Uhtred the Bold

by H A CULLEY

  Half of my horsemen were armed as normal but the rest carried small pitchers of oil in one hand and a flaming torch in the other. I raised my arm and as soon as I lowered it we galloped out of the village and spread out, heading for the long line of carts. They weren’t aware of us until we were almost upon them and by then it was too late. Whilst some cut down the nearest guards the rest smashed their pots in the wagons and threw the torches after them.

  Every cart went up with a whoosh that must have been heard at the front of the column. Our task was done and we galloped back to the village where the twenty men who had bows dismounted and grabbed their quivers before standing in a line just in front of the outermost hovels.

  They managed to get two more flights of arrows into the air before the first one had landed. The sixty arrows wrought havoc in the leading ranks of the rear guard as they charged towards us. They halted, uncertain what to do as the fourth volley tore into them.

  ‘That’s enough,’ I called. ‘Mount up and let’s get out of here.’

  The Britons camped in the open by a small lake that night and set so many sentries that I doubted if anyone got much sleep. They had no tents and precious little food. Moreover their bundles of spare spears and arrows had been lost, seriously hampering their ability to wage war.

  Early the next morning I sent some scouts out again. Half a dozen went to keep an eye on Owain’s men, but the rest went to find out if Kenneth had left Dunblane yet. I led the remainder to a timber bridge over the River Forth. There were fords but the bridge lay on the direct route from Owain’s current position to Dunblane. The only other bridge was near Stirling and to use that would add nearly a day onto his journey.

  We arrived to find that Owain had taken the precaution of sending a party of men on ponies to take possession of the bridge. Thankfully there were only thirty of them and they fled back toward their army as soon as we appeared.

  It took us two hours to chop through the supports so that the bridge collapsed into the river. Now Owain would have to backtrack to one of the fords upstream or head for Stirling. The fords were passable but the water was high and could only be done slowly and with care. It would certainly take a lot longer to use any of them compared to using the bridge. Either way we had delayed him by another day or so.

  My own scouts had crossed unopposed at Stirling and came back to report that, although Kenneth was still at Dunblane, it looked as if the camp was preparing to move out. That probably meant that Malcolm had left Perth and was on the move. Kenneth would have been in something of a quandary; should he move to counter Malcolm or wait for Owain? It seemed that he had opted for the former. I was tempted to head for home, my duty done, but I decided that I’d better remain for a little longer and made sure that Owain didn’t catch up with Kenneth.

  ~~~

  Although the bridge had been destroyed it would be quite possible to rebuild it using timber from a nearby wood. My plan was therefore to hold the far side of the crossing point and use my archers to hamper any re-building work. At this point the river was too deep for men on foot to cross as, even if they could swim, the current was strong enough to sweep them downstream and drown them. On the other hand, our horses could cross back further down river by swimming with us hanging onto the saddle horns when it came time to withdraw.

  We camped for the night on the far bank of the River Forth and at dawn we prepared our position, using timbers from the destroyed bridge to make an improvised palisade to protect out twenty archers. The enemy vanguard appeared at noon and halted uncertainly on the far bank. They started to call insults across and caper about but whoever was in command didn’t seem to know what to do.

  When Owain arrived he did something I hadn’t expected. He sent his men to cut timber and make rafts. As soon as the first twenty were ready he loaded a score of men on each and launched them further upstream from us. They used poles to try and direct them but, in truth, they were out of control as they rushed past us in the middle of the river. Our archers managed to hit quite a few of the rafts’ occupants and then they were out of range and still heading downstream.

  ‘Ulfric, take half a dozen men and go and see where they come ashore,’ I told him and he rushed off.

  It was a good hour before they returned and Ulfric had a grin on his face.

  ‘They all grounded back on the far bank except for a couple who capsized,’ he told me.

  I had seen Owain send riders to find out what had happened to his rafts and they returned shortly after Ulfric had and obviously reported the same thing. Ten minutes or so later the Strathclyde army set off along the south bank, presumably heading for one of the fords or the bridge near Stirling.

  ‘Do we take the other bridge and destroy it?’ Ulfric asked.

  ‘No, we need it to cross back into Lothian,’ I replied, shaking my head. ‘Leland,’ I called out. ‘Get everyone mounted. ‘We’re going home.’

  There was no plunder to pay my men with so I had to pay them out of my own dwindling resources. Money was becoming a bit of a worry but at least Kenneth and his son were now free to deal with Malcolm without Owain stabbing him in the back.

  As it turned out all our efforts had been in vain.

  ~~~

  I later heard what had happened from one of Geric’s gesith – the companions who formed his bodyguard – who had managed to survive.

  ‘We had camped at Loch Monzievaird about fifteen miles west of Perth,’ he told me as he sat at dinner the evening after he’d arrived. We thought that Malcolm was still at Perth, but evidently he had stolen a march on us and the next morning the scouts came racing back to say that his army was less than two miles away, this side of Crieff.

  ‘Geric and his father had mustered three thousand men; it should have been many more but Owain of Strathclyde had failed to answer the summons. By the time that Kenneth had summoned his mormaers and chieftains it was too late. We rushed into formation but Malcolm launched his attack before we were ready. Some warriors were still struggling into their byrnies when the first wave tore into us.

  ‘We were probably equally matched in terms of numbers but Geric was determined to break the attack to give his father a chance to form the army up. He raced into the fray with five hundred men and for a moment we managed to hold them off. We were killing two of theirs to every one of ours, but then Geric was killed. Most of his gesith died trying to avenge him but I was knocked unconscious and didn’t wake up until after Malcolm had won and his men were looting the dead.

  ‘I later found out that Kenneth had been so grief stricken by his son’s death that he had tried to fight his way through Malcolm’s gesith to kill the man himself. He was killed within feet of him and then the heart must have gone out of our men and they fled.’

  ‘So Malcolm is now the undisputed King of Scotland?’

  ‘Yes. I heard that he was crowned at Scone two weeks ago. It took me a long time to get here on foot, hiding from Malcolm’s men who scoured the land looking for survivors. Evidently he’s keen to ensure that he rules unchallenged.’

  I wondered what had happened to the bodies of Kenneth and his son but much later I heard that Malcolm had at least been magnanimous in victory. He had sent the bodies of Kenneth the Third and Geric the Second for burial on Iona with previous kings of the Scots.

  Now I had an implacable enemy on my northern border and Æthelred was too busy coping with Danish invasions and revolts further south to help Northumbria.

  Chapter Twelve – Malcolm’s Invasion

  Early Summer 1006

  Thankfully the new King of Scots spent the next year or so consolidating his hold on his kingdom and trying, in vain, to drive the Norsemen out of Sutherland and Caithness. I wasn’t idle, of course. Far from it. I was busy supervising the training of the men of Lothian and travelled everywhere to see the ealdormen and thanes of Bernicia. My father and brother seemed content to sit in Bebbanburg, knowing they were safe from any Scottish incursion, but at least they didn’t try to inter
fere with my activities.

  As the year 1005 wore on I decided that I needed to try and persuade the jarls and thanes of Deira that we needed to make common cause against the Scots. However, when I tried to call them together for a meeting, Ælfhelm sent men to warn me to keep out of his earldom.

  I was still debating what to do when news reached me of Malcolm’s campaign in the north of Scotland. Eric Håkonsson - the jarl who had been one of the triumvirate who had killed Olaf Tryggvason in the Baltic and subsequently became ruler of Norway as Sweyn Forkbeard’s vassal - had invaded Moray.

  Moray was an area of north-eastern Scotland south of the Moray Firth. Its mormaer, Findláech, had ruled the area as a virtually independent king but, faced with Eric’s invasion with three thousand Norsemen, he had hastily submitted to Malcolm and begged for his help.

  The tale reached me in bits and pieces but it seemed that Malcolm had made a pact with Sigurd the Stout, the virtual king of most of northern Scotland and the Isles. In return for the hand of Malcolm’s youngest daughter, Olith, in marriage Sigurd had united with Malcolm to oppose Eric. I felt pity for Olith, who I was told had barely reached thirteen years, for having to sleep with the elderly and fat Sigurd. It was one more reason for me to detest Malcolm.

  The combined forces of Malcolm, Findláech and Sigurd had defeated Eric’s Norsemen near Aberdeen at the mouth of the River Don and Eric had fled back to Norway with scarcely enough men to row half the ships he’d brought with him. Reportedly Malcolm had made a pact with God that he would build a church at Aberdeen and install a bishop to convert the local Picts to Christianity in return for his help.

  Such piety didn’t sound like the Malcolm I knew but, as I heard the story from several sources, including my own father-in-law, I assumed it was probably true. It was disturbing news for Northumbria, of course, because it now left Malcolm free to attempt to seize the rest of Lothian.

  That was bad enough, but soon wild rumours began to circulate that Malcolm was raising a great army with the intention of taking, not just the land north of the Tweed, but that north of the Tyne as well. Gradually the rumours grew even wilder and people began to mutter that he wanted to settle his southern border on the Humber, thus incorporating all of Northumbria within his kingdom.

  I didn’t believe it for one minute, but such tales served my purpose and I now ignored Earl Ælfhelm and contacted the ealdormen of Deira directly. They were worried by Malcolm’s plans, but not enough to flout the orders of their earl. Something had to be done about Ælfhelm.

  ~~~

  ‘Malcolm has moved south of the Forth,’ Hacca told me as he dismounted outside my hall at Duns one day in the middle of April.

  He had brought with him all those of his thanes and warriors who did not want to join the the Scots invaders. In total Hacca had brought nearly a hundred nobles and their trained warriors. They were welcome reinforcements, but there was no way that they and the men I already had trained could resist the Scots horde. Hacca told me that Malcolm had brought well over four thousand men with him, including the wretched Owain of Strathclyde and his Britons. Against that I would be lucky to field eight hundred from Lothian alone.

  ‘What will you do,’ Hacca asked me that evening after I had sent out the summons for the ealdormen and thanes of Selkirk and Berwick to muster at the latter town.

  ‘We will need every man who can fight from Bernicia and Deira if we are to have a chance of defeating Malcolm. What I need to work out is how to weaken him whilst inducing everyone north of the Humber to fight against him.’

  ‘Without the support of your father and of Earl Ælfhelm I can’t see how you are going to achieve that,’ Hacca said gloomily.

  ‘No, so the first task is to neutralise them. I have an idea but first I need to send a messenger to King Æthelred.’

  ~~~

  I sent Hacca to hold the small fortress at Dunbar against Malcolm. It was situated on a rocky islet within spitting distance of the mainland and it was little more than a small hall surrounded by a low palisade, but it was impossible to assault from the land and could be resupplied by sea, so it could withstand an indefinite siege. As I’d hoped, Malcolm wasn’t interested in merely raiding Lothian, he wanted to conquer it. That meant he couldn’t afford to leave a stronghold like Dunbar behind him.

  My intention was to delay him as long as possible and it worked up to a point. Malcolm spent a week fruitlessly trying to take the place before he realised that he was wasting his time. Leaving a small force of his warriors to invest it, he moved on. The men he left were men he could rely on not to desert when they got bored and so they were amongst his best men; at least that was something.

  When he advanced down the coast he found that, in accordance with my instructions, the people had fled up into the hills taking their livestock and any cereals left over from last winter with them. As it was still early springtime there were no crops to harvest and no root vegetables to dig up.

  That meant he was reliant on shipping supplies down from Scotland by sea or sending them overland via Stirling. If only I had my father’s fleet we could have cut off supplies by sea because the Scots had very few warships to counter our birlinns. But I didn’t, not yet at any rate.

  I could do something now about the overland route however, and I sent Ulfric with fifty horsemen to intercept the resupply conveys and hide the carts they captured up in the hills. I would have sent Leland but he was ill and, I feared, not long for this life.

  Starving men quickly become unhappy and we became aware that small groups of Scots were deserting Malcolm and heading back to their homes. However, it was only a trickle as yet.

  I decided not to try and hold Berwick and so, much against the wishes of Uuwine and the local thanes, we withdrew over the Tweed at Norham and headed for Bebbanburg. We were camping at Norham on the south bank of the Tweed for the night when the alarm was sounded just before dusk.

  A group of riders forty or fifty strong appeared whilst there was still just enough light left to see the banner at the front. It was the dragon banner of Wessex, King Æthelred’s personal standard, but the rider leading the cavalcade wasn’t the king. It looked more like a boy.

  It wasn’t until he dismounted that I realised who it must be and I went down on one knee.

  ‘Edmund Ætheling, you are a welcome sight.’

  The boy was one of Æthelred’s many sons. He was not yet fifteen but he’d presumably been sent by the king because his elder brother was busy trying to defeat the continuing Danish incursions in the south of Wessex.

  ‘My father sends you his greetings, Earl Uhtred.’

  ‘Earl? I am no earl. It’s my father who is Earl of Bernicia.’

  ‘Not anymore; nor are you now just Earl of Bernicia, you have been made Earl of Northumbria by the Witan.’

  ‘I don’t understand, lord. What of my father and Earl Ælfhelm? They will surely oppose any such move to make me their overlord?’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about Earl Ælfhelm. He’s met with, um, shall we say an unfortunate accident? He was ineffectual and worse than useless as far as opposing the Scots was concerned.’

  I took him to mean that someone in his entourage had killed Ælfhelm to get him out of the way. It didn’t sound like Æthelred to me. He preferred to get what he wanted by more devious means. I began to look at Edmund with new eyes.

  ‘And my father? Has he been disposed of as well?’

  ‘Hardly, not sitting in the impregnable stronghold that your family seems to have hung onto for centuries. No, I’ve merely sent him a message informing him of his demotion to Ealdorman of Alnwick, a post I believe your father had given to your brother, but without seeking royal approval, so it was invalid.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, lord.’

  ‘Call me Edmund, lord sounds so formal,’ the boy said with a grin.

  ‘Thank you, Edmund,’ I said returning his grin.

  He laughed and we went into Ulfric’s hall in search of mead and ale with
which to celebrate my new status.

  ~~~

  Now that I could officially call on every ealdorman, jarl and thane in Northumbria to muster their men, I wasted no time in doing so and announced that the muster point would be York. I set off for there with Edmund and our men the next morning. Even the drizzle that soaked us before we’d gone two miles failed to dampen my spirits.

  I decided to travel via Bebbanburg and install my own garrison there, taking those who were loyal to my father and brother with me to York. It would also mean that I could leave my wife and son there where they would be safe during the coming conflict. It was a sensible move in the circumstances, but I have to confess I couldn’t wait to see the expressions on the faces of Waltheof and Eadwulf.

  It was mid-morning before the bulk of the fortress standing high on its rock loomed out of the rain. The two banners – the dragon of Wessex and my own wolf’s head on its blood red background – hung sodden and limp from their poles so Edmund sent one of his companions forward to announce us.

  At first there was no reaction and we sat there for a few minutes until both of us lost our patience.

  I rode forward and yelled at the men watching from the tower beside the main gates.

  ‘You know me, I am Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria, and this is Edmund Ætheling, son of King Æthelred. He speaks with his authority. You have five minutes to open these gates or everyone within the stronghold will be declared traitor and outlaw. This also applies to your families who live in the village of Bebbanburg. Your wives and children will be taken prisoner and sold into slavery.’

  We could just make out the sounds of heated argument coming from behind the gates and then they opened and we rode through them.

  ‘Would you have carried out your threat?’ Edmund said softly as we halted before my father’s hall and dismounted.