by Justin Hill
Godwin took Edmund’s banner and drew Wulfnoth’s sword and it flashed white and angry in the flat sunlight. Their men were too green, too few in number; only the crowd gave them courage – that and their innocence. It was not the war band they had hoped for, but it would have to do.
‘The slope will dull any charge,’ Godwin shouted. ‘Shoulder to shoulder. The Last King of England! Let’s make a stand worthy of a song!’
Thorkel’s men were practised and experienced soldiers. They moved quickly and efficiently as they drew up their shieldwall and hurried up the hill. Edmund’s men were still dressing their ranks; some barely knew how to hold a shield. At the back of the camp, confusion reigned. Some men took horse and fled; others were riding back to camp. They milled about, unsure what was happening, and were rushing to get their swords and shields from saddlepack or camp.
It was too late to rally them, Godwin saw. The banner flapped defiantly in the hill breeze. Up the hill, the Danes came, a wall of shields, a thicket of spears, a stack of wood to be split into kindling.
Godwin shouted to the men about him. ‘Stand firm! Do not fear the foe. Sons of fame, awake to glory! Remember the great heroes of Wessex!’
A fey fury came over him. Oh, at last! Godwin thought, and all the pent-up frustration surged through him. These were the warriors who had tormented his father, tormented his childhood, brought fear and concern into days that should have been prosperous and peaceful. Leofwine, Godwin promised, I will die today, but at least I shall take some of those bastards with me.
The wind flapped the banner harder, as if the ghosts of England had rallied to Godwin’s side, and Edmund felt the chill ruffle his hair. He set his helmet upon his head and the war cry rose: ‘England!’
The Danes came within twenty feet. Thorkel hefted his shield, and without even looking round at his companions he let out a great roar and then charged towards the royal banner.
Thorkel gutted the first man, drove his sword hilt into the mouth of another, and the third was felled by a spear-thrust from behind. Thorkel laughed as he drove his pommel into one lad’s mouth and saw his teeth shower the men to his left. His sword was a whirlwind of death about him. He moved towards the English king like a reaper working his way along a row of corn. It was almost too easy.
Edmund’s companions fell back before his fury. Their spear points glanced harmlessly off his mail shirt. Thorkel killed Goldwyn the Fair and Rathstan Longbeard. Godwin gripped the banner and set it firmly in the ground and his heart swelled with honour. He saw the sword rise and begin its murderous descent, but against Thorkel came Beorn and all Wulfnoth’s men.
Beorn came with all the fury of a terrier as it leaps at the shaggy heath wolf. He grinned his ugliest grin, drove his shield pommel straight at Thorkel’s chest. It was not how heroes fought, but it was just enough to throw Thorkel off balance. Thorkel tried to stab again but Beorn drove his spear at him and hit him in the sternum, which knocked the great Danish warrior back on his feet. The men about Godwin surged forward.
Beorn’s heart leapt at this opportunity. He would split the old Dane from snout to shin. He laughed and drove his spear at Thorkel’s face, but just at that moment a spear grazed Beorn’s throat and he pulled his blow. Behind Beorn were all who had gone into exile with Wulfnoth. They were ferocious, hard and effective.
Thorkel had driven too far from his companions. He was hemmed in by a hedge of jabbing thorns. His Danes fought like mad beasts to rescue their lord. Bunna – one of Wulfnoth’s men – took a spear straight through the soft flesh of his throat; another lad had a sword drive into his groin, and he groaned as he fell.
‘To me!’ Godwin called, and held the banner high. Behind him came Edmund and all of his companions.
Fate brought them to make their stand on Cenwealh’s Mound that day. A thousand men to stand in battle on behalf of their country. Doomed but determined, anger drove them. They did not care about their lives. All they wanted was to cut down each Dane until there were none left before him. Men who had begun to run paused. They saw the Danish charge had been halted and began to take heart. They called out to the others.
Cenred the Young and his youngest brother, Cynric, who had promised his mother he would not fight, died together, glad that they had each killed a Dane. Ulfkils the Lame had spent the night in prostrate prayer, but his twin sons, Tilwine and Tinwulf, both died at Thorkel’s sword. Stigand the Singer fell, a spear in his bladder, and a young thegn’s daughter, who had fallen in love with him, would renounce love when she heard of his death and commit her body and soul to the Lord.
The English died where they stood, but more stepped up behind them. Beorn’s crooked teeth were red with blood, making his smile even uglier. He grinned at the foe and the foe shrank back. Godwin shrugged off spear blows as if they were slaps. The ferocity of the English was unnerving. The Danes took a step back. The English were upon them, their courage renewed.
Men who had wavered between flight and fight pulled their shields from their backs, drew their swords and charged into the fray. Others crept out of the line of trees and fell upon the Danish rear with spear-thrusts seeking face and neck, bright swords slashing, shield butts punching forward. It was confusing and chaotic. Men roared and shouted as they killed and died.
One voice rose louder than the rest. ‘Wulfnoth!’ it said. ‘Wulfnoth!’
It took a moment before Godwin realised that it was his own – roaring with rage. ‘Wulfnoth!’ he shouted. ‘Wulfnoth!’
From left and right and pushing behind he heard his father’s men answering his roars. They carried him forward and he felt like the tip of a spear of men that is thrust into the heart of the enemy. Man for man, the Danes far outstripped the English, but for each English man the Danes killed, three jumped into their place and fury made up the difference in courage or skill. The White Dragon of Wessex began to push the Black Raven back. Edmund blew his war horn and the Danes took another step back. And another. Then suddenly the Danes were three feet away and Godwin could not believe his eyes and did not know whether to thank God or charge.
A more experienced troop would have routed Thorkel’s men – pursued them from the field, hacked at their backs as they turned and fled – but the Danish shieldwall bristled with spears. They retreated in good order, dragging their wounded with them.
A few fools ran after them, hoping for a slaughter and were quickly cut down and surrounded.
‘Hold!’ Edmund was calling.
‘Look! More Danes!’
Danish horsemen were rushing up to join Thorkel, but the fierce Spear-Dane had been overconfident; he had reached out to grasp victory before it was his.
The English jeered and booed as he glared up at them, bloodied and beaten.
Godwin stared in stunned silence at the Army as the setting sun threw long shadows across the slanted battlefield. His hand was stuck to the banner pole by dead men’s blood. His helmet had been knocked off somewhere and he stood a slow realisation came over him: they had just met Thorkel the Tall in battle and yet lived and breathed.
‘We have won!’ someone said, and Godwin turned almost without understanding.
‘We have won!’ the word was repeated, and it took long moments for the battle rage to fall from Godwin so he could understand: they held the place of slaughter.
Godwin remembered very little of the fight, had only discovered the cuts to his left leg and thigh on the ride from the battle, but he heard Beorn telling how he had wounded Thorkel. Godwin was not there, though he thought he had seen it.
‘I’ve not heard of a legend that was pegged down by truth,’ Edmund said that night. ‘But what concerns me more was how Thorkel’s men found us.’
Two days later the survivors camped at a stinking and run-down manor named Langelete. The traitor was brought out. He was a young Sumersæton thegn named Edwine who had joined the band at Sarum. Godwin had shared bread with him, but Beorn had seen him try to slip away to meet with the Danes. Edwine had been b
ound and gagged. His face was puffy with beatings.
‘Here is the man who would betray us,’ Godwin said, and kicked Edwine to the ground. Godwin grabbed Edwine by the hair and dragged him to his knees. He held him bowed forward before his king.
Edmund drew his sword, said a quick prayer in Latin. ‘May the Lord God have mercy upon your soul!’ Edmund said and then his sword flashed and Edwine’s torso fell as his head remained in Godwin’s hand. Blood squirted a foot into the air. Edwine’s body still struggled for a moment, kicking and twitching as if the trunk did not know that it was dead.
There were no cheers. There was no time to rest. They were the hunted and the hounds had their scent.
Four days later the English drifted into Malmesberie saddle-sore and hungry.
A wondrous sight awaited them. Godwin had to clench his teeth to stop himself from weeping. There, before the gates of the town, were two thousand English warriors. There were greybeards and veterans and all the banners of the great Wessex families, rank upon rank of mailed men; banners that had been carried at Brunanburgh and Ethandun, Ashdown and Basing; grim faces, sharp spears, men who had remembered their pride. It was as astonishing as the parting of the Red Sea or the columns of flame that brought God’s chosen through the desert.
The company lifted their spears and saluted them with a great cheer and a blast of war horns. At the fore rode a woman: Ealdgyth of Lincolia, Edmund’s wife, sitting side-saddle, her stomach heavy with child, certainly too heavy for her to be riding.
‘I have brought you a fyrd fit for a king, Edmund, son of Ethelred. The English have remembered how to fight.’
That night masses were said for the souls of the dead. Godwin and Edmund knelt before the rood screen. The last words of the Te Deum echoed in Godwin’s mind.
In te, Domine, speravi:
non confundar in æternum –
O Lord, in thee have I trusted:
let me never be confounded.
CHAPTER SIX
The Battle of Sorestone
Edmund’s new war council sat on barrels in the monastery cloisters as Godwin spoke: ‘The river and marshes make Malmesberie a fine place to defend, but we need a battle, not a siege.’
The mood of the newcomers was against a battle. ‘Let us harry the Danes,’ one said. ‘Send to Hamtunscir and the South Saxons to bring more men. When we outnumber Knut, we can meet him in battle.’
They all looked to Edmund so that he could decide.
There was a long pause. Edmund’s head was lowered. At last he looked up.
‘Godwin speaks right,’ Edmund said at last. ‘One victory can bring us a thousand men. If we fight again, we shall have the whole country with us.’
‘But what if we lose?’ someone said.
‘Or if you are killed?’
‘We do not lose,’ Godwin said. Someone else tried to speak, but Godwin spoke over him. ‘We do not lose.’
Edmund laughed. He looked at anyone to contradict this.
‘We fight again and we do not lose.’
It was Beorn who found the place of battle, a village a few miles north of the Fosse Way, along which the Danes would come.
‘There is a village named Sorestone, about a mile north of the road. The river there has carved a narrow and deep cut through the flat fields. On the north side the cliffs are a man’s height. If we make our stand there it will go hard on the Danes, even if they outnumber us. But it will also be a difficult place to leave in reckless pursuit,’ Beorn said.
‘That is good,’ Edmund replied, ‘for the Danes could lure us out too easily, as they almost did at Penne.’
Godwin went to look at the place and felt in his bones that this was where they would win the next battle.
‘Have the fyrds camp here,’ Edmund said simply. ‘It will be good to get them away from the alehouses and women. Make our position clear. We shall fight the next battle here!’
It was July. The Army had paused to gather in all its strength. Edmund’s scouts trailed them as they moved north along the Fosse Way.
‘Knut is so confident he does not care what we see,’ the scouts reported. ‘He even offered us a meal.’
Edmund didn’t like to hear of his enemy’s magnanimity. ‘How many men has he?’
‘Five thousand,’ the scouts said, though in reality he had more. ‘There are many English banners in his company.’
‘I am sure there are,’ Edmund said. ‘No matter. They are the worst of the country. We shall do ourselves a benefit to thin them out, lest they breed more traitors among us.’
A day’s march off, the Army stopped.
Edmund waited for two days. He wanted battle and paced up and down. He even rode out to see the Danes for himself.
‘Why does he wait?’ Edmund fretted.
Godwin was nervous as well, but he tried to sound calm. ‘Do not worry so,’ he told him. ‘Our strength grows daily.’
‘Why does he wait?’ Edmund demanded again. ‘I fear a trap. Send scouts all about to see if Eadric has brought more of his kinsmen from the north.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Godwin said. ‘The Army is weighed down with plunder. They are rich men now. They do not want to risk their wealth in battle. But we have nothing, which will make us strong.’
‘What if we win? Will we become fearful?’
Godwin laughed. ‘That will be a fine fate. But let us worry about that when the time comes.’
Twilight was falling that evening as the Danish vanguard rode into view on the far fields and began to make camp. Edmund sat on his horse and watched them across the field.
‘When I was young,’ he said, ‘I had to learn the names of my fore-bears. Edmund, son of Ethelred, son of Edgar, son of Edmund, son of Alfred, son of Ethelwulf, son of Egbert, who married Redburga. We are the oldest royal family in Christendom. Can you believe that? Our ancestor was Woden, whom heathens worshipped as a god. But he was no devil; he was a brave and mighty warrior. Who is Knut that he thinks to take my land from me? He comes from a barbarous people who have long since given up the right rule of kings and submitted themselves to the rule of the strongest sword.’
They watched the Danes light kindling and chop branches off trees to light their watch fires.
‘So. There will be battle on the morrow,’ Edmund said. ‘Is there enough ale for breakfast?’
‘Enough to give them courage,’ Godwin told him, ‘but not so much that they will rush forward and get themselves killed. Do you know what the people are calling you now?’
‘Their crippled king?’
‘No. They call you Edmund Ironside.’
‘Ironside?’ Edmund laughed. ‘I like that.’
The two men looked at each other, and for a moment they saw themselves as the lads in the yard at West Minster, playing football with Athelstan.
‘We have come a long way,’ Edmund said. ‘And there is just a little thread left to play out.’
That night some men sat quietly, others drank in noisy and cheerful bands, while the few devout warriors knelt and prayed for their souls to pass into Heaven’s keeping. Godwin walked to the rampart where they would fight in the morning.
There was a thin trickle of water running through the narrow valley, with steep banks on either side. It was as if a mighty river had once flowed here, or as if giants themselves had carved the ramparts. He tried to picture the Army massing below and felt his breathing speed up as he imagined himself standing here, on the morrow, with sword and shield and helm.
Godwin stood and braced himself and looked up at the stars and prayed for their help in the morning. Penne had been little more than a barnyard slapping match. Tomorrow would be real. He feared the dawn, but he wished it would come and be done with.
‘Sleep,’ a shadow said.
It was Irwyn, one of Wulfnoth’s men.
‘Have you said your prayers?’
Irwyn nodded.
‘Will you pray with me?’
Later that night Godwin could not slee
p. Around him in the dark the campfires had smouldered and sent sparks flying up into the darkness. He felt that this was his very last night on earth. Each sound was as clear as etched glass, each sensation of the uneven ground beneath him, each star that glimmered above his head. He marvelled at the sweetness of the cool night air, watched the sun rise through the blue smoke of Malmesberie and felt tears in his throat.
Kendra’s face came back to him as clearly as if she stood before him. He wondered where she was now. He felt unbearably guilty, as if the whole weight of his past wrongs was being measured on the scales. He would give her land and a dowry and she could set herself up as lady of her own land, and find a good thegn who might marry her. He would be good to all, and never speak ill of any man.
He let out a long sigh. ‘Hold your shield high until the battle-play begins,’ he could remember his father telling him.
Sleep, he reassured himself. Sleep.
Next morning dawn spared none of her glory. She broke over a field of barley that was just starting to turn to gold. The ball of red grew brighter as it rose and its colour changed to orange and then yellow and then became too bright to look upon, spread clear blue skies like wings over the fields.
Edmund drew up his shieldwall at the brink of the bank, with a hedge on the left and a marshy hollow on the right, where the slope ran down towards a fish pond and a mill stream. It was there in the centre that he raised the White Dragon of Wessex, and took off his helm and shook the sweat from his hair so all could see him. Godwin stood next to him. His chain-mail shirt hung heavy on his shoulders, the links repaired where a spear-thrust had been turned.
He felt as though his whole life had been in preparation for this trial. Felt the blood of his ancestors humming in his veins.
‘Abbot Wulsy,’ Edmund called out, ‘will you give mass and bless us all!’
The abbot was a well-born man with a fine accent and thinning hair, a favourite among the fireside riddlers. He knew more and dirtier riddles than any other man alive. That morning, however, he spoke quickly and solemnly, and promised God’s aid as surely as if Christ himself was donning heavenly war shirt and spear and standing amongst them.