Conqueror

And so much for impressing the Duke, he thought bitterly. But he had no choice but to ask for help.

'Hey!' He shouted as loudly as he could, and took off his conical helmet to wave it. 'A hand! Over here!'

The Normans surged on like a storm, but he thought he saw a couple of riders peel off.

He struggled further, sank deeper. He repeated his cries in the Frankish spoken by the Normans, in English, and in Danish.

'I can hear you. No need to yell.'

The new voice was English, and a woman's. Orm tried to turn. The mud was now almost up to his waist, its heavy grasp tightening around his legs.

The woman, who must have been riding with the warriors, was standing at the far side of the copse, with a man beside her. Short, confident, wiry-looking, she wore no mail but a sensible tunic and trousers of tough-looking leather. Her brown hair was pulled back revealing a face bronzed by sun and rain. Blue-eyed, around twenty, she might have been pretty, Orm thought bleakly, if she wasn't so obviously amused by him.

The man beside her had similar pale blue eyes; he was in mail and carried a mace, but looked too slight to be a warrior. Older than the woman he looked sly to Orm – slim and lithe, like a snake.

Orm knew him. 'You're the priest who rides with Harold.'

'That's true,' the man said. 'My name is Sihtric. This is my sister, Godgifu.'

Orm tried to straighten up, recovering as much dignity as he could. 'And I am Orm, son of Egil, son of Egil, who-' But he tipped over backward, and, thrashing in the mud, sank a bit deeper.

Like the call of a bird Godgifu's laughter echoed around the little copse.

Sihtric murmured, 'It isn't polite to mock the poor chap, Godgifu. So you're Egilsson? In fact I've been meaning to find you. Is it true your father was born in Vinland?'

'Conceived there,' Orm said, gasping in the mud. 'Born in Greenland.'

'Ah. And do you have an ancestor, another Egil, who fought Alfred at Ethandune?'

'Yes.'

'Then our families have a co

'I would happily debate genealogies with you all day, priest,' Orm said, breathless, 'but I have rather more pressing issues on my mind.'

'He's right,' said Godgifu practically. 'Come, brother, we can discuss the Menologium later; for now let's help him out.'

Godgifu and Sihtric cautiously worked their way around the bog. They found a fallen branch and laid it across the mud. The branch was heavy, its bark rotten and crusted with lichen, and they were both soon filthy. Orm managed to grab the branch, which at least stopped him sinking further into the mud. But he couldn't pull himself out. They all kept trying, and Sihtric murmured a prayer in Latin.

'It's not prayers he needs right now but muscle, good Sihtric.' A tall, well-built man clad in expensive-looking mail came striding into the copse. Behind a glistening helmet inlaid with bronze, Orm glimpsed locks of greying red hair and a long moustache. He spoke English, and must have been about forty, but he was a slab of muscle who might have massed twice as much as the ski

Sihtric bowed. 'Lord. We've done our best, but-'

'I can see you have.'

'His name is Orm Egilsson,' Godgifu said.

'Orm, is it? One of William's paid warriors? I've seen men die like this before, once the mud gets in your mail, and your leather gets soaked – but not today. Eh, Orm Egilsson?'

He turned to his horse, which was being held by a boy, and took his shield. It was the Norman kind, the leaf shape with rounded top and pointed base that the craftsmen called half-lanceolate. The Englishman dropped the shield on the mud, and without hesitation strode out along it, showing impressive balance. Positioning his feet carefully, he leaned over and stripped off his glove. 'Flesh on flesh is your best bet now.'

Orm threw his glove towards Godgifu and reached up. The Englishman warmly clasped Orm's hand and pulled. Orm scrambled, kicking at the mud, but it was the Englishman whose sheer straining power won the day, and Orm came free all at once like a baby popping from between its mother's legs.

The Englishman helped the Dane to stand and clapped him on the shoulder. 'There. Next time watch where you're riding.' Before Orm could thank him he picked up his shield and strode back to his horse.

The priest said, 'What a man. Sees a problem, solves it, moves on. Well, Orm Egilsson, you'll have a story to tell when you get drunk tonight.'

Godgifu scraped the mud that clung to Orm's mail. 'Anything broken?'

'Only my pride.' He looked down at her as her gloved hands brushed across his chest. Their eyes met, her bright boyish gaze playful yet with hints of depth. The way she stroked his chest felt almost tender, despite the layers of cloth and metal that separated his flesh from hers.

He asked, 'Who was that?' But he thought he knew the answer before the priest replied.

Sihtric said, 'Harold, son of Godwine, Earl of Wessex. Quite a man, don't you think? And now you owe him your life, Orm Egilsson.'

It was midsummer, 1064.

II

Orm didn't see Godgifu again until the raiding party returned to Normandy.

Orm was actually paid off at the Breton border. He didn't make much of a profit, given the cost of the horse and the weapons he lost in the mud, and he would have been glad to see the back of the Norman raiders, who had mocked him mercilessly since his fall. But, paying his own way, he stayed with William's party all the way to the small town of Bayeux, where Duke William's half-brother Odo was bishop. There a feast was to be held, and a service of thanksgiving given by Odo in his richly appointed church.

Orm, twenty-two years old, was an adventurer. As a second son it was up to him to find his own wealth and land. In the patchwork of warring dukedoms that was northern Frankia there were plenty of opportunities to fight – and there were few better paymasters than William the Bastard, who had been wi

Some day, when he was rich or feeble or both, Orm would go back home to find a wife, buy some land, and build a farm of his own. Or perhaps he would go to England, where Danes, it was said, were still welcome, even if he might have to become a Christian and abandon the faith of his forefathers. But in the meantime he was an opportunist. And in his chance encounter with the English girl Godgifu, in those moments when she had touched his muddy mail and looked into his eyes, he thought he had glimpsed an opportunity, a new track. And so he followed William home to see where this new chance might lead.

In the end he found her in Bayeux, one bright midday.

Bayeux was dominated by churches, and the manor houses of the lords. Today the little town was crowded with William's men, and the vendors, chancers and whores that clustered around any successful army. By noon the roasting pits had been burning for a day and a night already, full of butchered pigs, sheep and cattle plundered from Breton farms, and the wine was flowing freely. The warriors strutted through the town like the sons of gods, eating, drinking, rutting, fighting, sleeping where they fell. They wore their helmets so that the whores would know who they were, though Orm was surprised their cocks weren't already worn to nubs from their endless obsessive rapine.

The ordinary people of the town just had to put up with all this. They lived in long houses, like halls, families crammed in together, sharing their space with their animals in the winter. Desperately poor, they had to spend most of their time working not for themselves but on their lords' lands. They made Orm uncomfortable. Unlike Danes, unlike English, they were fundamentally unfree in a sense that offended Orm's independent spirit.