Paul Doherty
Song of a Dark Angel

The sharp, cruel wind swept in across the iron-grey sea towards the white headlands. It caught the tops of the waves and spun the icy foam into white flecks like snow. Those who lived in the villages near the eastern shore pulled their cloaks close about them and edged nearer the fire. The north wind, the Dark Angel as they called it, was making its presence felt. Soon it would rise, turning into fierce buffets. The inhabitants of Hunstanton huddled deep in their beds and hoped the storm would exhaust itself before daybreak. The wind, however, sang on; it tossed the sand and brushed the hairs of the severed head fixed on a pole beside the bloodied corpse sprawled on the shingle and rushed on to tease and play with the corpse of the long-haired woman that swung from the scaffold on the cliff top.

The Dark Angel, singing its sombre song, was accustomed to such cruel sights: this was the Wash, the large, inland sea that thrust into the soft Norfolk countryside – a violent, changeable place with its sudden tides, treacherous whirlpools, mud-choked rivulets and crumbling cliffs. It had seen the landing of the Vikings and the invasion of the Danes and, in the old king's grandfather's time, had witnessed the destruction of a royal army and the disappearance of a king's ransom in treasure. The Dark Angel swept inland, leaving behind its macabre playthings. The woman still danced at the end of the rope; on the deserted shingle, the sightless eyes of the decapitated head continued to gaze into the sea mist which boiled and swirled before it, following the wind inland.