Winter Siege Read Free

Valentine’s Day, it was the turn of Aenfled and her children to trundle a barrow into the marsh to fetch fuel. They’d left nothing behind in the woolly line and the thickness of their wrappings made them look like disparately sized grey statues perambulating through a grey landscape. Their breath soaked into the scarves round their mouths and turned to ice, but a veil of mist in the air promised that the weather might, just might, be on the turn. The children all carried bows and arrows in case a duck or goose flew within range.
    Tucked into Em’s belt was a little carved wooden key that Durwyn, Brother Arth’s son, had shyly and secretly shoved into her hand that morning.
    Gyltha wouldn’t leave the subject alone. ‘Wants to unlock your heart, he do. You got to wed un now.’
    ‘Sod that,’ Em said. ‘I ain’t never getting married and certainly not to a saphead like Durwyn. Anyways, I ain’t old enough an’ he ain’t rich enough.’
    ‘You kept his old key, though.’
    ‘Tha’ll be on the fire tonight,’ Em promised her. ‘Keep us warm.’
    They stopped; they’d felt the drumming of hoofbeats through their boots. Horsemen were cantering along the causeway behind them.
    ‘Get into they bloody reeds,’ hissed Aenfled. She pushed her barrow over the causeway’s edge and tumbled her children after it.
    Horses were rare in the fenland, and those travelling at speed suggested their riders were up to no good. Maybe these were friendly, maybe not, but lately there’d been nasty rumours of villages sacked by demons, women raped – sometimes even murdered – and grain stores burned. Aenfled was taking no chances.
    There was just time to squirm through the reeds to where the thick, bare fronds of a willow gave them some cover.
    Her hand clasped firmly over the mouth of her younger daughter, not yet old enough to be silenced with a look, Aenfled prayed:
Sweet Mary, let un go past, go past
.
    Go past, go past
, urged Em,
make un go past.
Through the lattice of reeds above her head, she saw flicks of earth being thrown up as the leading horses went by. She bowed her head in gratitude.
Thank ee, St Ethel, thank ee, I’ll never be wicked no more
.
    But one of the middle riders pulled up. ‘Swear as I saw something dive into that bloody ditch.’
    ‘Deer?’ One of the leaders stopped abruptly and turned his horse back. As he approached the wind picked up, lifting his robes and revealing the animal’s flanks, which were lathered white with sweat and dripping blood from a set of vicious-looking spurs.
    Keeping still as still, Em smelled the stink of the men above her: sweat, dirt, horses, blood and a strange, pungent odour that was foreign to her.
    ‘Could ’a’ been.’
    ‘Flush the bastard out then. What are you waiting for?’
    Spears began thudding into the ditch. One of the men dismounted and started scrambling down, hallooing as he went.
    Em knew they were done for. Then her mouth set itself into the thin, determined line that her sorely tried mother would have recognized and dreaded.
No we ain’t. Not if I lead ’em away
. She pushed her sister’s head more firmly into the ground and leaped for the bank. A willow twig twitched the cap from her head as she went, releasing the flame-red curls it hid beneath but, although she paused briefly, she didn’t stop for it. Now she was running.
    Aenfled kept Gyltha clutched to her, her moans and prayers covered by the whoops of the men. She heard the one who’d come into the ditch climb back out of it and join the hunt. She heard hoofbeats start up again. She heard male laughter growing fainter as the riders chased their prey further and further into the marsh. She heard the far-away screams as they caught Em, and knew her daughter was fighting. She heard the horses ride off with her.
    Birds of the marsh that had flown up in alarm settled back into their reed beds and resumed their silence.
    In the ditch Aenfled stopped praying.
    Except for her daughter’s