Forgotten Prophecies Read online

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  In the Land of the Meonwara (now south-eastern Hampshire), in the year 589

  Time passed. When the leaves began to fall late one year, the group found themselves in the Meon Valley, between Portsmouth and the old Roman city of Chichester. A string of rich farmsteads ran along the valley, they had heard, untouched by raiding folk such as them; the farms were theirs for the taking.

  They took the first farm easily. It was so small and the few occupants had no chance to resist; sadly the livestock and the grain harvest were already in a poor state. The group decided to move on.

  Eldred was surprised when they reached the next farm; the house in which the owners lived was an old run-down Roman building, with stone columns on the exterior and, he supposed, it must have looked very grand a long time ago. His band had hidden their horses and now laid low at the edge of the woodland overlooking the house while Eldred decided on a strategy. Here were oaks and elms, among the highest elm trees he had ever seen. It was much larger than the first farm they had raided earlier that day, and he could see nobody in the fields. This seemed much more promising.

  Suddenly, a rider appeared, advancing slowly on a fine horse towards them from the brick and stone house. From behind the trunk of the elm where he squatted, Eldred then noticed a girl walking beside the figure: his woman, perhaps. She was carrying a baby in her arms. Girl and rider stopped and turned to each other, spoke a few words, and then the man galloped off to one side, up the valley. She stood alone for a moment before turning back to the house; Eldred was near enough to hear her singing to the young child.

  She looks alone and vulnerable, he thought. They could move in now; it was a risk worth taking. He waited until she returned to the building; he would allow her time to settle, and then he signalled his men to advance with their accustomed stealth through the bushes and long grass.

  When they turned the corner at the end of the wall and reached the courtyard, they roared as they charged forward, inducing panic to the occupants.

  It was easy work: just like the previous farm they had raided today. A couple of farmhands, spirited but not trained to fight, and two mature women – who were deemed too elderly to be useful to his band – were all hastily put to death.

  The pattern worked well every time: surprise everyone, plunder, and move on when there was nothing left to take. The men had regarded this as good sport; few had ever been injured, and it kept their spirits high. He felt like a giant, striding through a strange land, grinning broadly; he was the commander, and saw no need to help himself to anything; it would all be shared later.

  Amid the excited clamour of looting around him, Eldred moved on, his proud sword drawn, and walked through a grey stone doorway which led into a bright chamber.

  His eyes were temporarily dazzled, and he put up his hand to his face to shut out the sun for a moment. Here it was silent: the noise had gone and he felt transported to a former age, when the Great Ones had dwelt in this place. Looking round, he noticed that the floor was richly decorated with mosaic; the walls were painted dark red and cream – the skin flaking with decay – but he could still make out faces of ancient men and women staring at him: the gods themselves had come here to witness this occasion. Confused, he wondered for an instant if he had been slain and sent to the Next Place. But he felt very much alive, for his heart began to race.

  And there, in the centre of the room, he came face-to-face with the young woman he had seen earlier. He quickly realised that, after all these long years, the fate which had been prophesied was waiting for him.

  For she was standing before him naked, ashamed, and he saw the mark – the holy mark on her thigh – that had been foreseen by the old woman in her divination so many years ago by the roadside in the land of the Franks. And she had a child sucking at her naked breast.

  Wigred, one of the younger members of his gang, had arrived a moment before. Now he stood in front of her, his knife poised at her belly, his long silence inducing fear into this helpless girl. “Let’s look at you,” he grinned forcing her hands away from her body.

  Eldred stepped forward. "Stop!" he called. "You – young woman – cover yourself! Now!" He gestured to Wigred to move away from her.

  Wigred and the girl were both looking confused at Eldred. She picked up her clothes from the floor and began to dress herself slowly as she watched the altercation between Eldred and Wigred.

  "I’m sorry, friend,” said Eldred. “But you can’t have her. The gods have promised her to me.”

  “What do you mean? I found her. We agreed that I could go first with any I found.”

  “Yes, Wigred. But not this one.”

  They stared at each other, willing each other to back down first.

  She put the child back in its cradle; it whimpered softly, and all eyes turned to the tiny, precious bundle. Then it returned to sleep.

  The silence had been broken. The men could return to their words. The young man’s face was red with anger.

  “Eldred, old man, I shall fight you for her,” he growled.

  “Hothead! You saw the strawberry mark on her leg.” He turned to her again. “You! Girl! Lift up your skirt!”

  She obeyed.

  “See, Wigred!” he smiled. “The old crone’s vision was right! At the house beyond the elms, I would find a woman with a birthmark on her leg! It has all been foretold, and I’ve told you about it often enough.”

  “That’s as maybe,” Wigred argued. “But I saw her first. And you’ll have to win her from me.”

  They glared at each other again in silence for a moment. “Very well,” Eldred agreed. “Now go and tell the others to cease the looting. They are to burn nothing. The bodies are to be buried honourably. Everything is to be left as it was found.”

  Wigred hesitated.

  “You heard me! Go now!” he thundered.

  The younger man left. When Eldred was alone with her, he approached slowly. She picked up the child and again and put it to her breast.

  “What are you called?” he asked with a strange, awkward gentleness.

  “I am Oswith,” she replied nervously in a northern dialect, her eyes down at the child feeding from her.

  So I have come to my destiny, he thought. At last, the gods have smiled upon me.

  He offered a grin, trying to reassure her. “I am called Eldred, son of Cenric of the Suth Seaxne.” He paused again, and then added, “And I have come here to live with you. We must talk, but later. First, I must attend to my young friend Wigred. I must leave – there is so much to do – but you must stay here with your baby. Do not try to run away, or I will kill you. And that will make me angry. Very angry.” He could never kill someone whom fortune decreed should be his wife, but it was necessary to impress on her the need for her to remain here.

  So what the old crone had said was true. But she had said so many other things; warnings, promises of greatness... he struggled to remember everything. He felt the unseen gods raising his stature physically as he admired this sweet girl’s soft features.

  Oh, what else had the wise woman told him? He could barely remember her gnarled face in the dim moonlight of that far-off world. Would his friend Guthlaf remember everything? He, too, would be amazed when he realised that all the other events she had foretold would also surely come to pass now. For that woman also knew of Guthlaf’s hidden past, of his former life in the company of the group at Glastonbury; it seemed logical somehow that she could correctly divine the future.

  He left her in the chamber with her young child while he walked round to supervise the reinstatement of everything in the house, as far as was possible. There were two old women lying dead on the kitchen floor; he ordered his men to carry their bodies out of the house. An old man, breathing his last, was laid to rest beside them. Nothing could be done to save him.

  When he was satisfied that everything was restored as much as possible, he returned to see the girl. She was waiting for him, now dressed in a gorgeous crimson gown, w
ith a silver chain as a headband and jewels round her neck, arrayed like a true queen.

  “You are beautiful, young Oswith,” he began. “Thank you for making yourself beautiful for me.”

  “What is going to happen to me and my baby?”

  He looked away and faced the wall. “Young Wigred and I are going to fight each other for the privilege of owning this fine farm. It is time I stopped my wanderings and settled down again. Here is as good a place as any that we have visited.”

  “You are no farmer. You know only of death and fire.”

  “Not so, lady.” He turned to face her again. “My father had a small farm outside Chichester, a long time ago. He taught me everything, until the robbers came. Then I had no choice but to become a bandit myself. Many of these men follow me, but not all. I could use most of them here to help bring the farm back to its former prosperity.”

  “But only if you kill that other animal in your contest.”

  “If I kill Wigred. He does not follow me. He is a wayward fellow, with a wife and family at home that he seldom sees. That is not good. I have no wife; that is why the gods brought us together today.”

  “And if he wins?”

  “The gods have not ordained it so. But if they are mistaken, and he wins, then I shall be dead. And he will not stay here long. He may keep you for a time, but as for your baby... it will not be good if he kills me.”

  They looked at each other seriously.

  “I am going to face him now. Do you want to come and watch us? It will be a good fight.” He smiled nervously.

  She shook her head.

  “Will you wish me luck, then?”

  She bent forward, and placed her lips on the hairy knuckle that clasped the hilt of the sword strapped at this side. In an instant she turned away to face the wall.

  He left her, and walked back to the courtyard to face Wigred. “It is time,” he announced. “We fight for the girl. To the death. And we fight with our bare hands alone.”

  The two men looked at each other as they slowly circled their arena, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Wigred roared suddenly and charged forward at Eldred, his hands outstretched to grasp his neck. Eldred – slower but with so many more years of combat experience – ran to meet him. Before they clashed, Eldred stepped aside quickly and tripped up his younger opponent. He was felled before the fight even started; the older man could hardly believe his luck, for it was as if his opponent had lain himself down as a ritual sacrifice, in obedience to a command from the gods.

  Seizing the opportunity, Eldred jumped on his back, pulled back Wigred’s head and repeatedly crashed it against the rough stone paving. He noticed blood spilling on to the ground; he had broken his nose. With a few more well-practiced movements, his adversary’s neck was broken. He hauled up Wigred’s trunk to examine his face and, satisfied that everything was nearly finished, he allowed it to fall gently.

  “Someone put him out of his misery,” Eldred called. “He doesn’t deserve a slow death.”

  Two men stepped forward and cut Wigred’s throat: a mercy killing. It was the custom. Then they hauled his corpse away.

  The prophecy that Eldred had forgotten for so long had at last been fulfilled. There was still so much that had to come about, but the wheels of destiny had been set in motion. He would have to deal with the man he had seen with the girl outside the farm in the moments before they had moved in to seize the place; he was sure to return, possibly with reinforcements to defend his property. Eldred would need to find some way to dispose of this man and anyone who followed him back here.

  At last, the gods seemed to have blessed him that day. Or had they? A dark doubt entered his mind. The woman had foretold so much else, and her exact words had been long forgotten. Henceforth, he would have to grasp life in his hands and put his trust in his own actions.

  He would put the old Frankish woman right out of his head forever, and all the superstitious nonsense she had told him. The incident would never be spoken of again: the misery of his time in slavery – and his escape from Neustria – belonged to an old world, a different world. A new life lay before him here. Why should he need to cling to silly predictions when he stood on the threshold of such happiness?

  Here I shall live my life afresh, he said to himself. It is an auspicious time for new beginnings. The gods themselves came down to see my arrival here in her sunlit hall.

  He looked around at his men. They would be content here. Our wandering days are over, and we can make a new life for ourselves. There was so much to do, and a golden future would grow from today. One day, we might be giants in this land.... Who can tell? he thought.

  He might one day become a folk-hero, a legend among men; then there would be no reason for him to fear death when it came. Only the gods knew how his life would spin out, not some silly old woman who claimed to be clairvoyant.

  THE END

  Thank you for taking the time to read this short story – I hope you enjoyed it.

  I’ve written some notes on the writing of this book in my blog at

  http://blog.robertcoleman.com/

  Robert Coleman spent 14 years in the British Army in the Middle East, Norway and Germany, before taking another position in the Ministry of Defence in London.

  Subsequently he was offered a role as head of administration at the London office of an international law firm and, later, became a management consultant.

  Appended on the next few pages is a section from a short story called

  Forgotten Prophecies, the prequel to Where the Guardian Rests.

  The third story in this series is currently in preparation: Oswith

  WHERE THE GUARDIAN RESTS

  by

  Robert Coleman

  An extract

  Two women, sisters, came to Eldred. One carried his new baby. They were wives of his men, and the woman nursing the child had recently had a stillbirth, and offered to feed his daughter. He gratefully accepted the offer.

  “What is her name?” she asked.

  “She has no name yet,” he answered. “I shall name her when her mother has been buried.”

  His mind ran over the girls’ names that he knew. He would have liked to name her Elsa, after her mother. It was not the custom to name children after their parents but, he thought, in this instance there must be some goodness in the idea, when the daughter’s life replaces the mother’s. But two people with the same name in the family always caused confusion with the saga-tellers, and he returned to the idea of a fresh name for the girl.

  It was the custom for mothers to name their children but, as with Edmund’s naming, there was no mother to take this role. He would name her at sunrise in the morning, before Elsa’s burial.

  Estrid – with the grace and beauty of the rising sun – Estrid would serve her well enough for a name.

  And now he would have to settle down to life again without the company of a woman in his bed. There were no free females in the compound; after a decent interval he would have to enquire in the neighbourhood. There was nothing like creating a family tie to cement friendship between the –

  “I can see something!” called an excited voice above him. A face looked down through a hole in the roof. “Five men – perhaps more – spreading out towards the huts, and coming this way. They have torches, and they’re almost up to the ditch!”

  “There’s another group on the other side!” cried a second voice on the roof.

  The men jumped to their feet, and raced to the door. They had to drive the intruders towards the old villa, where the others would be ready to finish them off. Women now stood by with pails and other vessels, full of water. After the main force had left, a team of youths went to defend the well just outside the hall, and women would follow them as soon as it was deemed safe. While the men defended their lives, the wives would defend their property.

  Eldred roared ferociously, like a demented animal, brandishing his axe and long knife, and led the chase. The raiding
party threw their torches in the air, lighting up the night sky for a moment; the defenders parried with stones and other, larger, missiles, before running after the intruders. Hand-to-hand fighting developed briefly, when iron met iron and flesh, and the clash of metal and the shouts and screams of men broke the tranquil night.

  The moon lit the strangers’ faces briefly and slowed down the reactions of all locked in the combat, anxious not to harm their own men. A confused moment came and went, and Eldred’s men were soon sweeping the foe towards their objective, its bold greying walls standing starkly in the near-blackness.

  Guthlaf’s men appeared behind the retreating invaders and surprised them, exactly as planned. Two men ran from the melee of stabbing and slashing, cutting and bruising; Eldred could not see who they were, but it was soon apparent to him that there were only three of the raiders left. The others had either fled or fallen.

  “Stop fighting!” he bellowed. “Lay down your arms, pigs, or you die now! Go and get torches, someone. I want to look at these animals!”

  Torches were brought and thrust before the faces of the disarmed men, their features shining in defiant sweat.

  “I want some of you to watch out for a counter-attack,” Eldred ordered, before returning to gaze at the three faces. “Now, what are your names, and who sent you?”

  “Names are of no account,” said one voice proudly. “You know who we are, and you will wish to speak more to me than to the others, I think.”

  A torch was moved nearer the speaker. Eldred had seen his eyes before; almost colourless, it seemed its stark pupils stood alone in their pink and white insets. But those eyes had belonged to another face he had slain three years before.

  “I am Wiglaf, brother of Wigred. You have slain my other brother, Wigwulf, in this skirmish. But remember: others will come one day. I have no sons, but Wigred left four: Wigherd, Wiglaf, Wigbert and Wigmund. Remember well those names : for I swear by the gods they shall all seek you out one day. One day, when you will be old and feeble, and they will come for you when you are not prepared!”