Sword Song s-4

by Bernard Cornwell

  I stopped then and saw that Eanflæd had her arm about a younger woman who sat on a chair with her head bowed. She looked up suddenly and saw me. It was Æthelflaed and her pretty face was wan, drawn, and scared. She had been crying and her eyes were still bright from the tears. She seemed not to recognize me, then she did and offered me a sad reluctant smile. I smiled back, bowed, and walked on.

  And thought about Lundene.

  PART TWO

  THE CITY

  FOUR

  We had agreed at Wintanceaster that Æthelred would come downriver to Coccham, bringing with him the troops from Alfred’s household guard, his own warriors, and whatever men he could raise from his extensive lands in southern Mercia. Once he arrived we would jointly march on Lundene with the Berrocscire fyrd and my own household troops. Alfred had stressed the need for haste, and Æthelred had promised to be ready in two weeks.

  Yet a whole month passed and still Æthelred had not come. The year’s first nestlings were taking wing among trees that were still not in full leaf. The pear blossom was white, and wagtails flitted in and out of their nests under the thatched eaves of our house. I watched a cuckoo staring intently at those nests, planning when to leave her egg among the wagtail’s clutch. The cuckoo had not started calling yet, but it would soon, and that was the time by which Alfred wanted Lundene captured.

  I waited. I was bored, as were my household troops, who were ready for war and suffered peace. They numbered just fifty-six warriors. It was a small number, scarcely sufficient to crew a ship, but men cost money and I was hoarding my silver in those days. Five of those men were youngsters who had never faced the ultimate test of battle, which was to stand in the shield wall, and so, as we waited for Æthelred, I put those five men through day after day of hard training. Osferth, Alfred’s bastard, was one of them. “He’s no good,” Finan said to me repeatedly.

  “Give him time,” I said just as frequently.

  “Give him a Danish blade,” Finan said viciously, “and pray it slits his monkish belly.” He spat. “I thought the king wanted him back in Wintanceaster?”

  “He does.”

  “So why don’t you send him back? He’s no use to us.”

  “Alfred has too many other things on his mind,” I said, ignoring Finan’s question, “and he won’t remember Osferth.” That was not true. Alfred had a most methodical mind, and he would not have forgotten Osferth’s absence from Wintanceaster, nor my disobedience in not sending the youth back to his studies.

  “But why not send him back?” Finan insisted.

  “Because I liked his uncle,” I said, and that was true. I had loved Leofric and, for his sake, I would be kind to his nephew.

  “Or are you just trying to annoy the king, lord?” Finan asked, then grinned and strode away without waiting for an answer. “Hook and pull, you bastard!” he shouted at Osferth. “Hook and pull!”

  Osferth turned to look at Finan and was immediately struck on the head by an oak cudgel wielded by Clapa. If it had been an ax the blade would have split Osferth’s helmet and cut deep into his skull, but the cudgel just half stunned him, so he fell to his knees.

  “Get up, you weakling!” Finan snarled. “Get up, hook and pull!”

  Osferth tried to get up. His pale face looked miserable under the battered helmet that I had given him. He managed to stand, but immediately wobbled and knelt again.

  “Give me that,” Finan said, and snatched the ax out of Osferth’s feeble hands. “Now watch! It isn’t difficult to do! My wife could do this!”

  The five new men were facing five of my experienced warriors. The youngsters had been given axes, real weapons, and told to break the shield wall that opposed them. It was a small wall, just the five overlapping shields defended by wooden clubs, and Clapa grinned as Finan approached.

  “What you do,” Finan was speaking to Osferth, “is hook the ax blade over the top of the enemy bastard’s shield. Is that so difficult? Hook it, pull the shield down, and let your neighbor kill the earsling behind it. We’ll do it slowly, Clapa, to show how it’s done, and stop grinning.”

  They made the hook and pull in ludicrously slow motion, the ax coming gently overhand to latch its blade behind Clapa’s shield, and Clapa then allowing Finan to pull the shield’s top down toward him. “There,” Finan turned on Osferth when Clapa’s body had been exposed to a blow, “that’s how you break a shield wall! Now we’ll do it for real, Clapa.”

  Clapa grinned again, relishing a chance to clout Finan with the cudgel. Finan stepped back, licked his lips, then struck fast. He swung the ax just as he had demonstrated, but Clapa tilted the shield back to take the ax head on the wooden surface and, at the same time, rammed his cudgel under the shield in a savage thrust at Finan’s groin.

  It was always a pleasure to watch the Irishman fight. He was the quickest man with a blade that I ever saw, and I have seen many. I thought Clapa’s lunge would fold him in two and drive him to the grass in agony, but Finan sidestepped, seized the lower rim of the shield with his left hand, and jerked it hard upward to drive the top iron rim into Clapa’s face. Clapa staggered backward, his nose already red with blood, and the ax was somehow dropped with the speed of a striking snake and its blade was hooked around Clapa’s ankle. Finan pulled, Clapa fell back and now it was the Irishman who grinned. “That isn’t hook and pull,” he said to Osferth, “but it works just the same.”

  “Wouldn’t have worked if you’d been holding a shield,” Clapa complained.

  “That thing in your face, Clapa?” Finan said, “thing that flaps open and closed? That ugly thing you shovel food into? Keep it shut.” He tossed the ax to Osferth who tried to snatch the handle out of the air. He missed and the ax thumped into a puddle.

  The spring had turned wet. Rain sheeted down, the river spread, there was mud everywhere. Boots and clothes rotted. What little grain was left in store sprouted and I sent my men hunting or fishing to provide us with food. The first calves were born, slithering bloodily into a wet world. Every day I expected Alfred to come and inspect Coccham’s progress, but in those drenched days he stayed in Wintanceaster. He did send a messenger, a pallid priest who brought a letter sewn into a greased lambskin pouch. “If you cannot read it, lord,” he suggested tentatively as I slit the pouch open, “I can…”

  “I can read,” I growled. I could too. It was not an achievement I was proud of, because only priests and monks really needed the skill, but Father Beocca had whipped letters into me when I was a boy, and the lessons had proved useful. Alfred had decreed that all his lords should be able to read, not just so they could stagger their way through the gospel books the king insisted on sending as presents, but so they could read his messages.

  I thought the letter might bring news of Æthelred, perhaps some explanation of why he was taking so long to bring his men to Coccham, but instead it was an order that I was to take one priest for every thirty men when I marched to Lundene. “I’m to do what?” I asked aloud.

  “The king worries about men’s souls, lord,” the priest said.

  “So he wants me to take useless mouths to feed? Tell him to send me grain and I’ll take some of his damned priests.” I looked back to the letter, which had been written by one of the royal clerks, but at the bottom, in Alfred’s bold handwriting, was one line. “Where is Osferth?” the line read. “He is to return today. Send him with Father Cuthbert.”

  “You’re Father Cuthbert?” I asked the nervous priest.

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Well you can’t take Osferth back,” I said, “he’s ill.”

  “Ill?”

  “He’s sick as a dog,” I said, “and probably going to die.”

  “But I thought I saw him,” Father Cuthbert said, gesturing out of the open door to where Finan was trying to goad Osferth into showing some skill and enthusiasm. “Look,” the priest said brightly, trying to be of assistance.

  “Very likely to die,” I said slowly and savagely. Father Cuthbert turned back to s
peak, caught my eye and his voice faltered. “Finan!” I shouted, and waited till the Irishman came into the house with a naked sword in his hand. “How long,” I asked, “do you think young Osferth will live?”

  “He’ll be lucky to survive one day,” Finan said, assuming I had meant how long Osferth would last in battle.

  “You see?” I said to Father Cuthbert. “He’s sick. He’s going to die. So tell the king I shall grieve for him. And tell the king that the longer my cousin waits, the stronger the enemy becomes in Lundene.”

  “It’s the weather, lord,” Father Cuthbert said. “Lord Æthelred cannot find adequate supplies.”

  “Tell him there’s food in Lundene,” I said and knew I was wasting my breath.

  Æthelred finally came in mid April, and our joint forces now numbered almost eight hundred men, of whom fewer than four hundred were useful. The rest had been raised from the fyrd of Berrocscire or summoned from the lands in southern Mercia that Æthelred had inherited from his father, my mother’s brother. The men of the fyrd were farmers, and they brought axes or hunting bows. A few had swords or spears, and fewer still had any armor other than a leather jerkin, while some marched with nothing but sharpened hoes. A hoe can be a fearful weapon in a street brawl, but it is hardly suitable to beat down a mailed Viking armed with shield, ax, short-sword, and long blade.

  The useful men were my household troops, a similar number from Æthelred’s household, and three hundred of Alfred’s own guards who were led by the grim-faced, looming Steapa. Those trained men would do the real fighting, while the rest were just there to make our force look large and menacing.

  Yet in truth Sigefrid and Erik would know exactly how menacing we were. Throughout the winter and early spring there had been travelers coming upriver from Lundene and some were doubtless the brothers’ spies. They would know how many men we were bringing, how many of those men were true warriors, and those same spies must have reported back to Sigefrid on the day we had last crossed the river to the northern bank.

  We made the crossing upstream of Coccham, and it took all day. Æthelred grumbled about the delay, but the ford we used, which had been impassable all winter, was running high again and the horses had to be coaxed over, and the supplies had to be loaded on the ships for the crossing, though not on board Æthelred’s ship, which he insisted could not carry cargo.

  Alfred had given his son-in-law the Heofonhlaf to use for the campaign. It was the smaller of Alfred’s river ships, and Æthelred had raised a canopy over the stern to make a sheltered spot just forward of the steersman’s platform. There were cushions there, and pelts, and a table and stools, and Æthelred spent all day watching the crossing from beneath the canopy while servants brought him food and ale.

  He watched with Æthelflaed who, to my surprise, accompanied her husband. I first saw her as she walked the small raised deck of the Heofonhlaf and, seeing me, she had raised a hand in greeting. At midday Gisela and I were summoned to her husband’s presence and Æthelred greeted Gisela like an old friend, fussing over her and demanding that a fur cloak be fetched for her. Æthelflaed watched the fuss, then gave me a blank look. “You are going back to Wintanceaster, my lady?” I asked her. She was a woman now, married to an ealdorman, and so I called her my lady.

  “I am coming with you,” she said blandly.

  That startled me. “You’re coming…” I began, but did not finish.

  “My husband wishes it,” she said very formally, then a flash of the old Æthelflaed showed as she gave me a quick smile, “and I’m glad. I want to see a battle.”

  “A battle is no place for a lady,” I said firmly.

  “Don’t worry the woman, Uhtred!” Æthelred called across the deck. He had heard my last words. “My wife will be quite safe, I have assured her of that.”

  “War is no place for women,” I insisted.

  “She wishes to see our victory,” Æthelred insisted, “and so she shall, won’t you, my duck?”

  “Quack, quack,” Æthelflaed said so softly that only I could hear. There was bitterness in her tone, but when I glanced at her she was smiling sweetly at her husband.

  “I would come if I could,” Gisela said, then touched her belly. The baby did not show yet.

  “You can’t,” I said, and was rewarded by a mocking grimace, then we heard a bellow of rage from the bows of Heofonhlaf.

  “Can’t a man sleep!” the voice shouted. “You Saxon earsling! You woke me up!”

  Father Pyrlig had been sleeping under the small platform at the ship’s bows, where some poor man had inadvertently disturbed him. The Welshman now crawled into the sullen daylight and blinked at me. “Good God,” he said with disgust in his voice, “it’s the Lord Uhtred.”

  “I thought you were in East Anglia,” I called to him.

  “I was, but King Æthelstan sent me to make sure you useless Saxons don’t piss down your legs when you see Northmen on Lundene’s walls.” It took me a moment to remember that Æthelstan was Guthrum’s Christian name. Pyrlig came toward us, a dirty shirt covering his belly where his wooden cross hung. “Good morning, my lady,” he called cheerfully to Æthelflaed.

  “It is afternoon, father,” Æthelflaed said, and I could tell from the warmth in her voice that she liked the Welsh priest.

  “Is it afternoon? Good God, I slept like a baby. Lady Gisela! A pleasure. My goodness, but all the beauties are gathered here!” He beamed at the two women. “If it wasn’t raining I would think I’d been transported to heaven. My lord,” the last two words were addressed to my cousin and it was plain from their tone that the two men were not friends. “You need advice, my lord?” Pyrlig asked.

  “I do not,” my cousin said harshly.

  Father Pyrlig grinned at me. “Alfred asked me to come as an adviser.” He paused to scratch a fleabite on his belly. “I’m to advise Lord Æthelred.”

  “As am I,” I said.

  “And doubtless Lord Uhtred’s advice would be the same as mine,” Pyrlig went on, “which is that we must move with the speed of a Saxon seeing a Welshman’s sword.”

  “He means we must move fast,” I explained to Æthelred, who knew perfectly well what the Welshman had meant.

  My cousin ignored me. “Are you being deliberately offensive?” he asked Pyrlig stiffly.

  “Yes, lord!” Pyrlig grinned. “I am!”

  “I have killed dozens of Welshmen,” my cousin said.

  “Then the Danes will be no problem to you, will they?” Pyrlig retorted, refusing to take offense. “But my advice still stands, lord. Make haste! The pagans know we’re coming, and the more time you give them, the more formidable their defenses!”

  We might have moved fast had we possessed ships to carry us downriver, but Sigefrid and Erik, knowing we were coming, had blocked all traffic on the Temes and, not counting Heofonhlaf, we could only muster seven ships, not nearly sufficient to carry our men and so only the laggards and the supplies and Æthelred’s cronies traveled by water. So we marched and it took us four days, and every day we saw horsemen to the north of us or ships downstream of us, and I knew those were Sigefrid’s scouts, making a last count of our numbers as our clumsy army lumbered ever nearer Lundene. We wasted one whole day because it was a Sunday and Æthelred insisted that the priests accompanying the army said mass. I listened to the drone of voices and watched the enemy horsemen circle around us. Haesten, I knew, would already have reached Lundene, and his men, at least two or three hundred of them, would be reinforcing the walls.

  Æthelred traveled on board the Heofonhlaf, only coming ashore in the evening to walk around the sentries I had posted. He made a point of moving those sentries, as if to suggest I did not know my business, and I let him do it. On the last night of the journey we camped on an island that was reached from the north bank by a narrow causeway, and its reed-fringed shore was thick with mud so that Sigefrid, if he had a mind to attack us, would find our camp hard to approach. We tucked our ships into the creek that twisted to the island�
��s north and, as the tide went down and the frogs filled the dusk with croaking, the hulls settled into the thick mud. We lit fires on the mainland that would illuminate the approach of any enemy, and I posted men all around the island.

  Æthelred did not come ashore that evening. Instead he sent a servant who demanded that I go to him on board the Heofonhlaf and so I took off my boots and trousers and waded through the glutinous muck before hauling myself over the ship’s side. Steapa, who was marching with the men from Alfred’s bodyguard, came with me. A servant drew buckets of river water from the ship’s far side and we cleaned the mud from our legs, then dressed again before joining Æthelred under his canopy at the Heofonhlaf’s stern. My cousin was accompanied by the commander of his household guard, a young Mercian nobleman named Aldhelm who had a long, supercilious face, dark eyes, and thick black hair that he oiled to a lustrous sheen.

  Æthelflaed was also there, attended by a maid and by a grinning Father Pyrlig. I bowed to her and she smiled back, but without enthusiasm, and then bent to her embroidery, which was illuminated by a horn-shielded lantern. She was threading white wool onto a dark gray field, making the image of a prancing horse that was her husband’s banner. The same banner, much larger, hung motionless at the ship’s mast. There was no wind, so the smoke from the fires of Lundene’s two towns was a motionless smear in the darkening east.

  “We attack at dawn,” Æthelred announced without so much as a greeting. He was dressed in a mail coat and had his swords, short and long, belted at his waist. He was looking unusually smug, though he tried to make his voice casual. “But I will not sound the advance for my troops,” he went on, “until I hear your own attack has started.”

  I frowned at those words. “You won’t start your attack,” I repeated cautiously, “until you hear mine has started?”

  “That’s plain, isn’t it?” Æthelred demanded belligerently.

  “Very plain,” Aldhelm said mockingly. He treated Æthelred in the same manner that Æthelred behaved to Alfred and, secure in my cousin’s favor, felt free to offer me veiled insult.