Free Time of the Wolf by James Wilde Page B

comprised boards suspended over a straw-stuffed vault to keep the building warm in the winter months. Two feasting tables and benches ran the length of the hall, and at the far end, on a raised platform, was the earl’s seat, carved with dragons on the arm rests. When he listened, the warrior heard the cracked, dark wood of the throne speak to him of the old days, when men were great heroes filled with fire and vengeance, not weak, sickly things who used shadow-words to achieve their aims.
    Yet for all the comfort, his thoughts swept out across the frozen floodplain into the suffocating dark. He saw burnished helmets, and eyes glowing with fire, spearpoints stabbing toward the stars with each relentless step, and he knew there would be no peace for him in this life. Soon his enemies would be at the gates of Eoferwic and he would be forced to take a stand. But here it would be on his terms, perhaps even with good men at his back. He felt relieved that there would be no more running, and that he could finally be true to himself. Survival was nothing without truth.
    The messenger darted in from the cold, his ruddy cheeks and curly hair making him appear boyish. Hereward was reminded of Redwald and felt a pang of regret that he might never see his brother again. “Fear not,” the messenger gasped. “No enemies will reach you this night. Earl Tostig will join you shortly, but he has ordered men to watch the gates and to refuse entry to any strangers approaching during the hours of darkness.”
    When the young man had departed, the warrior basked in the warmth slowly returning to his frozen fingers and toes. He could smell the resin of the wood becoming sweeter as it sizzled in the flames, but then his nostrils flared as another scent reached him on the draught: spices brought in from the great hot lands beyond the sea and mixed in a paste made from tallow and herbs, which the women used to make themselves more appealing.
    â€œWhy do you hide?” he called. “Am I so fearsome?”
    A shape separated from the deep shadows at the rear of the hall. With hair as black as raven-wing and creamy skin, the woman was clearly not a Dane—nor English, Hereward would wager, though he could not place her homeland. She was, perhaps, a year or two younger than he, wearing a plain forest-green dress held by an oval brooch.
    â€œYou are not fearsome.” Holding her chin up brazenly, she strode to the hearth and flung a handful of dried leaves into the flames. A sweet scent filled the air. The earl was welcoming him, as he had hoped.
    â€œYou have never met any man like me,” he said in a wry voice. He watched her dress fold around the body beneath and realized how long ago he had last been with a woman.
    Perhaps glimpsing his lingering stare, she paused, teasing with her lips but eyeing him from a position of strength. “I see fresh scars, like those on the arms of any of the huscarls. I hear boasting, like the easy, empty words that echo from the mouths of boys who dream of being heroes but know in their hearts that they will never achieve that height. I see …” she made a noise in the back of her throat, “nothing I have not seen before.”
    â€œAnd yet you waste your breath talking to me.”
    â€œWhen I hear of a new arrival who has braved the lawless lands beyond the fence, on foot, in the middle of winter, I would see for myself if this is a fool, or one of the signs.”
    â€œSigns?” Hereward circled the hearth, watching the woman through the smoke. He saw a flicker of apprehension cross her face.
    â€œOf the End-Times.”
    The warrior shook his head.
    â€œAt the minster,” she continued, “I heard talk that Archbishop Ealdred has sent word out for all men to watch for signs that this is the End of Days. And across Eoferwic everyone whispers of some wise woman’s dream that Doomsday draws near.” The slave searched Hereward’s face for