The Fighting Man. Adrian Deans

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      She actually laughed at me as she stirred the cauldron and tasted the broth.

      ‘Lord of the land,’ she scoffed. ‘Can you make it do your bidding? Can you force the land to grow mountains or split apart to form rivers and seas?’

      ‘Of course I can,’ I replied, ‘given men and time.’

      She shook her head, then leaned forward to stir the cauldron again.

      ‘Men and time will be the bane of this world I deem,’ she said, passing me a ladle of broth. ‘But you can’t control it … no more than you control the Danes.’

      The broth tasted magnificent after my long fast and the smell coming from the cauldron and the coals was intoxicating. Using a forked stick with blackened tines, Valla pulled the charred skin from the coals and unwrapped the roasted hare’s guts, which were gone in seconds (despite burning my mouth).

      With a morsel of hot food inside me, my confidence began to return.

      ‘Once I reach the king I will have his support … and with his aid I’ll control the Danes … and you.’

      Even as the words left my lips I would have recalled them if I could, but once they were out, pride required that I stand by them, however ungracious or unwise.

      In less than a heartbeat, Valla whipped a knife from under her skins and thrust it within an inch of my eye.

      ‘Want to control me do you?’ she asked, and I slipped backwards in a delayed reaction, lying across the stone like a sacrificial offering. Quick as a snake, her free hand went under my rag and seized my manhood while the point of the blade pressed against my throat.

      ‘I asked … do you want to control me?’

      ‘Yes!’ I gasped. ‘I am your lord! Unhand me!’

      Then to my further confusion and embarrassment, I realised that I had become hard in her hand, and she released me as though stung.

      ‘Get out!’ she snarled. ‘Leave this place and never return, else I tear your balls from your body and feed them to the dog.’

      Speaking of which, the dog was now whimpering anew, wagging his tail and looking from one to the other as though imploring us to be friends.

      ‘I have nowhere to go,’ I said, rewrapping my rag and drawing the cloak about me once again.

      ‘It is no concern of mine,’ she replied. ‘I bring you safe from the Vikings and you repay me with arrogance and the threat of rape! Get you gone and learn your proper place in the world.’

      ‘Rape?’ I exclaimed, in some confusion. ‘I haven’t threatened to rape you!’

      ‘You’ve thought of little else!’ she said. ‘Ever since we met in the wood you’ve wanted me. Even now you are rampant … your bestial urges kept in check only by the threat of my blade!’

      ‘That’s not true!’ I insisted, despite the evidence that would not allow itself to be properly covered by the rag. ‘But even if it were … what of it? I claim lordship of this land, which means I have rights concerning its people.’

      ‘Lordship,’ she sneered, once again raising the knife. ‘If you have to claim it then it can’t be so … lordship is natural and self-evident. Your claim is ridiculous.’

      ‘You think I make ridiculous claims?’ I exclaimed hotly. ‘I’m not the one claiming to be two hundred and forty-two years old!’

      But at that moment the dog growled and Valla looked up sharply, scanning the encroaching woods.

      ‘Aid a fool and share his doom,’ she spat, and I stared into the forest, noting the evensong of the birds, so noisy a minute before, was ominously still.

      ‘This way, quickly,’ she hissed, and took off around the east face of the hill. Immediately, there was a cry from the woods – something like a barn owl, or something trying to sound like a barn owl.

      With a last longing glance at the cauldron, I ran after Valla, leaving the dog to guard the fire. There was maybe an hour of twilight left but, for the moment, we would be easy to spot unless we could get into the forest.

      But Valla was running away from the forest and down into the fen, where she soon disappeared down a lane of reeds. For a moment I hesitated – all children have heard tales of the unwary who sink down into the sucking, grasping mud, never to be seen again, but then I heard more barn owl cries, and chose the reeds.

      It stank.

      Not as bad as the turd pit, but every step disturbed noxious vapours that erupted from the ground and pursued me like a foetid fog. Worse than the stench was the clinging mud itself that slowed my movements and stalled my flight. The reeds seemed to be criss-crossed with little paths and trails and I soon lost all sense of direction.

      And I’d lost Valla.

      I’d not seen her tracks in the mud and it occurred to me that I would probably make an excellent decoy for the Danes to aid her own escape – and of course, it was me the Danes were chasing in the first place. She would be safe once I was captured.

      ‘Hssst!’

      I spun around and saw Valla, concealed within a thick screen of reeds, pointing back behind me to another large thicket.

      ‘Leave no trace,’ she whispered.

      But rather than go to the other clump of reeds, I pushed through to where she was lying low in the mud, and glaring at me.

      ‘Fool!’ she hissed. ‘Now if one is caught both are caught and the one cannot aid the other!’

      There was wisdom in her words but it was too late to argue. I huddled down beside her – hardly breathing – straining to hear whether we’d been followed – and realised for the first time that I had snatched up a weapon in my flight.

      Not much of a weapon – a stick of firewood about two feet long and only an inch thick, but it was heavy, hard and hefted well and was far better than nothing.

      We lay for some time as the twilight faded, and after a while I breathed into her ear, ‘We never actually saw anyone … could it be that we are hiding from no-one?’

      ‘Do owls hunt in daylight?’ she whispered. ‘Be quiet!’

      The light, such as it was, was going and I started to feel cold. My legs were cramping from staying in the same position so long but the slightest movement caused the sucking mud to gurgle and squelch – and at that moment, we heard the sound we’d feared. A squelch. Just the one, which indicated stealth and I felt Valla’s body go rigid.

      If God was privy to my thoughts and desires, then He must have known, even before I did, that I was fascinated by Valla and wanted to be worthy of her approval, yet everything I did or said seemed to inspire her scorn. Despite the cold and discomfort – despite even the terror of pursuit – I was almost painfully conscious of her body against mine and remembered with a weird pleasure the feeling of her fierce hold on my manhood as she’d held the knife at my throat.

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