Shieldwall

by Justin Hill

  Elfric called on his men to not let his body be despoiled by the foe. His words stopped when a sword hit him full in the face. Five steps backward, doomed and dying, he crashed to the ground. His soul fled in terror from the ruin of his body, abandoning the best of life: love and light and laughter.

  ‘Hold on to his corpse!’ his retainers called to one another and a savage battle broke out over the dead man. One side tugged his legs while the other cradled his blood-splattered head and called on their ring-giver to make his peace with the Almighty Lord. The time had come that they had all long feared, but had prepared themselves for, and sold their lives dearly.

  But they were an island in a stream of men who fled for their lives.

  The trickle became a flood. The flood a deluge. In the space of a few minutes the battle was lost. Godwin strode to Edmund’s side. His men tightened about the king, a beleaguered knot about which a stream of Danes was beginning to flow.

  ‘Eadric has fled,’ Godwin shouted. His words came out in a hoarse whisper. ‘That bastard Eadric has fled!’

  Edmund was spattered with blood and sweat. He was too stunned to speak, but Beorn kept his head.

  ‘Stand firm, five deep, there on the right. There are Sudsexe men there, but their leader is dead and they’re close to running,’ he told a group of men standing near him. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked another man.

  ‘Leomynstre,’ the man said. ‘But our lord Unferth is lost.’

  ‘Then stand firm and fight in his memory,’ Beorn told them. ‘We all must leave the earth and this is as good a place as any to die. Cowards’ graves are small and mean, while great mounds mark the bones of the brave.’

  The band about Edmund retreated slowly. They were a menacing sight: bloody and mailed and determined to sell their lives dearly. Most Danes passed them by, eager for the easier prey, but Knut saw his chance to surround his enemy and kill him. He summoned his best fighters.

  ‘Let us surround Edmund and kill him!’ he shouted.

  Godwin caught Beorn’s eye and pushed to Edmund’s side.

  Alderman Ulfcytel was shouting at Edmund, ‘You must flee. Our lives are nothing, but yours is worth all the world. Lord, the day is lost. Flee! I shall stand here with my companions. Promise me that you will break free and flee from here and raise another fyrd, so that our deaths might not have been in vain.’

  Edmund resisted. Ulfcytel grabbed Godwin and shoved him towards the king. ‘Talk sense to him,’ he shouted. ‘Go with the king! Defend him and protect him!’

  Edmund would not listen, but there was no time for discussion. Knut’s men were beginning to encircle them. Godwin and Beorn took him by his belt and lifted him from the ground.

  ‘With me!’ Godwin shouted to his men.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Isle of Derheste

  In Contone Kendra woke with a start. The hall thatch was still and silent; outside a man screamed. She threw back the blankets, ran to the door and opened it a fraction, and the scream came again.

  ‘Agnes,’ she whispered, but there was no answer. Kendra clutched the doorframe and smelt pigs and remembered all of a sudden that the herds of swine had been brought down from the beech woods.

  It was Bloodmonth, the time of slaughter. The clove-spiced brines were ready; twine had been bought from the market, ready to hang the bacon and hams from the hall rafters. Kendra’s stomach lurched. She could not bring herself to go outside to see the killing. She felt queasy enough already, could not sit inside all day and listen to the sounds of the slaughter; saw Dudoc climbing slowly up the hill, crook in hand, and her heart wished for the climb and the broad and sunlit uplands.

  The night before, Kendra had dreamt of her mother again. She had not said anything, just stared at her daughter and pointed, and Kendra had wanted to call out to her but found that she could neither move nor speak, even when her mother’s ghost reached out an imploring hand.

  The feeling clung to Kendra all that day, the sensation of a lost mother who could not be reached and it left her even more unsettled and irritable. The sound of the pigs made her heart beat. She remembered the day the Norsemen came to Yula and killed and murdered. Her heart raced and her palms sweated. She did not understand why the memories of that day should come today. She grabbed her shawl and threw it over her head as she went outside, kept her head turned away from the hanging brown pigs. She lifted her skirts to climb quickly to the top of the ridge, but the sound of the squealing swine carried after her until the exertion and regular pant of her breath and steps drove everything else from her mind.

  Edmund fled from battle as Ulfcytel and his East Anglians stood firm to stop Knut’s warriors. They knew they were dead men, laughed as they saluted the Heavens, thought this was a fine day to die.

  Beorn called his two shield-bearers back. ‘Godwin, you go. Go!’ he roared. His face had a desperate look. ‘Take the king to the horses and make sure he lives.’

  Beorn was joined by those few of Wulfnoth’s faithful men who still stood.

  There was no time for a farewell. The last Godwin saw of Beorn he was striding up to Ulfcytel’s band, shouldering his axe and stooping to pick up a fresh shield from a man who lay dead.

  The weight of the Danish onslaught fell on the retainers of Ulfcytel. ‘Death comes at last,’ Beorn smiled. ‘I never thought I would live so long.’

  Around Edmund there were barely fifty men, but they kept close order and did not turn their backs, and the Danes held back from them, like wary wolves, who trail the pack.

  ‘Make sure he survives,’ Beorn had told Godwin, and he thought of nothing else. Save yourself so you can save the king.

  At times it seemed that they would never make it through to the king’s horses, for Danes and fleeing Englishmen were everywhere: a panicked mob, all streaming round the bottom of Assandune Hill, looking for the fastest and driest route to safety.

  Edmund could not talk.

  ‘What happened?’ someone asked.

  No one knew.

  ‘Eadric.’ Godwin named the traitor. ‘Eadric led the flight. I saw his banner fleeing from the battle.’

  The boys who had been guarding the king’s horses lay butchered; the horses had long been stolen.

  Godwin grabbed the bridle of a fleeing Defenascir man’s horse. The man tried to hit Godwin with his sword, but Godwin caught his arm and dragged him from the saddle and in a moment he was cut down.

  ‘We cannot flee with just one horse!’ someone shouted, and Godwin saw the hopelessness of their situation as Knut’s men charged the thin shieldwall where Beorn stood.

  ‘Take it!’ Godwin said.

  Edmund shook his head.

  ‘Take it!’ Godwin repeated. ‘Take it or I shall kill it now and we shall both die.’

  Edmund would not, but Godwin shouted at him, ‘If you live, our cause has hope. Save yourself for our sakes.’

  Edmund cursed him, but at last he swung himself up into the saddle. They looked about but it was confusion everywhere. Ulfcytel and his shieldwall held – just – but other Danes had picked out Edmund from the chaos. Godwin saw the Danes run down the hill towards them. We are doomed, he thought, but they fought anyone with a horse and did not care if they killed.

  In this way Edmund’s men gathered twenty horses from fleeing men, and Godwin ripped the royal banner from its pole, thrust it into another man’s hands.

  ‘Take this!’ he said. Godwin turned and saw that in that moment almost all of the horses had been taken. ‘I will not leave you behind,’ Edmund shouted but Godwin whipped Edmund’s horse. ‘Go!’ he shouted.

  ‘No. Come – sit behind me!’ Edmund said.

  ‘Go!’

  ‘Not without you. I am your king. I will not leave you here.’

  But as Edmund spoke one of the riders grabbed the reins of his horse and they broke into a gallop as Edmund cursed them all.

  Godwin was glad to see Edmund escape, glad to the bottom of his heart. He had tears of joy and hope in his
eyes, but the rim of his third shield was riven and useless. He tossed it aside and found another abandoned in the autumn grasses. It had not been scratched, and he thought of the thegn who had carried it so far from his home, just to drop it without having struck a blow. Coward, he thought, and exchanged a grin with the men about him as he fitted his arm into the strap.

  ‘Brothers, I am glad to die with you,’ he said. ‘Let us make a stand worthy of a poem.’

  But as the Danes approached the men turned and fled.

  Godwin stood alone, terrible in his war gear, covered with other men’s blood. He cut the first Danes down and his sword stuck to his hand with congealing gore.

  He panted and looked about him. The Danes sized up the lone warrior and let him alone. There were easier pickings: the battlefield was littered with corpses that wore enough gold to make them rich men.

  A riderless horse suddenly cut across the field in front of him. It paused for a moment, and Godwin looked around as if expecting someone to have brought it here. The horse slowed in front of him, as if waiting for him to mount up. Godwin did not need a second invitation. He caught its bridle and swung himself up.

  Godwin put his heels to the horse’s flanks and galloped after the king.

  Knut stared at the last war band. Ulfcytel the Bold, the Danes named him.

  ‘Surrender!’ he called out, and the old man laughed at him.

  The men of East Anglia were the Wuffingas; Dane and East Anglian spoke almost the same tongue. It made their insults easier to understand.

  ‘I will never kneel before a Danish king!’ Ulfcytel shouted back. ‘There are no pacts of faith between lions and men.’

  ‘I will not ask you again,’ Knut said, but the answer was jeering and hooting. ‘So you have chosen. Now dogs and birds will devour you all.’

  Knut ordered his men into the kill, but they were reluctant to press the attack at first, for Ulfcytel’s men were renowned fighters and none wanted to feel their kiss. Beorn was with them, limping now. He stood next to Ulfcytel and heard his words.

  ‘Watch, brothers, no man will fix a spear in my back as I flee.’

  Ulfcytel made his last stand there. Battle death took him and all the men he had sat with in hall.

  Beorn fought long after the men about him were cut down. He fought till the sword he had picked up shattered against a Danish helm. He used the broken sword. The Danes hacked at him. Beorn parried blows with his left arm till the bone was broken in five places. His grin still made men fearful, but he was cornered by swordsmen. One blade caught his chin and cut as deep as the bone. Another hit him near the eye and filled it with blood. Stunned and blind, a spear-thrust took out the teeth on his right side and came out his other cheek.

  Danes stood to see if he would fall, but Beorn swayed and cursed as he spat out blood. An axeman behind him swung a blow at the back of his head. It was a rising blow that lifted Beorn off the ground, shattered the helm and drove deep through mail and skull into his brain.

  Beorn fell forward on to his knees and then sprawled on to his face.

  The Danes did not wait to see if he was dead; he was clearly not. They were impressed. One used a spear to turn Beorn on to his back.

  ‘Kill him,’ the spearman said, and the axe descended full into Beorn’s face, cutting through his left eye and his nose and crooked grin, almost cutting his head in twain.

  Once Beorn lay still a silence seemed to descend, a weary and exhausted stillness. From the low rise Knut looked out. It was an awesome sight: thousands of brave men breathing their last; the Cruc River choked with the drowned bodies of English lords, strange fish gleaming in their steel scales, floating in the river weeds as the water gently nudged them out to sea.

  Knut pushed his helmet back and saw that he had won, and this devastation was named victory.

  Twenty of Edmund’s company escaped the battle. They rode heedless of direction or destination, through the ruins of the English hope, terrified warriors clogging up the roads and paths.

  About three miles from the battle there was a narrow ford, and there was a bottleneck of men all struggling to cross, or splashing into the water and attempting to swim. Some tried to drag their anointed king from his saddle, such was their terror. Edmund’s companions cut them down.

  It was there Godwin caught them up. ‘Out of the way!’ he shouted, but the men grasped at him and tried to drag him from his horse. He twisted the angle of his sword and struck one man dead. They were battle-shirkers and traitors.

  Once across the river, Edmund’s men were out into open ground. They rode hard, passing through the monks from Ely who were busy burying the gold-worked relic cases in terror that the Danes should bespoil the bones of their most treasured saints. Godwin looked back once – and saw that the Danish horsemen had caught the stragglers up at the river crossing, and he could hear the screams and lamentation carrying on the wind, and he turned his back and lashed his horse onwards and long after the place was haunted by the ghosts of men who were slaughtered that day.

  That evening Godwin fell off his horse and did not care for anything more than a cupped hand’s worth of stream water and a crust of oat-cake.

  ‘Godwin!’ Edmund said. ‘Godwin, how are you here?’

  ‘God sent a horse,’ Godwin said.

  Edmund half smiled and fell against Godwin in a rough embrace.

  ‘Thanks be to God,’ he whispered. ‘Godwin. I could not have lost you today. A kingdom, yes, but not a friend.’

  Godwin was out of words. He had nothing left to give. They were sitting in a hall that the Danes had looted three days earlier. The people had just returned from the hedgerows and were terrified of the bloodied men.

  They sat and some wept; others began to moan with wounds. Godwin shook uncontrollably. Edmund could not speak. He sat with his head in his hands.

  ‘We will raise another war band,’ Godwin said once they had drunk ale.

  No one said anything. The silence was long and telling.

  Edmund’s hands dropped.

  Still no one spoke.

  ‘Maybe Ulfcytel salvaged a part of our strength,’ Edmund said. ‘He is a great warrior. He gives heart to fearful men.’

  Maybe, Godwin thought. We will go back to the hedgerows, he thought. But immediately he knew they could not carry the country now. Not now God had so clearly spoken.

  News of the battle came in shattered fragments. Alderman Elfric’s sons had been cut down as they fought their way from the field, and his sister-son, the fair Osgood lay with them. Ethelward the Fair would never return to his father’s hall, would never sit his son upon his knee again, nor hold his wife’s hand as they knelt at the painted rood screen.

  ‘And Ulfcytel?’ Edmund asked a monk who claimed to have buried the bodies.

  The monk did not know, but many others did.

  ‘Ulfcytel refused to flee, even when the rest of the English were in flight. He fell and his household fell about him, defending his body.’

  And with them are my father’s men, Godwin thought. All sons and brothers of his Contone folk. He could not face returning home alive when all he had led to battle had died.

  That night they were too grief-stricken to sing songs, even of the dead. Words would not come. As the camp fire divided them all, they sat in stunned silence, numbed by their loss.

  ‘Northymbria?’ Godwin suggested when they debated where to flee, but many voices rose up against him, for many did not trust the Northhymbers, as they were Danish in speech and blood.

  ‘No, let us go westwards,’ Edmund said. ‘They gave the least. We shall shame them into raising another fyrd.’

  The night after the battle they set off. They had brought in many stragglers as the day wore on, and by dusk they were a company of a hundred horsemen, picking their way along little-used paths again, riding under the stars through a clear and bitterly cold night. As the moon set it began to rain, and Edmund announced that they would rest.

  When he called them
to rise again it was still dark and many men refused to get up, and some of them could not for, they were all cold and damp, and many were wounded, and they left them to Christ.

  Winter was close. Dawn was as bitter as any Godwin could remember. The north wind rose to a gale and shook the gaunt black trees and skinned the backs of their hands, and it was all Godwin could do to sit in his saddle and stop his teeth from chattering.

  They were a sorry sight as they crossed next morning into Oxenefordscire: cold and damp, with hedgerow hair and bedraggled mounts. The sun appeared for a few brief moments, to illuminate the hedgerows, netted with gleaming webs, before the light and the gleam faded, and then the rain returned harder and more determined than before. News had already reached Oxeneford, and the welcome was uncertain and fearful: the king had submitted himself to trial by battle and he had been found wanting.

  They passed from Oxenefordscire to Wiltunscir and Sumersæton, and a few men feasted Edmund, but they were glad to see him off the next morning, and wary of what King Knut might do to them. They even stopped at the hall of Alderman Elfric, where his wife greeted the men with a gaunt face. She bore the news of her husband and sons well.

  ‘Who saw him die?’ she asked, and a Defenascir lad who had fought with Elfric stood up.

  ‘I fought beside him in the battle. He killed many of the enemy and stood bravely to the end, when many others fled.’

  ‘How was he?’ she asked. ‘How were his spirits?’

  ‘Good, lady. He died bravely and with honour.’

  She fought back tears and spoke bravely. ‘And my sons?’

  ‘They all fought well,’ Edmund told her.

  ‘And my brightest son, Acwellen. Was he killed too?’

  They nodded solemnly and bowed their heads, and she drew her shawl over her face and sat for a long while in silence.

  In the morning Edmund and his companions departed. Three boys trailed after them.

  ‘Ignore them,’ Edmund said to Godwin.

  But they kept pace with them.