by H A CULLEY
Eventually they rounded a bend and the beacons on top of the ramparts that surrounded the old Roman city appeared, illuminating the quayside between the river and the walls. Obviously they couldn’t tie up alongside the quay as they would be seen. Instead the fleet was beached two miles or so short of the city, the keels squelching into the soft mud that lined the river.
It took a long time to disembark. The warriors, most wearing chainmail and helmets and carrying heavy shields, sunk into the mire and a few had to be extricated by their fellows. Even when they managed to get away from the riverside they found themselves on marshy ground. By the time that they reached dry land they were exhausted. At his age Ragnar was one of those who were practically dead on their feet, but he wasn’t about to show it. He was everywhere, encouraging others in hushed tones and even pulling others along to help them through the mire.
By dawn they had reached a small wood near the walled city. From there Ragnar could see the dilapidated state of the eastern wall. It had been allowed to fall into disrepair over the four centuries since the Romans had left. Attempts had been made to patch it up but whole sections of it had been replaced by a timber palisade.
Initially the Anglo-Saxons didn’t have the skills to build in stone and so filled gaps in the original stonework with timber. Now that stone buildings were becoming much more common in England, the walls could have been properly repaired with stone blocks, but the fact that they hadn’t done so worked in the Vikings favour.
The Vikings had spent the day quietly making ladders out of timber found in the wood. They did as little chopping as possible because of the noise involved and, in consequence, the four ladders that they’d made were very rough and ready; but they would serve.
The sun was obscured by clouds as it set in the west, which helped the Vikings as the night was pitch black when it came. The torches set at intervals along the east wall were more of a help to the invaders than a hindrance as it showed them where the walls lay without lighting up too much of the area below. The Vikings split into four groups, each with a ladder, and headed for one of the pools of darkness below the wall.
The first four men had gained the walkway along the top of the fortifications before the alarm was given and by the time that the defenders had reached the parapet, the Vikings had killed the sentries and taken possession of the whole wall.
Ragnar paused to regain his breath when he reached the top of one of the ladders and was pushed out of the way by Ivar, who had followed him up.
‘Let me past, old man,’ his eldest son grunted at him as he ran to engage one of the Saxons who had just emerged from the steps leading up from the interior of the city.
Ragnar bellowed in rage and followed Ivar yelling for his hirdmen to follow him, not his son. By the time they had driven the defenders back into the city Ivar had disappeared, but Ragnar didn’t have time to worry about him. He and the fifty warriors with him found themselves beset by over a hundred of the city’s garrison. These weren’t members of the fyrd but professional soldiers and Ragnar and his men found themselves hard pressed.
There were near on a thousand Vikings somewhere inside Eoforwīc and he doubted if the garrison numbered more than a few hundred. It should have been a simple matter to capture the city, once inside the walls, but instead he was in danger of being overwhelmed.
The problem he realised later was that the place was a warren of tiny streets. Doubtless most of his men had found no-one to fight whilst other groups, like his, were fighting for their lives. It was something that Ivar would remember and use to his advantage a decade later.
Ragnar had an advantage in using his sword in his left hand. It was not something that an opponent was used to. However, that arm was now tiring and he’d already suffered a couple of minor wounds. He shook himself to drive away the fatigue which threatened to overwhelm him before moving to his left to fill a gap left by one of his hirdmen. The man had been cut down by a giant of a man wielding an axe and Ragnar guessed that he was a blacksmith; certainly there was no finesse or skill to his fighting, just the application of brute force.
As the man raised his axe once more to bring it down on Ragnar’s left shoulder, the latter twisted away so that it struck the shield on his right hand side. The blow numbed his whole arm and split the lime wood down to the centre boss, where the axe stuck. As the giant struggled to free it Ragnar twisted back, jerking the man forward. As he did so he thrust the point of his sword into the man’s right armpit, twisting the blade so that it cut through the muscles and severed an artery.
The arm was useless and blood was spurting everywhere. Still the Saxon tried to free his axe with his left hand until Ragnar pulled his sword out and thrust the tip into the man’s throat.
As he fell away Ragnar looked for his next opponent but the men of Eoforwīc were in full retreat. Later Ragnar learned that Ivar had killed their king – Rædwulf – and the heart had gone out of the defenders.
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The Vikings spent three days sacking and pillaging Eoforwīc, but when his scouts informed Ragnar that an army over two thousand strong was approaching from the north and another thousand were closing in from the west, he decided that it was time to go.
Ragnar had wanted to sail north again and make one more attempt to capture Bebbanburg. His feud was with Edmund, not Rædwulf, and although it was satisfying to have killed their king and looted his capital, it was not what he’d come for.
Ivar and his men took a different view. They had plundered the king’s hall, the monastery and the city and they had come away with a great deal of treasure as well as over a hundred captives to be sold as thralls. All they wanted to do now was to go home, regale their friends and families with tales of their exploits and celebrate their new found wealth.
Ragnar was king because men followed him. He couldn’t persuade them to attack the fortress in Northern Northumbria again if they didn’t wish to do so, still less could he order them to, so they sailed back to Norway leaving Ragnar’s thirst for revenge unquenched for another year.
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As it happened Edmund wasn’t at Bebbanburg when the Viking fleet sailed past on either occassion. He was at sea with all six of his longships, including the two new skeids, and four birlinns looking for Ragnar’s fleet. He had to rely on some of his fyrd to complete the crews of many vessels, but they were rapidly becoming used to life at sea and could give a reasonable account of themselves in a fight. He had no illusions that they would be a match for an experienced Norse crew though.
It wasn’t until they called in at Whitby that he learned about the capture of Eoforwīc and the death of Rædwulf. Archbishop Wulfhere had managed to flee and was reportedly somewhere in Mercia, but most of his monks and priests had been killed or captured.
Edmund sniffed. It sounded as if Wulfhere had been intent on saving his own skin and left his fellow clergy to their fate.
‘What will you do?’ the abbot asked. ‘The ealdormen have taken their warbands and those of the fyrd they could muster in time and marched south.’
‘They will be too late,’ Edmund stated, shaking his head. ‘The Vikings will have left after sacking the city.’
‘Perhaps you can cut them off at sea.’
‘I have ten ships of war in all, many of them smaller than a Viking drekar, and they have a fleet over twice my size. Furthermore, most of my men aren’t as well trained as their warriors. It would be suicide to try.’
At that moment a gust of wind rattled the shutters that kept most of the wind out of the abbot’s house. Edmund strode outside and looked at the storm clouds approaching from the west.
‘Unless we have our Lord’s help, that is,’ his said, his eyes lighting up with excitement. ‘Abbot, pray for us and hope that we can locate the enemy ships.’
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The storm drove Edmund’s fleet eastwards under reefed sails at a fast pace. His problem was not so much overcoming the superior Viking fleet, but in finding them in the first plac
e. The German Ocean was a vast stretch of water but the Ealdorman of Bebbanburg had a feeling that he knew the course that the Vikings would take if, as he suspected, they were heading for the entrance to the Skagerrak.
The scudding grey clouds obscured the sun but the wind was heading due east so, as long as he kept the pennon at the top of his mast pointing the same way as his bows, he was confident that he was heading in that direction too. The wind was strong but he had taken in one more reef than he had to for the conditions in order to ensure that the smaller birlinns could keep up. If his ships got dispersed it wouldn’t matter if he found the Vikings or not.
He was losing hope that he would come across them before dark when the boy at the top of the mast called out that he could see two ships dead ahead.
‘No, there’s more. I can see five now,’ he called down excitedly.
‘Are they together?’ Edmund asked, shouting as loud as he could to make himself heard over the wind.
Even so the boy indicated that he couldn’t hear him. Edmund realised that he was shouting into the wind and ran aft before repeating his question. This time, with the wind behind him, the boy understood him.
‘No, several hundred yards apart,’ he replied, shaking his head as he clung precariously to his perch whilst the masthead dipped and sprang back.
Edmund smiled to himself. He hadn’t heard the reply but he’d seen the boy shake his head. The enemy ships were dispersed. That gave him a chance.
On the nearest Viking ship, a drekar with thirty five oars a side, there was no boy up the mast as lookout. Unlike Edmund’s ships, who were flying before the wind with the waves behind them, Ragnar’s ships were rolling as they made their way north east. Their masts were moving about so much it would have been suicidal for anyone to have sat up there.
Instead the lookout was in the bows and he was concentrating on looking ahead and on maintaining contact with the rest of the fleet. The first he knew of the approaching Northumbrian ships was when his steersman spotted the yellow sails displaying the black wolf symbol of Bebbanburg just before they were lowered. As the sails came down the rowers ran their oars out. By that stage they were only three hundred yards from the closest drekar.
By this time about a dozen of the Viking longships were in sight, but they were scattered over a large area. Edmund knew that there would be more just over the horizon but they wouldn’t be aware of the situation. Even those in sight but further off might have difficulty in seeing what was going on, given the poor visibility and flying spray.
Edmund’s captains knew what to do. They paired off, each heading for one of the nearest longships. They needed to capture them and sink them before the rest could come to their aid. It was risky but it would take the other Viking ships time to reach the Northumbrians, given fact that they would be rowing against the wind and the storm-tossed sea.
Edmund’s ships quickly reached their respective targets. Whilst his own ship ran down one side of the large drekar Cynefrith grappled his to the other side. The drekar had over seventy warriors on board but the combined crews of the two Northumbrian ships totalled a hundred and twenty, most of them warriors.
Edmund led his boarding party onto the Viking deck as soon as the two sides touched. The Norsemen were experienced and hadn’t made the mistake of leaving their oars out for too long. By the time that Edmund landed on their deck they had pulled in their oars and picked up their weapons and shields. However, there hadn’t been time to don byrnies or helmets.
Edmund found himself facing two Norsemen as he rose from the crouch he’d adopted on landing. One was armed with an axe and the other with a sword. He fended off the axe with his shield and blocked the other man’s cut at his head with his own blade. As the axeman swung again Edmund ducked and slashed out at the man’s legs, cutting into his left knee. With a howl the axeman collapsed onto the deck clutching his shattered patella.
Edmund had scarcely time to draw breath before his other opponent thrust his sword at his throat. He jerked his head to the side as the Norseman’s blade nicked the side of his neck. The man was slow to recover his balance and Edmund thrust the point of his own sword into the man’s stomach. He followed up with a blow to the man’s skull to make sure he was dead.
When he looked around him he saw that his men and Cynefrith’s had driven the Vikings back into such a tight group that most were unable to use their weapons. Five minutes later it was all over. Those of the enemy who had survived were thrown over the side to sink or swim. There was little time left as two other Viking longships were closing in on them.
‘Stave in the hull,’ Cynefrith ordered as the Northumbrians made haste to re-board their own ships.
As they rowed back into the storm they saw the dragonhead on the prow of the drekar rise high in the air before it followed the rest of the ship down into the depths of the German Ocean. As they headed westwards Edmund looked around him. Four other Viking longships had been sunk and all ten of his fleet were rowing as hard as they could away from the six longships who were now pursuing them. The rest were either continuing on course for Norway or were still over the horizon.
Edmund debated with himself for a few moments and then gave the order to turn and face the oncoming ships. It took time for the rest of the fleet to understand his intention as only Cynefrith’s ship was within hailing distance. Even then his captain had trouble hearing Edmund’s shouted orders. But within a few minutes every captain realised what their ealdorman wanted them to do.
As the six longships and the four birlinns turned and started to close on their pursuers the Vikings panicked. They had already seen five of their fellows sunk and they lost their nerve. Edmund watched as they tacked and turned back onto a north easterly course. He let them go, well satisfied with the day’s work.
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The Witan was in uproar. The fall of Eoforwīc and the slaying of King Rædwulf had shaken the whole kingdom. Recrimination was rife with various nobles blaming each other for what had happened. Even Edmund had come in for criticism for not doing more to fight the Vikings at sea. He had a feeling that only his defeat of part of Ragnar’s fleet had saved him from being formally censured.
‘Quiet, silence I say,’ Ealdorman Osberht of Loidis bellowed, struggling to make himself heard above the din.
The capital had moved to Loidis whilst Eoforwīc was being rebuilt and Osberht was supposed to be chairing the meeting of the Witan. Archbishop Wulfhere banged the ferule of his crozier on the stone floor and Osbehrt drew his dagger and banged the hilt on the table in front of him. Gradually the staccato noise restored some semblance of order.
‘Thank you. This is getting us nowhere. We need to elect a new king as the first matter on the agenda. I submit that, as the senior ætheling, I should be elected to the throne.’
When the renewed tumult that greeted this announcement had died down Edmund stood up and quietly reminded the Witan that they didn’t need a new king.
‘Rædwulf was my friend, but he was a usurper. Æthelred is now fully recovered from his unfortunate illness and he should be restored to his throne.’
‘You only say that because you hope to receive favours from him,’ Ælle, Osbehrt’s brother, sneered.
‘No, I say that because it’s true. Æthelred is our king and, by the sound of it, the only choice if we wish to avoid civil war between you and your brother.’
Ælle flushed at that. Both he and Osbehrt had put themselves forward as contenders for the throne. Everyone knew that they couldn’t stand one another and both had already declared that they wouldn’t accept the other as king.
Wulfhere got to his feet to support Æthelred and Bishop Eardulf of Lindisfarne and the other senior churchmen did the same. After that the vote was a foregone conclusion and Edmund was dispatched to Jarrow, where Æthelred now lived as a monk, to give him the good news.
Chapter Twenty One – The Fate of Kings
858 to 862
Ragnar had returned home to a mixed reception.
Whilst those who had survived were wealthy by comparison to the average bondi, nearly three hundred men had been killed in the sea battle. On top of the fifty who’d died during the assault on Eoforwīc; that meant a lot of widows and orphaned children, as well as parents who blamed Ragnar for the death of their unmarried sons.
It gave him another reason to hate Edmund of Bebbanburg. He had been on one of the ships over the horizon when the attack happened, but as soon as he’d heard from one of the few men rescued from the sea that the device on the sails had been a black wolf’s head he knew who the architect of his misfortune was.
By now Ragnar was over fifty and he looked it. He was increasingly isolated. His favourite son, Bjorn, was ruling Uppsala and he rarely saw him. Ivar, on the other hand, made no secret of the fact that he thought it was about time his father handed the eastern kingdoms over to him. Halfdan did whatever Ivar told him and, although he tried to be loyal to Ragnar, he was no fool. His father’s time on this earth was limited and his eldest brother was the coming man.
After Bjorn, Ragnar was closest to Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, but he too was still in Sweden. Now that they were older, and perhaps wiser, it wasn’t surprising that Ragnar turned increasingly to Lagertha for advice and support. She hadn’t quite forgotten her antipathy towards her former husband but they had come to an understanding years ago. If the passion had died, they each respected the other as a leader and a warrior. In any case she shared his desire for vengeance. She also blamed Edmund for the death of her only son.
However, for a few years Ragnar was content to stay behind at Agder in the summer months whilst Ivar and Halfdan went raiding. Their targets were the land of the Rus across the Baltic, Frankia and Ireland. Although they raided East Anglia and Kent once or twice, they avoided Northumbria - a fact which did much to restore Edmund of Bebbanburg’s standing in the eyes of both his fellow nobles and King Æthelred.