"Harrison, Harry - Hammer 1 - The Hammer and the Cross" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Thrall Chapter One
NORTHEAST COAST OF ENGLAND, A.D. 865
Spring. A spring dawn on Flamborough Head, where the rock of the Yorkshire Wolds juts
out into the North Sea like a gigantic fishhook, millions of tons in weight. Pointing out to
sea, pointing to the ever-present threat of the Vikings. Now the kings of the little kingdoms
were uneasily beginning to draw together against this threat from the North. Uneasy and
jealous, remembering the long hostilities and the trail of murder that had marked the history
of the Angles and the Saxons ever since they came here centuries ago. Proud warsmiths
who overcame the Welsh, noble warriors who -- as the poets say -- obtained the land.
Godwin the Thane cursed to himself as he paced the wooden palisade of the little fort
erected on the very tip of Flamborough Head itself. Spring! Maybe in more fortunate parts
the lengthening days and the light evenings meant greenery and buttercups and heavyuddered
cows trooping to the byres to be milked. Here on the Head it meant wind. It meant
the equinoctial gale s and the nor'easter blowing. Behind him the low, gnarled trees stood in
line, one behind the other like men with their backs turned, each successive one a few
inches higher than the one to windward, so that they formed natural wind-arrows or
weathercocks, pointing out to the tormented sea. On three sides all round him the gray
water heaved slowly like an immense animal, the waves starting to curl and then flattening
out again as the wind tore at them, beating them down and levelling out even the massive
surges of the ocean. Gray sea, gray sky, squalls blotting the horizon, no color in the world
at all except when the rollers finally crashed into the striated walls of the cliffs, shattering
and sending up great plumes of spray. Godwin had been there so long that he no longer
heard the roar of the collision, noticed it only when the spray reached so high up the cliff
that the water which soaked his cloak and hood and dripped onto his face turned salt
instead of fresh.
Not that it made any difference, he thought numbly. It was all just as cold. He could
go back into the shelter, kick the slaves aside, warm his frozen hands and feet by the fire.
There was no chance of raiders on a day like this. The Vikings were seamen, the greatest
seamen in the world, or so the y said. You didn't have to be a great seaman to know that
there was no point in putting out on a day like this. The wind was due east -- no, he
reflected, due east a point north. Fine for blowing you across from Denmark, but how could
you keep a longship from broaching to in this sea? And how could you steer for a safe
landing once you arrived? No, no chance at all. He might as well be by the fire.
Godwin looked longingly at the shelter with its little trail of smoke instantly whipped
away by the wind, but turned his pace and began to shuffle along the palisade again. His
lord had trained him well. "Don't think, Godwin," he had said. "Don't think maybe they'll
come today and maybe they won't. Don't believe that it's worth keeping a lookout some of
the time and it's not worth it the rest. While it's day, you stay on the Head. Look out all the
time. Or one day you'll be thinking one thing and some Stein or Olaf'll think another and
they'll be ashore and twenty miles inland before we can catch up with them -- if we ever do.
And that's a hundred lives lost and a hundred pounds in silver and cattle and burnt thatch.
And the rents not paid for years after. So watch, Thane, or it's your estates that will suffer."
So his lord Ella had said. And behind him the black crow, Erkenbert, had crouched
over his parchment, his quill squeaking as he traced out the mysterious black lines that
Godwin feared more than he feared the Vikings. "Two months' service on Flamborough