A man came from my right, Folcbald tripped him, Wasp-Sting sliced across his eyes and he was still screaming as Folcbald heaved him overboard. I turned and saw that Finan and his men were on the steering platform. They were throwing the dead overboard and, for all I knew, the living as well. The enemy was now split into two groups, some at the prow, the rest between my men and Finan’s men who were being joined by Egil’s eager warriors. Egil himself, his sword, Adder, red to the hilt, was carving a path between the rowers’ benches. Men shrank from his Norse fury. ‘Throw down your shields!’ I called to the enemy. ‘Throw down your blades!’
‘Kill them!’ the man on the prow shouted, ‘God is on our side! We cannot be defeated!’
‘You can die,’ Oswi snarled.
I had twenty men with me. I left ten to guard against the men behind us as I led the rest towards the prow. We made a shield wall, and slowly, obstructed by the rowers’ benches and by the discarded oars, we walked forward. We clashed blades against our shields, we shouted insults, we were death approaching, and the enemy had taken enough. They dropped their shields, threw down their weapons, and knelt in submission. More of my men clambered aboard, joined by Egil’s Norsemen. A shriek told me that a man died behind me, but it was the last shriek from a defeated crew because this enemy was beaten. I glanced right to see that the fourth enemy ship, the smallest one, had sheeted in her sail and was racing southwards. She was running away. ‘This fight is over,’ I called to the enemy who were now crammed beneath the cross that decorated the prow of their ship. ‘Don’t die for nothing.’ We had sunk one ship and captured two. ‘Throw down your shields!’ I called as I stepped forward, ‘It’s over!’
Shields clattered on the deck. Spears and swords were dropped. It was over, all except for one defiant warrior, just one. He was young, tall, and had a thick blonde beard and fiery eyes. He stood on the prow where he carried a long-sword and a plain shield. ‘God is on our side!’ he shouted, ‘God won’t desert us! God never fails!’ He hammered the blade against his shield. ‘Pick up your weapons and kill them!’
Not one of his companions moved. They knew they were beaten, their only hope now was that we would let them live. The young man, who had a silver chain and crucifix hanging over his mail, hammered the sword a last time, realised he was alone and, to my astonishment, jumped down from the prow’s platform and took two paces towards me. ‘You are Uhtredærwe?’ he demanded.
‘Men call me that,’ I acknowledged mildly.
‘We were sent to kill you.’
‘You’re not the first to be sent on that errand,’ I said. ‘Who are you?’
‘I am God’s chosen one.’
His face was framed by his helmet, which was fine piece of work, chased with silver and topped by a cross on the ridged crest. He was good-looking, tall and proud. ‘Does God’s chosen one have a name?’ I asked. I tossed Wasp-Sting to Oswi and slid Serpent-Breath from her fleece-lined scabbard. God’s chosen one seemed determined to fight, and he would fight alone, so there would be room for Serpent-Breath to work her savagery.
‘My name,’ the young man said haughtily, ‘is for God to know. Father!’ he turned and shouted.
‘My son?’ a harsh voice answered. It was a priest who had been standing amidst the spearmen on the ship’s prow and, from his grating voice, I recognised him as the man who had been encouraging our slaughter.
‘If I die here I’ll go to heaven?’ The youngster asked the question earnestly.
‘You will be at God’s side this very day, my son. You will be with the blessed saints! Now do God’s work!’
The young man knelt for an instant. He closed his eyes and made a clumsy sign of the cross with the hand holding his sword. Egil’s men, my men, and the surviving enemy watched, and I saw the Christians among my crew also make the sign of the cross. Were they praying for me or were they begging forgiveness because they had captured cross-prowed ships? ‘Don’t be a fool, boy,’ I said.
‘I am no fool,’ he said proudly as he stood. ‘God does not choose fools to do his work.’
‘Which is?’
‘To rid the earth of your wickedness.’
‘In my experience,’ I said, ‘your god almost always chooses fools.’
‘Then I will be God’s fool,’ he said defiantly. There was a clatter behind him and he turned, startled, only to see that another of his companions had thrown down spear and shield. ‘You should have more faith,’ he told the man derisively, then turned to me and charged.
He was brave, of course. Brave and foolish. He knew he would die. Maybe not at my hands, but if he had succeeded in killing me then my men would have hacked him down mercilessly, which meant this fool knew he had only minutes to live, yet he believed he would have another life in the sunlit boredom of the Christian heaven. And did he believe he could kill me? Nothing is certain in battle. He might have killed me if he had both the sword-skill and the shield-craft that make a great warrior, but I suspected his faith was not rooted in hard-won craft, but in the belief that his god would reach down and give him victory, and that foolish belief spurred him towards me.
While he had been praying I had slipped my hand out of my shield’s leather grips and was now holding it by just the outer loop. He must have noticed, but he thought nothing of it. I held both shield and sword low, waited until he was just six or seven paces away, then I drew my left arm back and threw the shield. I threw it low, threw it hard, and threw it at his feet and, sure enough, he tripped on the shield and a heave of the waves tipped him sideways so that he sprawled on a rower’s bench, and I stepped forward, swept Serpent-Breath once, and her blade hit his blade with a dull sound and broke it. Two-thirds of his sword clattered across the deck as he desperately stabbed the remaining stub at my thigh. I reached down and took his wrist and held it firm. ‘Are you really so eager to die?’ I asked him.
He struggled against my grip, then tried to hit me with the iron-rimmed edge of his shield, which banged against my thigh without hurting me. ‘Give me another sword,’ he demanded.
I laughed at that. ‘Answer me, fool. Are you really so eager to die?’
‘God commanded me to kill you!’
‘Or were you told to kill me by a priest who dripped poison in your ear?’ I asked.
He drove the shield against me again so I placed Serpent-Breath in its way. ‘God commanded me,’ he insisted.
‘Then your nailed god is as big a fool as you,’ I said harshly. ‘Where are you from, fool?’
He hesitated, but I squeezed his wrist and bent his arm back painfully. ‘Wessex,’ he muttered.
‘I can tell that from your accent. Whereabouts in Wessex?’
‘Andefera,’ he spoke reluctantly.
‘And Andefera,’ I said, ‘is in Wiltunscir.’ He nodded. ‘Where Æthelhelm is ealdorman,’ I added, and saw him flinch at Æthelhelm’s name. ‘Let go of the sword, boy.’
He resisted, but I bent his wrist again and he let the broken sword fall. Judging by the hilt that was decorated with gold wire it had been an expensive sword, but it had shattered when it was struck by Serpent-Breath. I tossed the hilt to Oswi. ‘Take this holy fool and tie him to Spearhafoc’s mast,’ I said, ‘he can live.’
‘But Spearhafoc might not,’ Finan said drily. ‘She’s foundering.’
I looked across the deck of the intervening ship and saw that Finan was right.
Spearhafoc was sinking.
Spearhafoc had sprung two planks when she struck the first enemy ship, and water was pouring into her bows. By the time I reached her she was already low at the prow. Gerbruht, a big Frisian, had ripped up the deck planking and now had men lifting the ballast stones, which they carried to the stern to balance the ship. ‘We can plug it, lord!’ he shouted when he saw me. ‘The leak’s only on one side.’
‘Do you need men?’ I called.
‘We’ll manage!’
Egil had followed me onto Spearhafoc’s stern. ‘We’ll not catch that last one,’ he said,
looking at the enemy’s smallest ship, which was now almost at the southern horizon.
‘I’m hoping to save this one,’ I said grimly. Gerbruht might be optimistic about plugging Spearhafoc’s leaks, but the wind was rising and the seas building. A dozen men were bailing the ship, some using their helmets to scoop the water overboard. Still,’ I went on, ‘we can get home in one of those ships.’ I nodded towards the two we’d captured.
‘They’re lumps of shit,’ Egil said, ‘too heavy!’
‘They might be useful for cargo,’ I suggested.
‘Better as firewood.’
Gerbruht, his hands under the bilge’s water, was stuffing cloth into the gap left by the sprung planks, while other men were hurling water overboard. One of the two enemy ships we had captured was also leaking, the ship with the lime-washed cross, which had been damaged when the last ship joined the fight. Her stern had been hit by the larger boat and her planking had cracked to spring a leak at the waterline. We put most of our prisoners on that ship, after taking their weapons, their mail, their shields, and their helmets. We took their sail, which was new and valuable, and their few supplies, which were meagre; some rock-hard cheese, a sack of damp bread, and two barrels of ale. I left them just six oars and then cut them loose. ‘You’re letting them go?’ Egil asked, surprised.
‘I don’t want to feed the bastards at Bebbanburg,’ I said. ‘And how far can they go? They’ve no food, nothing to drink, and no sail. Half of them are wounded and they’re in a leaking boat. If they’ve any sense they’ll row for shore.’
‘Against the wind,’ Egil was amused at the thought.
‘And when they get ashore,’ I said, ‘they’ll have no weapons. So welcome to Northumbria.’
We had rescued eleven of the fishermen who had crewed the Gydene and the Swealwe, all of them forced to row for their captors. The prisoners we had taken were all either West Saxons or East Anglians and subjects of King Edward, if he still lived. I had kept a dozen to take back to Bebbanburg, including the priest who had so feverishly called on his men to slaughter us. He was brought to me on Spearhafoc, which was still bows down, but Gerbruht’s efforts were stemming the worst of the leak, and moving much of the ballast aft had steadied the hull.
The priest was young and stocky, with a round face, black hair, and a sour expression. There was something familiar about him. ‘Have we met?’ I asked.
‘Thank God, no.’
He was standing just below the steering platform, guarded by a grinning Beornoth. We had raised the sail and were going northwards, going home, driven by the steady west wind. Most of my men were on the large ship we had captured, only a few were still on Spearhafoc, and those few were still bailing water. The young man who had sworn to kill me was still tied to the mast, from where he glowered at me. ‘That young fool,’ I said, talking to the priest and nodding towards the young man, ‘is from Wessex, but you sound Mercian.’
‘Christ’s kingdom has no boundaries,’ he retorted.
‘Unlike my mercy,’ I said, to which he answered nothing. ‘I’m from Northumbria,’ I went on, ignoring his defiance, ‘and in Northumbria I am an ealdorman. You call me lord.’ He still said nothing, just looked up at me with a scowl. Spearhafoc was still sluggish, reluctant to lift her bows, but she was sailing and she was heading home. Banamaðr and the captured ship were keeping us company, ready to take us off if Spearhafoc began to sink, though minute by minute I sensed that she would survive to be dragged ashore and repaired. ‘You call me lord,’ I repeated. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Christ’s kingdom.’
Beornoth drew back a meaty hand to strike the priest, but I shook my head. ‘You see that we’re in danger of sinking?’ I asked the priest, who stayed stubbornly silent. I doubted he could sense that Spearhafoc, far from foundering, was recovering her grace. ‘And if we do sink,’ I went on, ‘I’ll tie you to the mast alongside that idiot child. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know. Where are you from?’
‘I was born in Mercia,’ he spoke reluctantly, ‘but God saw fit to send me to Wessex.’
‘If he doesn’t call me lord again,’ I told Beornoth, ‘you can smack him as hard as you like.’ I smiled at the priest. ‘Where in Wessex?’
‘Wintanceaster,’ he said, paused, then sensed Beornoth moving and hastily added, ‘lord.’
‘And what,’ I asked, ‘is a priest from Wintanceaster doing in a ship off the Northumbrian coast?’
‘We were sent to kill you!’ he snarled, then yelped as Beornoth smacked the back of his head.
‘Be strong in the Lord, father!’ the young man shouted from the mast.
‘What is that idiot’s name?’ I asked, amused.
The priest hesitated a heartbeat, giving the young man a sideways glance. ‘Wistan, lord,’ he said.
‘And your name?’ I asked.
‘Father Ceolnoth,’ there was again a slight pause before he added ‘lord.’
And I knew then why he was familiar and why he hated me. And that made me laugh. We limped on home.
Two
We took Spearhafoc home. It was not easy. Gerbruht had slowed the leak, yet still the sleek hull wallowed in the afternoon seas. I had a dozen men bailing her and feared that worsening weather might doom her, but the gusting wind was kind, settling into a steady westerly, and the fretting sea calmed and Spearhafoc’s wolf-sail carried us slowly north. It was dusk when we reached the Farnea Islands and limped between them and a western sky that was a red-streaked furnace of savage fire against which Bebbanburg’s ramparts were outlined black. It was a weary crew that rowed the stricken ship through the narrow channel into Bebbanburg’s harbour. We beached Spearhafoc, and in the morning I would assemble teams of oxen to drag her above the tideline where her bows could be mended. Banamaðr and the captured ship followed us through the channel.
I had talked with Father Ceolnoth as we laboured home, but he had proved sullen and unhelpful. Wistan, the young man who had believed his god wanted my death, had been miserable and equally unhelpful. I had asked them both who had sent them north to kill me, and neither would answer. I had released Wistan from the mast and showed him a heap of captured swords. ‘You can take one and try to kill me again,’ I told him. He blushed when my men laughed and urged him to accept the offer, but he made no attempt to do his god’s work. Instead he just sat in the scuppers until Gerbruht told him to start bailing. ‘You want to live, boy? Start slinging water!’
‘Your father,’ I spoke to Father Ceolnoth, ‘is Ceolberht?’
He seemed surprised that I knew, though in truth it had been a guess. ‘Yes,’ he said curtly.
‘I knew him as a boy.’
‘He told me,’ the priest said, a pause, then, ‘lord.’
‘He didn’t like me then,’ I said, ‘and I daresay he dislikes me still.’
‘Our God teaches us to forgive,’ he said, though in the bitter tone some Christian priests use when they are forced to admit an uncomfortable truth.
‘So where is your father now?’ I asked.
He stayed silent for a while, then evidently decided his answer revealed no secrets. ‘My father serves God in Wintanceaster’s minster. So does my uncle.’
‘I’m glad they both live!’ I said, though that was not true because I disliked both men. They were twins from Mercia, as alike to each other as two apples. They had been hostages with me, caught by the Danes, and while Ceolnoth and Ceolberht had resented that fate, I had welcomed it. I liked the Danes, but the twins were fervent Christians, sons of a bishop, and they had been taught that all pagans were the devil’s spawn. After their release from captivity they had both studied for the priesthood and grew to become passionate haters of paganism. Fate had decreed that our paths should cross often enough, and they had ever despised me, calling me an enemy of the church and worse, and I had finally repaid an insult by kicking out most of Father Ceolberht’s teeth. Ceolnoth bore a remarkable resemblance to his father, but I had guessed that the toothl
ess Ceolberht would name his son after his brother. And so he had.
‘So what is the son of a toothless father doing in Northumbrian waters?’ I had asked him.
‘God’s work,’ was all he would say.
‘Torturing and killing fishermen?’ I asked, and to that question the priest had no answer.
We had taken prisoner those men who appeared to be the leaders of the defeated ships, and that night they were imprisoned in an empty stable that was guarded by my men, but I had invited Father Ceolnoth and the misery-stricken Wistan to eat in the great hall. It was not a feast, most of the garrison had eaten earlier, so the meal was just for the men who had crewed the ships. The only woman present, besides the serving girls, was Eadith my wife, and I sat Father Ceolnoth to her left. I did not like the priest, but I accorded him the dignity of his office, a gesture I regretted as soon as he took his place at the high table’s bench. He raised his hands to the smoke-darkened rafters and began to pray in a loud and piercing voice. I suppose it was brave of him, but it was the bravery of a fool. He asked his god to rain fire on this ‘pestilential fortress’, to lay it waste, and to defeat the abominations that lurked inside its ramparts. I let him rant for a moment, asked him to be silent, and, when he just raised his voice and begged his god to consign us to the devil’s cesspit, I beckoned to Berg. ‘Take the holy bastard to the pigs,’ I said, ‘and chain him there. He can preach to the sows.’
Berg dragged the priest from the hall, and my men, even the Christians, cheered. Wistan, I noticed, watched silently and sadly. He intrigued me. His helmet and mail, which were now mine, were of quality workmanship and suggested that Wistan was nobly-born. I also sensed that, for all his foolishness, he was a thoughtful young man. I pointed him out to Eadith, my wife. ‘When we’re done,’ I told her, ‘we’ll take him to the chapel.’
Sword of Kings Page 4