War Lord

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘He did say dusk,’ Finan reminded me. He knew I was worrying about Eadric. ‘And the old fellow is good! They’ll not see him. He could sneak up on the devil himself.’

  I was sitting in shadows at the edge of the trees, gazing down into the wide heathland scarred by the Roman road. Beneath me, at the foot of the slope, a stream flowed between steep muddy banks. ‘No otters,’ I said.

  ‘Otters?’ Finan sat beside me.

  ‘A good place for otters.’

  ‘They’ve been hunted out. Otter skin sells too well.’

  ‘Kingfishers, though. I’ve seen two.’

  ‘My grandmother said kingfishers bring good fortune.’

  ‘Let’s hope she’s right.’ I touched my hammer.

  And just then Oswi came running back through the trees. ‘Men coming, lord, on the road!’ I looked northwards and saw nothing. ‘They’re a good way off, lord,’ Oswi crouched beside me. ‘Maybe thirty of them? All on horseback and carrying banners too.’

  That was strange. We would flaunt our banners as we advanced to battle, but rarely flew them over small groups. ‘They could be distracting us,’ I suggested, ‘and sending men through the trees?’

  ‘Seen nothing in the woods, lord,’ Oswi said.

  ‘Go back, keep a sharp eye!’

  ‘We’d better mount up,’ Finan suggested, and by the time I was in Snawgebland’s saddle the enemy horsemen were in sight. ‘Thirty-four men,’ Finan said.

  ‘And two of them carrying branches,’ Egil had joined us. We were standing our horses in the shadows.

  ‘Branches!’ Finan said. ‘You’re right.’ I saw that two of the leading horsemen carried branches thick with brown leaves, a sign that the horsemen rode in truce.

  ‘Maybe they’re going to Ceaster?’ I suggested.

  ‘To demand the city’s surrender?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘We’d better get back first,’ Finan said sourly, ‘to make sure that bastard Leof doesn’t say yes.’ But then, before I could respond, half of the horsemen turned off the road and spread across the heath that lay between the road and the stream. They rode in small groups, stopping occasionally to gaze around, and looking for all the world like men judging whether to buy a stretch of land. The larger group stayed on the road, one of whom carried a bundle of spears, but the two men carrying the leafy branches cantered towards the ridge from where we watched. ‘The bastards know we’re here,’ Finan said.

  The two men gazed up into the trees, plainly looking for us and then waving their branches as if to make sure we had received their message. ‘So much for stealth,’ I said ruefully, ‘but if they’re offering a truce let’s see who they are.’

  Finan, Egil, Thorolf and Sihtric accompanied me down the ridge’s slope. It was not steep, but at its foot the stream’s bank was dangerously sheer and slippery with mud, while the stream itself, swollen by the recent rain, swirled high and fast, overflowing into the reed beds that grew thick at the gully’s edge. One of the men with the branches trotted his horse to the opposite bank. ‘The king asks that you do not cross.’

  ‘Which king?’

  ‘All of them. You observe our truce?’

  ‘Till nightfall,’ I called back.

  He nodded, threw down the cumbersome branch and spurred his horse towards the larger group of men who had gone some distance towards Ceaster and there curbed their horses beside a wooden bridge that carried the road across the stream. They had turned there and were looking back up the road which here rose gently to a shallow crest where more of the horsemen waited. The crest, which was too low to be called a ridge, lay across the road. ‘What are they doing?’ Sihtric asked.

  It was Egil who answered. ‘Marking a battlefield.’

  ‘A battlefield?’ Finan asked.

  ‘Those aren’t spears,’ Egil nodded towards the far horsemen carrying the long bundle, ‘they’re hazel rods.’

  Finan spat towards the stream. ‘Arrogant bastards. Æthelstan might have something to say about that.’

  Egil had to be right. The enemy had chosen a battlefield and would now send a challenge to Æthelstan, wherever he was. It was a Norse tradition. Choose a place to fight, send the challenge and, once it was accepted, all raiding would stop. The enemy would wait here, would fight on their chosen ground, and the loser would cede whatever was demanded. ‘What if Æthelstan doesn’t accept?’ Sihtric asked.

  ‘Then they besiege Ceaster,’ I said, ‘and march on into central Mercia.’ I glanced eastwards and saw the smoke from the fires that had been set by the raiders we had seen on the coastal track. ‘And then they’ll keep going south. They want to destroy Æthelstan and his kingdom.’

  The men who had been waiting on the shallow crest now came towards us. ‘Anlaf,’ Finan said, nodding towards the falcon banner that a horseman carried. There were a dozen horsemen led by Anlaf himself who, though the day was now mild, wore an enormous bearskin cloak over his mail. Gold glinted at his neck and on his stallion’s bridle. He was bare-headed except for a thin golden circlet. He was grinning as he approached the stream’s bank. ‘Lord Uhtred! We’ve been watching you all day. I could have killed you!’

  ‘Many have tried, lord King,’ I answered.

  ‘But I am in a merciful mood today,’ Anlaf said cheerfully, ‘I even spared the life of your scout!’ He turned in his saddle and waved to the men on the road. Three spurred towards us and, as they came closer, I saw Eadric, his hands bound behind him, was one. ‘He’s an old man,’ Anlaf said, ‘like you. You know my companions?’

  I knew two of them. Cellach, Constantine’s son and prince of Alba, nodded gravely to me, while next to him was Thorfinn Hausakljúfr, ruler of Orkneyjar and better known as Thorfinn Skull-Splitter. He carried his famous long-hafted axe and grinned wolfishly. ‘Prince Cellach,’ I greeted the Scotsman, ‘I trust your father is well?’

  ‘He is,’ Cellach said stiffly.

  ‘He’s here?’ I asked, and Cellach simply nodded. ‘Then remember me to him,’ I went on, ‘and give him my hopes that he goes home soon.’

  It was interesting, I thought, that Constantine had not come to help choose the battlefield, which suggested that Anlaf, the younger man, commanded the army, And Anlaf, I thought, was probably the more formidable enemy. He smiled at me with his unnaturally wide mouth. ‘Have you come to join us, Lord Uhtred?’ he asked.

  ‘It seems you have enough men without me, lord King.’

  ‘You’d fight for the Christians?’

  ‘Prince Cellach is a Christian,’ I pointed out.

  ‘As is Owain of Strath Clota,’ Anlaf pointed to a grey-haired man who scowled from the saddle of a tall stallion. ‘But who knows? If the gods give us victory perhaps they’ll convert?’ He looked at the men who had brought Eadric to the stream. ‘Let him stand,’ he ordered, then turned back to me. ‘You know Gibhleachán of Suðreyjar?’

  Suðreyjar was the Norse name for the slew of stormy islands on Alba’s wild western coast, and their king, Gibhleachán, was an enormous man, hunched and glowering in his saddle, with a black beard that fell almost to his waist where a massive sword hung. I nodded to him and he spat back.

  ‘King Gibhleachán terrifies me,’ Anlaf said cheerfully, ‘and he claims his men are the fiercest warriors in Britain. They are úlfhéðnar, all of them! You know what the úlfhéðnar are?’

  ‘I’ve killed enough of them,’ I retorted, ‘so yes, I know.’

  He laughed at that. ‘My men are úlfhéðnar too! And they win battles! We won a battle not long ago, against him.’ Anlaf paused to point to a glum-looking man mounted on a big bay stallion. ‘He is Anlaf Cenncairech. He was King of Hlymrekr until a few weeks ago when I ripped his fleet apart! Isn’t that right, Scabbyhead?’

  The glum man simply nodded. ‘Scabbyhead?’ I asked Egil softly.

  ‘His last great Norse rival in Ireland,’ Egil answered just as softly.

  ‘Now Scabbyhead and his men fight for me!’ Anlaf announced. ‘And so
should you, Lord Uhtred, I am your king.’

  ‘King of Northumbria?’ I asked, then laughed. ‘An easy claim to make, hard to prove.’

  ‘But we shall prove it here,’ Anlaf said. ‘You see the hazel rods? You will take a message to the pretty boy who calls himself King of all Britain. He can meet me here in a week’s time. If we win, which we shall, there will be no more tribute paid from Alba. Northumbria will be mine. Wessex will pay me tribute of gold, much gold, and perhaps I’ll take its throne too. I will be King of all Britain.’

  ‘And if Æthelstan declines your invitation?’ I asked.

  ‘Then I will put the Saxons to the sword, I will burn your towns, destroy your cities, take your women as my playthings, and your children as slaves. You will send him that message?’

  ‘I will, lord King.’

  ‘You can cross the stream when we’re gone,’ Anlaf said carelessly, ‘but remember we are in a truce.’ He glanced down at Eadric. ‘Throw him in,’ he ordered.

  ‘Untie him first,’ I said.

  ‘Are you a Christian, old man?’ Anlaf demanded of Eadric, who looked thoroughly miserable. He did not understand the question, so looked at me.

  ‘He wants to know if you’re a Christian,’ I translated for him.

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘He is,’ I told Anlaf.

  ‘Then let his god prove his power. Throw the old man in.’

  One of the horsemen who had brought Eadric dismounted. He was a big man, Eadric was small. The big man grinned, picked Eadric up and hurled him down into the turbulent stream. Eadric yelped as he fell, splashed into the brown water and vanished. Egil, the youngest of us, dismounted, but Eadric surfaced before he could jump in. Eadric spat water. ‘It’s not too deep, lord!’

  ‘Seems his god does have power,’ I said to Anlaf, who looked unhappy. This was a bad omen for him.

  But though Eadric could hobble across the stream with his ankles bound and with the water up to his neck at one point, he had trouble keeping his footing and I knew he would never manage to scramble up the steep and slippery bank. I turned and shouted up at the ridge. ‘Throw me a spear. Try not to hit me!’

  A spear arched out of the leaves, fell and smacked into the turf a few paces away. Thorolf must have guessed what I planned because he dismounted before I could, took the spear and held its butt end to his brother. ‘Down you go,’ he said.

  Egil slipped and slid down the bank, steadied by the spear his brother held, then pushed through the reeds, reached out and seized Eadric’s collar. ‘Come on!’

  Both men slipped in the mud, but Eadric was hauled to safety where the hide-ropes binding his hands and feet were cut off. ‘I’m sorry, lord,’ he said when he reached me, ‘I went too far and a bloody child saw me.’

  ‘It’s no matter, you’re alive.’

  ‘He has a tale to tell you!’ Anlaf called, then turned his horse and spurred it savagely.

  We stayed to watch as men thrust hazel rods into the earth. Anlaf directed them and finally left after giving us a derisive wave. ‘You have a tale to tell?’ I asked Eadric, who was now swathed in Sihtric’s cloak.

  ‘Hundreds of the bastards, lord! Couldn’t count them! Swarming like bees. And the pool is full of ships, must be two hundred at least.’

  ‘Which is why he didn’t kill you,’ I said, ‘because he wants us to know.’

  ‘And they’re still arriving,’ Egil said.

  I sent Eadric to the ridge’s top, then led my companions upstream till we found a place we could cross safely. The horses lurched down the bank, pushed through a boggy reed bed and splashed through the stream before clambering up onto Anlaf’s chosen battlefield.

  I went straight to where the bridge crossed the stream and looked north. If Æthelstan accepted the challenge then I reckoned we were about two hundred paces from where his forces would make their shield wall. From the wooded ridge the heathland had looked mostly flat with a gentle slope rising to where Anlaf would assemble his men, but from the road the slope looked steeper, especially to my left where the rough ground climbed towards the western ridge. A mass of men charging down that slope would hit Æthelstan’s left wing like a blow from Thor’s hammer. ‘I’ve been praying never to stand in a shield wall again,’ I said gloomily.

  ‘Nor will you,’ Finan said, ‘you’ll sit on your damned horse and tell us what to do.’

  ‘Because I’m old?’

  ‘Did I say that, lord?’

  ‘Then you’re too old too,’ I said.

  ‘I’m Irish. We die fighting.’

  ‘And live talking too much,’ I retorted.

  We rode our horses up the road till we were on the low crest, then turned to look back at the field. This was the view Anlaf’s forces would have and I tried to imagine the wide valley filled with a Saxon shield wall. ‘It’s obvious what he plans,’ I said.

  ‘A charge on his right?’ Egil suggested.

  ‘Down the steepest slope,’ Thorolf added. ‘Break Æthelstan’s left wing then turn on the centre.’

  ‘And it will be slaughter,’ Sihtric added, ‘because we’ll be trapped by the streams.’ He pointed to more reed beds that betrayed a smaller stream which would lie on Æthelstan’s left flank. That smaller stream joined the larger, the gullies of the two streams easily distinguished by the tall reeds that grew at their edges. The streams slowly converged, their meeting place just to the west of the narrow bridge that carried the road towards Ceaster.

  ‘Boggy ground,’ Finan grunted.

  ‘And if Æthelstan’s army breaks,’ Egil said, ‘we’ll be trapped by the streams. It will be a slaughter.’

  ‘Which is why Anlaf chose this ground,’ I said. I guessed that Æthelstan would have a shield wall some six hundred paces wide between the two streams. That was a long shield wall, needing about a thousand men in each rank, but the further back he went so that distance would diminish as the streams converged. The stream to our left, the one we had just crossed, was deeper and wider and I was gazing at that wider stream, thinking how I would fight the battle if I were Anlaf and thinking how confident I would be. He believed he could break Æthelstan’s army with his famed wolf-warriors, turn the Saxon line and trap it against that deeper stream.

  ‘Æthelstan should refuse the challenge,’ Thorolf said.

  ‘He’ll lose Ceaster if he does,’ I responded, ‘Leof won’t last two days.’

  ‘Then Æthelstan fights him somewhere else, beats the bastard and takes Ceaster back.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘if I were Æthelstan I’d accept the challenge.’ No one spoke, they just gazed at the trap Anlaf had set. ‘They’ll attack all along Æthelstan’s shield wall,’ I went on, ‘but Anlaf’s best troops will be on his right. They have the highest ground so they’ll charge downhill, try to break Æthelstan’s left, then pin the rest of his army against the wider stream.’

  ‘Where there will be slaughter,’ Egil said.

  ‘Oh it will be a slaughter,’ I agreed, ‘but who gets slaughtered? If I were Æthelstan I’d let Anlaf drive my left flank back.’ My companions just looked at me, none spoke, but their faces betrayed doubt, all but for Finan, who looked amused.

  Thorolf broke the uneasy silence. ‘Will they outnumber us?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said.

  ‘Certainly,’ Egil said dourly.

  ‘And Anlaf’s no fool,’ Thorolf went on, ‘he’ll have his best men, his úlfhéðnar on his right.’

  ‘I would too,’ I agreed, and silently hoped my men would not be on Æthelstan’s left wing.

  Thorolf frowned at me. ‘They’re vicious fighters, lord. No one has bested them in Ireland.’

  ‘And they’ll bend Æthelstan’s line back against the stream,’ I said, ‘and our forces will be trapped there.’

  ‘Trapped and slaughtered,’ Thorolf said gloomily.

  ‘But you think we can win,’ Finan said to me, still amused. He looked at Thorolf. ‘He usually does.’

  ‘So tell us,’ E
gil put in.

  ‘It’s so obvious what Anlaf plans,’ I explained, ‘and it’s so obvious that it’s a winning plan, but I doubt he’s thought beyond that. He expects to win this battle with one massive attack, one brutal assault by his best men on Æthelstan’s left flank, but what happens if that goes wrong?’

  ‘What does happen?’ Egil asked.

  ‘We win,’ I said.

  But winning depended on Æthelstan agreeing with me.

  And whatever happened, Sihtric, Egil and Thorolf were right. It would be a slaughter.

  Thirteen

  ‘The arrogance of the man!’ Æthelstan said angrily. ‘He challenges me!’

  It was two days later, days I had spent travelling south in search of the king whom I had found on the Roman road that led north along the frontiers of the Welsh kingdoms. His army had camped for the night and Æthelstan was in his gaudy tent at the centre of a vast spread of shelters and picketed horses. Bishop Oda was with him, as was his cousin Prince Edmund and half a dozen ealdormen, all of whom had peered gloomily at a scrap of linen on which I had used a piece of charcoal to draw a plan of Anlaf’s chosen battlefield.

  ‘Kings,’ I said drily, ‘are often arrogant.’

  He gave me a sharp look, knowing I was referring to his attempts to take Bebbanburg. ‘We don’t have to accept his challenge,’ he said irritably.

  ‘Of course not, lord King.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’

  ‘He’ll besiege Ceaster,’ I guessed, ‘and ravage more of northern Mercia.’

  ‘We’re close enough to stop that,’ he said irritably.

  ‘So you’ll fight him,’ I said, ‘where? Outside the walls of Ceaster? But to do that you must reach the city. The first thing he’ll do is destroy the bridge over the Dee, and that will force you to make at least another two-day march inland, and give him more time.’

  ‘Leof will hold the city.’

  ‘Leof is pissing in his breeches already.’

  Æthelstan frowned at me. He was wearing his hair plain, no gold-threaded curls, and was dressed in simple dark clothes. ‘How many men does Anlaf have?’ It was the third time he had asked me the question.