The Pale Horseman

by Bernard Cornwell

  “I do, lord.”

  “Then let us hear the first.”

  Erkenwald gestured to another priest who was standing by the door leading to the passage at the back of the hall. The door was opened and a slight figure in a dark cloak entered. I could not see his face for he wore a hood. He hurried to the front of the dais and there bowed low to the king and went on his knees to the archbishop who held out a hand so that his heavy jeweled ring could be kissed. Only then did the man stand, push back his hood, and turn to face me.

  It was the Ass. Asser, the Welsh monk. He stared at me as yet another priest brought him a gospel book on which he laid a thin hand. “I make oath,” he said in accented English, still staring at me, “that what I say is truth, and God so help me in that endeavor and condemn me to the eternal fires of hell if I dissemble.” He bent and kissed the gospel book with the tenderness of a man caressing a lover.

  “Bastard,” I muttered.

  Asser was a good oath-taker. He spoke clearly, describing how I had come to Cornwalum in a ship that bore a beast head on its prow and another on its stern. He told how I had agreed to help King Peredur, who was being attacked by a neighbor assisted by the pagan Svein, and how I had betrayed Peredur by allying myself with the Dane. “Together,” Asser said, “they made great slaughter, and I myself saw a holy priest put to death.”

  “You ran like a chicken,” I said to him. “You couldn’t see a thing.”

  Asser turned to the king and bowed. “I did run, lord king. I am a brother monk, not a warrior, and when Uhtred turned that hillside red with Christian blood I did take flight. I am not proud of that, lord king, and I have earnestly sought God’s forgiveness for my cowardice.”

  Alfred smiled and the archbishop waved away Asser’s remarks as if they were nothing. “And when you left the slaughter,” Erkenwald asked, “what then?”

  “I watched from a hilltop,” Asser said, “and I saw Uhtred of Oxton leave that place in the company of the pagan ship. Two ships sailing westward.”

  “They sailed westward?” Erkenwald asked.

  “To the west,” Asser confirmed.

  Erkenwald glanced at me. There was silence in the hall as men leaned forward to catch each damning word. “And what lay to the west?” Erkenwald asked.

  “I cannot say,” Asser said. “But if they did not go to the end of the world then I assume they turned about Cornwalum to go into the Sæfern Sea.”

  “And you know no more?” Erkenwald asked.

  “I know I helped bury the dead,” Asser said, “and I said prayers for their souls, and I saw the smoldering embers of the burned church, but what Uhtred did when he left the place of slaughter I do not know. I only know he went westward.”

  Alfred was pointedly taking no part in the proceedings, but he plainly liked Asser for, when the Welshman’s testimony was done, he beckoned him to the dais and rewarded him with a coin and a moment of private conversation. The witan talked among themselves, sometimes glancing at me with the curiosity we give to doomed men. Lady Ælswith, suddenly so gracious, smiled on Asser.

  “You have anything to say?” Erkenwald demanded of me when Asser had been dismissed.

  “I shall wait,” I said, “till all your lies are told.”

  The truth, of course, was that Asser had told the truth, and told it plainly, clearly, and persuasively. The king’s councillors had been impressed, just as they were impressed by Erkenwald’s second oath-taker.

  It was Steapa Snotor, the warrior who was never far from Odda the Younger’s side. His back was straight, his shoulders square, and his feral face with its stretched skin was grim. He glanced at me, bowed to the king, then laid a huge hand on the gospel book and let Erkenwald lead him through the oath, and he swore to tell the truth on pain of hell’s eternal agony, and then he lied. He lied calmly in a flat, toneless voice. He said he had been in charge of the soldiers who guarded the place at Cynuit where the new church was being built, and how two ships had come in the dawn and how warriors streamed from the ships, and how he had fought against them and killed six of them, but there were too many, far too many, and he had been forced to retreat, but he had seen the attackers slaughter the priests and he had heard the pagan leader shout his name as a boast. “Svein, he was called.”

  “And Svein brought two ships?”

  Steapa paused and frowned, as though he had trouble counting to two, then nodded. “He had two ships.”

  “He led both?”

  “Svein led one of the ships,” Steapa said. Then he pointed a finger at me. “And he led the other.”

  The audience seemed to growl and the noise was so threatening that Alfred slapped the arm of his chair and finally stood to restore quiet. Steapa seemed unmoved. He stood, solid as an oak, and though he had not told his tale as convincingly as Brother Asser, there was something very damning in his testimony. It was so matter-of-fact, so unemotionally told, so straightforward, and none of it was true.

  “Uhtred led the second ship,” Erkenwald said, “but did Uhtred join in the killing?”

  “Join it?” Steapa asked. “He led it.” He snarled those words and the men in the hall growled their anger.

  Erkenwald turned to the king. “Lord king,” he said, “he must die.”

  “And his land and property must be forfeited!” Bishop Alewold shouted in such excitement that a whirl of his spittle landed and hissed in the nearest brazier. “Forfeited to the church!”

  The men in the hall thumped their feet on the ground to show their approbation. Ælswith nodded vigorously, but the archbishop clapped his hands for silence. “He has not spoken,” he reminded Erkenwald, then nodded at me. “Say your piece,” he ordered curtly.

  “Beg for mercy,” Beocca advised me quietly.

  When you are up to your arse in shit there is only one thing to do. Attack, and so I admitted I had been at Cynuit, and that admission provoked some gasps in the hall. “But I was not there this summer,” I went on. “I was there in the spring at which time I killed Ubba Lothbrokson, and there are men in this hall who saw me do it! Yet Odda the Younger claimed the credit. He took Ubba’s banner, which I laid low, and he took it to his king and he claimed to have killed Ubba. Now, lest I spread the truth, which is that he is a coward and a liar, he would have me murdered by lies.” I pointed to Steapa. “His lies.”

  Steapa spat to show his scorn. Odda the Younger was looking furious, but he said nothing and some men noted it. To be called a coward and a liar is to be invited to do battle, but Odda stayed still as a stump.

  “You cannot prove what you say,” Erkenwald said.

  “I can prove I killed Ubba,” I said.

  “We are not here to discuss such things,” Erkenwald said loftily, “but to determine whether you broke the king’s peace by an impious attack on Cynuit.”

  “Then summon my crewmen,” I demanded. “Bring them here, put them on oath, and ask what they did in the summer.” I waited, and Erkenwald said nothing. He glanced at the king as if seeking help, but Alfred’s eyes were momentarily closed. “Or are you in so much of a hurry to kill me,” I went on, “that you dare not wait to hear the truth?”

  “I have Steapa’s sworn testimony,” Erkenwald said as if that made any other evidence unnecessary. He was flustered.

  “And you can have my oath,” I said, “and Leofric’s oath, and the oath of a crewman who is here.” I turned and beckoned Haesten who looked frightened at being summoned, but at Iseult’s urging came to stand beside me. “Put him on oath,” I demanded of Erkenwald.

  Erkenwald did not know what to do, but some men in the witan called out that I had the right to summon oath-takers and the newcomer must be heard, and so a priest brought the gospel book to Haesten. I waved the priest away. “He will swear on this,” I said, and took out Thor’s amulet.

  “He’s not a Christian?” Erkenwald demanded in astonishment.

  “He is a Dane,” I said.

  “How can we trust the word of a Dane?” Erkenwald demanded
.

  “But our lord king does,” I retorted. “He trusts the word of Guthrum to keep the peace, so why should this Dane not be trusted?”

  That provoked some smiles. Many in the witan thought Alfred far too trusting of Guthrum and I felt the sympathy in the hall move to my side, but then the archbishop intervened to declare that the oath of a pagan was of no value. “None whatsoever,” he snapped. “He must stand down.”

  “Then put Leofric under oath,” I demanded, “and then bring our crew here and listen to their testimony.”

  “And you will all lie with one tongue,” Erkenwald said, “and what happened at Cynuit is not the only matter on which you are accused. Do you deny that you sailed in the king’s ship? That you went to Cornwalum and there betrayed Peredur and killed his Christian people? Do you deny that Brother Asser told the truth?”

  “But what if Peredur’s queen were to tell you that Asser lies?” I asked. “What if she were to tell you that he lies like a hound at the hearth?” Erkenwald stared at me. They all stared at me and I turned and gestured at Iseult who stepped forward, tall and delicate, the silver glinting at her neck and wrists. “Peredur’s queen,” I announced, “whom I demand that you hear under oath, and thus hear how her husband was planning to join the Danes in an assault on Wessex.”

  That was rank nonsense, of course, but it was the best I could invent at that moment, and Iseult, I knew, would swear to its truth. Quite why Svein would fight Peredur if the Briton planned to support him was a dangerously loose plank in the argument, but it did not really matter for I had confused the proceedings so much that no one was sure what to do. Erkenwald was speechless. Men stood to look at Iseult, who looked calmly back at them, and the king and the archbishop bent their heads together. Ælswith, one hand clapped to her pregnant belly, hissed advice at them. None of them wanted to summon Iseult for fear of what she would say, and Alfred, I suspect, knew that the trial, which had already become mired in lies, could only get worse.

  “You’re good, earsling,” Leofric muttered, “you’re very good.”

  Odda the Younger looked at the king, then at his fellow members of the witan, and he must have known I was slithering out of his snare for he pulled Steapa to his side. He spoke to him urgently. The king was frowning, the archbishop looked perplexed, Ælswith’s blotched face showed fury, while Erkenwald seemed helpless. Then Steapa rescued them. “I do not lie!” he shouted.

  He seemed uncertain what to say next, but he had the hall’s attention. The king gestured to him, as if inviting him to continue, and Odda the Younger whispered in the big man’s ear.

  “He says I lie,” Steapa said, pointing at me, “and I say I do not, and my sword says I do not.” He stopped abruptly, having made what was probably the longest speech of his life, but it was enough. Feet drummed on the floor and men shouted that Steapa was right, which he was not, but he had reduced the whole tangled morass of lies and accusations to a trial by combat and they all liked that. The archbishop still looked troubled, but Alfred gestured for silence.

  He looked at me. “Well?” he asked. “Steapa says his sword will support his truth. Does yours?”

  I could have said no. I could have insisted on letting Iseult speak and then allowing the witan to advise the king which side had spoken the greater truth, but I was ever rash, ever impetuous, and the invitation to fight cut through the whole entanglement. If I fought and won, then Leofric and I were innocent of every charge.

  I did not even think about losing. I just looked at Steapa. “My sword,” I told him, “says I tell the truth, and that you are a stinking bag of wind, a liar from hell, a cheat and a perjurer who deserves death.”

  “Up to our arses again,” Leofric said.

  Men cheered. They liked a fight to the death, which was much better entertainment than listening to Alfred’s harpist chant the psalms. Alfred hesitated, and I saw Ælswith look from me to Steapa, and she must have thought him the greater warrior for she leaned forward, touched Alfred’s elbow, and whispered urgently.

  And the king nodded. “Granted,” he said. He sounded weary, as if he was dispirited by the lies and the insults. “You will fight tomorrow. Swords and shields, nothing else.” He held up a hand to stop the cheering. “My lord Wulfhere?”

  “Sire?” Wulfhere struggled to his feet.

  “You will arrange the fight. And may God grant victory to the truth.” Alfred stood, pulled his robe about him, and left.

  And Steapa, for the first time since I had seen him, smiled.

  “You’re a damned fool,” Leofric told me. He had been released from his chains and allowed to spend the evening with me. Haesten was there, as was Iseult and my men who had been brought from the town. We were lodged in the king’s compound, in a cattle byre that stank of dung, but I did not notice the smell. It was Twelfth Night so there was the great feast in the king’s hall, but we were left out in the cold, watched there by two of the royal guards. “Steapa’s good,” Leofric warned me.

  “I’m good.”

  “He’s better,” Leofric said bluntly. “He’ll slaughter you.”

  “He won’t,” Iseult said calmly.

  “Damn it, he’s good!” Leofric insisted, and I believed him.

  “It’s that goddamned monk’s fault,” I said bitterly. “He went bleating to Alfred, didn’t he?” In truth Asser had been sent by the king of Dyfed to assure the West Saxons that Dyfed was not planning war, but Asser had taken the opportunity of his embassy to recount the tale of the Eftwyrd and from that it was a small jump to conclude that we had stayed with Svein while he attacked Cynuit. Alfred had no proof of our guilt, but Odda the Younger had seen a chance to destroy me and so persuaded Steapa to lie.

  “Now Steapa will kill you,” Leofric grumbled, “whatever she says.” Iseult did not bother to answer him. She was using handfuls of grubby straw to clean my mail coat. The armor had been fetched from the Corncrake tavern and given to me, but I would have to wait till morning to get my weapons, which meant they would not be newly sharpened. Steapa, because he served Odda the Younger, was one of the king’s bodyguards so he would have all night to put an edge on his sword. The royal kitchens had sent us food, though I had no appetite. “Just take it slow in the morning,” Leofric told me.

  “Slow?”

  “You fight in a rage,” he said, “and Steapa’s always calm.”

  “So better to get in a rage,” I said.

  “That’s what he wants. He’ll fend you off and fend you off and wait till you’re tired. Then he’ll finish you off. It’s how he fights.”

  Harald told us the same thing. Harald was the shire reeve of Defnascir, the widower who had summoned me to the court in Exanceaster, but he had also fought alongside us at Cynuit and that makes a bond, and sometime in the dark he splashed through the rain and mud and came into the light of the small fire that lit the cattle shed without warming it. He stopped in the doorway and gazed at me reproachfully. “Were you with Svein at Cynuit?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “I didn’t think so.” Harald came into the byre and sat by the fire. The two royal guards were at the door and he ignored them, and that was interesting. All of them served Odda, and the young ealdorman would not be pleased to hear that Harald had come to us, yet plainly Harald trusted the two guards not to tell, which suggested that there was unhappiness in Odda’s ranks. Harald put a pot of ale on the floor. “Steapa’s sitting at the king’s table,” he said.

  “So he’s eating badly,” I said.

  Harald nodded, but did not smile. “It’s not much of a feast,” he admitted. He stared into the fire for a moment, then looked at me. “How’s Mildrith?”

  “Well.”

  “She is a dear girl,” he said, then glanced at Iseult’s dark beauty before staring into the fire again. “There will be a church service at dawn,” he said, “and after that you and Steapa will fight.”

  “Where?”

  “In a field on the other side of the river,” he s
aid, then pushed the pot of ale toward me. “He’s left-handed.”

  I could not remember fighting against a man who held his sword in his left hand, but nor could I see a disadvantage in it. We would both have our shields facing the other man’s shield instead of his weapon, but that would be a problem to both of us. I shrugged.

  “He’s used to it,” Harald explained, “and you’re not. And he wears mail down to here”—he touched his calf—”and he has an iron strip on his left boot.”

  “Because that’s his vulnerable foot?”

  “He plants it forward,” Harald said, “inviting attack, then chops at your sword arm.”

  “So he’s a hard man to kill,” I said mildly.

  “No one’s done it yet,” Harald said gloomily.

  “You don’t like him?”

  He did not answer at first, but drank ale, then passed the pot to Leofric. “I like the old man,” he said, meaning Odda the Elder. “He’s foul tempered, but he’s fair enough. But the son?” He shook his head sadly. “I think the son is untested. Steapa? I don’t dislike him, but he’s like a hound. He only knows how to kill.”

  I stared into the feeble fire, looking for a sign from the gods in the small flames, but none came, or none that I saw. “He must be worried though,” Leofric said.

  “Steapa?” Harald asked. “Why should he be worried?”

  “Uhtred killed Ubba.”

  Harald shook his head. “Steapa doesn’t think enough to be worried. He just knows he’ll kill Uhtred tomorrow.”

  I thought back to the fight with Ubba. He had been a great warrior, with a reputation that glowed wherever Norsemen sailed, and I had killed him, but the truth was that he had put a foot into the spilled guts of a dying man and slipped. His leg had shot sideways, he had lost his balance, and I had managed to cut the tendons in his arm. I touched the hammer amulet and thought that the gods had sent me a sign after all. “An iron strip in his boot?” I asked.

  Harald nodded. “He doesn’t care how much you attack him. He knows you’re coming from his left and he’ll block most of your attacks with his sword. Big sword, heavy thing. But some blows will get by and he won’t care. You’ll waste them on iron. Heavy mail, helmet, boot, doesn’t matter. It’ll be like hitting an oak tree, and after a while you’ll make a mistake. He’ll be bruised and you’ll be dead.”