The Great Heathen Army

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by H A CULLEY


  ‘Oh dear, has Eforwic fallen then?’

  ‘Yes, King Ælle and his brother expected the Danes to cross the Ðarcy at Tateshalla but they crossed the Hymbre instead. By the time that our army reached Eforwic it was already in Danish hands. We didn’t arrive in time for the battle, unfortunately, and by the time we did it was all over.’

  ‘You don’t sound like a Northumbrian,’ she said suspiciously.

  ‘I’m not. I’m from Cent. The Danes captured my brother at the Battle of Salteode and I came north to rescue him.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Did you succeed? Where is he?’

  She sounded a little sceptical.

  ‘He’s in a poor way, half-starved and recovering from a broken arm. I left him and two others from Cent who we also rescued with the rest of our group outside the settlement whilst we came to buy a few essentials.’

  She seemed convinced by my explanation and my reference to Ulf and the rest of our group was intended to give the impression that there were more of us than there were.

  ‘Then I mustn’t detain you any longer.’

  ‘Lady, the Danes are busy ravaging the countryside around Eforwic. I have no idea whether they will come here but one of the youths we freed overheard a conversation which indicated that they intend to make the River Tinan their northern boundary.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning,’ she said, wringing her hands. ‘God go with you.’

  ‘And with you, lady.’

  I remounted thinking she would need all the help she could get. I hoped her husband was on his way home safely as I didn’t get the impression that she would be much good in a crisis. Certainly she didn’t compare to Leofflæd, with whom I was becoming more and more impressed. I was convinced that she would have risen to the challenge brilliantly.

  We managed to buy most of what we needed in Catrӕth except for chainmail and helmets for those without. Instead I bought several padded linen gambesons and leather hoods. We even manged to find bows. The one thing that wasn’t for sale was horses. I was told that the horse fair took place once every three months and I’d missed the last one by a week. I asked if there were any breeders nearby and I was told that there was a farmstead at Malsenþorp that might be able to supply what we needed.

  Our present stock of eight horses were a mixed bag: three rounceys, a pack horse and four nondescript farm horses that we had taken from the Danes. They were all tired and some were too large for their riders. My hope was that we could trade them plus a little silver for twelve new ones. I still had some money left but not a great deal. Thankfully we still had quite a lot of provisions in the cart, but not enough to see eleven of us through the coming winter.

  I was told that Malsenþorp lay six miles north of Catrӕth. However, the Roman road divided before we got there and I debated which way to go.

  ‘Do you know where the road that runs north-west goes?’ Leofflæd asked, riding up beside me.

  I shrugged. ‘All I know if that we are still south of the River Tinan and therefore in the area claimed by the Danes.’

  ‘Or so Jerrik and Øwli say.’

  ‘You don’t believe them?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘I have no reason not to,’ she replied guardedly, ‘but it was just a few drunken heathens boasting. How would they know their masters’ plans?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s all the information we have for now.’

  ‘True,’ she muttered, flashing me a smile. ‘Come on then, Jørren, be a man and make a decision.’

  She flushed me a radiant smile to rob her jibe of any insult and I realised what a pretty girl she was. I grinned back, but rather sheepishly I fear. I suddenly felt awkward in her company.

  ‘Very well, we’ll take the right fork and look out for a track off to the left after a couple of miles.’

  Roman roads had marker stones every mile, although many were now missing. However, we were in luck. After passing two milestones there it was: a clear track leading off to the west. We hadn’t gone far along it before we saw Malsenþorp ahead of us.

  It was rather more than a farmstead, more like a small settlement. I counted seven huts in addition to a small hall and there were two barns and a long stable block. The land around it was pasture on which sheep and few cows grazed but what drew my attention was the herd of horses. There must have been at least thirty mares and stallions together with several foals between three and six months old.

  As we approached men appeared armed with everything from rusty old swords to wooden pitchforks. What concerned me, though, was the three armed with bows. Two men and a boy of about fifteen had nocked an arrow to their bowstrings and the points were now pointing straight at me.

  I told my little cavalcade to halt. Then I rode forward, dropped my spear, sword and seax to the ground. My bow and quiver followed, as did my helmet. Then I continued to walk my horse forward towards the man in the centre who looked to be the ceorl who owned the farmstead.

  I stopped, held up my hand to indicate that I came in peace, and dismounted. A boy appeared from nowhere and took the reins of my horse as I walked up to the ceorl.

  ‘What do you want, boy?’ he barked at me.

  ‘I’m hoping we can do business,’ I said with a smile.

  ‘You’re not Danes?’ he said with relief.

  ‘No, at least I’m not. Three of my men are, but they are on our side. My name is Jørren of Cilleham.’

  ‘Cilleham? Never heard of it.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t have done. It’s in Cent.’

  He still looked at me blankly so I added ‘part of Wessex.’

  He evidently had only a vague idea of where Wessex might be, but at least he’d heard of it. He gestured for his men to lower their weapons and I felt much happier once the three bows were no longer trained on me. My byrnie was of good quality and the bows were the less powerful hunting variety but I had no wish to put my chainmail to the test.

  ‘Your er, um men can stay there but you are welcome to join me for some refreshments in my hall.’

  He was obviously puzzled by our youth and had sought the right word before deciding on men.

  ‘May they have some water? And I would be grateful if the horses could graze and drink from the trough over there.’

  He nodded and shouted across to one of his men before escorting me into the hall. It reminded me of the one in which I had grown up. It was dark and gloomy, a fire burned in the central heath over which a cauldron hung. A woman was adding ingredients for that evening’s meal but she ignored us. The floor was of beaten earth and the place smelt of smoke, and unwashed bodies.

  We sat down at the one long table in the room and a slatternly looking girl brought us two earthenware goblets filled with ale and a platter of bread and cheese. The ale was surprisingly good and the bread was freshly baked. The cheese was full of flavour too. It was a far cry from the stale bread and hard cheese that I had grown used to. I toyed with the idea of staying there but it was still south of the Tinan and a prosperous horse farm like this would be a draw to the Danes.

  ‘Now, you haven’t come here all the way from Cent for the pleasure of my company,’ he said.

  ‘No, the Danes have captured Eforwic and they intend to spend the winter there, raiding all of Deira,’ I told him.

  He immediately looked concerned. He knew as well as I did that Danes needed horses to move over the land as swiftly as their ships did over the sea and up the rivers.

  ‘Thank you for the warning. It sounds as if I’d be well advised to move my stock up into the hills.’

  ‘I was hoping to buy some of that stock off you in exchange for our horses and some silver.’

  ‘Pardon me for saying so, but from the little I’ve seen of your horses they vary in quality somewhat.’

  ‘Farmers need workhorses. I presume you sell those as well as riding horses for the thegns and rich ceorls,’ I said with a smile.

  ‘Yes, and I presume that you need strong working stock, not fancy palfreys, in exchan
ge?’

  ‘Yes, eleven riding horses and one cart horse.’

  ‘I suggest we make it a dozen just in case one gets sick. Mares or stallions?’

  ‘Mares. They are less feisty and not all my men are expert riders.’

  ‘Good. Let me go and look at your stock and then we can talk money.’

  He drove a hard bargain and when we left I had a mere forty silver pennies left in my pouch, but we had bought more oats and two barrels of root vegetables as well as the twelve mares and a proper cart horse. Now we needed a secure place to stay for the next few months whilst Alric recovered and I trained the various waifs and strays I’d collected along the way how to fight.

  Chapter Six

  Autumn 866

  Alric had recovered sufficiently to ride a horse. However, he wouldn’t be able to control it properly until his right arm had recovered its full strength, so Leofflæd rode beside him holding his reins. She had nursed him back to health and the two seemed to have grown quite close. I tried to repress my jealousy but it was no good. I cared for my brother deeply, but I was falling in love with Leofflæd. Of course I was being ridiculous. She was nearly seventeen and I wouldn’t be fifteen for several months yet. I tried to put her from my mind, but seeing her every day and all day was eating away at me.

  It cost me another two silver pennies for the ferry over the River Tes. Once over it we were in Bernicia, rather than Deira, but still in Northumbria. I was beginning to realise just how enormous Northumbria was. I was told that Bernicia was much longer from north to south then Deira was. Perhaps we would now be safe from the Danes but I wasn’t prepared to risk it.

  Two days later we came to another river – the Wejr. This time there was a timber bridge over the river; there was a toll but it was only half a penny. Upstream the river curved to the south from the bridge around a step sided hill on which there was a sizeable settlement. The toll collector told me it was called Dunholm and it was the seat of the local Ealdorman.

  Dunholm was surrounded on three sides by the river. That coupled by the steep slopes leading down to the water made it difficult to attack. The only way into the settlement was via a narrow isthmus across which a palisade with two narrow gates had been built; one for entry and one for exit. The sentries on the entry gate demanded a tax of a silver shilling to take the cart in and a smaller charge for each horse. So we left Redwald and the three Danish boys to guard the cart and our horses and the rest of us walked in for nothing.

  I was well aware that we would need shelter for us and the horses during the coming winter and reasoned that we might have to build a hut and stables ourselves. We therefore sought carpentry tools. I also wanted everyone to have a shield and there were other items I thought might be useful. By the time we had bought everything we needed I had exactly nine silver pennies left.

  We camped that night a little way north of Dunholm. Halfway through the night a thunder storm woke us and we spent the next few hours calming the horses and getting thoroughly soaked in the process. I planned to spend the next morning drying everything out but we never got the chance. Just before dawn we heard the distant sounds of fighting.

  Erik and I rode back to see what was happening and stopped just inside the woods near the bridge over the Wejr. Danes were crossing the bridge and already there were several hundred on the isthmus in front of the gates. The sounds of battle came from the top of the palisade where the garrison of Dunholm was fighting off Danes with scaling ladders who were already in possession of part of the walkway on top of the palisade. It seemed that the Danes hadn’t stopped at the River Tes after all.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Erik whispered and I nodded.

  My decision not to relax after we had crossed the Tes had been vindicated.

  We hurriedly decamped, although I was fairly confident that none of the Danes would venture north of Dunholm for a day or two. They would be too busy sacking the place, celebrating and then recovering.

  We stopped in a clearing after five miles. I was confident that we were safe but I put out two sentries just in case whilst we built a fire to dry our clothes and then polished the rust off our byrnies, helmets and weapons. We rubbed the horses down with straw and broke our fast. Three hours later we were on the move again.

  The next night was incident free and early the next morning we reached a wide river which I thought must be the River Tinan. What I wasn’t expecting was to see a wall on the far bank. This was built of stone and stretched from east to west as far as the eye could see. Sections of it had collapsed but the rubble effectively blocked our way through it. However, the first problem was crossing the river.

  We were still following the old Roman road and there had been a bridge here at one time. Now all that remained were the first spans on either bank. There was a large ferry capable of carrying four horses or a cart at a time across the river, but it was moored on the north bank and no one in the nearby hut responded to our shouts.

  ‘What do we do?’ Leofflæd asked after several minutes of fruitless calling.

  ‘Head upstream and see if we can find a bridge or a ford, I suppose,’ I answered.

  I consoled myself with the thought that at least I wouldn’t have to part with anymore silver pennies.

  There was a track of sorts along the south bank but it was slow going with the cart. It took us three hours to cover ten miles and then we came to a timber bridge over the river that was just wide enough for the cart. On the far bank there was a small settlement of a few huts and a stone built church. There were a few strips of arable land and a pasture on which a few sheep and cattle grazed. The whole was enclosed by a thorn hedge. It looked for all the world like a monastery, but on a much smaller scale.

  As we crossed the bridge two men in monk’s habits came out of the enclosure and greeted us. They said that this was a priory, a daughter house of the monastery at Hagustaldes. I asked about the wall which ran a few hundred yards behind the priory and I was told that it was built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian many hundreds of years ago. At this point the wall was just a pile of rubble and I presumed that the monks had used the stone to build their church.

  We paid the silver penny they asked and rode north a little way. A hundred yards behind the remains of the wall there was a road running east to west which appeared to follow the line of the wall.

  ‘Which way do you think?’ I asked Redwald.

  ‘The wall seems to be in better repair in that direction,’ he replied, pointing to the west. ‘Perhaps we could built our hut and stables against the wall there?’

  Knowing that we had heathen Danes with us I wanted to be a little further away from the good monks, but Redwald’s idea of using the wall to build against was a good one. We turned westwards and followed the overgrown road.

  After two miles we came across the ruins of what must have been a large fortress once upon a time. A few hundred yards further on there were remains of a tower. There was another one in better repair a third of a mile or so further on. I considered using it as our base, but it was too small. Then we struck lucky. About a mile away from the ruins of the fortress there was a small fort which was almost intact.

  We dismounted and walked in through the gateway. It measured perhaps eighteen yards deep by twenty yards across. The walls were twenty feet high and ten feet thick. There was a walkway all the way around the top of the wall with what looked like teeth with gaps to protect the defenders on the walkway. Some of the teeth had fallen away but most were intact. The paving of the walkway had disappeared in one place, revealing the rubble that filled the gap between the outer and inner walls. In time rain and frost would erode that corner and inevitably the walls in that area would collapse. I determined to find suitable slabs somewhere to repave the section, but I had no idea how to make the mortar the Romans had used to join the slabs, which protected the interior of the wall from the weather.

  The stone steps leading up to the walkway had also deteriorated quite badly and I decided to repl
ace them in timber. We could use the stone from the original steps elsewhere.

  There was a second gateway on the north wall. Unlike the southern gate this one was protected by a tower, probably to give the sentry a better view looking north. Inside the fort there were the foundations of two buildings either side of the road running between the two gateways. All that was needed were new wooden gates and two timber buildings constructed on the existing foundations: a hall for us to live in and a stables for the horses. We would also need a storehouse and a smoke house but the latter could be built outside the fort.

  Ϯϯϯ

  I was still growing, as were the others, so that meant new clothes. More importantly our byrnies were now rather tight. Redwald had appointed himself as our carpenter and he pointed out that, although wood was plentiful locally, we would also need a lot of iron nails. From what the monks had told us about Hagustaldes I was certain that we could get what we wanted there. The problem was going to be paying for it all.

  It was Cei who suggested the solution.

  ‘Jørren has paid for everything so far but we all benefit from what he buys. I appreciated it when he gave me a pouch of silver but I have spent very little of it. I am quite prepared to give it back to Jørren so that we can make this place fit to live in over the winter and to buy clothes for us all as well as put extra links in our chainmail.’

  He looked around the others and one by one they handed me the silver I’d given them what seemed like an age ago now. I counted it out. We now had thirty four silver pennies. It should be more than enough for what we needed.

  I took Redwald, Cei and Ecgberht with me. Cei drove the cart and the rest of us rode. There was no palisade around the settlement but there was a thorn hedge around the nearby monastery. As it sat on the north bank of the Tinan the thought crossed my mind that it would be easy pickings for the Danes if they rowed this far upstream. We found everything we needed and left our byrnies with the blacksmith for him to insert rows of extra rings in accordance with the measurements I gave him. I had allowed a few inches extra for future growth as well. We left after arranging to pick up the byrnies the following week.

 

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