“But they are preparing well for the Danes. Look there.” She pointed to a huge pile of large blocks of stone on the far side of the enclosed yard. “It looks as if they plan to build a more sturdy wall.”
“Aye, we saw more stone outside the wooden fence,” he agreed, then laughed contemptuously. “The Danes will be here before they can finish it.”
Kristen shrugged, for that was nothing to them. They would escape from this place long before then, she had no doubt.
Glancing back at the large building, she frowned a little. “That hall is big enough that it must belong to an important lord. Do you think the tall one might be their lord?”
“Nay. From the little I could understand of what they said, the lord of this place is not here. But I think he was sent for. I really should have given you more attention when you were trying to teach me old Alfreda’s tongue.”
“Aye, you should have, for you are the only one who can speak for us if I am to be a mute.”
He grinned. “Will it be too hard on you, to keep your mouth shut when they are near?”
She made a sound very much like a snort to show what she thought of his teasing. “I will manage somehow.”
Chapter Eight
One brave man had walked in among the Vikings to plant a torch in a hole in the post they surrounded. Six guards stood near with swords in hand in case the Saxon was set upon. Kristen hid a grin as the man passed near her. She had heard them arguing about who would carry the torch, for none of them wanted to get this close to the prisoners, even chained as they all were and lying and sitting about in relaxed positions. With so many wounded, they offered no threat, at least not at the moment. But the Saxons weren’t taking any chances.
The torch was not for the prisoners, but for the three men who remained to guard them, so they could better see the prisoners now that night had fallen. No food had been brought for them, nor bandages to tend the wounded. This boded ill. They needed food for strength if they were to escape. No food could mean many things, including that they were not to live long.
That possibility was confirmed a while later when the guards began talking among themselves. The Saxon who had walked among them, obviously feeling bold now that he had done so and had come to no harm for it, spoke the loudest, his voice carrying to them all.
“Why does he keep looking at you while he brags?” Kristen asked Thorolf.
“I am the only one who was able to speak for us earlier. They thought we were Danes,” he said with a measure of contempt. “I disabused them of that fact. The Danes are here to steal their land. We only wanted to steal their wealth.”
“And you thought that would make them deal more kindly with us?” she scoffed.
Thorolf chuckled. “It did no harm to point it out.”
“Nay?” she asked darkly. “Then you are not listening to what they are saying.”
“In truth, the little bastard is talking too fast for me to understand more than a few words. What does he say?”
Kristen listened for several moments, then could not stop the look of disgust that came over her features. “They mention someone called Royce. One says he will makes slaves of us. The braggart swears he hates all Vikings too much to keep us alive and will torture us to death as soon as he returns.”
She did not add that the little braggart the others called Hunfrith had gone on to describe the torture, suggesting that the one called Royce would make use of the Vikings’ own ingenuity, doing to the prisoners what the Danes had done to the King of East Anglia when he was captured. The King had been set against a tree and used for archery practice until he bristled with arrows like a hedgehog. And when he was torn away from the tree, still alive, his back was ripped open, exposing his rib cage. A gruesome torture indeed, but one of the other guards suggested the prisoners would more likely be hacked into small pieces, kept alive as long as possible, and forced to watch as each severed limb was thrown to the dogs to eat.
There was no point in Kristen telling all that to Thorolf. Torture was torture, no matter what form it took. If they were to die when the man called Royce arrived, then they should be making plans for escape immediately.
She turned around to look at the tall post around which they were circled, judging it to be as tall as three men. The chains running from one man’s ankle to the next were longer than she could have hoped for, at least two arms’ length, a stupid move by the Saxons, for this gave them ample room to maneuver.
“It should take only three men, mayhap four, to climb that post to set us all free from it,” Kristen speculated aloud.
“Which is no doubt why they made sure no three of us in a straight line were without serious wounds.”
Ivarr said this, and she looked at him to see the open leg wound he pointed to that would make it nearly impossible for him to scale the post. And the man on the other side of Thorolf still had the head of a spear embedded in his shoulder.
“I could carry one man with me,” Thorolf said, “but the going would be too slow. We would have arrows in our backs before we got near the top.”
“Could you unroot that post?” she ventured.
“We would have to stand to do that, and that would forewarn them what we were about. We could push it over, but it would fall slowly and they would still be warned and be on us instantly with their swords. Even if we should still succeed after that, too many of us would die and be dead weight to hinder the rest of us, chained as we all are. If they are smart, they would not even come close to us so that we could get at their weapons, but pick us off with arrows from afar.”
Kristen groaned inwardly. “So with the chains keeping us together, we have no hope?”
“Not until our wounds are healed and we can get our hands on some weapons,” Ivarr replied.
