The Pale Horseman

by Bernard Cornwell

  “You’ve already made up your mind, lord,” I said, “so why ask me?”

  He nodded. A dog barked in the village and he turned to stare at the cottages and the hall and the church he had made with its tall alder cross. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you will take a hundred horsemen and patrol ahead of the army.”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “And when we meet the enemy,” he went on, still staring at the cross, “you will choose fifty or sixty men from the bodyguard. The best you can find. And you will guard my banners.”

  He did not say more, nor did he need to. What he meant was that I was to take the best warriors, the most savage men, the dangerous warriors who loved battle, and I was to lead them in the place where the fight would be hardest, for an enemy loves to capture his foe’s banners. It was an honor to be asked and, if the battle was lost, an almost certain death sentence. “I shall do it gladly, lord,” I said, “but ask a favor of you in return.”

  “If I can,” he said guardedly.

  “If you can,” I said, “don’t bury me. Burn my body on a pyre, and put a sword in my hand.”

  He hesitated, then nodded, knowing he had agreed to a pagan funeral. “I never told you,” he said, “that I am sorry about your son.”

  “So am I, lord.”

  “But he is with God, Uhtred, he is assuredly with God.”

  “So I’m told, lord, so I’m told.”

  And next day we marched. Fate is inexorable, and though numbers and reason told us we could not win, we dared not lose, and so we marched to Egbert’s Stone.

  We marched with ceremony. Twenty-three priests and eighteen monks formed our vanguard and chanted a psalm as they led Alfred’s forces away from the fort guarding the southern trackway and east toward the heartland of Wessex.

  They chanted in Latin so the words meant nothing to me, but Father Pyrlig had been given use of one of Alfred’s horses and, dressed in a leather coat and with a great sword strapped to his side and with a stout-shafted boar spear on one shoulder, he rode alongside me and translated the words. “‘God,’” he said, “‘you have abandoned me, you have scattered us, you are angry with us, now turn to us again.’ That sounds a reasonable request, doesn’t it? You’ve kicked us in the face, so now give us a cuddle, eh?”

  “It really means that?”

  “Not the bit about kicks and cuddles. That was me.” He grinned at me. “I do miss war. Isn’t that a sin?”

  “You’ve seen war?”

  “Seen it? I was a warrior before I joined the church! Pyrlig the Fearless, they called me. I killed four Saxons in a day once. All by myself and I had nothing but a spear. And they had swords and shields, they did. Back home they made a song about me, but mind you, the Britons will sing about anything. I can sing you the song, if you like? It tells how I slaughtered three hundred and ninety-four Saxons in one day, but it’s not entirely accurate.”

  “So how many did you kill?”

  “I told you. Four.” He laughed.

  “So how did you learn English?”

  “My mother was a Saxon, poor thing. She was taken in a raid on Mercia and became a slave.”

  “So why did you stop being a warrior?”

  “Because I found God, Uhtred. Or God found me. And I was becoming too proud. Songs about yourself go to your head and I was wickedly proud of myself, and pride is a terrible thing.”

  “It’s a warrior’s weapon,” I said.

  “It is indeed,” he agreed, “and that is why it is a terrible thing, and why I pray God purges me of it.”

  We were well ahead of the priests now, climbing toward the nearest hilltop to look north and east for the enemy, but the churchmen’s voices followed us, their chant strong in the morning air. “‘Through God we shall do bravely,’” Father Pyrlig interpreted for me, “‘and God shall trample down our enemies.’ Now there’s a blessed thought for a fine morning, Lord Uhtred!”

  “The Danes are saying their own prayers, father.”

  “But to what god, eh? No point in shouting at a deaf man, is there?” He curbed his horse at the hilltop and stared northward. “Not even a mouse stirring.”

  “The Danes are watching,” I said. “We can’t see them, but they can see us.”

  If they were watching, then what they could see was Alfred’s three hundred and fifty men riding or walking away from the swamp, and in the distance another five or six hundred men who were the fyrd from the western part of Sumorsæte who had camped to the south of the swamp and now marched to join our smaller column. Most of the men from Æthelingæg were real soldiers, trained to stand in the shield wall, but we also had fifty of the marshmen. I had wanted Eofer, the strong bowman, to come with us, but he could not fight without his niece telling him what to do and I had no intention of taking a child to war and so we had left Eofer behind. A good number of women and children were following the column, though Alfred had sent Ælswith and his children south to Scireburnan under a guard of forty men. We could hardly spare those men, but Alfred insisted his family go. Ælswith was to wait in Scireburnan and, if news came that her husband was defeated and the Danes victorious, she was to flee south to the coast and find a ship that would take her to Frankia. She was also instructed to take with her whatever books she could find in Scireburnan, for Alfred reckoned the Danes would burn every book in Wessex and so Ælswith was to rescue the gospel books and saints’ lives and church fathers and histories and philosophers and thus raise her son Edward to become a learned king in exile.

  Iseult was with the army, walking with Hild and with Eanflæd who had upset Ælswith by insisting on following Leofric. The women led packhorses, which carried the army’s shields, food, and spare spears. Nearly every woman was equipped with some kind of weapon. Even Hild, a nun, wanted to take revenge on the Danes who had whored her and so carried a long, narrow-bladed knife. “God help the Danes,” Father Pyrlig had said when he saw the women gather, “if that lot get among them.”

  He and I now trotted eastward. I had horsemen ringing the column, riding on every crest, staying in sight of one another, and ready to signal if they saw any sign of the enemy, but there was none. We rode or marched under a spring sky, through a land bright with flowers, and the priests and monks kept up their chanting, and sometimes the men behind, who followed Alfred’s two standard-bearers, would start singing a battle song.

  Father Pyrlig beat his hand in time to the singing, then gave me a big grin. “I expect Iseult sings to you, doesn’t she?”

  “She does.”

  “We Britons love to sing! I must teach her some hymns.” He saw my sour look and laughed. “Don’t worry, Uhtred, she’s no Christian.”

  “She isn’t?” I asked, surprised.

  “Well, she is, for the moment. I’m sorry you didn’t come to her baptism. It was cold, that water! Fair froze me!”

  “She’s baptized,” I said, “but you say she’s no Christian?”

  “She is and she isn’t,” Pyrlig said with a grin. “She is now, see, because she’s among Christians. But she’s still a shadow queen, and she won’t forget it.”

  “You believe in shadow queens?”

  “Of course I do! Good God, man! She is one!” He made the sign of the cross.

  “Brother Asser called her a witch,” I said, “a sorceress.”

  “Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He’s a monk! Monks don’t marry. He’s terrified of women, Brother Asser, unless they’re very ugly, and then he bullies them. But show him a pretty young thing and he goes all addled. And of course he hates the power of women.”

  “Power?”

  “Not just tits, I mean. God knows tits are powerful enough, but the real thing. Power! My mother had it. She was no shadow queen, mind you, but she was a healer and a scryer.”

  “She saw the future?”

  He shook his head. “She knew what was happening far off. When my father died she suddenly screamed. Screamed fit to kill herself because she knew what had happened. She was right, too. The po
or man was cut down by a Saxon. But she was best as a healer. Folk came to her from miles around. It didn’t matter that she was born a Saxon, they’d walk for a week to fetch the touch of her hand. Me? I got it for free! She banged me about, she did, and I dare say I deserved it, but she was a rare healer. And, of course, the priests don’t like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we priests tell folk that all power comes from God, and if it doesn’t come from God then it must be evil, see? So when folk are ill the church wants them to pray and to give the priests money. Priests don’t like it when they don’t understand things, and they don’t like folk going to the women to be healed. But what else are folk to do? My mother’s hand, God rest her Saxon soul, was better than any prayer! Better than the touch of the sacraments! I wouldn’t stop folk going to see a healer. I’d tell them to!” He stopped talking because I raised my hand. I had seen movement on a hillside to the north, but it was only a deer. I dropped my hand and kicked the horse on. “Now your Iseult,” Pyrlig went on, “she’s been raised with the power and she won’t lose it.”

  “Didn’t the baptism wash it out of her?”

  “Not at all! It just made her a bit colder and cleaner. Nothing wrong with a scrub once or twice a year.” He laughed. “But she was frightened back there in the swamp. You were gone and all around were Saxons and they were spitting that she was a pagan, so what did you think she would do? She wants to be one of them, she wants folk to stop spitting at her, so she said she’d be baptized. And maybe she really is a Christian? I’d praise God for that mercy, but I’d rather praise him for making her happy.”

  “You don’t think she is?”

  “Of course she isn’t! She’s in love with you!” He laughed. “And being in love with you means living among the Saxons, doesn’t it? Poor girl. She’s like a beautiful young hind that finds herself living among grunting pigs.”

  “What a gift for words you have,” I said.

  He laughed, delighted with his insult. “Win your war, Lord Uhtred,” he said, “then take her away from us priests and give her lots of children. She’ll be happy, and one day she’ll be truly wise. That’s the women’s real gift, to be wise, and not many men have it.”

  And my gift was to be a warrior, though there was no fighting that day. We saw no Danes, though I was certain they had seen us and that by now Guthrum would have been told that Alfred had at last come from the swamp and was marching inland. We were giving him the opportunity to destroy us, to finish Wessex, and I knew that the Danes would be readying to march on us.

  We spent that night in an earthen fort built by the old people, and next morning went north and east through a hungry land. I rode ahead, going into the hills to look for the enemy, but again the world seemed empty. Rooks flew, hares danced, and cuckoos called from the woods that were thick with bluebells, but there were no Danes. I rode along a high ridge, gazing northward, and saw nothing, and when the sun was at its height I turned east. There were ten of us in my band and our guide was a man from Wiltunscir who knew the country and he led us toward the valley of the Wilig where Egbert’s Stone stands.

  A mile or so short of the valley we saw horsemen, but they were to the south of us and we galloped across ungrazed pastureland to find it was Alfred, escorted by Leofric, five soldiers, and four priests. “Have you been to the stone?” Alfred called out eagerly as we closed on him.

  “No, lord.”

  “Doubtless there are men there,” he said, disappointed that I could not bring him news.

  “I didn’t see any Danes either, lord.”

  “It’ll take them two days to organize,” he said dismissively. “But they’ll come! They’ll come! And we shall beat them!” He twisted in his saddle to look at Father Beocca, who was one of the priests. “Are you sore, father?”

  “Mightily sore, lord.”

  “You’re no horseman, Beocca, no horseman, but it’s not much farther. Not much farther, then you can rest!” Alfred was in a feverish mood. “Rest before we fight, eh! Rest and pray, father, then pray and fight. Pray and fight!” He kicked his horse into a gallop and we pounded after him through a pink-blossomed orchard and up a slope, then across a long hilltop where the bones of dead cattle lay in the new grass. White mayflower edged the woods at the foot of the hill and a hawk slanted away from us, sliding across the valley toward the charred remains of a barn.

  “It’s just across the crest, lord!” my guide shouted at me.

  “What is?”

  “Defereal, lord!”

  Defereal was the name of the settlement in the valley of the river Wilig where Egbert’s Stone waited, and Alfred now spurred his horse so that his blue cloak flapped behind him. We were all galloping, spread across the hilltop, racing to be the first over the crest to see the Saxon forces. Then Father Beocca’s horse stumbled. He was, as Alfred said, a bad horseman, but that was no surprise for he was both lame and palsied, and when the horse tipped forward Beocca tumbled from the saddle. I saw him rolling in the grass and turned my horse back. “I’m not hurt,” he shouted at me. “Not hurt! Not much. Go on, Uhtred, go on!”

  I caught his horse. Beocca was on his feet now, limping as fast as he could to where Alfred and the other horsemen stood in a line gazing into the valley beyond. “We should have brought the banners,” Beocca said as I gave him his reins.

  “The banners?”

  “So the fyrd knows their king has come,” he said breathlessly. “They should see his banners on the skyline, Uhtred, and know he has come. The cross and the dragon, eh? In hoc signo! Alfred will be the new Constantine, Uhtred, a warrior of the cross! In hoc signo, God be praised, God be praised, God indeed be mightily praised.”

  I had no idea what he meant, nor did I care.

  For I had reached the hilltop and could stare down into the long lovely valley of the Wilig.

  Which was empty.

  Not a man in sight. Just the river and the willows and the water meadows and the alders and a heron flying and the grass bending in the wind and the triple stone of Egbert on a slope above the Wilig where an army was supposed to gather. And there was not one man there. Not one single man in sight. The valley was empty.

  The men we had brought from Æthelingæg straggled into the valley, and with them now was the fyrd of Sumorsæte. Together they numbered just over a thousand men, and about half were equipped to fight in the shield wall while the rest were only good for shoving the front ranks forward or dealing with the enemy wounded or, more likely, dying.

  I could not face Alfred’s disappointment. He said nothing about it, but his thin face was pale and set hard as he busied himself with deciding where the thousand men should camp and where our few horses should be pastured. I rode up a high hill that lay to the north of the encampment, taking a score of men including Leofric, Steapa, and Father Pyrlig. The hill was steep, though that had not stopped the old people from making one of their strange graves high on the slope. The grave was a long mound and Pyrlig made a wide detour rather than ride past it. “Full of dragons, it is,” he explained to me.

  “You’ve seen a dragon?” I asked.

  “Would I be alive if I had? No one sees a dragon and lives!”

  I turned in the saddle and stared at the mound. “I thought folk were buried there?”

  “They are! And their treasures! So the dragon guards the hoard. That’s what dragons do. Bury gold and you hatch a dragon, see?”

  The horses had a struggle to climb the steep slope, but at its summit we were rewarded by a stretch of firm turf that offered views far to the north. I had climbed the hill to watch for Danes. Alfred might believe that it would be two or three days before we saw them, but I expected their scouts to be close and it was possible that a war band might try to harass the men camping by the Wilig.

  Yet I saw no one. To the northeast were great downs, sheep hills, while straight ahead was the lower ground where the cloud shadows raced across fields and over blossoming mayflower and darkened the bright gre
en new leaves.

  “So what happens now?” Leofric asked me.

  “You tell me.”

  “A thousand men? We can’t fight the Danes with a thousand men.”

  I said nothing. Far off, on the northern horizon, there were dark clouds.

  “We can’t even stay here!” Leofric said. “So where do we go?”

  “Back to the swamp?” Father Pyrlig suggested.

  “The Danes will bring more ships,” I said, “and eventually they’ll capture the swamp. If they send a hundred ships up the rivers, then the swamp is theirs.”

  “Go to Defnascir,” Steapa growled.

  And the same thing would happen there, I thought. We would be safe for a time in Defnascir’s tangle of hills and woods, but the Danes would come and there would be a succession of little fights and bit by bit Alfred would be bled to death. And once the Danes across the sea knew that Alfred was pinned into a corner of Wessex, they would bring more ships to take the good land that he could not hold. And that, I thought, was why he had been right to try to end the war in one blow, because he dared not let Wessex’s weakness become known.

  Except we were weak. We were a thousand men. We were pathetic. We were dreams fallen to earth, and suddenly I began to laugh. “What is it?” Leofric asked.

  “I was thinking that Alfred insisted I learn to read,” I said, “and for what?”

  He smiled, remembering. It was one of Alfred’s rules that every man who commanded sizable bodies of troops must be able to read, though it was a rule he had ignored when he made Leofric commander of his bodyguard. It seemed funny at that moment. All that effort so I could read his orders and he had never sent me one. Not one. “Reading is useful,” Pyrlig said.

  “What for?”

  He thought about it. The wind gusted, flapping his hair and beard. “You can read all those good stories in the gospel book,” he suggested brightly, “and the saints’ lives! How about those, eh? They’re full of lovely things, they are. There was Saint Donwen! Beautiful woman she was, and she gave her lover a drink that turned him into ice.”