The Pale Horseman

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Swords to Dunholm,” I said and raised my pot of ale.

  I did not drink much, or if I did it seemed to have little effect. I was thinking, sitting there, that with one sentence I could finish Alfred forever. I could betray him; I could have him dragged in front of Guthrum and then watch as he died. Guthrum would even forgive me the insults to his mother if I gave him Alfred, and thus I could finish Wessex, for without Alfred there was no man about whom the fyrd would muster. I could stay with my friend Ragnar, I could earn more arm rings, I could make a name that would be celebrated wherever Northmen sailed their long ships, and all it would take was one sentence.

  And I was so tempted that night in Cippanhamm’s royal church. There is such joy in chaos. Stow all the world’s evils behind a door and tell men that they must never, ever, open the door, and it will be opened because there is pure joy in destruction. At one moment, when Ragnar was bellowing with laughter and slapping my shoulder so hard that it hurt, I felt the words form on my tongue. That is Alfred, I would have said, pointing at him, and all my world would have changed and there would have been no more England. Yet, at the last moment, when the first word was on my tongue, I choked it back. Brida was watching me, her shrewd eyes calm, and I caught her gaze and I thought of Iseult. In a year or two, I thought, Iseult would look like Brida. They had the same tense beauty, the same dark coloring, and the same smoldering fire in the soul. If I spoke, I thought, Iseult would be dead, and I could not bear that. And I thought of Æthelflaed, Alfred’s daughter, and knew she would be enslaved, and also knew that wherever the remnants of the Saxons gathered about their fires of exile my name would be cursed. I would be Uhtredærwe forever, the man who destroyed a people.

  “What were you about to say?” Brida asked.

  “That we have never known such a hard winter in Wessex.”

  She gazed at me, not believing my answer. Then she smiled. “Tell me, Uhtred,” she spoke in English, “if you thought Ragnar was dead, then why did you come here?”

  “Because I don’t know where else to be,” I said.

  “So you came here? To Guthrum? Whom you insulted?”

  So they knew about that. I had not expected them to know and I felt a surge of fear. I said nothing.

  “Guthrum wants you dead,” Brida said, speaking in Danish now.

  “He doesn’t mean it,” Ragnar said.

  “He does mean it,” Brida insisted.

  “Well, I won’t let him kill Uhtred,” Ragnar said. “You’re here now!” He slapped me on the back again and glared at his men as if daring any of them to betray my presence to Guthrum. None of them moved, but they were nearly all of them drunk and some already asleep.

  “You’re here now,” Brida said, “yet not so long ago you were fighting for Alfred and insulting Guthrum.”

  “I was on my way to Defnascir,” I said, as if that explained anything.

  “Poor Uhtred,” Brida said. Her right hand fondled the black-and-white fur at the back of Nihtgenga’s neck. “And I thought you’d be a hero to the Saxons.”

  “A hero? Why?”

  “The man who killed Ubba?”

  “Alfred doesn’t want heroes,” I said, loudly enough for him to hear, “only saints.”

  “So tell us about Ubba!” Ragnar demanded, and so I had to describe Ubba’s death and the Danes, who love a good story of a fight, wanted every detail. I told the tale well, making Ubba into a great hero who had almost destroyed the West Saxon army, and I said he had been fighting like a god, and told how he had broken our shield wall with his great ax. I described the burning ships, their smoke drifting over the battle slaughter like a cloud from the netherworld, and I said I had found myself facing Ubba in his victory charge. That was not true, of course, and the Danes knew it was not true. I had not just found myself opposing Ubba, but had sought him out. But when a story is told it must be seasoned with modesty and the listeners, understanding that custom, murmured approval. “I have never known such fear,” I said, and I told how we had fought, Serpent-Breath against Ubba’s ax, and how he had chopped my shield into firewood, and then I described, truthfully, how he had lost his footing in the spilled guts of a dead man. The Danes about the fire sighed with disappointment. “I cut the tendons of his arm,” I said, chopping my left hand into the crook of my right elbow to show where I had cut him, “and then beat him down.”

  “He died well?” a man asked anxiously.

  “As a hero,” I said, and I told how I had put the ax back into his dying hand so that he would go to Valhalla. “He died very well,” I finished.

  “He was a warrior,” Ragnar said. He was drunk now. Not badly drunk, but tired drunk. The fire was dying, thickening the shadows at the western end of the church where Alfred sat. More stories were told, the fire died, and the few candles guttered. Men were sleeping, and still I sat until Ragnar lay back and began to snore. I waited longer, letting the room go to sleep, and only then did I go back to Alfred. “We go now,” I said. He did not argue.

  No one appeared to notice as we went into the night, closing the door quietly behind us. “Who were you talking with?” Alfred asked me.

  “Earl Ragnar.”

  He stopped, puzzled. “Wasn’t he one of the hostages?”

  “Wulfhere let them live,” I said.

  “He let them live?” he asked, astonished.

  “And Wulfhere is now on Guthrum’s side.” I gave him the bad news. “He’s here, in the hall. He’s agreed to fight for Guthrum.”

  “Here?” Alfred could scarce believe what I said. Wulfhere was his cousin, he had married Alfred’s niece, he was family. “He’s here?”

  “He’s on Guthrum’s side,” I said harshly.

  He just stared at me. “No.” He mouthed the word, rather than said it. “And Æthelwold?” he asked.

  “He’s a prisoner,” I said.

  “A prisoner!” He asked the question sharply, and no wonder, for Æthelwold had no value to the Danes as a prisoner unless he had agreed to become their token king on the West Saxon throne.

  “A prisoner,” I said. It was not true, of course, but I liked Æthelwold and I owed him a favor. “He’s a prisoner,” I went on, “and there’s nothing we can do about it, so let’s get away from here.” I pulled him toward the town, but too late, for the church door opened and Brida came out with Nihtgenga.

  She told the dog to stay at her heels as she walked toward me. Like me she was not drunk, though she must have been very cold for she wore no cloak over her plain blue woolen dress. The night was brittle with frost, but she did not shiver. “You’re going?” She spoke in English. “You’re not staying with us?”

  “I have a wife and child,” I said.

  She smiled at that. “Whose names you have not mentioned all evening, Uhtred. So what happened?” I gave no answer and she just stared at me, and there was something very unsettling in her gaze. “So what woman is with you now?” she asked.

  “Someone who looks like you,” I admitted.

  She laughed at that. “And she would have you fight for Alfred?”

  “She sees the future,” I said, evading the question. “She dreams it.”

  Brida stared at me. Nihtgenga whined softly and she put down a hand to calm him. “And she sees Alfred surviving?”

  “More than surviving,” I said. “She sees him winning.” Beside me Alfred stirred and I hoped he had the sense to keep his head lowered.

  “Winning?”

  “She sees a green hill of dead men,” I said, “a white horse, and Wessex living again.”

  “Your woman has strange dreams,” Brida said, “but you never answered my first question, Uhtred. If you thought Ragnar was dead, why did you come here?”

  I had no ready answer so made none.

  “Who did you expect to find here?” she asked.

  “You?” I suggested glibly.

  She shook her head, knowing I lied. “Why did you come?” I still had no answer and Brida smiled sadly. “If I was Alfred
,” she said, “I would send a man who spoke Danish to Cippanhamm, and that man would go back to the swamp and tell all he had seen.”

  “If you think that,” I said, “then why don’t you tell them?” I nodded toward Guthrum’s black-cloaked men guarding the hall door.

  “Because Guthrum is a nervous fool,” she said savagely. “Why help Guthrum? And when Guthrum fails, Ragnar will take command.”

  “Why doesn’t he command now?”

  “Because he is like his father. He’s decent. He gave his word to Guthrum and he won’t break his word. And tonight he wanted you to give him an oath, but you didn’t.”

  “I do not want Bebbanburg to be a gift of the Danes,” I answered.

  She thought about that, and understood it. “But do you think,” she asked scornfully, “that the West Saxons will give you Bebbanburg? It’s at the other end of Britain, Uhtred, and the last Saxon king is rotting in a swamp.”

  “This will give it to me,” I said, pulling back my cloak to show Serpent-Breath’s hilt.

  “You and Ragnar can rule the north,” she said.

  “Maybe we will,” I said. “So tell Ragnar that when this is all finished, when all is decided, I shall go north with him. I shall fight Kjartan. But in my own time.”

  “I hope you live to keep that promise,” she said, then leaned forward and kissed my cheek. Then, without another word, she turned and walked back to the church.

  Alfred let out a breath. “Who is Kjartan?”

  “An enemy,” I said shortly. I tried to lead him away, but he stopped me.

  He was staring at Brida who was nearing the church. “That is the girl who was with you at Wintanceaster?”

  “Yes.” He was talking of the time when I had first come to Wessex and Brida had been with me.

  “And does Iseult truly see the future?’

  “She has not been wrong yet.”

  He made the sign of the cross, then let me lead him back through the town that was quieter now, but he would not go with me to the western gate, insisting we return to the nunnery where, for a moment, we both crouched near one of the dying fires in the courtyard to get what warmth we could from the embers. Men slept in the nunnery church, but the courtyard was now deserted and quiet, and Alfred took a piece of half-burning wood and, using it as a torch, went to the row of small doors that led to the nuns’ sleeping cells. One door had been fastened with two hasps and a short length of thick chain and Alfred paused there.

  “Draw your sword,” he ordered me.

  When Serpent-Breath was naked he unwound the chain from the hasps and pushed the door inward. He entered cautiously, pushing the hood back from his face. He held the torch high, and in its light I saw the big man huddled on the floor.

  “Steapa!” Alfred hissed.

  Steapa was only pretending to be asleep and he uncoiled from the floor with wolflike speed, lashing out at Alfred, and I rammed the sword toward his breast, but then he saw Alfred’s bruised face and he froze, oblivious of the blade. “Lord?”

  “You’re coming with us,” Alfred said.

  “Lord!” Steapa fell to his knees in front of his king.

  “It’s cold out there,” Alfred said. It was freezing inside the cell as well. “You can sheath your sword, Uhtred.” Steapa looked at me and seemed vaguely surprised to find I was the man he had been fighting when the Danes came. “The two of you will be friends,” Alfred said sternly, and the big man nodded. “And we have one other person to fetch,” Alfred said, “so come.”

  “One other person?” I asked.

  “You spoke of a nun,” Alfred said.

  So I had to find the nun’s cell, and she was still there, lying crushed against the wall by a Dane who was snoring flabbily. The flamelight showed a small, frightened face half hidden by the Dane’s beard. His beard was black and her hair was gold, pale gold, and she was awake and, seeing us, gasped, and that woke the Dane who blinked in the flamelight and then snarled at us as he tried to throw off the thick cloaks serving as blankets. Steapa hit him and it was like the sound of a bullock being clubbed, wet and hard at the same time. The man’s head snapped back and Alfred pulled the cloaks away and the nun tried to hide her nakedness. Alfred hurriedly put the cloaks back. He had been embarrassed and I had been impressed for she was young and very beautiful and I wondered why such a woman would waste her sweetness on religion. “You know who I am?” Alfred asked her. She shook her head. “I am your king,” he said softly, “and you will come with us, sister.”

  Her clothes were long gone, so we swathed her in the heavy cloaks. The Dane was dead by now, his throat cut by Wasp-Sting, and I had found a pouch of coins strung around his neck on a leather thong. “That money goes to the church,” Alfred said.

  “I found it,” I said, “and I killed him.”

  “It is the money of sin,” he said patiently, “and must be redeemed.” He smiled at the nun. “Are there any other sisters here?” he asked.

  “Only me,” she said in a small voice.

  “And now you are safe, sister.” He straightened. “We can go.”

  Steapa carried the nun who was called Hild. She clung to him, whimpering, either from the cold or, more likely, from the memory of her ordeal.

  We could have captured Cippanhamm that night with a hundred men. It was so bitterly cold that no guards stood on the ramparts. The gate sentries were in a house by the wall, crouched by the fire, and all the notice they took of the bar being lifted was to shout a bad-tempered question wanting to know who we were. “Guthrum’s men,” I called back, and they did not bother us further. A half hour later we were in the water mill, reunited with Father Adelbert, Egwine, and the three soldiers.

  “We should give thanks to God for our deliverance,” Alfred said to Father Adelbert, who had been aghast to see the blood and bruises on the king’s face. “Say a prayer, father,” Alfred ordered.

  Adelbert prayed, but I did not listen. I just crouched by the fire, thought I would never be warm again, and then slept.

  It snowed all next day. Thick snow. We made a fire, careless that the Danes might see the smoke, for no Dane was going to struggle through the bitter cold and deepening snow to investigate one small, far-off trickle of gray against a gray sky.

  Alfred brooded. He spoke little that day, though once he frowned and asked me if it could really be true about Wulfhere. “We didn’t see him with Guthrum,” he added plaintively, desperately hoping that the ealdorman had not betrayed him.

  “The hostages lived,” I said.

  “Dear God,” he said, convinced by that argument, and leaned his head against the wall. He watched the snow through one of the small windows. “He’s family!” he said after a while, then fell silent again.

  I fed the horses the last of the hay we had brought with us, then sharpened my swords for lack of anything else to do. Hild wept. Alfred tried to comfort her, but he was awkward and had no words, and oddly it was Steapa who calmed her. He talked to her softly, his voice a deep grumble, and when Serpent-Breath and Wasp-Sting were as sharp as I could make them, and as the snow sifted endlessly onto a silent world, I brooded like Alfred.

  I thought of Ragnar wanting my oath. I thought of him wanting my allegiance.

  The world began in chaos and it will end in chaos. The gods brought the world into existence, and they will end it when they fight among themselves, but in between the chaos of the world’s birth and the chaos of the world’s death is order, and order is made by oaths, and oaths bind us like the buckles of a harness.

  I was bound to Alfred by an oath, and before I gave that oath I had wanted to bind myself to Ragnar, but now I felt affronted that he had even asked me. That was pride growing in me and changing me. I was Uhtred of Bebbanburg, slayer of Ubba, and while I would give an oath to a king, I was reluctant to make an oath to an equal. The oath-giver is subservient to the man who accepts the oath. Ragnar would have said I was a friend, he would be generous, he would treat me like a brother, but his assumption that I w
ould give him an oath demonstrated that he still believed I was his follower. I was a lord of Northumbria, but he was a Dane, and to a Dane all Saxons are lesser men, and so he had demanded an oath. If I gave him an oath, then he would be generous but I would be expected to show gratitude, and I could only ever hold Bebbanburg because he allowed me to hold it. I had never thought it all through before, but suddenly, on that cold day, I understood that among the Danes I was as important as my friends, and without friends I was just another landless, masterless warrior. But among the Saxons I was another Saxon, and among the Saxons I did not need another man’s generosity.

  “You look thoughtful, Uhtred.” Alfred interrupted my reverie.

  “I was thinking, lord,” I said, “that we need warm food.” I fed the fire, then went outside to the stream where I knocked away the skim of ice and scooped water into a pot. Steapa had followed me outside, not to talk, but to piss, and I stood behind him. “At the witanegemot,” I said, “you lied about Cynuit.”

  He tied the scrap of rope that served as a belt and turned to look at me. “If the Danes had not come,” he said in his growling voice, “I would have killed you.”

  I did not argue with that, for he was probably right. “At Cynuit,” I said instead, “when Ubba died, where were you?”

  “There.”

  “I didn’t see you,” I said. “I was in the thick of the battle, but I didn’t see you.”