdoms with which to ally.  I had no way of knowing for certain, but the bit of this new land I had already seen made it seem wild and dangerous.  There had been no ships on the water; I doubted we would find any people.          
         But I had made the long journey in order to be with my husband on this most trying of tasks.  I knew he would need a woman with him, to cook and mend so he could attend to more important business.  It was the duty of a wife to love and serve her husband, and I had, since the moment I had completed my vows, striven to be the model wife.  And so I had made the journey, despite what everyone had advised me.  I could not look back and regret, not now.  My future lay before me, in this new land.
         The one ray of light and happiness in this entire voyage had begun with the darkest and most frightening time.  The days of my confinement had ended sooner than had been expected, and I had gone into labor after we left the safety of my father’s shores.  It had been a long and hard birth, with only Freaware as a midwife, and she had only been apprenticed under the ancient midwife Thorda for a year.  But at long last, on the stormy seas, I had given birth to a son.
         No name yet had been given to the boy, who now squirmed in his swaddling as if he knew that, for the first time in his short life, there was actually something to see, somewhere to go.  A naming ceremony would take place once we had established some settlement here, but I secretly called him Efen, after my grandfather, who had been a mighty warrior and who had personally attacked the barbarians at Lindisfarne, despite his advanced years.
         Efen gurgled at me and I picked him up, cradled him against my chest.  His head automatically turned to nuzzle and I bared one breast to let him feed.  At the same moment, Freaware, my maidservant, ducked inside the low cloth shelter and took a seat beside me.  “It is a strange land,” she said immediately.
         “I worry about my son,” I murmured, watching Efen suckle.
         “Ah, now, there’s nothing to worry about.  He’ll grow up healthy and stronger for the hardships he’ll endure.” 
         “Did lord Beow say how long he will be gone?”
         “A scouting party, only, my lady.  They shall be back at dusk.”
         I nodded, wrapped my arms about myself.  The damp chill of the boat penetrated the layers of the wool traveling clothes.  This new land presented dangers I had never faced before.  In the hall at home, I sat in my chambers or with the other women at court, weaving or gossiping.
         The evening before we set off on this journey, I lay in Beow’s arms late into the night while he tried to prepare me for the hardships ahead.  He had been a warrior since he could be called a man—at thirteen—and knew what it meant to eat preserved food and to live in cramped quarters, or sleep on the ground beneath the stars.  But I—the daughter of a wealthy chieftain—had never had to live the life of common folks, of soldiers.
         “Once we land,” he had whispered in the dark, “there may be times when I must leave you for days, many days even, to scout out this new land of ours.  But do not fear, for I will always return to you.”
         On the long nights during the journey, when he went on deck to guide the men through a storm, though, I wondered if he one day may not come back to me.  And now I wondered that again.  From the deck I had seen this wild new land my husband meant to tame.  A land that beautiful and that ragged bred beautiful and deadly people, I felt sure, and wondered if this land might not tame my husband before he could tame it.
         “My lady?”
         I started, looked around into Freaware’s questioning gaze.  “Yes?”
         “You fell so silent…”  The young woman’s voice trailed off and she suddenly looked uncertain.
         “I only got lost in my thoughts,” I said, and smiled. 
         I had recently begun to worry about Freaware.  She was only a year or two older than me, and the journey had been just as hard on her as it had been on me.  She had left her family behind, and barely knew anyone on our ship.  In the past few days, she had withdrawn from everyone, and only spoke to me in order to fulfill her duties of taking care of me.
         My father had declared that Beow, as his most trusted and deserving thane, should go to this strange land and establish a kingdom, which my husband would rule in my father’s name.  It was a great honor my father had bestowed upon Beow.  As soon as we established a real presence here, built a hall and negotiated with the natives, he would no longer be lord Beow, but King Beow, and I would be Queen Aesileif.
         My father had charged Beow to use diplomacy and negotiation to win the hearts of those we would rule.  Wars never solved anything, he had explained, and he did not want these people killed and conquered.  He wanted their love, so they would be willing to trade with my father’s hall.
Still, if these people proved hostile, would my son be in danger?  --Until a proper hall was built, I feared he would be.  And so would I.  I would not be able to survive any attack on the hall, or attempt on my life.  I was not a thane, after all, but a lady of noble blood.
         Thunder suddenly growled overhead, and a moment later, raindrops began to dance on the deck.
         The ship cat—a miraculously scrawny creature barely out of kittenhood named Wulfing—pounced on my ball of yarn.  I frowned down at him, scooted him away from one slippered foot.  But he mewed and I set aside the needles and ball and scooped him into my lap.
         Another roll of thunder.
         I decided that since Beow had gone, I could I return to my post outside, and I gathered Efen into my arms and went out into the just-starting rain.  Our three ships floated placidly on the water, now manned by a smaller contingent of thanes and the peasants and thralls we had brought with us to begin our kingdom in this new land.  Once we were allowed onto the shore, the thanes would claim the land for my father, conducting what battles might be necessary.  The peasants and thralls would level and plant fields for our crops, as well as help build the hall that would one day stand here.
         I could see these people now, standing at the edges of the ships, looking out at the strange, rocky coast we had come to.  I wondered if anyone else was now wondering if we had made the right decision in coming here.  I could not help but have doubts myself.  From here, this land looked wild and dangerous, not at all like the fruitful paradise my father had promised would both be an enriching addition to his kingdom, and a profitable post for Beow.  I doubted there was anything even resembling a civilized town and hall in this place, and wondered, too, how that would affect our dealings with whatever people did dwell here.
         Thunder rolled overhead once again and I wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to return to the little shelter.  But Efen seemed to be enjoying the ragged wind and light rain, and I decided the cold damp of the shelter might do less for him than the brisk, fresh air.
         Freaware came to stand by my side, clutching the cat Wulfgar to her chest.  “My lady, what do you suppose is out there?”
         “I don’t know,” I murmured.  “I don’t know.”
         “What if the people who live here are savages?”
         “We must trust in my lord Beow that he will know what is best for us, and know how to protect us.”
         “How long has he been gone, my lady?”
         “For half the day now.”
         She hugged Wulfgar to her body.  “I want to be free of this ship!  And this water, and this food!  I want solid land beneath my feet.”
         “We all do,” I said soothingly.
         “What can we not leave now?  There is the land!  Our ship touches it even now!  Let us free ourselves of this damned discomfort.”
         I freed a hand from holding Efen and placed it on her shoulder.  “Peace, Freaware.  Peace.  We cannot leave yet.  Not until Beow brings back his report and says it is safe.”
         “How long will it be until we are able to live in a hall of our own?”
         I gave a heavy sigh to let her know her questions were not appreciated, but answered, “I do not know.  But it will take some time, Freaware.  Halls do not grow from the ground.  They must be build by men, and that takes time.”
         “And food?  I swear by the gods, my lady, I do not think I shall be able to stand another day of mouldered bread.”
         “And yet I fear you will have to, for from where shall we get food?  The men may hunt, if there is time, but what is they have to spend all their time building our hall, and dealing with barbarians?  Fields will be cleared, but the crops will not be ready for the harvest until the end of the summer, and it is only barely spring.”
         “The people who live here.  They will trade with us.”
         “That is what we hope, yes, and what Beow is now attempting to discover.  But what if they have had a hard year and have nothing to trade?”
         My maid’s face contorted and she dropped Wulfgar and banged her fist against the side of the ship.  “What did we have to come?”
         “Freaware!”
         “No!  Why did we have to come?  Why could we not have waited until Beow had established some sort of home here, so we could at least live in comfort after so long a voyage?  Why must you drag me away from my mother, just so I can be miserable?”
         “Freaware!”
         There were tears in her eyes as she continued.  “I want to be home!  I want to be dry and warm and I don’t want to be hungry any more!”
         My slap seemed to shock her out of her tirade, and she stared, wide-eyed, at me.  “We are here because lord Beow is my husband, and I did not want it to be many years before he saw his son.  I wanted to serve my husband as a good wife ought to.  You may criticize me for many things, but I will not tolerate criticism of that.  Not while I am wife of lord Beow.”
         She bowed her head, but whether in remorse or humiliation for being hit in front of everyone, I did not know.  She gave a small bow and retreated to the shelter.
☼
         The day passed far too slowly for me.  Although I had berated Freaware for criticizing me, I had to—privately—agree with the other things she said.  I, too, did not want to eat any more moudly bread and weak ale.  I, too, wanted to sleep in a warm, dry hall, on a mattress of clean straw.  I wanted to wear clothes not suffused with salt.  And now that land was so close, I wanted so badly to leave the ship and begin our new home.
         It wasn’t until dusk that Beow returned, and I realized he did not have as many men as he had left with.  Immediately, fear contracted my stomach, and I clutched at the side of the ship, looking for signs of battle and injuries.  But to my surprise, as he neared, Beow raised his hand and saluted with a loud and happy greeting.  He and his men dismounted in the sand and a moment later, Beow stood on the deck, ready to give his report.
         “We have met with some of the natives.  Simple people, but they seem willing to trade.  I have left some of the men with them to work out an agreement for food.”
         I pressed close to my husband as the people cheered.  “When do we get to leave the ships?”
         He smiled, draped his arm over my shoulders.  “I see no reason why we cannot begin unloading now.”  The cheers grew louder, and Beow quickly tempered them with a raised hand.  “There won’t be anywhere to live, but if we set to work immediately, we can establish a real settlement here.  A real, and permanent presence.”
         With that proclamation, Beow set about organizing the unloading of our equipment.  Messengers were sent to the other longships to coordinate unloading of both supplies and people.  And I was finally, finally able to receive permission to leave the ship.
         The water was frigid, but the sand, when I kicked off my shoes, was sun-warmed.  My knees nearly buckled during my first few steps on a surface that did not perpetually rock and roll beneath my feet.  But within a few steps I had adjusted to solid ground once again, and in a few moments, I was running and dancing, holding Efen up to the sun, laughing as he squirmed.  Freaware joined me and as we twirled in the sand, she lifted up her voice and sang.
         And suddenly, with the longships properly beaches and our men and women working to organize our belongings on the sand, I began to realize that I really had made the right decision to come.  The land stretched up from the beach was dark, not with foreboding, but with pleasurable mystery and the promise of hidden paradises.  This was our new home, and it would be good to us.


Chapter 2
         It seems a strange fate, now, that our first few months in this new land were so peaceful.  Everyone set dutifully about the tasks they were assigned, whether that was building shelters just off the sand or clearing land that seemed suitable for crops, then planting crops with seed traded for with the natives.  It was hard work, requiring everyone to bend their backs in some form of labor, but there were no complaints.
         Beow established a peaceful and profitable trade with the native clans, procuring not only seeds, but food and cloth, in exchange for some small amounts of iron supplies, and the promise of protection, should war threaten any of the clans.  The language of these peoples bore some resemblance to ours, but mostly in sounds, not actual words.  Beow and his men communicated with gestures that—he told me—eventually developed into a sort of language of its own.
         Although these people seemed far less civilized and established than us, in some ways they did not seem so different.  They ate the same foods we did, wore roughly the same clothes, even worshipped, it seemed, the same gods.  Unfortunately, their different language set them apart from us, as well as the fact that they apparently had built no large ships, and so had established no presence either on the sea, or in other kingdoms.
         Our settlement began to take shape on the beach, a half-circle of ten single-room dwellings that squatted low in the sand.  They were timber structures, roughly constructed in the thralls’ hurry to produce as many as possible in a short amount of time.  The roofs were built strong, and covered with dirt and planted with seed, in the hopes that by the winter, there would be a thick layer of sod growing to protect us from the worst of the cold.
         The shelter I shared with Beow, our son, and Freaware, was slightly larger than the others, and located at the highest point on the half-circle.  Beow built a low bed frame for us, which I arranged along the back wall of our home.  In the center of the home Freaware and I spent nearly an entire day preparing a fire pit and making sure ventilation from the hole in the ceiling was adequate.  We had not brought many personal items with us; space on the ships had been limited, but those that we did have, mainly my loom, a few blankets and furs, and a tapestry, I arranged as best as I could so the dwelling seemed as welcome as possible.
         Despite their proximity to our own settlement, which was slowly but surely taking shape on the edge of the sand, I rarely ever saw the natives.  Beow insisted that he and his men always go to their villages to collect goods.  At first I thought this was only a sign of generosity on his part, not wanting the natives to do more work for us than they already were, but when he yelled at a pair of women who came with gifts, forcing them away from our buildings with drawn weapons, I wondered if there wasn’t something more.
         There were other things that struck me as slightly odd, too.  Although we had nothing to pass as shelter when we first landed, Beow divided the men, insisting that only the peasants and thralls work on felling trees and erecting homes, though the thanes would have had an equally capable force of fifty men, and probably would have gotten the work done in half the time.
         What exactly Beow had the thanes doing, I could not tell.  Groups of them were continually cycling through our settlement, some on horseback, and others on foot, but all armed.  Sometimes a group would only be gone for a small time, half a day.  Other times, a group, or several, would disappear for days on end.  However long they were gone for, though, they never failed to immediately find Beow upon their return and spend several hours speaking privately with him.
         In those days, Beow grew markedly more distant from me.  No longer did we share long, intimate nights as we had before we left.  Not even when we had our own—albeit meager—shelter to provide some privacy.  He never came to lie by my side before half the night had gone, and no few nights he did not come back at all.
         But despite the peculiarity of these occurrences, I spent little time thinking about them.  I simply did not have the time.  Between caring for Efen and doing my share of the work to make our settlement as civilized as possible, I had precious little time when I was not occupied with some task or another.  I took great pleasure in seeing our settlement grow where once only wild forest had stood.  The shelters, admittedly, were not the grand hall we had all been hoping for, but it was a start, the beginning of somewhere we would be able to call ours.  Our home.
         Spring changed into a mild and beautiful summer that encouraged our crops to grow.  Several smaller boats had been constructed, and some of the peasants took up fishing.  Others discovered rich hunting grounds and soon, combined with food garnered from trade with the native clans, we had plenty of fresh food, and could finally stop eating the mouldy rations we had depended on during our voyage.          
Not long after the last house had been built, Beow decided it was time to have a proper naming ceremony for Efen.  On that night, a fire built in the center of our village raged high and bright and hot.  Fountains of sparks blossomed against the clear summer night sky.  All the thanes gathered about the fire, staring into it as if they had not yet seen enough flames.  They did not move as the skald, who took the place of a priest, chanted out the traditional story of the birth of the gods, the creation of the universe.
         I held Efen close to my chest and Freaware stood near me, clasping a bowl of water scented with herbs.  Lord Beow stood on my other side, a robe of deep blue draped over his shoulders.  Freaware must have been able to salvage this ceremonial garment from the beach for I had long seen that robe folded in a trunk in my mother’s chambers.
         As the skald’s voice faded away, Beow stepped forward, held up his hands to command the attention of the gathered thanes.  “My thanes, my brothers.  We gather here at dusk to celebrate the birth of my son.  He is here, in the arms of his mother, the lady Eowyl.”  He opened his hand toward us.  “We are here to christen the child with a name, a name fitting for a son of a lord of a new hall in a new land.”
         I froze and suddenly Beow’s voice lost interest for me.  My father had sent my lord Beow out upon the sea with this company of trusted men with the commission to spread my father’s boundaries, to learn more of the people who surrounded us.  And now…had he betrayed that trust?  By here naming himself the lord of this new land, had he betrayed my father’s trust?
         The sound of a great cheer roused me from my thoughts.  I turned my gaze back to Beow, saw him stand near Freaware, dip his fingers into the scented water.  He pressed his fingers to Efen’s forehead and intoned: “I hereby do place upon you the proud name of Arsenio to keep you strong and courageous in even the darkest of times, and to protect you from all the evils of the world.  May the gods grant you the strength of their arms in battle.  May they always grant you peace in your rest and lead your dreams to Valhalla.”
         The thanes echoed, “Your dreams lead to Valhalla.”
         Beow took the bowl from Freaware and upended it over Efen—Arsenio—drenching him and me.  The babe’s face scrunched up, but he did not cry, and I was proud of him as Beow bent and kissed his forehead.
         That concluded the ceremony.  Arsenio squirmed in my arms, his eyes widely staring up at me.  The thanes struck up conversations, apparently unwilling to leave the heat of the fire even though a new summer heat had drenched the nights.  But I returned to our home, and curled up on the bed with Arsenio, trembling. 
Beow, I thought, might have truly just proclaimed his intentions in this new land, and they did not completely align with those that my father had set upon him at the outset of our journey.  Apparently, instead of establishing a peaceful, non-dominating settlement here with the hopes of creating a trade route with the peoples here, Beow hoped to conquer this land, to build a hall of his own and rule as lord himself.
I did not know what I thought about this, and I fell asleep greatly troubled.
         Then abruptly, the clans ceased to trade with us.
         No one came to give us any explanation or apology.  And neither did the thanes who had been living with the natives return to report.
         After several days, Beow mounted his war horse and, taking with him a large contingent of thanes, rode out away from our settlement.
         It was a clear, warm day with a high blue sky that stretched on for seemingly ever.  Despite the sudden worry of troubles with our neighbors, the settlement continued on with its productivity.  Standing in the doorway of our home, I saw a pair of workers, a husband and wife, working together, laughing out loud, sharing their tasks.  Out by the water, three men readied a boat for a fishing expedition, carefully folding nets.  Further away, two men shoved their boat onto the water and with powerful strokes of the oars rowed swiftly away.
         Freaware emerged slowly from the forest, a basket held against her hip, her eyes turned downward as she searched for mushrooms and roots.  Toward the south, another woman appeared, also with a basket.  I recognized her as the wife of the metal worker we had brought with us.
         The arrow head, as it pushed through the front of her forehead, reminded me of a flower pushing through the last of the spring snow.  The woman’s eyes widened, but she said nothing, and collapsed to the ground, her body twitching violently.
         Freaware screamed as more than a dozen men on small but powerful built horses galloped from the forest, screaming blood-lusty war cries from painted faces.  She dropped her basket and ran at me, throwing her shoulder into mine in a movement that threw us both back into my home and sprawled on the floor.  Arsenio, held against my chest, gave a shriek and began to cry.
         The doorway was suddenly filled with the towering form of a warrior who leered when he saw us.  As he advanced, Freaware drew her small tanning knife from her belt and slashed at the man’s bare knee.  He bellowed in rage and pain and lurched forward, slashing with his battle axe.  I cowered, hunching my body over Arsenio.  Freaware slashed again with her knife, caught him on the back of the knee, and the warrior crumpled, shrieking and yelling in his nasty language.
         Freaware grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the back of the shelter, shoved me beneath the wooden frame of the bed, then squeezed in with me.  I held my hand over Arsenio’s mouth and tried to quiet him as I sobbed.  Freaware’s back was pressed against my chest, our bodies fitted tightly together.  Her breathing was fast and ragged as she peered out.
         From outside came screams and violent battle cries.  Closer to us, the warrior who had attached us groaned and cursed.  Freaware pushed me back, farther beneath the bed, until I was pressed close to the shelter wall.  Arsenio squirmed in my arms, whimpering, and I held my lips close to his head and hushed him.  “Quiet, my sweet.  Quiet.”
         Suddenly, a large hand groped under the bed, darting about, fingers grasping at air.  Freaware shrieked and jerked backward.  My hand came up to stop her from squashing Arsenio, who took the chance to scream loud and hard.  The man grunted and cursed as he reached for us.  Freaware moved back until she had practically rolled on top of me, threatening to crush Arsenio between us.  She squirmed on top of me, her head turned away from the questing hand.
         “What are you doing?” I shrieked.  She was scratching frantically as the loose dirt by the wall, sending curtains of dirt over us.  Dirt and sand got in my eyes, in my mouth.
         Again the warrior made a grab for us and my fingers fell on Freaware’s knife.  I pulled it free from her belt and stabbed at the hand.  The man yelled and yanked his hand back, cursing.  For a moment I thought he might have decided to abandon us, but in the next instant, the bed frame shifted, lifted a few inches off the ground. 
         I screamed, “Oh gods!”
         Freaware sent more dirt showering over us as the man made a second attempt at lifting the bed.  It was not particularly heavy, and I guessed the only reason why he had not already pulled it away from us was the wounds Freaware and I had inflicted.
         Again the bed shifted, moving a little away from the wall.  Arsenio was shrieking piercingly.
         The bed moved again, and I could see space in between the bed and the wall.  Soon, an arm would be able to fit through.
         Then, of a sudden, Freaware disappeared.
         I screamed, thinking the warrior must have gotten her.  But a second later I saw light streaming through a hole she had dug under the wall, and her arms reaching through from the other side.  Her muffled voice shouted, “The babe!”
         I passed Arsenio to her, and she lifted him out of sight.  Her hands reappeared, and she shouted, “My lady!”
         The bed moved farther from the wall and I grasped her hands.  She pulled, and I kicked with my legs, my face scraping in the dirt.
         First my head, then my shoulders squeezed through the hole.  I kicked, Freaware above me, leaning back as she pulled, her face contorted with the effort.
         My body moved into open air, and I knew I was almost free when I felt an iron grip close on my ankle and give a sharp jerk.  I was so surprised I let go of Freaware’s hands, and only her swiftly grabbing my wrists saved me from being pulled back inside.
         The grip on my ankle tightened, pulled harder, and I felt myself slip partially back into the hole.  I screamed, clawing at Freaware, kicking hard.
         I sent one strong kick back, felt my foot connect with something soft, and the hand abruptly let go as the man screamed.  Freaware gave a mighty pull and I escaped into the free air completely.  I snatched up Arsenio, and for a moment, Freaware and I crouched behind a stack of fire wood and looked out at our settlement.
         Our shelters, our new homes, were on fire.  Peasants and thralls ran screaming everywhere, many fleeing into the ocean, where painted warriors shot them with arrows as they struggled to swim away.  Others made for the forest and were chased down on horseback.  Only a small number of thanes had been in the settlement, and these had formed a tight know in the center of the burning shelters and were valiantly facing the warriors who rode down upon them.
         Freaware grabbed my hand and sprinted for the forest.  Amid the chaos of the attack, no one noticed us, and a moment later we found ourselves in the cool, dark shade of the wood.
         Freaware crouched behind a tangle of briars, panting, and peered between the branches at where we had so recently been.  I tried to calm Arsenio, who had blessedly stopped crying but still whimpered, and looked farther into the forest.  What waited out there for us?  Once, I would have said neighbors, friend with whom we had traded, but now I was not so certain.  Clearly something had gone wrong, and the native clans had turned against us.
         “Where do we go?” Freaware panted.  Sweat had beaded on her forehead and she wiped at it anxiously.
         I stared around, first at the deep forest, then at the burning settlement, where fighting continued.  “I don’t know.”
         “We can’t stay here,” she gasped.  “They’ll find us.”
         “The fields?” I wondered.
         She frowned, but nodded, and led the way.
         We very gradually moved south and east, stopping often to listen for any sounds of the enemy.  But once we had moved only a short distance into the trees, the sounds of battle gave way to peaceful summer, and we heard no other sounds of the enemy, or any human.
         Our crop fields were not so very far away, but we took a winding course, and by the time we arrived at the edge of the field, the sun had set, and only the slightest of pink glows remained in the eastern sky.  To the west, the sky was dark and star-filled.
         The fields contained a variety of crops, from low vegetable rows to plains of grains, still in the early moonlight.  Freaware went first, bending over and moving into the grain fields.  I followed close behind.  For a while there was only the whisper of stalks brushing and bending around us.  Arsenio had fallen completely quiet, and I realized he had fallen asleep, his head snuggled close to my breast.
         I wondered where Beow was.  He had taken the majority of the thanes on his excursion to see why our trade had been so suddenly cut off.  It was the resulting lack of thanes, I felt sure, that had allowed these unknown warriors to destroy our settlement, and kill our people.  In a sudden wave of bitterness, I hoped that Beow had at least received some answers, for his decision to take our thanes had doomed us.
         Just as my back began to ache from bending over, Freaware stopped, raised her head just enough to survey the field, then sat.  I sat beside her, rubbing my back.  “We should rest,” my maidservant said, and I nodded gratefully.
☼
         I must have slipped into sleep, despite everything that happened.  When I woke, all light had gone from the sky.  The sliver of moon shed a clear white light on the field, casting everything in dark shadows and stark light.  As I lifted my head, Freaware, who was lying next to me, held a fingertip up to her lips.  Her eyes were wide open, her breathing shallow and fast.
         Somewhere close by, the grain stalks whispered, and a foot crunched on dried grasses.
         I froze, stiff.  My heart beat hesitated, then leapt to life, beating frantically.
         A voice spoke low, growling words in a language that, although I didn’t understand, was all too familiar.  In the stark illumination of the crescent moon, I saw dark figures creeping through the field, hard by us.
         A quick glance showed Arsenio fast asleep against Freaware, wrapped in her skirt.
         The men continued to pass.  Some were on horseback, but most were on foot.  All moving away from our settlement.  They were quiet, but not silent, and seemed to be relaxed, not searching for us.  They spoke occasionally, a few laughing, all oblivious to our presence.  One man stepped so near I could have stretched out my hand and touched his foot.
         Eventually they passed.  No alarm had been raised, no hands had closed on us.  Arsenio had stayed asleep the entire time.
         We waited, still, until long after they had gone, breathing as quietly as possible.  Finally, Freaware stirred, lifting Arsenio into her arms and stretching her neck to look over the tops of the stalks.  She relaxed, shook her head that she could not see anything.  I took Arsenio from her.  “What do we do now?” I wondered.
         “Go back?”
         I frowned.  “Do you think that was all of them?”
         “I don’t know,” she murmured.  “Do you think they’ve all left?”
         I shrugged, then stiffened as a wolf howled in the distance, and the call was picked up by another, then two, then what seemed to be an entire pack.  I shivered as the cries faded away.  “We can’t stay here.  Not with Arsenio.”
☼
         In the dark, the way back took even longer than escaping, and we did not find ourselves crouching at the edge of our settlement until the eastern sky was beginning to lighten with pink and gold.
         The settlement was only a skeleton of what we had made it.  The flat-roofed shelters were almost all burned, or partially burned.  In the sand, at least a dozen bodies lay, stranded, sprawled in unnatural positions, part of their bodies bloodied and torn into ragged wounds that now lured and fed flies.  Along the shore, the bodies of these who had been shot as they tried to swim away had washed up, and now were buffeted gently by small waves.
         Nothing moved except the ravens who first circled overhead, then alighted on bodies and began to pick at exposed flesh.
         Slowly, we emerged from the forest.  I had lost my shoes somewhere in the night, and I felt the cool shifting of sand beneath my toes, the wet spots where blood had pooled and soaked into the sand.
         In the center of our settlement, the warriors had piled the bodies of the dozen or so thanes who had tried to protect us.  The pile was terrible, a mass of twisted arms and legs.  Faces poked out, seemingly unattached to bodies, eyes wide, mouths open to show bright red inside dusty, ashen skin.  Here, the hum of flies was nearly overwhelming, a loud buzz that filled my ears.  The raven has landed here, too, and bobbed about wings, fluttering as they moved from one body to another.  They snapped and shrieked at each other as they vied for the choicest parts.
         Suddenly, Freaware gave a long scream, anguished and almost crazed, and threw herself upon the pile of bodies, digging into the dead, screaming incoherently, sobbing a man’s name.
         For a moment, I only stared in shock, watching her climb higher and higher, pulling aside bodies, screaming both the man’s name—Kjartan, I thought—and insane gibberish, not real words, but sounds of crazed grief.
         Eventually, some semblance of common sense broke through my horror, and I set Arsenio down and went to where Freaware was now clutching a head to her breast, as she sprawled across the dead bodies.  She was smeared with blood and bits of flesh and organs, her clothes a complete mess, her hair tangled and matted with gore and fleshy pulp.
         I was loathe to touch her, but I reached up, grabbed her shoulder, and, being as gentle as possible, persuaded her to come down from her gruesome bed.  She did not resist, letting go of the head and coming complacently, still crying, gasping for breath, and muttering incoherently.  I took her to the water and, carefully avoiding the bodies, bathed her until I had gotten rid of as much of the gore as possible.
         By the time I had finished, Freaware had calmed somewhat, although her eyes refused to focus on anything, and instead had a very distant, crazed expression.  I led her back to the forest, away from the carnage of the destroyed settlement, gathering up Arsenio on the way, and tried to soothe her with murmured whispers and caresses.
☼
         The day wore on.  I lit a fire, despite the threat of someone seeing the smoke, managed to find some of the meat stores we had collected and cured, and made a small meal.  Freaware held the meat in her flat hands, stared in the direction of the settlement, her eyes empty.  “They’re all dead,” she murmured.  “All dead.  What do we do now?  Who’s going to harvest the fields?  And he’s dead.  We were going to get married.  Have a family.  Now he’s dead.  What’s going to become of me?  We’re going to die.  Just like them.  The ravens are going to feast on our flesh.  The maggots are going to fill our mouths.”
         I tried to shut out her mutterings, trying not to attach any likelihood to her predictions.  Arsenio fed hastily from my breast, then slept soundly.  And as the flies’ buzzing grew ever louder, I slept as well, slouched against a tree.