“What can I say or do to convince you?”
“Nothing, for now,” the old jarl said. “I march to Readingum tomorrow, with warriors for Halfdan. Guthrum will be there. You will march with us, and after we arrive at Readingum we will know the truth of what you say from Guthrum. If you have spoken the truth to me, all will be well. If you have lied to me, all will not be well.”
Geirmund could accept that easily enough. Guthrum would back him. He had planned to go to Readingum, and with Sidroc’s plan he would no longer be travelling alone as he’d expected to after parting ways with John. But John had not planned to go to Readingum, nor had he planned to march with Danes to battle. The priest would not be safe with Halfdan’s warriors, and Geirmund did not know what Guthrum would do with John when they reached the end of the journey.
“What of the thrall?” he asked.
“The priest is for Guthrum, is he not?”
“He is.”
“Then you will bring him. But he is your charge.”
That meant Geirmund would be responsible for any harm John might do, but it did not deal with the harm that might be done to him. “Do I have your word he will remain unharmed until we reach Readingum?”
“Your property will be respected,” Jarl Sidroc said, “as it would be for any Dane, and you will have the freedom of the camp.”
Geirmund bowed his head. “You are wise and fair.”
The old jarl waved him off and returned to his chair. The younger Sidroc stared at Geirmund a bit longer before he also sat, and then the bridge-Dane walked away without a word, returning to his post. Geirmund left the tent and looked for somewhere he and John could talk without being overheard, but also without raising suspicion, and eventually found a place near the river.
“I am sorry, priest,” he said.
“For what?”
“You were going to Lundenwic.”
“I was,” John said. “Now I am going to Readingum.”
“But I fear I have put you in danger.”
The priest shook his head. “I was the one who ignored your warnings, so it was I who put myself in danger.”
“Even so,” Geirmund said, “danger is danger.”
“And God is good.” John smiled. “Think of it as fate, if you must, but know that my god has not stopped leading me since I threw my sack into your boat. Tomorrow we march to Readingum, Geirmund of Rogaland, come what may.”
Part Three
The Great
Heathen Army
12
Sidroc the Elder proved true to his word. The Danes had marched for two days, and during that time the jarl and his son had treated Geirmund as one of their three hundred warriors, whereas John had been tolerated or simply ignored, neither treated well nor badly. Geirmund knew that to be only a temporary truce, and the priest remained in danger.
Earninga Street had gradually climbed out of the fenlands and lowlands, and at a crossroads on the second day the Danes had turned westward onto the road called Icknield. That track followed the ridgeway along a range of chalk hills, up and down through wooded dales. Geirmund thought it good land, green and rich, and though it seemed little settled by the Saxons, it would surely be claimed by one of their ealdormen or kings.
At dawn on the third day into their march, Sidroc the Elder summoned Geirmund and John to his tent before the morning fog had cleared. The jarl hadn’t brought either of them into his company since the day they’d met him at Huntsman’s Hill.
“What do you suppose he wants?” the priest asked as they made their way through the trees and the waking Danes.
“I don’t know,” Geirmund said. “But it troubles me.”
“We’re only a day’s march from Readingum,” the priest said. “Perhaps he means to limit our freedom for the last part of the journey, until we have been delivered to Guthrum.”
“Perhaps,” Geirmund said.
When they reached the jarl, they found him waiting with his son and several Danes, all of them fully awakened and armed. The mood in the tent felt as heated as stirred embers, and without knowing why Geirmund believed that he and the priest were in danger. Sidroc the Elder held a piece of parchment, and Geirmund could see that it had been written upon. The jarl stepped forward to face the priest.
“You can read and write, yes?” he said.
John bowed his head. “I can.”
“You will read this and tell me what is written.” Sidroc the Elder held the parchment towards him.
John hesitated, glanced at Geirmund, and then accepted it. “As you wish, Jarl Sidroc,” he said, and then he examined the writing for a few moments. His eyes widened. “It is a message to King Burgred, sent by someone in Wessex to keep Mercia informed of what goes on there.”
Jarl Sidroc began to pace. “Go on.”
John cleared his throat. “It says the Danes are encamped at Readingum, and their fortifications are strong. King Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, Ælfred, attempted an assault there, but Halfdan had received fresh warriors from the River Thames. The Saxons lost many warriors and were driven back. Among the dead was an ealdorman of Bearrocscire, one Æthelwulf, who had recently defeated a company of Danes in a skirmish at Englefield.”
“Is there more?” the younger Sidroc asked, but he wore the slight smirk of one who already knew the answer.
“Yes, there is more,” John said. “Æthelred and Ælfred are now at Wælingford. They hope to draw the Danes out of their fortifications for a battle on open ground at Ashdown.” John handed the parchment back to Jarl Sidroc. “That is the end of the message.”
Jarl Sidroc looked at John, then took the parchment and gave his men a nod. At that signal the warriors departed from the tent, and Geirmund found himself and John alone with the jarl and his son. The mood had cooled.
“You already knew what the message contained,” Geirmund said.
Jarl Sidroc nodded, while the younger Sidroc went on smirking.
“My father is not a fool,” he said.
John sighed. “Certainly not.”
“I took the opportunity to prove you, priest,” the jarl said. “I wanted to know if you would tell me the truth.”
“What if I hadn’t?” John asked.
“You would be dead.” The elder Sidroc spoke as though that answer should have been obvious. “Or dying slowly. But now I shall keep you safe. You will stay behind with the wagons.”
“Behind?” Geirmund asked.
“We march.” The jarl held up the parchment. “This message was written days ago. The battle may have already been fought, but perhaps it will be today. If it is today, then we must be there for it. But it will be a long, fast march. If Æthelred has strengthened Wælingford, we won’t be able to cross the river there. Instead, we will try to cross further south, at the Moulsford. If that is blocked, we will have to go even further south to cross at Garinges, and then travel north to Ashdown. I suggest you find something to eat now, while you can.”
Geirmund and John bowed their heads and left the jarl’s tent. They then went in search of a cookfire, where they received bowls of porridge with lard. They sat to eat away from the other Danes, and Geirmund asked the priest how he knew not to withhold the true contents of the message.
“Did you know somehow the parchment had been read?”
“No,” John said.
“Did you think to lie?”
The priest seemed to consider that question as though he didn’t know the answer straightaway. “Perhaps for a moment,” he said. “But I thought firstly about my god, who asks me to be truthful, and secondly about what a lie would mean for you, who had vouched for me, and I decided to deal honestly with the Dane.”
Geirmund shook his head and ate a mouthful of his porridge. “What do you know of this Wessex king and his brother, Ælfred?”
“I hear they are learned
men.”
“That does not make them clever.”
“But they are said to be clever also, and I hear they are pious and fierce warriors for Christ.”
“If they were clever, they would not be Christians.” Geirmund chuckled to himself. “Are you a warrior for Christ? Can you fight, priest?”
“Alas, I spent my time learning to use a quill, rather than a sword.”
“Can your quill write us to victory, then?”
“It can, even if you lose, but only after the battle has taken place.”
Geirmund scoffed. “Your quill can change the past?”
“Only what is said about the past, which is almost the same thing.”
As Geirmund finished his porridge, he thought about how different a Saxon tale of war would be from a tale of war told by the Danes, and he understood what the priest meant. When the oldest warrior who fought in a battle dies, and there is no one left who remembers it, the story of that battle can become the field of a new fight. Blood feuds had begun over such things, for tales could make or destroy reputation and honour.
“Can you fight?” the priest asked.
“I learned to fight,” Geirmund said. “But I have never been in a battle.”
“Are you frightened?”
“I know a man who would say that only fools are never frightened.”
“The skald again? Bragi Boddason?”
“No, a man called Steinólfur. With luck we’ll see him on the battlefield today.” He grinned at the priest. “I’ll try not to let him kill you.”
“I would be grateful for that.”
“Don’t fear, priest. You will be safe with the wagons.”
“I will pray nevertheless,” John said.
The Danes also prayed. Word had spread through the encampment that they marched to Ashdown, and the warriors made offerings to Thór, Týr, or Óðinn, asking for godly favours and strength in the fighting to come. Sidroc the Elder sacrificed a horse before his men, the sight of which seemed to cause John great distress. He tapped himself, drawing a cross from his forehead to his waist, and then he kissed the cross he wore around his neck and clutched it in his hand.
“Did you forget you travel with pagans, priest?” Geirmund asked.
“I did not forget. I think I never truly knew it.”
He seemed to almost tremble as he spoke, which Geirmund may have once seen as a sign of Christian cowardice. Having now travelled with the priest for several days, Geirmund knew he was no coward. His distress had another source that Geirmund didn’t understand, and he felt a measure of pity for the priest as he bade him farewell.
Jarl Sidroc drove his Danes at a furious speed, and they made quick progress along the ridgeway. Several rests on Geirmund saw a river below, flowing towards them from the north-west bearing many ships up and down. A short distance from there, the Icknield Way and that river came almost together, but the road turned sharply southward and ran a parallel course along the hills above the waterway. Geirmund assumed the fortified town and bridge he saw near the river to be Wælingford, where Æthelred had retreated.
Several more ships had gathered there, and the Saxons could no doubt see Jarl Sidroc’s Danes marching south. Geirmund wondered if they would attack or let them pass. To attack would require several hundred men to leave the safety of the walls, which the Saxons either did not have, or did not want to spare, for none emerged to stop them, and on they marched.
After midday they came to the Moulsford and found it unguarded. Directly across the river, at a distance of perhaps one rest, Geirmund could see two armies facing each other from the bald tops of opposing duns, forming human thickets over the land. An open valley lay between them, and it was clear that neither force wanted to give up its high ground to cross the valley and charge at its enemy uphill. The armies were too far away to discern banners or say which was Saxon and which was Dane, but Geirmund assumed the nearest, northern dun to be occupied by Saxons from Wælingford, while Halfdan’s Danes held the southern dun, having marched up from their fastness at Readingum. From their high vantages both would have seen the arrival of Jarl Sidroc’s warriors, and both sides appeared to possess warriors numbering in the thousands. In such a battle the appearance of even three hundred swords from a new direction could change the outcome.
The Moulsford crossed the river near enough the Saxons to put Jarl Sidroc in a flanking position, on the eastern side of their dun. Halfdan and Æthelred would undoubtedly see that and move to answer it, though it was not yet certain how.
Jarl Sidroc ordered his men to ford the river where it flowed knee-deep over a flat bed of rocks that stretched for nearly fifty fathoms of its length. Geirmund waded through, watching the Saxons as the cold water soaked through his boots, and by the time he reached the other side of the river the Saxons had apparently chosen to divide their force.
A seam opened in the thicket of warriors, and then its eastern half moved across the dun towards Jarl Sidroc’s Danes, descending its slope as if a shelf of earth had been loosed and now came sliding and roaring down, appearing three times as large as Jarl Sidroc’s force. The western half of the Saxon army stayed behind, keeping its claim to high ground.
Jarl Sidroc ordered his warriors to form lines and march to meet the enemy, despite their greater numbers. Geirmund had no shield to stand at the front, so he found himself at the rear with the warriors who were similarly ill-equipped, or possibly ill-trained, or perhaps only fearful. But reputation and reward were not earned by warriors who avoided battle, and Geirmund wished he could join the true fight.
Away to the south, Halfdan’s Danes also divided their force, to match the Saxons. The eastern wing charged down the face of the dun, rushing, it seemed, to join Jarl Sidroc’s warriors, while the other half remained on the hill, holding the opposing force in place on their northern peak.
Jarl Sidroc ordered a quickening of his warriors’ march over heath and scrub, and around a large thorn tree. Geirmund’s feet pounded the ground, and his vision darkened at the edges, as though he ran through a tunnel. They closed the distance between Dane-shield and Saxon-spear, and then the elder Sidroc urged his warriors into a full and howling charge. Geirmund drew his seax and added his roar, his fear rising, but he grappled with it until it turned to rage and fire in his blood.
When the front ranks finally collided, Geirmund stood too far back to see the impact, but he heard it as a roll of thunder down the line, shield against shield, shield against spear, spear against armour and flesh. He readied himself to fight and kill any that might breach the shield-wall, but none came, for neither the Dane or Saxon line had broken on that initial charge.
With the size of the Saxon force, Geirmund thought Jarl Sidroc’s Danes should have been overrun, but he quickly realized they only faced a part of the Saxon line. Away to the west, the enemy had formed a second front, creating a wedge to prevent the two Dane forces from uniting. As Jarl Sidroc’s men pressed against one wing, the Saxons would no doubt be prepared to receive Halfdan’s oncoming warriors at the other. The order went out by horn to push the enemy hard, perhaps to close the wedge and trap the Saxons between Jarl Sidroc’s men and Halfdan’s.
Despite their efforts, the Danes gained no ground, the ringing of their weapons and bashing of their shields an unceasing storm.
A few warriors closer to the fighting soon dragged the injured and dead from deep within the press, those who had fallen when sword or spear point found a gap between shields. The warriors who brought the wounded out carried them only far enough to prevent them from being trampled, laid their bodies on the heath, and dived back into the fray. Geirmund wasn’t yet fighting, so he sheathed his weapon and rushed forward to see how he might offer aid to the fallen.
The first warrior he reached spat blood high in the air with a forceful cough as he clutched at the base of his throat, just above his breastbone. Blood leaked from th
at wound, but Geirmund knew the greater part of it poured into his lungs. The man heaved himself onto his side, facing away from Geirmund, and coughed again, spraying the ground with red. Terror opened his eyes wide, and Geirmund noticed he had let go of his sword.
He was a dead man, that was certain, and it would not take long. Geirmund could only stay with him until the end, so he grabbed the warrior’s sword and reached around him from behind to force the weapon into the man’s bloody, slippery hand. Then he pulled that hand close to the warrior’s chest, and he held him in a cradled embrace as the warrior thrashed and drowned on dry land. Geirmund closed his eyes, remembering his own drowning, holding fast until the man went still.
A moment passed before Geirmund let go and rolled away. Then he noticed Sidroc the Younger nearby, watching him. The jarl’s son was still on his feet, but bent over, holding his hand to a bleeding wound in his side.
“If you need a sword, use his,” he said. “Keld would want that. You can always return it when we bury him.”
Geirmund nodded. Then he reluctantly took the dead man’s sword from his limp and lifeless fingers, wiped its bloody handle in the grass, and looked up to see Jarl Sidroc’s Danes falling back. He scrambled to his feet.
The line had not yet broken, but it seemed fragile. The Saxons had somehow pushed the Danes onto their heels and now pressed the advantage, hammering and driving them east the way they’d come, back to the river. In the chaos of that plight Geirmund couldn’t see what had become of Halfdan’s force, nor the Saxons at that wing of the wedge. He could only draw his seax in one hand and raise Keld’s sword with the other to face what was to come.
“Hold them!” he heard Jarl Sidroc bellowing. “Give no ground!”
But the Danes fell back, and sunlight pierced the widening gaps between their shields.
When they reached the large thorn tree, the Saxons finally broke the backbone of Jarl Sidroc’s line against it. Shields fell and swung like doors thrown open, letting the enemy through in a snarling flood.
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