Chapter Fourteen Truths
Chapter Fourteen
Truths
THE FIGHT ENDED as swiftly as it had begun.
One moment, Leofric had been dodging seax thrusts—one of which nicked his right shoulder—the next he leaped under his opponent’s guard and buried his boning knife to the hilt under his ribs. Thunred roared, toppling backward with Leofric on top of him.
Aelfwyn watched in horror as they struggled together for control of Thunred’s seax in a deathly embrace.
Maddened by rage and pain, the warrior stabbed his weapon up at Leofric’s neck.
Leofric had released his grip on the knife still embedded in his opponent’s torso and had taken hold of Thunred’s right wrist. Leofric’s face was hard, his expression savage; like his opponent, he was fighting to kill.
The seax blade inched closer to Leofric’s exposed throat. Aelfwyn covered her mouth with her hands as another scream rose within her. Thunred was fearsomely strong, even though Leofric was pushing his whole weight against him.
Then she watched Leofric reach down and twist the hilt of the knife embedded under Thunred’s ribs. The warrior yelled in agony, his grip slackening just for an instant.
That was all Leofric needed—he yanked his boning knife free before slamming it down into the base of Thunred’s neck.
Blood spurted, and the warrior’s body kicked and twitched under Leofric as Thunred died.
Aelfwyn had never seen a man die before. She had heard of folk stoning thieves to death in Rendlaesham, or the king taking a man’s head for treachery, but she had never actually seen a man take another’s life. It was far worse than she had ever imagined—far bloodier, far more brutal.
She sank to her knees and vomited, throwing up water and bile—the only contents in her stomach.
When the retching subsided, she looked up to see Leofric climbing off Thunred’s corpse. Leofric’s face was ashen and blood-splattered. He looked fey, dangerous; for the first time, Aelfwyn was afraid of him.
“You killed him,” she whispered.
Leofric looked her way. His eyes had deepened to a brooding forest-green as his gaze met hers. “It was kill or be killed. He was going to slay me and then rape you.”
His words made Aelfwyn flinch. “But … how did you learn to fight like that? You’re … a monk.”
Leofric’s mouth twisted. “I had a life before Lindisfarena, Aelfwyn—and I didn’t end up on that isle by choice. All the men in my family are warriors. I’m the youngest of five sons. I had to learn how to defend myself as soon as I could walk or my brothers would have beaten me to a pulp.”
Aelfwyn grabbed fistfuls of her habit and clenched tightly to stop her hands from shaking. “So you’ve killed before?”
Leofric shook his head before glancing down at where Thunred had stopped twitching. “He was my first.”
Silence stretched between them.
After a few moments, Leofric started to untie the girdle around his waist. Aelfwyn tensed as she watched him. “What are you doing?”
He glanced up. “I’m going to swap my clothes for his. He has weapons and a horse—we need them both.”
Aelfwyn stared at him, horrified. “You’re going to wear the clothes of the man you’ve just killed?”
“Aye, and you and I are going to ride his horse.”
“But that’s …” Aelfwyn spluttered, struggling to find the words to describe just how vile this situation was.
Leofric met her eye, his own gaze hard. He was clearly losing patience with her. “This is life,” he snapped. “It’s not sweet and it’s not pretty—but before you look at me with scorn remember I’ve just saved both our lives.”
Aelfwyn held his gaze—both resenting him and fighting the truth of his words. Leofric said nothing more. He simply stood there watching her. After a few moments, Aelfwyn folded her arms across her chest and frowned. “What?”
His mouth curved. “I’m about to undress. If the sight of a naked man offends you, then I suggest you look away.”
Aelfwyn’s face flamed. He was mocking her, and she hated him for it. Clenching her jaw to prevent herself from spitting at him, she turned her back while he undressed.
She waited while he shucked off his habit, pulled the dead man’s clothes from him, and donned them as his own.
To distract herself, Aelfwyn listened to the sounds of the morning: the rise and fall of the dawn chorus, the whisper of the wind through the trees, and the rustle of Thunred’s horse cropping at grass nearby.
“You can turn around now.”
Aelfwyn swiveled to find Leofric standing behind her, buckling Thunred’s belt around his waist. The corpse at his feet now wore a monk’s habit.
Dressed as a warrior, in blood-stained leather, Leofric looked like a different man entirely—taller, broader, and older.
His close-cropped dark red hair gave him a lean, dangerous look.
He noticed Aelfwyn’s stare and raised an eyebrow.
She scowled at him in response, daring him to mock her once more.
Aelfwyn helped Leofric drag Thunred into the bushes and cover him with branches. It was customary to burn a corpse, but a pyre would likely call their pursuers directly to them. There would be no burial for Thunred of Eoforwic.
Leofric threw the quiver of arrows and longbow over his shoulder and mounted the horse.
Then he reached down and pulled Aelfwyn up so that she perched in front of him.
The odor of leather, horse, and blood filled Aelfwyn’s nostrils.
The feel of Leofric’s body against her back unnerved her.
She sat rigid, clenching her jaw, as Leofric urged the horse forward.
This morning had changed how she saw Leofric.
Until their encounter with Thunred, she had trusted him implicitly.
He had been her savior, and it had been easy enough not to see that there was a man beneath the monk’s habit.
Now it was as if she were traveling with a stranger.
Dressed in leather with a seax strapped to his waist and a longbow on his back, he looked as he really was; a wild young man who had somehow been forced into a life that had not been his choosing.
Leofric turned the horse south and urged it on to a brisk canter.
He rode well, and the horse responded to him in kind, lengthening its stride so that its gait was as smooth as possible for its riders.
Aelfwyn’s back started to ache with the effort it was taking to sit rigidly and not lean against him for support, but still she persisted.
Thunred had been a brutal reminder of what men were like, and how they were capable of behaving. She could not wait to reach Streonshalh and be free of them. For the first time, she understood Aethelhild’s desire for a life of seclusion away from the violence and cruelty of men.
How have I lived to twenty winters and not realized?
She had grown up in a prosperous household, in a thriving town, and had never known a day of strife in her life before going to live at Bebbanburg. Reality had been a cruel blow—one that Aelfwyn was not sure she would ever recover from.
They rode south for a while longer before the trees drew back and they traveled through open, windswept country. At noon they took a brief rest by a stream, where they refilled their water skins, let the horse drink, and ate bread and cheese from the saddlebag Thunred had carried with him.
They spoke little during their rest, each dealing with the events at dawn in their own manner. Leofric appeared in a brooding mood. His gaze was far off, his expression pensive, as he skimmed stones across the stream and waited for Aelfwyn to finish her bread and cheese.
For her part, Aelfwyn felt tense and unsettled.
Until now, she had focused on her immediate survival, on escaping the men and hounds at her heels.
Streonshalh still lay a few days’ ride away on horseback.
Although they were now far ahead of their pursuers, she worried about what the next days would bring.
She was not foolish enough to assume they had outrun the hounds—Ecgfrith’s men would still be tracking them south. They had to ensure they widened the distance between them and their pursuers over the next few days.
They resumed their journey, cutting east toward the coast this time.
A brisk breeze, laced with brine, blew in from the sea.
It stung Aelfwyn’s face and whipped her hair from its braid so that it flew around her face as they rode.
She now leaned back against the wall of Leofric’s chest; her back had been agony after a while and it had been impossible to sit without touching him, so she had been forced to give in.
Even so, it was a relief not to be on foot.
Her feet were aching and sore from where the rope sandals had cut into her, and her thigh and calf muscles were tight and cramped.
Their mount was swift, even with two passengers, and carried them quickly south along the wild Bernician coast. Gulls swooped, their lonely cries echoing, and out to sea, storm clouds rolled in.
By the time dusk approached, the wind had spots of rain in it.
They camped for the night on a hillside studded with rocks and brambles.
Halfway down the hill loomed a large boulder with a ledge that provided some shelter underneath.
Leofric unsaddled the horse, rubbed it down with a twist of grass, and hobbled it next to the boulder.
The horse, an apparently unflappable beast, began cropping at grass; ignoring the rain that was now starting to fall in large, wet splashes.
Aelfwyn wriggled under the lip of the boulder and watched the sky darken overhead. Leofric squeezed in next to her as the rain began in earnest, pattering down on the dry earth.
There was little space in their makeshift shelter, especially with saddlery and Thunred’s bag of hunting provisions keeping them company.
“No fire tonight,” Leofric announced, peering out at the rain. “The rain would just put it out anyway, and besides, I don’t want to draw any more attention to us.”
Aelfwyn nodded. He would not get any complaints from her.
Despite the rain, it was not cold this evening, especially here out of the wind.
However, her stomach was rumbling. It seemed like an age since her noon meal of bread and cheese.
She dug around in the saddlebag and retrieved an apple each and a large piece of cheese wrapped in oiled cloth.
“That’s it,” she said, passing Leofric his share of their meager dinner. “The end of our food.”
“We’ll buy some food in the next village we pass tomorrow,” Leofric promised, patting the small purse he now carried at his waist. “We’ve a few thrymsas, plus I can hunt so we won’t starve.”
They lapsed into silence then, each intent on devouring their supper.
The apple was sweet and the cheese quite salty but good.
Afterward, Aelfwyn took a sip from the water skin before passing it to Leofric.
The rain drummed down on the boulder above their heads and ran in streams off the edge.
Moments later, Aelfwyn heard the rumble of thunder in the distance.
“Is the horse alright?” she asked Leofric finally. “Won’t the storm frighten him?”
“Nerves of iron that one.” Leofric grinned at her, his face shadowed in the gathering dark. “Don’t worry about him.”
Aelfwyn pulled her knees up against her chest and rested her chin on them. She was exhausted and longed to stretch out upon a soft straw pallet and pull dry, warm furs over her head. Instead, she would have to sleep upright tonight or risk getting soaked.
She glanced back at Leofric. He was staring out at the rain, his face pensive. She was still wary of him, but the shock of this morning’s fight had dimmed somewhat, and she felt embarrassed at her behavior after he had killed Thunred.
“You probably think me ungrateful,” she began hesitantly. “It’s just that I’ve never seen a man killed in front of me before … but I am glad you saved me from him.”
Leofric glanced at her, and she saw a flash of white as he grinned. “I saved us both—he wasn’t going to let me live.”
“Did he really know you?”
“Aye.” Leofric’s voice changed, the tone turning guarded.
Undaunted, Aelfwyn pressed on. It had been bothering her all day; she had to know the truth about Leofric’s past, about who he really was. “He said the ealdorman had sent you to Lindisfarena for insulting him—was that also true?”
She saw Leofric’s barely perceptible nod.
“What happened? Why did you insult him?”
Leofric gave a soft laugh. “I was waiting for this.”
“For what?”
“All the questions.”
Aelfwyn stiffened, her cheeks growing hot. She was glad it was too dark for him to see her embarrassment. “If you’d rather not talk about it …” she began.
“No, it’s fine,” he replied with a sigh of resignation. “My past isn’t something I’m that proud of, that’s all.”
Aelfwyn let a few moments of uncomfortable silence pass before she spoke once more. “Why?”
Leofric raked a hand through his short hair. “Where to begin? Let’s just say I come from a family of hot-headed men who do as they please. My father brought me up that way—only he wasn’t so happy about my arrogance the day I refused to wed the ealdorman of Eoforwic’s daughter.”
Aelfwyn did not reply, waiting instead for Leofric to continue.
After a few moments, he did, albeit reluctantly.
“I told him I wouldn’t marry her … I insulted her—only I didn’t realize she was standing behind the arras, listening to every word.
” Leofric paused here, considering his words before he continued.
“Godwine of Eoforwic is not a man lightly crossed I discovered. Since I said I’d rather spend the rest of my days as a monk than marry a woman who looks like a sow, he decided to send me to Lindisfarena.
He made it clear that, if I ever ran away, he would hunt me down and kill me. ”
Aelfwyn digested these words. There was a lot to take in—none of it good.
Leofric had already proved not to be the gentle monk she had thought he was; watching him fight and kill a man had shattered her illusions there. Yet the thought of him insulting and humiliating a young woman made her ire rise.
He was a spoiled brat.
She had thought him noble in helping her escape south, but he had probably been planning to flee Lindisfarena anyway. She just made it easier for him.
She was tired of living in a man’s world. She was sick to the teeth of men deciding women’s fates—of judging a woman by her fairness and little else. Leofric and all men like him sickened her.
“So both the king’s men and the ealdorman’s men will be after your blood now?” she asked finally, when she had managed to leash her temper.
“Aye,” he replied heavily.
Aelfwyn pulled her robes tight around her and turned her back on him. “Good.”