It had to act. It had to do, as much as me.
I waited for the land to show me what to do and where to go.
FOUR
Harold hunched atop his weary plodding horse; he was exhausted, bruised, despondent.
His cloak clung to him in sodden patches. His hands—his gloves lost days ago—were gripped
cold and tense about the horse‘s reins as if they would never let go. About him rode the men of
his immediate command: the rest of the army was following as and when it could.
Harold‘s warriors sat as hunched and bruised over their reins as did their king, their eyes
fixed on some point between their horses‘ ears, unblinking, unseeing.
The horses, having little instruction from their riders, simply moved forwards in the
direction their riders had set when they‘d still retained some purpose. South, south, ever south
away from the battle which had been fought and towards the one which still needed to be fought.
Stamford Bridge had been a nightmare of rain and mud and blood. Harold had arrived in
the north the day after the earls Edwin and Morcar, Alditha‘s brothers, had met Hardrada and
Tostig in battle at Gate Fulford, two miles north of York.
The earls had been routed. Indeed, so many Englishmen had died that it was rumoured
Hardrada reached the earls to take their surrender by walking across a fen of dead bodies.
Harold then did what few men could have done: turned a disaster into a means of
eventual victory. While Hardrada and Tostig were celebrating, and conducting lengthy
negotiations with Edwin and Morcar over the fate of hostages, Harold and his army had arrived
unannounced from the south and attacked without even halting for sustenance to fuel their effort.
The battle at Stamford Bridge was long and desperate, and, apart from the surprise of his
attack, the only thing that tipped the balance in Harold‘s favour was that Hardrada‘s men were
either bone-weary, or drunk with their previous victory, or both.
Hardrada had died on the field. So had Tostig. Harold had faced him, in the end, battling
his way through the fighting bodies of the living and the slumped bodies of the dead, and had
taken the head from his brother‘s body with such an immense swing of his great sword that
Harold had all but stumbled to the ground with the weight he‘d put behind it.
He‘d not needed his balance for by then the invaders were themselves routed, their
leaders dead, the greater of their number dead or crippled enough to wish they had been killed.
Olaf, Hardrada‘s son, had survived the carnage. Morcar, who had acquitted himself better
in this battle than in the one of the previous day, brought the young man before Harold.
England‘s king was standing before a sputtering fire, still in his chain mail and
bloodstained tunic, his bloodied sword hanging at his side.
Olaf stood before him, his head high, his eyes glittering proudly, expecting nothing less
than death.
―Take what remains to you,‖ Harold said, his voice harsh and exhausted, ―and take
whatever ships you need, and go back whence you have come. I want you no more in my land.‖
Olaf had stared, then nodded tersely, bowed his head, and turned on his heel and left. In
the end, he‘d needed less than twenty ships of the original fleet of three hundred to take what
remained of his men home. The rest of the ships stayed at anchor in the Ouse River where they‘d
arrived a week or so earlier: their timbers kept Yorkshiremen warm through the five following
winters.
When Olaf had gone, his pitiful twenty ships vanishing into the northern sea mists,
Harold had sighed, cleaned his sword, and turned south once more.
He‘d won against Hardrada, but at a frightful cost. Edwin and Morcar‘s defeat had cost
him almost half the men he could have summoned to battle William. Moreover, many of the elite
among Harold‘s personal troops had been killed or wounded at Stamford Bridge.
Fate—and Hardrada‘s ambition—had dealt William a kind hand.
Harold existed in a state of half-waking. He‘d been riding for days, barely taking the time
to stop and rest or take sustenance, or allow his horse to do likewise. Now, when he was about a
half day‘s ride from London, Harold was so exhausted he could barely think, let alone take note
of what was happening around him.
The weather had closed in. Misty rain had surrounded the horses and riders for hours;
now it thickened into a dense fog that obscured most of the surrounding countryside. Harold
occasionally blinked and wiped the fog from his eyes. Whenever he did so he saw that his
companions drifted in and out of the mist, almost as if they were ghosts. Even the hoof-falls of
the horses were curiously muffled, and the constant jingling of bit and spur and bridle faded until
it was little more than a distant memory.
Harold sat, huddled within his soaked cloak, swaying to and fro with the motion of his
horse, and descended into a trance that was not quite a sleep.
Thus, he was not truly surprised when he finally blinked himself into a state of
semi-awareness and saw that one of his men had dismounted and was now walking at the head of
his horse, a hand to its bridle, ensuring that his king‘s mount did not stray off the road.
And then he saw that the figure walking by his horse‘s head was not one of his men at all,
and that it had led his horse so far off the road it now plodded silently through sodden
meadowlands.
―Who are you?‖ said Harold, shaking himself and sitting more upright. ―What is—?‖
He stopped, for the figure had halted the horse and then turned around, and Harold saw
that it was not a man at all. Oh, it wore the shape of a man, but there was something in its long,
bleak face, and in the knowledge in its grey-flecked eyes, that told Harold this was a creature of
great enchantment.
Strangely, Harold did not feel the least sense of fear. ―Who are you?‖ he said, leaning
forward a little in the saddle. ―Where do you take me? Are we in the realm of faeries?‖
That would not have surprised Harold in the least. His sense of unreality had been
growing stronger and stronger over the past few days. Now he wondered if that was a precursor
for this otherworldly journey.
The creature smiled, but sadly, and Harold saw that its teeth were rimmed with light.
―I am Long Tom,‖ he said, ―and I am taking you to your bride.‖
―Alditha?‖
―No,‖ Long Tom said, drawing the word out until it was almost a moan.
Harold frowned, but then the creature gestured to him to dismount.
―We need to take a journey, you and I,‖ he said.
―Where?‖ said Harold, swinging his right leg over his horse‘s back and jumping lightly to
the ground. His weariness was falling away from him as if it had never been; even the horse
snorted and pranced as it felt the weight of its rider vanish.
―Do you remember?‖ said Long Tom.
―Remember what?‖ said Harold. He was standing directly in front of the creature, and,
despite his own height, he had to crick his neck slightly in order to look the creature in the eye.
―This,‖ the Sidlesaghe said, and nodded to his right.
Harold looked, and the mists parted.
He sat naked in a steaming rock pool, and in his arms, very close, he held a young
woman, as naked as he. He was kissing her, deeply, his hands tight against her back so that he
pushed her breasts against his chest.
“Coel,” she said, pulling her face away. “Don”t.”
“You want to,” he said.
“I…” she said.
“Your mind has barely strayed from the pleasures of the bed since we set out,” he said.
“I was thinking of Brutus,” she said.
“Really? And now?”
Harold groaned, and the Sidlesaghe rested a hand on his forearm, as if in support.
―Who was she?‖ he asked.
―A woman I loved,‖ said Harold. His eyes brimmed with tears, and he held forth his hand
and cried out incoherently as the vision faded.
―What was her name?‖ Long Tom said.
―I don‘t…I don‘t know… how could I have forgotten her?”
―Watch,‖ said Long Tom.
He burst in through the door, and saw her kneeling, keening, in the centre of the house.
“Cornelia?” he cried, and he could feel his heart breaking. “Ah, Cornelia, I am sorry. I
had thought to be here before you.”
She rose, but slipped over in the doing, sprawling inelegantly to the floor. He ran to her,
and wrapped her in his arms, and whispered to her soothing words.
“You knew that Brutus had gone to Genvissa, and taken Achates, and everything I hold
dear?” she said.
“I saw Hicetaon come for Aethylla and the babies,” he said. “I knew then. I wanted to be