The Pale Horseman

by Bernard Cornwell

  He was right, I thought. Striking an armored man with a sword rarely achieved much except to make a bruise because the edge would be stopped by mail or helmet. Mail cannot be chopped open by a sword, which was why so many men carried axes into battle, but the rules of trial by combat said the fight had to be with swords. A sword lunge would pierce mail, but Steapa was not going to make himself an easy target for a lunge. “Is he quick?” I asked.

  “Quick enough,” Harald said, then shrugged. “Not as quick as you,” he added grudgingly, “but he isn’t slow.”

  “What does the money say?” Leofric asked, though he surely knew the answer.

  “No one’s wagering a penny on Uhtred,” Harald said.

  “You should,” I retorted.

  He smiled at that, but I knew he would not take the advice. “The big money,” he said, “is what Odda will give Steapa when he kills you. A hundred shillings.”

  “Uhtred’s not worth it,” Leofric said with rough humor.

  “Why does he want me dead so badly?” I wondered aloud. It could not be Mildrith, I thought, and the argument over who had killed Ubba was long in the past, yet still Odda the Younger conspired against me.

  Harald paused a long time before answering. He had his bald head bowed and I thought he was in prayer, but then he looked up. “You threaten him,” he said quietly.

  “I haven’t even seen him for months,” I protested, “so how do I threaten him?”

  Harald paused again, choosing his words carefully. “The king is frequently ill,” he said after the pause, “and who can say how long he will live? And if, God forbid, he should die soon, then the witan will not choose his infant son to be king. They’ll choose a nobleman with a reputation made on the battlefield. They’ll choose a man who can stand up to the Danes.”

  “Odda?” I laughed at the thought of Odda as king.

  “Who else?” Harald asked. “But if you were to stand before the witan and swear an oath to the truth about the battle where Ubba died, they might not choose him. So you threaten him, and he fears you because of that.”

  “So now he’s paying Steapa to chop you to bits,” Leofric added gloomily.

  Harald left. He was a decent man, honest and hardworking, and he had taken a risk by coming to see me, and I had been poor company for I did not appreciate the gesture he made. It was plain he thought I must die in the morning, and he had done his best to prepare me for the fight, but despite Iseult’s confident prediction that I would live, I did not sleep well. I was worried, and it was cold. The rain turned to sleet in the night and the wind whipped into the byre. By dawn the wind and sleet had stopped and instead there was a mist shrouding the buildings and icy water dripping from the mossy thatch. I made a poor breakfast of damp bread and it was while I was eating that Father Beocca came and said Alfred wished to speak with me.

  I was sour. “You mean he wants to pray with me?”

  “He wants to speak with you,” Beocca insisted and, when I did not move, he stamped his lamed foot. “It is not a request, Uhtred. It is a royal order!”

  I put on my mail, not because it was time to arm for the fight, but because its leather lining offered some warmth on a cold morning. The mail was not very clean, despite Iseult’s efforts. Most men wore their hair short, but I liked the Danish way of leaving it long and so I tied it behind with a lace and Iseult plucked the straw scraps from it. “We must hurry,” Beocca said, and I followed him through the mud past the great hall and the newly built church to some smaller buildings made of timber that had still not weathered gray. Alfred’s father had used Cippanhamm as a hunting lodge, but Alfred was expanding it. The church had been his first new building, and he had built that even before he repaired and extended the palisade, and that was an indication of his priorities. Even now, when the nobility of Wessex was gathered just a day’s march from the Danes, there seemed to be more churchmen than soldiers in the place, and that was another indication of how Alfred thought to protect his realm. “The king is gracious,” Beocca hissed at me as we went through a door, “so be humble.”

  Beocca knocked on another door, did not wait for an answer, but pushed it open and indicated I should step inside. He did not follow me, but closed the door, leaving me in a gloomy half darkness.

  A pair of beeswax candles flickered on an altar and by their light I saw two men kneeling in front of the plain wooden cross that stood between the candles. The men had their backs to me, but I recognized Alfred by his fur-trimmed blue cloak. The second man was a monk. They were both praying silently and I waited. The room was small, evidently a private chapel, and its only furniture was the draped altar and a kneeling stool on which was a closed book.

  “In the name of the father,” Alfred broke the silence.

  “And of the son,” the monk said, and he spoke English with an accent and I recognized the voice of the Ass.

  “And of the holy ghost,” Alfred concluded, “amen.”

  “Amen,” Asser echoed, and both men stood, their faces suffused with the joy of devout Christians who have said their prayers well, and Alfred blinked as though he were surprised to see me, though he must have heard Beocca’s knocking and the sound of the door opening and closing.

  “I trust you slept well, Uhtred?” he said.

  “I trust you did, lord.”

  “The pains kept me awake,” Alfred said, touching his belly. Then he went to one side of the room and hauled open a big pair of wooden shutters, flooding the chapel with a wan, misty light. The window looked onto a courtyard and I was aware of men out there. The king shivered, for it was freezing in the chapel. “It is Saint Cedd’s feast day,” he told me.

  I said nothing.

  “You have heard of Saint Cedd?” he asked me and, when my silence betrayed ignorance, he smiled indulgently. “He was an East Anglian, am I not right, brother?”

  “The most blessed Cedd was indeed an East Angle, lord,” Asser confirmed.

  “And his mission was in Lundene,” Alfred went on, “but he concluded his days at Lindisfarena. You must know that house, Uhtred?”

  “I know it, lord,” I said. The island was a short ride from Bebbanburg and not so long before I had ridden to its monastery with Earl Ragnar and watched the monks die beneath Danish swords. “I know it well,” I added.

  “So Cedd is famous in your homeland?”

  “I’ve not heard of him, lord.”

  “I think of him as a symbol,” Alfred said, “a man who was born in East Anglia, did his life’s work in Mercia, and died in Northumbria.” He brought his long, pale hands together so that the fingers embraced. “The Saxons of England, Uhtred, gathered together before God.”

  “And united in joyful prayer with the Britons,” Asser added piously.

  “I beseech Almighty God for that happy outcome,” the king said, smiling at me, and by now I recognized what he was saying. He stood there, looking so humble, with no crown, no great necklace, no arm rings, nothing but a small garnet brooch holding the cloak at his neck, and he spoke of a happy outcome, but what he was really seeing was the Saxon people gathered under one king. A king of Wessex. Alfred’s piety hid a monstrous ambition.

  “We must learn from the saints,” Alfred told me. “Their lives are a guide to the darkness that surrounds us, and Saint Cedd’s holy example teaches that we must be united, so I am loath to shed Saxon blood on Saint Cedd’s feast day.”

  “There need be no bloodshed, lord,” I said.

  “I am pleased to hear it,” Alfred interjected.

  “If the charges against me are retracted.”

  The smile went from his face and he walked to the window and stared into the misty courtyard and I looked where he looked and saw that a small display was being mounted for my benefit. Steapa was being armored. Two men were dropping a massive mail coat over his wide shoulders, while a third stood by with an outsized shield and a monstrous sword.

  “I talked with Steapa last night,” the king said, turning from the window, “and h
e told me there was a mist when Svein attacked at Cynuit. A morning mist like this one.” He waved at the whiteness sifting into the chapel.

  “I wouldn’t know, lord,” I said.

  “So it is possible,” the king went on, “that Steapa was mistaken when he thought he saw you.” I almost smiled. The king knew Steapa had lied, though he would not say as much. “Father Willibald also spoke to the crew of the Eftwyrd,” the king went on, “and not one of them confirmed Steapa’s tale.”

  The crew was still in Hamtun, so Willibald’s report must have come from there and that meant the king had known I was innocent of the slaughter at Cynuit even before I was charged. “So I was falsely arraigned?” I said harshly.

  “You were accused,” the king corrected me, “and accusations must be proven or refuted.”

  “Or withdrawn.”

  “I can withdraw the charges,” Alfred agreed. Steapa, outside the window, was making sure his mail coat was seated comfortably by swinging his great sword. And it was great. It was huge, a hammer of a blade. Then the king half closed the shutter, hiding Steapa. “I can withdraw the accusation about Cynuit,” he said, “but I do not think Brother Asser lied to us.”

  “I have a queen,” I said, “who says he does.”

  “A shadow queen,” Asser hissed, “a pagan! A sorceress!” He looked at Alfred. “She is evil, lord,” he said, “a witch! Maleficos non patieris vivere!”

  “Thou shalt not permit a witch to live,” Alfred translated for my benefit. “That is God’s commandment, Uhtred, from the holy scriptures.”

  “Your answer to the truth,” I sneered, “is to threaten a woman with death?”

  Alfred flinched at that. “Brother Asser is a good Christian,” he said vehemently, “and he tells the truth. You went to war without my orders. You used my ship, my men, and you behaved treacherously! You are the liar, Uhtred, and you are the cheat!” He spoke angrily, but managed to control his anger. “It is my belief,” he went on, “that you have paid your debt to the church with goods stolen from other good Christians.”

  “Not true,” I said harshly. I had paid the debt with goods stolen from a Dane.

  “So resume the debt,” the king said, “and we shall have no death on this blessed day of Saint Cedd.”

  I was being offered life. Alfred waited for my response, smiling. He was sure I would accept his offer because to him it seemed reasonable. He had no love for warriors, weapons, and killing. Fate decreed that he must spend his reign fighting, but it was not to his taste. He wanted to civilize Wessex, to give it piety and order, and two men fighting to the death on a winter’s morning was not his idea of a well-run kingdom.

  But I hated Alfred. I hated him for humiliating me at Exanceaster when he had made me wear a penitent’s robe and crawl on my knees. Nor did I think of him as my king. He was a West Saxon and I was a Northumbrian, and I reckoned so long as he was king then Wessex had small chance of surviving. He believed God would protect him from the Danes, while I believed they had to be defeated by swords. I also had an idea how to defeat Steapa, just an idea, and I had no wish to take on a debt I had already paid, and I was young and I was foolish and I was arrogant and I was never able to resist a stupid impulse. “Everything I have said is the truth,” I lied, “and I would defend that truth with my sword.”

  Alfred flinched from my tone. “Are you saying Brother Asser lied?” he demanded.

  “He twists truth,” I said, “like a woman wrings a hen’s neck.”

  The king pulled the shutter open, showing me the mighty Steapa in his gleaming war glory. “You really want to die?” he asked me.

  “I want to fight for the truth, lord king,” I said stubbornly.

  “Then you are a fool,” Alfred said, his anger showing again. “You are a liar, a fool, and a sinner.” He strode past me, pulled open the door, and shouted at a servant to tell Ealdorman Wulfhere that the fight was to take place after all. “Go,” he added to me, “and may your soul receive its just reward.”

  Wulfhere had been charged with arranging the fight, but there was a delay because the ealdorman had disappeared. The town was searched, the royal buildings were searched, but there was no sign of him until a stable slave nervously reported that Wulfhere and his men had ridden away from Cippanhamm before dawn. No one knew why, though some surmised that Wulfhere wanted no part in a trial by combat, which made little sense to me for the ealdorman had never struck me as a squeamish man. Ealdorman Huppa of Thornsæta was appointed to replace him, and so it was close to midday when my swords were brought to me and we were escorted down to the meadow that lay across the bridge that led from the town’s eastern gate. A huge crowd had gathered on the river’s far bank. There were cripples, beggars, jugglers, women selling pies, dozens of priests, excited children, and, of course, the assembled warriors of the West Saxon nobility, all of them in Cippanhamm for the meeting of the witan, and all eager to see Steapa Snotor show off his renowned skill.

  “You’re a damned fool,” Leofric said to me.

  “Because I insisted on fighting?”

  “You could have walked away.”

  “And men would have called me a coward,” I said. And that, too, was the truth, that a man cannot step back from a fight and stay a man. We make much in this life if we are able. We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation. I could not walk away.

  Alfred did not come to the fight. Instead, with the pregnant Ælswith and their two children, and escorted by a score of guards and as many priests and courtiers, he had ridden westward. He was accompanying Brother Asser on the start of the monk’s return journey to Dyfed, and the king was making a point that he preferred the company of the British churchman to watching two of his warriors fight like snarling hounds. But no one else in Wessex wanted to miss the battle. They were eager for it, but Huppa wanted everything to be orderly and so he insisted that the crowd push back from the damp ground beside the river to give us space. Eventually the folk were massed on a green bank overlooking the trampled grass and Huppa went to Steapa to enquire if he was ready.

  He was ready. His mail shone in the weak sunlight. His helmet was glistening. His shield was a huge thing, bossed and rimmed with iron, a shield that must have weighed as much as a sack of grain and was a weapon in itself if he managed to hit me with it, but his chief weapon was his great sword that was longer and heavier than any I had seen.

  Huppa, trailed by two guards, came to me. His feet squelched in the grass and I thought that the ground would prove treacherous. “Uhtred of Oxton,” he said, “are you ready?”

  “My name,” I said, “is Uhtred of Bebbanburg.”

  “Are you ready?” he demanded, ignoring my correction.

  “No,” I said.

  A murmur went through the folk nearest to me, and the murmur spread, and after a few heartbeats the whole crowd was jeering me. They thought me a coward, and that thought was reinforced when I dropped my shield and sword and made Leofric help as I stripped off the heavy coat of mail. Odda the Younger, standing beside his champion, was laughing. “What are you doing?” Leofric asked me.

  “I hope you put money on me,” I said.

  “Of course I didn’t.”

  “Are you refusing to fight?” Huppa asked me.

  “No,” I said, and when I was stripped of my armor I took Serpent-Breath back from Leofric. Just Serpent-Breath. No helmet, no shield, just my good sword. Now I was unburdened. The ground was heavy, Steapa was armored, but I was light and I was fast and I was ready.

  “I’m ready,” I told Huppa.

  He went to the meadow’s center, raised an arm, dropped it, and the crowd cheered.

  I kissed the hammer around my neck, trusted my soul to the great god Thor, and walked forward.

  Steapa came steadily toward me, shield up, sword held out to his left. There was no trace of concern in his eyes. He was a workman at his trade and I wondered how man
y men he had killed, and he must have thought my death would be easy for I had no protection, not even a shield. And so we walked toward each other until, a dozen paces from him, I ran. I ran at him, feinted right toward his sword, and then broke hard to my left, still running, going past him now, and I was aware of the huge blade swinging fast after me as he turned, but then I was behind him, he was still turning, and I dropped to my knees, ducked, heard the blade go over my head, and I was up again, lunging.

  The sword pierced his mail, drew blood from just behind his left shoulder, but he was quicker than I had expected and had already checked that first great swing and was bringing the sword back and his turn pulled Serpent-Breath free. I had scratched him.

  I danced back two paces. I went left again and he charged me, hoping to crush me with the weight of his shield, but I ran back to the right, fending off the sword with Serpent-Breath and the crack of the blades was like the bell of doomsday, and I lunged again, this time aiming at his waist, but he stepped back quickly. I kept going to the right, my arm jarred by the clash of the swords. I went fast, making him turn, and I feinted a lunge, brought him forward, and went back to the left. The ground was boggy. I feared slipping, but speed was my weapon. I had to keep him turning, keep him swinging into empty air, and snatch what chances I could to use Serpent-Breath’s point. Bleed him enough, I thought, and he would tire, but he guessed my tactics and started making short rushes to frustrate me, and each rush would be accompanied by the hiss of that huge sword. He wanted to make me parry and hoped he could break Serpent-Breath when the blades met. I feared the same. She was well made, but even the best sword can break.

  He forced me back, trying to crowd me against the spectators on the bank so he could hack me to pieces in front of them. I let him drive me, then dodged to my right where my left foot slipped and I went down on that knee and the crowd, close behind me now, took in a great breath and a woman screamed because Steapa’s huge sword was swinging like an ax onto my neck, only I had not slipped, merely pretended to, and I pushed off with my right foot, came out from under the blow and around his right flank, and he thrust the shield out, catching my shoulder with the rim, and I knew I would have a bruise there, but I also had a heartbeat of opportunity and I darted Serpent-Breath forward and her point punctured his mail again to scrape against the ribs of his back and he roared as he turned, wrenching my blade free of his mail, but I was already going backward.