The Great Heathen Army

by H A CULLEY

  I was also worried about father. He owned a chain mail byrnie, a pot helmet and a good sword. His shield was made from the best lime wood that grew on our own farm and it was banded with bronze. That meant that he would have been chosen to fight in the front rank with the nobles and the professional warriors. I knew, even at my tender age, that father and his companions would have to bear the brunt of the fighting.

  It wasn’t until Æscwin returned home wounded that we heard what had happened. He had been grouped with all the other archers and so he’d been separated from father and Alric before the battle. He was a skilled hunter and his bow and the arrows he made himself were well suited for killing deer and other animals. However, it wasn’t as powerful as a proper war bow, nor were his arrows intended for piercing chain mail.

  Not all Danes could afford byrnies – the tunics made of linked iron rings – or even leather armour, and he told us that he concentrated on those Danes dressed in woollen tunics like most of our fyrd. Æscwin and his fellow bowmen managed to inflict significant casualties at first; then the Danes formed what he called a shield wall and it proved almost impossible to hit the Danes after that.

  I was enthralled by my brother’s account of the battle but mother and the girls were naturally much more concerned about what had happened to father and Alric. However, Æscwin knew nothing of their fate, nor that of Thegn Jerold and his two sons. Godifu was almost hysterical with worry about her betrothed and burst into tears.

  To my shame, I was impatient to hear more about the fighting and regarded Godifu’s anguish as an unnecessary distraction. If he was dead, he was dead and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

  I was even more annoyed when mother declared that she wanted to hear no more about fighting; it was just too distressing for everyone – well, not for me it wasn’t. I had to wait until later that evening when we retired to the small bedchamber I shared with Æscwin and Alric before I was able to ask him to tell me what else he knew.

  ‘I don’t really know what happened, it was all so confusing, and terrifying,’ Æscwin began. ‘We were in front of our own spearmen and axemen and so I had a clear view of the Danes at first. Thankfully they didn’t seem to have many archers of their own but, as they came closer to us, a hail of javelins rose into the sky and came down amongst us causing a lot of deaths and injuries. I was lucky not to be hit but the men on either side of me were both killed. After that we retired – fled would be more accurate – through our own shield wall to the rear. From there we sent our arrows at high trajectory over the heads of our own men and into the rear ranks of the enemy.

  ‘I have no idea how much damage we did, nor indeed how the battle was progressing as all I could see was the backs of the rear rank of the fyrd’s spearmen. They were pushing at the backs of the men in front to hold the line steady. The next thing I knew was that men started to break away from the line and rush past us, throwing away their shields, spears, axes and anything else that would impede their flight. I knew then that the battle was lost.

  ‘The archers fled along with the rest, but at least we kept stopping in groups to send a few arrows in the direction of our pursuers. I like to think it bought us a little breathing space and eventually we reached a large wood just before night fell. By that time I was with a dozen men I didn’t know and I had no idea where the other archers from Cilleham had gone. We found a stream and drank before resting. A few had some stale bread and cheese and they shared it with the rest.

  ‘We put more distance between us and our pursuers that night but they may well have given up the chase by then. It took me two more days to get home, begging for scraps of food from settlements and farmsteads on the way. It wasn’t that the people were unwilling to give me food but there were so many of us that they couldn’t feed everyone.’

  ‘So you didn’t see either father or Alric after the rout began?’ I asked.

  Æscwin shook his head and looked at the floor despondently before speaking.

  ‘If they had escaped they should reach home tomorrow or the next day, if they don’t we have to assume that they are either dead or prisoners of the heathens.’

  ‘If they’ve been captured what will happen to them?’

  My brother looked at me bleakly.

  ‘I’ve heard that they either kill their captives, and none too quickly either, or they’ll make them thralls.’

  ‘Thralls?’

  ‘Slaves, but not like our slaves who we treat well. I have heard tales that all Scandinavians treat their thralls worse than dogs.’

  ‘Then I pray that they died in battle. That way they will have kept their honour.’

  I lay down but I found it difficult to get to sleep. When I did eventually drop off I had nightmares about Danish axemen trying to chop off my head.

  Ϯϯϯ

  It was three days before we had news of father and Alric. They had fought alongside the other men from Cilleham and, as they drifted back, many of them wounded, we heard what had happened from those who had fought alongside them. Father and Uncle Jerold had been together in the front rank and both had been killed during the first attack by the Danes. Some had seen both of Jerold’s sons fall too. Alric was towards the rear of the fyrd because of his age. The reeve told us that my brother had survived unwounded and had fled with him and a few others when the army broke.

  The reeve’s group had made it safely to some woods. Foolishly they lay down there for the night instead of putting more distance between them and the pursuing Danes. The reeve had been lucky. He had gone further into the woods and was squatting down to defecate when the enemy had surrounded the rest of his companions.

  He had watched, powerless to help, as a few who put up a fight were killed and the rest were carted off as prisoners. It was a full moon that night and, even under the tree canopy, he had recognised Alric as one of those being led away.

  Godifu had lost her betrothed and was inconsolable, but all of us were distressed by what had happened to our family. We didn’t even have their bodies to bury. It wasn’t until the reeve came to see Æscwin a few days after his return that the consequences became apparent to us.

  The reeve pointed out that Æscwin was Jerold’s heir now and so he would become the Thegn of Cilleham once he had paid the inheritance tax to the Ealdorman of Cent. The trouble was that Baldred had also fallen at Salteode and he had no living sons. Until the king appointed a new ealdorman Æscwin’s inheritance would remain in limbo.

  The situation was made even more complicated by the fact that the victorious Danes were rampaging all over Cent and so it was unsafe to send a messenger to the king.

  Everyone waited with trepidation to see what the invaders would do next. My brother half expected them to attack Cantwareburh, as they apparently had done fifteen years before, but we heard nothing further for a month. For some reason the Danes had decided not to complete their conquest of Cent, but to sail up to East Anglia instead.

  I had been fretting over the enslavement – or worse – of Alric and grew ever more resentful when Æscwin seemed more concerned about securing his position as thegn than he did about the fate of our brother. When he let our farmstead to a tenant and we all moved into the hall at Cilleham I decided that, if he wasn’t going to do anything, then I would have to.

  I might have been young but I wasn’t naïve. I knew that if I told my family about my intention to go looking for Alric they would have stopped me. Looking back on my decision now I think I must have been mad!

  I didn’t want to go alone so I involved Cei in my plans. He was a year older than me and the chance of escaping the drudgery that was his everyday life in exchange for excitement and adventure blinded him to the dangers and he had no hesitation in becoming my willing accomplice. Neither of us thought about the consequences. The punishment for a slave who ran away was death, whatever the circumstances, and I would be in serious trouble for abetting him.

  I waited until everyone was asleep. Now that Æscwin was the thegn, albei
t unconfirmed, he had his own chamber and so I had a small cubicle off the main hall all to myself. The servants slept in the main hall but, if any were awake, none paid me any attention as I crept out at midnight. Cei was waiting for me at the stables with two of the thegn’s riding horses already saddled. I had hidden a sack containing food for a few days, a water skin, a change of clothes and my warmest cloak under a pile of straw. Collecting that, together with my bow and a quiver of arrows, I mounted and Cei did the same.

  Apart from my bow I also had a seax – a short single-edged sword – and a dagger. Cei, being a slave, wasn’t allowed to handle weapons but at least he had an eating knife in his belt.

  We led the horses until we were out of the settlement and then we mounted.

  ‘Where to, master?’ Cei asked, his eyes shining with excitement in the moonlight.

  ‘North, into East Anglia. We need to find the Danes’ camp.’

  What on earth we were going to do once we found it, I didn’t know. It wasn’t something I’d thought about. It all seemed so simple as we rode away that night: find the Danes, locate Alric and rescue him. Little did I know then that it would be decades before I saw Cilleham once more.

  Chapter One

  Late Summer 865

  We stopped for the first night at Hrofescӕster, which meant the camp on the summit. It was where the Roman road known as Watling Street crossed the River Midweg. It was only a settlement but, because of the bridge, it was a staging point on the route from Lundenwic to Cantwareburh and boasted a sizeable tavern which had a similar layout to the ruins of a Roman villa I had once seen.

  The taproom lay across the quadrangle from the gate. Between the two on one side lay the stables and on the other there were cubicles for those staying the night. A colonnade ran around three sides of the quadrangle, giving it a rather grand appearance.

  Staying anywhere, other than in an isolated spot, was a risk but we were tired, hungry and very saddle sore. Cei’s mother was something of a healer and he had the foresight to steal an earthenware jar of her soothing balm before he left. I was used to riding, but not over such a long distance, and my inner thighs were sore. Cei’s must have been in an even worse state. Not only was he no more than an occasional rider, but his legs were bare and I saw that he was red raw where his legs had rubbed against the saddle. The balm helped but neither of us were that happy to remount afterwards.

  I had dug up the small chest of coins which was hidden in my chamber before I left so I had money. It wasn’t a fortune by any means, but it should meet our expenses if I was careful. I had distributed the silver pennies between the pouch which hung from my belt, the saddlebags containing our provisions and spare clothes, and a money belt that Cei wore around his waist under his tunic.

  Of course, I had no way of being certain that the slave wouldn’t desert me and steal the coins I had entrusted him with, but I was as certain as I could be that he wouldn’t betray me. He and I had grown up together on my father’s farmstead and we were as near to being friends as we could be, given our respective places in the social hierarchy.

  After riding for thirty miles with few rests along the way we were tired and filthy. We were also hungry having eaten nothing but a chunk of stale bread and some cheese for twenty four hours. The tavern appeared to be clean and the payment asked for a cubicle for us to share, stabling for the horses, a bowl of hot pottage and fresh bread seemed reasonable, so I paid up before we went down to the nearby river to wash ourselves. We then applied more balm to relieve the soreness.

  When we went into the taproom to eat I was immediately conscious that our clothes made us stand out. I wore a linen shirt beneath a fine wool tunic dyed light blue with embroidered border sewn around the neck, hem and bottom of the sleeve and red woollen trousers tied below the knee with yellow ribbons. I looked like the son of a noble whereas Cei’s rough brown tunic made of coarse wool marked him out as a slave or a poor villein. Neither would normally be away from the settlement where they were born, lived and eventually died.

  We sat in a corner eating an insipid pottage made of root vegetables and mopped up the last drops with coarse rye bread. We washed down with some foul muck that passed for ale in this place. The tavern might look grand, but the fare offered was anything but.

  Unfortunately, we had attracted the attention of the dozen or so men in the taproom when we entered and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that two unsavoury looking characters at a table near the door continued to take a particular interest in us.

  I suppose that a well-dressed boy of thirteen and another dressed like a pauper was an odd combination to be seen eating together. There wasn’t much I could do about our age, but I could alter our clothing and I resolved to do so as soon as possible. In the meantime I unsheathed my seax and placed in on the table. I hoped that it would serve as a warning that we were not entirely defenceless. In retrospect I now realise that I was being naïve. The two men saw us as easy pickings and the fact that I has a seax wasn’t going to deter them.

  Our ground-floor cubicle had a stout door with a locking bar that was held in place by two U shaped brackets. There was a small window at the back of the room which had a shutter that could also be barred on the inside. I therefore felt reasonably safe as we lay down for the night. I took the narrow truckle bed and Cei slept on the floor by the door. It was sometime after midnight when Cei woke me with his hand over my mouth. I could just see him holding his finger to his lips in the dim light indicating I should be quiet, then he withdrew his hand.

  ‘Someone is trying to lift the locking bar,’ he whispered almost inaudibly in my ear.

  I gestured to him to open the shutters over the unglazed window whilst I quietly put on my shoes. I motioned for him to climb out of the window and handed the saddlebags and our cloaks out to him, then I put on my belt and drew my seax.

  I went and stood by the door and watched as someone outside tried to lift the heavy oak bar with a sword which he had pushed into the gap between the side of the door and the frame around it. He was evidently having difficulty in getting enough purchase but I’d seen enough.

  I was about to join Cei outside the window but he whispered something to me that I should have realised. The gates leading into the courtyard would be locked from the inside and there were no windows in the stable block. Once we were outside the tavern there was no way that we could get our horses and we weren’t going to get far on foot.

  Suddenly I spotted my bow and quiver in the moonlight which I had put in a corner of the small room and then forgotten about in the excitement. I rushed over to grab it and then climbed out of the window to join Cei. I didn’t have long to wait as moments later the man with the sword succeeded in lifting the bar out of its bracket and it fell to the earthen floor of the cubicle with a loud thump.

  As soon as the first man rushed into the room I let fly my first arrow. The light from the moon was poor but he was a mere six feet away from me. I couldn’t miss and the arrow struck him in the throat. He fell to the ground, gurgling and trying ineffectively to pull the arrow from his neck; not that that would have saved him. Instead the increased loss of blood would have hastened his end.

  I nocked a second arrow to my bow string and let fly in one smooth motion that took no more than a second or so. A second man stood stock still in the doorway, paralysed by the unexpected fate of his companion. This time my arrow struck him in the centre of his chest, entering his heart and killing him instantly.

  I thought that I had dealt with both of the robbers, but the roar of rage that came from the other side of the doorway told me that the pair from the taproom were not alone. That was unexpected and I hadn’t drawn a third arrow from my quiver before two more men rushed into the room. I ducked down before they saw me and heard them asking one another where the devil we were. Just as they realised where we had gone I succeeded in nocking another arrow to my bow and, rising up, took quick aim and let fly a third time.

  It was a hurried shot and
the arrow lodged in someone’s shoulder. There was no time to shoot another arrow before the fourth man reached through the window and grabbed me by the front of my tunic. He had a dagger in his other hand and I watched in horror and he thrust it towards my neck.

  Inches before it struck Cei stabbed his eating knife into my assailant’s hand. The man yelled in pain and dropped the dagger. A split-second later Cei slit his throat. The man fell to the hard-packed earth inside the room and Cei leapt over the sill to dispatch the thief I had wounded in the shoulder in the same way.

  We stood there, Cei inside the cubicle and me outside it, feeling drained and exhausted as the adrenaline wore off. However, the disturbance had been loud enough to wake others. The partitions between the cubicles were constructed of thin planks of timber and did little to attenuate sound.

  ‘Go and unlock the main gates,’ I told Cei. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

  I gathered everything in my arms and ran around the outside of the tavern and waited impatiently for Cei to open the gates. Moments later he did so and we ran into the stables.

  We could hear the commotion as the bodies of the four men were discovered and a hue and cry was raised. I felt that we had every justification for killing those men but that would mean explaining what had happened to the local thegn and more than likely to the shire reeve as well. That would mean revealing who we were and, at the very least, we would be taken back to my brother and he would be asked to pay wergeld for the dead men. His inevitable reaction didn’t bear thinking about. I would be punished severely and Cei would be executed as a runaway slave. I therefore decided to flee before we could be detained.