The Pale Horseman

by Bernard Cornwell

  I stopped ten paces away. He stopped, too, and watched me. There was a slight puzzlement on his big face now. There was still no worry there, just puzzlement. He pushed his left foot forward, as Harald had warned me, and he was hoping I would attack it and he would rely on the hidden iron strip in the boot to protect him while he thumped and hacked and bludgeoned me to death. I smiled at him and threw Serpent-Breath from my right hand into my left and held her there, and that was a new puzzle for him. Some men could fight with either hand, and perhaps I was one of them? He drew his foot back. “Why do they call you Steapa Snotor?” I asked. “You’re not clever. You’ve got the brains of an addled egg.”

  I was trying to enrage him and hoped that anger would make him careless, but my insult bounced off him. Instead of rushing me in fury he came slowly, watching the sword in my left hand, and the men on the hill called for him to kill me and I suddenly ran at him, broke right, and he swung at me a little late, thinking I was going to go left at the last moment and I swept Serpent-Breath back and she caught his sword arm and I could feel her blade scraping through the rings of his mail, but she did not slice through them and then I was away from him and put her back into my right hand, turned, charged him, and swerved away at the last moment so that his massive swing missed me by a yard.

  He was still puzzled. This was like a bull-baiting and he was the bull, and his problem was to get me in a place where he could use his greater strength and weight. I was the dog, and my job was to lure him, tease him, and bite him until he weakened. He had thought I would come with mail and shield and we would batter each other for a few moments until my strength faded and he could drive me to the ground with massive blows and chop me to scraps with the big sword, but so far his blade had not touched me. But nor had I weakened him. My two cuts had drawn blood, but they were mere scratches. So now he came forward again, hoping to herd me back to the river. A woman screamed from the top of the bank, and I assumed she was trying to encourage him, and the screaming grew louder and I just went back faster, making Steapa lumber forward, but I had slipped away to his right and was coming back at him, making him turn, and then he suddenly stopped and stared past me and his shield went down and his sword dropped, too, and all I had to do was lunge. He was there for the killing. I could thrust Serpent-Breath into his chest or throat, or ram her into his belly, but I did none of those things. Steapa was no fool at fighting and I guessed he was luring me and I did not take the bait. If I lunged, I thought, he would crush me between his shield and sword. He wanted me to think him defenseless so that I could come into range of his weapons, but instead I stopped and spread my arms, inviting him to attack me as he was inviting me to attack him.

  But he ignored me. He just stared past my shoulder. And the woman’s screaming was shrill now and there were men shouting, and Leofric was yelling my name, and the spectators were no longer watching us, but running in panic.

  So I turned my back on Steapa and looked toward the town on its hill that was cradled by the river’s bend.

  And I saw that Cippanhamm was burning. Smoke was darkening the winter sky and the horizon was filled with men, mounted men, men with swords and axes and shields and spears and banners, and more horsemen were coming from the eastern gate to thunder across the bridge.

  Because all Alfred’s prayers had failed and the Danes had come to Wessex.

  SIX

  Steapa recovered his wits before I did. He stared openmouthed at the Danes crossing the bridge and then just ran toward his master, Odda the Younger, who was shouting for his horses. The Danes were spreading out from the bridge, galloping across the meadow with drawn swords and leveled spears. Smoke poured into the low wintry clouds from the burning town. Some of the king’s buildings were alight. A riderless horse, stirrups flapping, galloped across the grass, then Leofric grabbed my elbow and pulled me northward beside the river. Most of the folk had gone south and the Danes had followed them, so north seemed to offer more safety. Iseult had my mail coat and I took it from her, leaving her to carry Wasp-Sting, and behind us the screaming rose as the Danes chopped into the panicked mass. Folk scattered. Escaping horsemen thumped past us, the hooves throwing up spadefuls of damp earth and grass with every step. I saw Odda the Younger swerve away with three other horsemen. Harald, the shire reeve, was one of them, but I could not see Steapa and for a moment I feared the big man was looking for me. Then I forgot him as a band of Danes turned north in pursuit of Odda. “Where are our horses?” I shouted at Leofric, who looked bemused and I remembered he had not traveled to Cippanhamm with me. The beasts were probably still in the yard behind the Corncrake tavern, which meant they were lost.

  There was a fallen willow in a stand of leafless alders by the river and we paused there for breath, hidden by the willow’s trunk. I pulled on the mail coat, buckled on my swords, and took my helmet and shield from Leofric. “Where’s Haesten?” I asked.

  “He ran,” Leofric said curtly. So had the rest of my men. They had joined the panic and were gone southward. Leofric pointed northward. “Trouble,” he said curtly. There was a score of Danes riding down our bank of the river, blocking our escape, but they were still some distance away, while the men pursuing Odda had vanished, so Leofric led us across the water meadow to a tangle of thorns, alders, nettles, and ivy. At its center was an old wattle hut, perhaps a herdsman’s shelter, and though the hut had half collapsed, it offered a better hiding place than the willow and so the three of us plunged into the nettles and crouched behind the rotting timbers.

  A bell was ringing in the town. It sounded like the slow tolling that announced a funeral. It stopped abruptly, started again, and then finally ended. A horn sounded. A dozen horsemen galloped close to our hiding place and all had black cloaks and black painted shields, the marks of Guthrum’s warriors.

  Guthrum. Guthrum the Unlucky. He called himself King of East Anglia, but he wanted to be King of Wessex and this was his third attempt to take the country and this time, I thought, his luck had turned. While Alfred had been celebrating the twelfth night of Yule, and while the witan met to discuss the maintenance of bridges and the punishment of malefactors, Guthrum had marched. The army of the Danes was in Wessex, Cippanhamm had fallen, and the great men of Alfred’s kingdom had been surprised, scattered, or slaughtered. The horn sounded again and the dozen black-cloaked horsemen turned and rode toward the sound.

  “We should have known the Danes were coming,” I said angrily.

  “You always said they would,” Leofric said.

  “Didn’t Alfred have spies at Gleawecestre?”

  “He had priests praying here instead,” Leofric said bitterly, “and he trusted Guthrum’s truce.”

  I touched my hammer amulet. I had taken it from a boy in Eoferwic. I had been a boy myself then, newly captured by the Danes, and my opponent had fought me in a whirl of fists and feet and I had hammered him down into the riverbank and taken his amulet. I still have it. I touch it often, reminding Thor that I live, but that day I touched it because I thought of Ragnar. The hostages would be dead, and was that why Wulfhere had ridden away at dawn? But how could he have known the Danes were coming? If Wulfhere had known, then Alfred would have known and the West Saxon forces would have been ready. None of it made sense, except that Guthrum had again attacked during a truce and the last time he had broken a truce he had showed that he was willing to sacrifice the hostages held to prevent just such an attack. It seemed certain he had done it again and so Ragnar would be dead and my world was diminished.

  So many dead. There were corpses in the meadow between our hiding place and the river, and still the slaughter went on. Some of the Saxons had run back toward the town, discovered the bridge was guarded, and tried to escape northward and we watched them being ridden down by the Danes. Three men tried to resist, standing in a tight group with swords ready, but a Dane gave a great whoop and charged them with his horse, and his spear went through one man’s mail, crushing his chest, and the other two were thrown aside by the
horse’s weight and immediately more Danes closed on them, swords and axes rose, and the horsemen spurred on. A girl screamed and ran in terrified circles until a Dane, long hair flying, leaned from his saddle and pulled her dress up over her head so she was blind and half naked. She staggered in the damp grass and a half dozen Danes laughed at her, then one slapped her bare rump with his sword and another dragged her southward, her screams muffled by the entangling dress. Iseult was shivering and I put a mail-clad arm around her shoulders.

  I could have joined the Danes in the meadow. I spoke their language and, with my long hair and my arm rings, I looked like a Dane. But Haesten was somewhere in Cippanhamm and he might betray me, and Guthrum had no great love for me, and even if I survived then it would go hard with Leofric and Iseult. These Danes were in a rampant mood, flushed by their easy success and if a dozen decided they wanted Iseult then they would take her whether they thought I was a Dane or not. They were hunting in packs and so it was best to stay hidden until the frenzy had passed. Across the river, at the top of the low hill on which Cippanhamm was built, I could see the town’s largest church burning. The thatched roof was whirling into the sky in great ribbons of flame and plumes of spark-riddled smoke.

  “What in God’s name were you doing back there?” Leofric asked me.

  “Back there?” His question confused me.

  “Dancing around Steapa like a gnat! He could have endured that all day!”

  “I wounded him,” I said, “twice.”

  “Wounded him? Sweet Christ, he’s hurt himself worse when he was shaving!”

  “Doesn’t matter now, does it?” I said. I guessed Steapa was dead by now. Or perhaps he had escaped. I did not know. None of us knew what was happening except that the Danes had come. And Mildrith? My son? They were far away, and presumably they would receive warning of the Danish attack, but I had no doubt that the Danes would keep going deep into Wessex and there was nothing I could do to protect Oxton. I had no horse, no men, and no chance of reaching the south coast before Guthrum’s mounted soldiers.

  I watched a Dane ride past with a girl across his saddle. “What happened to that Danish girl you took home,” I asked Leofric, “the one we captured off Wales?”

  “She’s still in Hamtun,” he said, “and now that I’m not there she’s probably in someone else’s bed.”

  “Probably? Certainly.”

  “Then the bastard’s welcome to her,” he said. “She cries a lot.”

  “Mildrith does that,” I said and then, after a pause, “Eanflæd was angry with you.”

  “Eanflæd? Angry with me! Why?”

  “Because you didn’t go to see her.”

  “How could I? I was in chains.” He looked satisfied that the whore had asked after him. “Eanflæd doesn’t cry, does she?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “Good girl that. I reckon she’d like Hamtun.”

  If Hamtun still existed. Had a Danish fleet come from Lundene? Was Svein attacking across the Sæfern Sea? I knew nothing except that Wessex was suffering chaos and defeat. It began to rain again, a thin winter’s rain, cold and stinging. Iseult crouched lower and I sheltered her with my shield. Most of the folk who had gathered to watch the fight by the river had fled south and only a handful had come our way, which meant there were fewer Danes near our hiding place, and those that were in the northern river meadows were now gathering their spoils. They stripped corpses of weapons, belts, mail, clothes, anything of value. A few Saxon men had survived, but they were being led away with the children and younger women to be sold as slaves. The old were killed. A wounded man was crawling on hands and knees and a dozen Danes tormented him like cats playing with an injured sparrow, nicking him with swords and spears, bleeding him to a slow death. Haesten was one of the tormentors. “I always liked Haesten,” I said sadly.

  “He’s a Dane,” Leofric said scornfully.

  “I still liked him.”

  “You kept him alive,” Leofric said, “and now he’s gone back to his own. You should have killed him.” I watched as Haesten kicked the wounded man who called out in agony, begging to be killed, but the group of young men went on jabbing him, laughing, and the first ravens came. I have often wondered if ravens smell blood, for the sky can be clear of them all day, but when a man dies they come from nowhere on their shining black wings. Perhaps Odin sends them, for the ravens are his birds, and now they flapped down to start feasting on eyes and lips, the first course of every raven feast. The dogs and foxes would soon follow.

  “The end of Wessex,” Leofric said sadly.

  “The end of England,” I said.

  “What do we do?” Iseult asked.

  There was no answer from me. Ragnar must be dead, which meant I had no refuge among the Danes, and Alfred was probably dead or else a fugitive, and my duty now was to my son. He was only a baby, but he was my son and he carried my name. Bebbanburg would be his if I could take it back, and if I could not take it back then it would be his duty to recapture the stronghold, and so the name Uhtred of Bebbanburg would go on till the last weltering chaos of the dying world.

  “We must get to Hamtun,” Leofric said, “and find the crew.”

  Except the Danes would surely be there already. Or else on their way. They knew where the power of Wessex lay, where the great lords had their halls, where the soldiers gathered, and Guthrum would be sending men to burn and kill and so disarm the Saxons’ last kingdom.

  “We need food,” I said, “food and warmth.”

  “Light a fire here,” Leofric grumbled, “and we’re dead.”

  So we waited. The small rain turned to sleet. Haesten and his new companions, now that their victim was dead, wandered away, leaving the meadow empty but for the corpses and their attendant ravens. And still we waited, but Iseult, who was as thin as Alfred, was shivering uncontrollably and so, in the late afternoon, I took off my helmet and unbound my hair so it hung loose.

  “What are you doing?” Leofric asked.

  “For the moment,” I said, “we’re Danes. Just keep your mouth shut.”

  I led them toward the town. I would have preferred to wait until dark, but Iseult was too cold to wait longer, and I just hoped the Danes had calmed down. I might look like a Dane, but it was still dangerous. Haesten might see me, and if he told others how I had ambushed the Danish ship off Dyfed, then I could expect nothing but a slow death. So we went nervously, stepping past bloodied bodies along the riverside path. The ravens protested as we approached, flapped indignantly into the winter willows, and returned to their feast when we had passed. There were more corpses piled by the bridge where the young folk captured for slavery were being made to dig a grave. The Danes guarding them were drunk and none challenged us as we went across the wooden span and under the gate arch that was still hung with holly and ivy in celebration of Christmas.

  The fires were dying now, damped by rain or else extinguished by the Danes who were ransacking houses and churches. I stayed in the narrowest alleys, edging past a smithy, a hide-dealer’s shop, and a place where pots had been sold. Our boots crunched through the pottery shards. A young Dane was vomiting in the alley’s entrance and he told me that Guthrum was in the royal compound where there would be a feast that night. He straightened up, gasping for breath, but was sober enough to offer me a bag of coins for Iseult. There were women screaming or sobbing in houses and their noise was making Leofric angry, but I told him to stay quiet. Two of us could not free Cippanhamm, and if the world had been turned upside down and it had been a West Saxon army capturing a Danish town, it would have sounded no different. “Alfred wouldn’t allow it,” Leofric said sullenly.

  “You’d do it anyway,” I said. “You’ve done it.”

  I wanted news, but none of the Danes in the street made any sense. They had come from Gleawecestre, leaving long before dawn, they had captured Cippanhamm, and now they wanted to enjoy whatever the town offered. The big church had burned, but men were raking through the smoking emb
ers looking for silver. For lack of anywhere else to go we climbed the hill to the Corncrake tavern where we always drank and found Eanflæd, the redheaded whore, being held on a table by two young Danes while three others, none of them more than seventeen or eighteen, took turns raping her. Another dozen Danes were drinking peaceably enough, taking scant notice of the rape.

  “You want her,” one of the young men said, “you’ll have to wait.”

  “I want her now,” I said.

  “Then you can jump in the shit pit,” he said. He was drunk. He had a wispy beard and insolent eyes. “You can jump in the shit pit,” he said again, evidently liking the insult, then pointed to Iseult, “and I’ll have her while you drown.” I hit him, breaking his nose and spattering his face with blood, and while he gasped I kicked him hard between the legs. He went down, whimpering, and I hit a second man in the belly while Leofric loosed all his day’s frustration in a savage attack on another. The two who had been holding Eanflæd turned on us and one of them squealed when Eanflæd grabbed his hair and hooked sharp fingernails into his eyes. Leofric’s opponent was on the floor and he stamped on the boy’s throat and I head-slapped my boy until I had him by the door, then I thumped another in the ribs, rescued Eanflæd’s victim, and broke his jaw, then went back to the lad who had threatened to rape Iseult. I ripped a silver loop from his ear, took off his one arm ring, and stole his pouch that clinked with coins. I dropped the silver into Eanflæd’s lap, then kicked the groaning man between the legs, did it again, and hauled him out into the street.