War Lord

by Bernard Cornwell

  I pointed east. ‘It joins the Great Road somewhere over there, then down to Eoferwic.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘Two days on horseback, three if you’re not in a hurry.’

  ‘Then this,’ Egil said, ‘would be a fine place for a fort.’ He swept a hand around the ground where we stood. ‘It has water, and from here you can see an enemy coming.’

  ‘For a poet,’ I said slowly, ‘and a Norseman, you have a brilliant mind.’

  He grinned, unsure of what I was saying. ‘I’m a warrior too.’

  ‘You are, my friend. A fort!’ I looked down the slope and saw a sheep track that ran downhill at a steep angle. ‘How long would it take to reach that village on horseback?’ I pointed to the settlement by the river where smoke rose gently. ‘Not long?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘Finan!’ I called, and when he joined us I pointed to the village. ‘Is that a church I see there?’

  Finan, who had the best eyesight of any man I have ever known, glanced downhill. ‘It has a cross on the gable. What else could it be?’

  I had been wondering how we were to reveal the gold we would bury in the graves, but Egil’s suggestion had given me the answer. ‘Come spring,’ I said, ‘we will build a fort here.’ I pointed at the feeble pines. ‘Start the palisade with those trunks. Buy more timber from the valley, buy ale there, buy food. You’ll be in charge.’

  ‘Me?’ Finan said.

  ‘You’re a Christian! I’ll give you forty men, maybe fifty, all Christians. And you’ll ask the priest to come and bless the fort.’

  ‘Which won’t be finished,’ Finan said.

  ‘It will never be finished,’ I said, ‘because you’ll show the priest the gold. You’ll give him some gold!’

  ‘And in a week,’ Egil said slowly, ‘every man in the Tesa valley will know of the gold.’

  ‘Within a week,’ I said, ‘Guthfrith and Ealdred will know of the gold.’ I turned to stare at the mounds. ‘There’s only one problem.’

  ‘Which is?’ Finan asked.

  ‘We’re a long way from Scotland.’

  ‘That’s a problem?’ Egil asked.

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t matter.’

  We would bait the trap, not for one king, but for three. Æthelstan had forecast that any new war in Britain would be the most terrible ever known, and claimed he did not want that war, yet he had started a war against Bebbanburg. True, it was a strange war with no deaths and small harm, but war it was and he had started it.

  Now I would finish it.

  Bishop Oda came as spring began to turn into summer. He arrived with a younger priest and six warriors who all showed Æthelstan’s badge of the dragon and lightning bolt on their shields. The day had dawned unusually warm, but by the time Oda rode to the Skull Gate the first fret of the year had drifted in from the sea.

  ‘I didn’t even need a cloak this morning,’ Oda complained as he greeted me, ‘and now this fog!’

  ‘A fret,’ I said, ‘what you Danes call a haar.’ On hot summer days a thick North Sea fog would shroud the fortress. As often as not the sun would burn the fret away, but if an east wind blew from the sea the fret would be continually pushed ashore and might linger all day, sometimes dense enough to hide our seaward ramparts from the great hall.

  ‘I bring you a gift,’ Oda said as I ushered him into the hall.

  ‘Ealdred’s head?’ I asked.

  ‘A gift from the king,’ he ignored my poor jest. He held out a hand to the young priest who gave him a leather-wrapped bundle which, in turn, was given to me.

  The bundle was secured with string which I snapped. Inside the soft leather wrapping was a book. ‘A book,’ I said sourly.

  ‘Indeed! But fear not! It isn’t a gospel book. The king does not believe in casting pearls before swine. Dear lady!’ He raised his hands in warm greeting of Benedetta who came towards us. ‘You look more beautiful than ever.’ Oda embraced her chastely. ‘And I have brought you a gift from the king, a book!’

  ‘A book,’ I repeated, still sourly.

  ‘We need books,’ Benedetta said, then clapped her hands to summon servants. ‘We have wine, bishop, and it is even good wine!’

  ‘Your friends in Eoferwic, bishop,’ I said bitterly, ‘have tried to stop ships trading with us. Yet the ships still come, and they bring us wine.’

  I took Oda to the dais, out of earshot of the six warriors who had dutifully surrendered their swords and had been shown to a table at the lower end of the hall where they were given bread, cheese, and ale. ‘This is Father Edric, one of my chaplains,’ Oda introduced the young priest. ‘He was eager to meet you, lord.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Father Edric,’ I said unenthusiastically. He was a thin, pale-faced young man, scarce more than a boy, with a nervous expression. He kept glancing at the hammer I wore as if he had never seen such a thing before.

  ‘Father Edric found the book for the king.’ Oda touched the volume that I had placed unopened on the table. ‘Tell Lord Uhtred about it, father.’

  Edric opened and closed his mouth, swallowed, then tried again. ‘It is De Consolatione Philosophiae, lord.’ He stammered the title, then stopped abruptly, as if too scared to continue.

  ‘And that is translated how?’ Bishop Oda enquired gently of Edric.

  ‘The consolation of philosophy,’ Benedetta answered instead, ‘by Boethius? An Italian.’

  ‘A clever Italian,’ Oda said, ‘like you, dear lady.’

  Benedetta had opened the book and her eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘But this is in the Saxon tongue!’

  ‘It was translated, dear lady, by King Alfred himself. And King Alfred was a friend to Lord Uhtred, was he not?’ The question was directed at me.

  ‘He never liked me,’ I said, ‘he just needed me.’

  ‘He liked you,’ Oda insisted, ‘but disliked your religion. King Æthelstan, on the other hand, fears you.’

  I stared at him. ‘Fears me!’

  ‘You are a warrior, lord, and you defy him. Men notice that, and if you can defy him so can others. How can Æthelstan be God’s anointed king if his lords will not submit to him?’

  ‘You say I defy him?’ I snarled. ‘I made him king!’

  ‘And the king,’ Oda said calmly, ‘is convinced that God intended him to be the Monarchus Totius Brittaniae. He is persuaded that he is the child of God’s destiny, fated to bring a time of peace and plenty to Britain.’

  ‘So he encourages Ealdred to raid my lands.’

  Oda ignored that. ‘There is a hierarchy on earth as there is in heaven,’ he continued, still calm, ‘and just as Almighty God sits in power above all creatures of heaven and of earth, so must a king be exalted above all people who live in his lands. Constantine of Alba has submitted to Æthelstan, Hywel of Dyfed has kissed his hands, Owain of Strath Clota has bowed his head, Guthfrith of Northumbria is his servant, and only Uhtred of Bebbanburg has refused to take the oath.’

  ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I said bitterly, ‘swore an oath to protect Æthelstan. I protected him as a child, I taught him to fight, I gave him his throne, I have kept that oath and I need give him no other.’

  ‘For the king’s dignity,’ Oda said, ‘you must be seen to submit.’

  ‘Dignity!’ I laughed.

  ‘He is a proud man,’ Oda said gently.

  ‘Then tell the proud man to call off his hounds, to publicly declare that I am Lord of Bebbanburg, not Ealdred, and to pay me gold for the damage his men have caused my land, and then, bishop, I will kneel to him.’

  Oda sighed. ‘The king was convinced you would accept his offer to be the Ealdorman of Wiltunscir! That was generous!’

  ‘Bebbanburg is mine,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Read the book, lord,’ Oda said, pushing the volume towards me. ‘Boethius was a Christian, but his book does not try to persuade you to convert. It is a book of truths, that money and power are not the right ambitions of a virtuous man, but that justice, charity and humilit
y will bring you contentment.’

  ‘And the Monarchus Totius Brittaniae,’ I stumbled over the unfamiliar Latin words, ‘sends me that?’

  ‘His fate is to be king. A man cannot escape his fate.’

  ‘Wyrd bið ful ãræd,’ I answered harshly, which meant that I, like Æthelstan, could not escape my fate, ‘and my wyrd is to be Lord of Bebbanburg.’

  Oda shook his head sadly. ‘I was sent with a message, lord. The king requires Bebbanburg, he needs it to be a shield against the Scots.’

  ‘It is already,’ I said firmly, ‘and you said Constantine had submitted to him. Why fear the Scots if they have submitted?’

  ‘Because they lie,’ Oda said. ‘Constantine sends messages of peace to Æthelstan and he sends men and money into Cumbria. If it comes to war he wants the Norse of Cumbria on his side.’

  I had heard the same, that Constantine was seducing the Norse in Cumbria with promises of land and wealth. ‘If it comes to war,’ I said sourly, ‘Æthelstan will want me on his side.’

  ‘He wants Bebbanburg,’ Oda retorted.

  ‘Or is it Ingilmundr and Ealdred who want Bebbanburg?’

  Oda hesitated, then shrugged. ‘I have told the king to trust you, and I have persuaded him to curb Ealdred.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be grateful to you?’

  ‘And the king has agreed,’ Oda ignored the question, ‘and he repeats his offer to you. Let the king garrison Bebbanburg and take Wiltunscir as your home.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘Thus far, lord, the king has been merciful. He has declined to send his full power against this fortress. But if you defy him he will lead his army and his fleet here, and he will prove to you that he is indeed the Monarchus Totius Brittaniae.’

  ‘But Uhtred is his friend!’ Benedetta protested.

  ‘A king does not have friends, dear lady, he has subjects. Lord Uhtred must offer submission.’ He looked at me. ‘And you must offer it by the Feast of Saint Oswald, lord.’

  I stared at him for a heartbeat. I wanted to say a score of things, how I had raised Æthelstan, how I had protected him from vicious enemies and steered him towards the throne. Or to ask if Æthelstan was now so captive to the whisperings of Ingilmundr and Ealdred that he would kill me. Instead, almost in disbelief, I simply asked Oda if he was telling the truth. ‘You say he’ll declare war on me?’

  ‘He will merely take what he believes is rightfully his, and so secure the northern frontier of his kingdom against the treachery of the Scots. And you, lord, if you submit before the Feast of Saint Oswald, can be Ealdorman of Wiltunscir. You have all summer, lord, all summer to think on it.’ He paused, then sipped his wine and smiled. ‘The wine is good! May we lodge here tonight?’

  He and his men lodged that night and before Oda slept he walked with me on Bebbanburg’s ramparts, just the two of us, looking out at the moon-shivered sea. ‘Æthelstan is influenced by Ingilmundr and by Ealdred,’ Oda confessed to me, ‘and I regret that. Yet I dare say he listens to me too, which is perhaps why he’s reluctant to force your obedience.’

  ‘Then why—’ I began.

  ‘Because he is king,’ Oda interrupted firmly, ‘and as a great Christian king he cannot be seen to be indebted to a pagan lord.’

  ‘Alfred was,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘Alfred never lacked confidence,’ Oda said. ‘Æthelstan claims that he was appointed king by Almighty God, but he constantly seeks confirmation of that. There are still men who whisper that his birth was illegitimate, that he is a bastard son of a common whore, and the king looks to prove that he is indeed God’s anointed. Receiving the oaths at Burgham was one such proof, but men whisper that he tolerates paganism.’ He looked at me. ‘And how can he depend on a pagan? So he needs to show all Britain that he can command you, diminish you. And he believes, as I do, that you will accept his offer. It is a generous one!’ He paused and touched my arm. ‘What can I tell him?’

  ‘Just that.’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘That his offer is a generous one.’

  ‘No more, lord?’

  ‘That I will think about it,’ I said grudgingly, and it was an honest answer even though I knew I would not accept it.

  I would say nothing more and next morning, after saying prayers in Bebbanburg’s chapel, Oda left. And on the following day Finan took forty-three warriors, all of them Christians, out of the Skull Gate and into the hills.

  They were riding south. To the Devil’s Valley.

  ‘So Æthelstan comes in August?’ Benedetta asked me.

  I shook my head. ‘It’s too close to harvest time. He’ll want his army to live off our land, so he’ll wait till our granaries are full, then he’ll come. But it won’t happen.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Æthelstan wants a war? I’ll give him one.’

  Ealdred’s raids had ended, so an uneasy peace now existed between Eoferwic and Bebbanburg. I made sure that Guthfrith and Ealdred heard news of me. I went to Dunholm to talk with Sihtric and sailed Spearhafoc down the coast. The Devil’s Valley was in the western part of my land and so I stayed in the east until, three weeks after Finan had left, I gave Gerbruht, the big Frisian, my mail coat, my wolf-crested helmet and a distinctive white cloak. Gerbruht even agreed to take off his cross and wear a hammer, though only after Father Cuthbert had assured him that he was not risking the fires of hell.

  Gerbruht sailed the coast in Spearhafoc, pointedly buying fish from boats that had come from Guthfrith’s land, while I rode into the hills with twenty men, two packhorses and a king’s ransom in gold. I wore an old coat of mail, carried a plain helmet, but I did have Serpent-Breath at my side. We rode fast, reaching the high valley on the fourth afternoon beneath lowering skies.

  Finan had made a palisade on the valley’s lip. It was a crude wall of roughly trimmed pine logs and behind it were branch and turf shelters for his men. He had dug trenches as if preparing to make three more walls to complete a square fort that overlooked the Tesa’s valley. ‘They’ve noticed you?’ I asked, nodding down at the nearest village.

  ‘They’ve noticed us, right enough!’ Finan sounded pleased. ‘And I reckon Guthfrith has too.’

  ‘You know that?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘It took a week, only a week. Then horsemen came, three of them, all Danes. They rode up here and asked what we were doing. They were friendly.’

  ‘And you told them?’

  ‘I said we were building a fort for Lord Uhtred, of course.’ Finan grinned. ‘I asked if they lived on your land and they just laughed.’

  ‘You let them look around?’

  ‘They looked at the graves, laughed at the wall, and didn’t see our swords. They saw men digging trenches and trimming logs. And they rode off that way.’ He nodded east towards the road in the deeper valley, the road that led eventually to Eoferwic.

  Guthfrith knew, I was sure of it. Little could be hidden in the countryside, and Finan had made sure some of his men drank in the village tavern. I suspected the three Danes had indeed come from Guthfrith, but even if not they would have spread the news that I was building a fort in the hills above the Tesa, and Guthfrith was probably laughing. He might have ceased his raiding, but would reckon that the new fort in the Devil’s Valley would do me little good if he started again. And it would do me no good at all if Æthelstan came with an army.

  ‘You need to make pitch soon,’ I told Finan.

  ‘Easy enough, plenty of pine here. Why do I need it?’

  I ignored the question. ‘If anyone asks say you’ll caulk the wall with it.’

  Guthfrith knew, because we could not hide what we were doing, nor did we want to, but I desperately needed to hide the jaws of the trap we were making. I had sent word to Egil, asking him to be ready to send men, and had told Sihtric that I would need half his garrison, and ordered them to ride north first as though heading for the Scottish border before they turned west into the hills and then south to the Tesa. And I had to br
ing my own men from Bebbanburg, and all those men, travelling through the hills, would be noticed. They would assemble in a shallow dip of land west of the Devil’s Valley, and it would be impossible that such an army could be hidden for long. Yet if Guthfrith and Ealdred were dazzled by the bait, and if they responded as quickly as greed could goad them, then there was a chance.

  So early next morning Finan and I laid that bait. We dug into the northernmost mound, chopping through the stubborn earth with sharp spades. We had dug into the barrows years before and found only bones, antlers, flint arrowheads and the single gold cup, but that morning, as a half-moon paled in a cloudless sky, we hurled the treasure of Bebbanburg into the new hole we had made. We covered it roughly, then dug another ragged hole in the ground beside the mound, throwing the spoil onto the scar we had made in the mound. ‘Tell your men this new hole is for pitch-making,’ I suggested, ‘then give it two days before you find the gold.’

  ‘And three or four days for Guthfrith to hear about it?’

  ‘That sounds right,’ I said, hoping it was.

  ‘A lord digging a hole?’ Oswi, who had been standing guard, had wandered up with a big grin on his face. ‘You’ll be cooking for us next, lord!’

  ‘This hole is for you,’ I told him.

  ‘Me, lord?’

  ‘We need to make pitch.’

  He grimaced at the thought of that foul job, then nodded at the scar in the mound. ‘Did you dig there too, lord?’

  ‘Years ago,’ I said, ‘we found a gold cup in this mound.’

  ‘It’s meant to be bad luck to disturb the mounds, lord. That’s what they say in the village.’

  I spat, then touched my hammer. ‘We were lucky last time.’

  ‘And this time, lord?’ He laughed when I shook my head. ‘You know the villagers are calling it the Devil’s Fort now?’

  ‘Then let’s hope the devil protects us.’

  Finan touched his cross, but Oswi, who had about as much religion as a chicken, just laughed again.

  I left before midday. I sent two men to Dunholm with orders for Sihtric. He was to send his sixty men in three days, taking care that they went north before coming to the Devil’s Fort. And, once home in Bebbanburg, I sent Vidarr Leifson to tell Egil that I would need his men at the Devil’s Valley in five days. Vidarr had accompanied me to the Devil’s Fort and was confident he could guide Egil’s Norsemen back to the high valley. ‘Five days from now,’ I told him, ‘not a day before or after.’