Sword of Kings

by Bernard Cornwell

  Alfred had always believed that all the folk who speak the English language should live in the same country, a country he dreamed of, a country called Englaland. And fate, that bitch who controls our lives, had meant I had fought for Alfred and his dream. I had killed Danes, I had killed Norsemen, and every death, every stroke of the sword, had extended the rule of the Saxons. Northumbria, I knew, could not survive. She was too small. The Scots wanted the land, but the Scots had other enemies; they were fighting the Norsemen of Strath Clota and of the Isles, and those enemies distracted King Constantin. The Norse of Ireland were fearsome, but could rarely agree on one leader, though that did not stop their dragon-headed ships crossing the Irish Sea bringing warriors to settle on Northumbria’s wild western coast. The Danes were more cautious about Britain now, the Saxons had become too strong, and so the Danish boats went further south in search of easier prey. And the Saxons were getting stronger. So one day, I knew, Northumbria would fall, and it was likely, in my judgement, to fall to the Saxons. I did not want that, but to fight against it was to draw a sword against fate, and if that fate was inevitable, and I believed it was, then it was better that Æthelstan should inherit Wessex. Ælfweard was my enemy. His family hated me, and if he took Northumbria he would bring the whole might of Saxon Britain against Bebbanburg. Æthelstan had sworn to protect me, as I had sworn to protect him.

  ‘He’s using you!’ Eadith had told me bitterly when I confessed to her that I had sworn to kill Æthelhelm the Younger on King Edward’s death.

  ‘Æthelstan is?’

  ‘Of course! And why are you helping him? He’s not your friend.’

  ‘I like him well enough.’

  ‘But does he like you?’ she had demanded.

  ‘I swore an oath to protect him.’

  ‘Men and oaths! You think Æthelstan will keep his oath? You believe he won’t invade Northumbria?’

  ‘Not while I live.’

  ‘He’s a fox!’ Eadith had said. ‘He’s ambitious! He wants to be King of Wessex, King of Mercia, King of East Anglia, king of everything! And he doesn’t care who or what he destroys to get what he wants. Of course he’ll break his oath! He never married!’

  I stared at her. ‘What has that to do with it?’

  She had looked frustrated. ‘He has no love!’ she had insisted and looked puzzled by my lack of understanding. ‘His mother died giving birth to him.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘Everyone knows the devil marks those babies!’

  ‘My mother died giving birth to me,’ I retorted.

  ‘You’re different,’ she had said. ‘I don’t trust him. And you should stay here when Edward dies!’ That had been her final word, spoken bitterly. Eadith was a strong, clever woman, and only a fool ignores such a woman’s advice, yet her anger aroused a fury in me. I knew she was right, but I was stubborn, and her resentment only made me more determined to keep the oath.

  Finan had agreed with Eadith. ‘If you go south I’ll come with you,’ the Irishman had told me, ‘but we shouldn’t be going.’

  ‘You want Æthelhelm to live?’

  ‘I’d like to poke his eyeballs out by shoving Soul-Stealer up his rotten arse,’ Finan had said, speaking of his sword. ‘But I’d rather leave that pleasure to Æthelstan.’

  ‘I swore an oath.’

  ‘You’re my lord,’ he had said, ‘but you’re still a bloody fool. When do we leave?’

  ‘As soon as we hear of Edward’s death.’

  For a year I had been expecting one of Æthelstan’s warriors to come from the south bringing news of a king’s death, but three days after I had first spoken with Æthelwulf a priest came instead. He found me in Bebbanburg’s harbour where Spearhafoc, newly repaired, was being launched. It was a hot day and I was stripped to the waist, helping the men who pushed the sleek hull down the beach. At first the priest did not believe I was Lord Uhtred, but Æthelwulf, who was with me and who was dressed as a nobleman, assured him I was indeed the ealdorman.

  King Edward, the priest told me, still lived, ‘God be praised,’ he added. The priest was young, tired, and saddle sore. His horse was a fine mare, but like the rider she was dusty, sweat-soaked, and bone weary. The priest had ridden hard.

  ‘You rode all this way to tell me the king still lives?’ I asked harshly.

  ‘No, lord, I rode to bring you a message.’

  I heard his message, and next day, at dawn, I went south.

  I left Bebbanburg with just five men for company. Finan, of course, was one, while the other four were all good warriors, sword-skilled and loyal. I left the priest who had brought me the message in Bebbanburg and told my son, who had returned from the hills and was to command the garrison while I was away, to guard him well. I did not want the priest’s news spreading. I also gave my son instructions to keep Æthelwulf as an honoured prisoner. ‘He might be an innocent fool,’ I said, ‘but I still don’t want him riding south to warn his brother that I’m coming.’

  ‘His brother will know anyway,’ Finan had said drily. ‘He already knows you’re sworn to kill him!’

  And that, I thought as I pounded the long road to Eoferwic, was strange. Æthelstan and I had sworn oaths to each other and agreed to keep those oaths secret. I had broken that agreement by telling Eadith, Finan, my son, and his wife, but I trusted all of them to keep the secret. So if Æthelhelm knew, then Æthelstan must have told someone, who, in turn, had told Æthelhelm of the threat, and that suggested there were spies in Æthelstan’s employment. That was no surprise, indeed I would have been astonished if Æthelhelm did not have men reporting to him from Mercia, but it did mean my enemy was forewarned of the threat I posed.

  There was one last person I needed to tell of my oath, and I knew he would not be happy. I was right. He was furious.

  Sigtryggr had been my son-in-law and was now King of Northumbria. He was a Norseman, and he owed his throne to me, which meant, I thought ruefully, that I was to Sigtryggr what Æthelhelm was to Edward. I was his most powerful noble, the one man he must either placate or kill, but he was also my friend, though when I met him in the old Roman palace of Eoferwic he fell into a rage. ‘You promised to kill Æthelhelm?’ he snarled at me.

  ‘I took an oath.’

  ‘Why!’ It was not a question. ‘To protect Æthelstan?’

  ‘I took an oath to protect him. I took that oath years—’

  ‘And he wants you to go south again!’ Sigtryggr interrupted me. ‘To save Wessex from its own chaos! To save Wessex! That’s what you did last year! You saved that bastard Æthelstan. We needed him dead! But no, you had to save the miserable arsehole’s life! You won’t go, I forbid it.’

  ‘Æthelstan,’ I pointed out, ‘is your brother-in-law.’

  Sigtryggr uttered one word to that, then kicked a table. A Roman jug of blue glass fell and shattered, causing one of his wolfhounds to whine. He pointed a finger at me. ‘You must not go. I forbid it!’

  ‘Do you break your oaths, lord King?’ I asked.

  He snarled again, paced angrily on the tiled floor, then turned on me again. ‘When Edward dies,’ he said, ‘the Saxons will start fighting amongst themselves. True?’

  ‘Probably true,’ I said.

  ‘Then let them fight!’ Sigtryggr said. ‘Pray that the bastards kill each other! It’s none of our business. While they’re fighting each other they can’t fight us!’

  ‘And if Ælfweard wins,’ I pointed out, ‘he will attack us anyway.’

  ‘You think Æthelstan won’t? You think he won’t lead an army across our frontier?’

  ‘He promised not to. Not while I live.’

  ‘And that can’t be long,’ Sigtryggr said, making it sound like a threat.

  ‘And you’re married to his twin sister,’ I retorted.

  ‘You think that will stop him?’ Sigtryggr glared at me. He had first been married to my daughter, who had died defending Eoferwic, and after her death King Edward had forced the marriage between Sigtryggr and Eadgyth, threatening
invasion if Sigtryggr refused, and Sigtryggr, assailed by other enemies, accepted. Edward claimed the marriage was a symbol of peace between the Saxon kingdoms and Norse-ruled Northumbria, but only a fool did not recognise that the real reason for the marriage was to place a Saxon Christian queen in what was enemy country. If Sigtryggr died then his son, my grandson, would be too young to rule, and the Danes and Norse would never accept the pious Eadgyth as their ruler, and in her stead they would place one of their own on Northumbria’s throne and thus give the Saxon kingdoms a reason to invade. They would claim they came to restore Eadgyth to her proper place, and so Northumbria, my country, would be swallowed by Wessex.

  And all that was true. Yet still I would travel south.

  I took an oath, not just to Æthelstan, but to Æthelflaed who had been King Alfred’s daughter and once my lover. I swore to protect Æthelstan and I swore to kill his enemies when Edward died. And if a man breaks an oath he has no honour. We might have much in this life. We might be born to wealth, to land, to success, and I had been given all those things, but when we die we go to the afterlife with nothing except reputation, and a man without honour has no reputation. I would keep my oath.

  ‘How many men are you taking?’ Sigtryggr asked me.

  ‘Just forty.’

  ‘Just forty!’ he echoed scornfully. ‘And what if Constantin of Scotland invades?’

  ‘He won’t. He’s too busy fighting Owain of Strath Clota.’

  ‘And the Norse in the west?’ he demanded.

  ‘We defeated them last year.’

  ‘And they have new leaders, there are more ships arriving!’

  ‘Then we’ll defeat them next year,’ I said.

  He sat again, and two of his wolfhounds came to be petted. ‘My younger brother came from Ireland,’ he said.

  ‘Brother?’ I asked. I had known Sigtryggr had a brother, but he had rarely been mentioned and I had thought he had stayed in Ireland.

  ‘Guthfrith,’ he said the name sourly. ‘He expects me to clothe and feed him.’

  I looked around the big chamber where men watched us. ‘He’s here?’

  ‘Probably in a whorehouse. You’re going south then?’ he asked grumpily. He looked old, I thought, yet he was younger than me. His once handsome face with its missing eye was creased, his hair was grey and lank, his beard thin. I had not seen his new queen in the palace, reports said that she spent much of her time in a convent she had established in the city. She had given Sigtryggr no child.

  ‘We’re going south,’ I confirmed.

  ‘Where the worst of the trouble comes from. But don’t travel through Lindcolne,’ he sounded unhappy.

  ‘No?’

  ‘There’s a report of the plague there.’

  Finan, standing beside me, crossed himself. ‘I’ll avoid Lindcolne,’ I said, raising my voice slightly. There were a dozen servants and household warriors within earshot and I wanted them to hear what I said. ‘We’ll take the western road through Mameceaster.’

  ‘Then come back soon,’ Sigtryggr said, ‘and come back alive.’

  He meant that, he just didn’t sound as if he meant it. We left next day.

  I had no intention of going south by any road, but I had wanted any listeners in Sigtryggr’s court to repeat my words. Æthelhelm had his spies in Sigtryggr’s court, and I wanted him watching the Roman roads that led south from Northumbria to Wessex.

  I had ridden to Eoferwic, knowing it was my duty to speak with Sigtryggr, but while we rode, Berg had taken Spearhafoc down the coast to a small harbour on the Humbre’s northern bank where he would be waiting for us.

  Early on the morning after my meeting with Sigtryggr, and feeling sour with the ale and wine of the night before, I led my five men out of the city. We rode south, but once out of sight of Eoferwic’s ramparts we turned eastwards and that evening we found Spearhafoc, manned by a crew of forty, riding at anchor on a falling tide. Next morning I sent six men to take our horses back to Bebbanburg while the rest of us took Spearhafoc to sea.

  Æthelhelm would hear that we had been in Eoferwic and would be told that we had left the city by the southern gate. He would probably assume I was heading for Mercia to join Æthelstan, but he would be puzzled that I travelled with only five companions. I wanted him to be nervous and to be watching all the wrong places.

  In the meantime I had told no one, not Eadith, not my son, not even Finan, what we were doing. Eadith and Finan had expected me to travel south on the news of Edward’s death, but, though the king still lived, I had left in a hurry. ‘What did that priest tell you?’ Finan asked as Spearhafoc coasted south under the summer wind.

  ‘He told me that I needed to go south.’

  ‘And what,’ Finan asked, ‘are we doing when we get there?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  He laughed at that. ‘Forty of us,’ he said, nodding at Spearhafoc’s crowded belly, ‘invading Wessex?’

  ‘More than forty,’ I said, then fell silent. I stared at the sun-glossed sea as it slid past Spearhafoc’s sleek hull. We could not have wished for a better day. We had a wind to drive us and a sea to carry us, and that sea was rippled by dazzling light, broken only by small frills of foam curling at the wave crests. That weather should have been a good omen, but I was assailed by unease. I had launched this voyage impulsively, seizing what I thought was an opportunity, but now the doubts were nagging me. I touched Thor’s hammer hanging at my neck. ‘The priest,’ I said to Finan, ‘brought me a message from Eadgifu.’

  For a moment he looked puzzled, then recognised the name. ‘Lavender tits!’

  I half smiled, remembering that I had once told Finan that Eadgifu’s breasts smelled of lavender. Eadith had told me that many women infused lavender into lanolin and smeared it on their cleavage. ‘Eadgifu has tits that smell like lavender,’ I confirmed to Finan, ‘and she asks for our help.’

  Finan stared at me. ‘Christ on his cross!’ he finally said. ‘What in God’s name are we doing?’

  ‘Going to find Eadgifu, of course,’ I said.

  He still stared at me. ‘Why us?’

  ‘Who else can she ask?’

  ‘Anyone!’

  I shook my head. ‘She’ll have a few friends in Wessex, none in Mercia or East Anglia. She’s desperate.’

  But why ask for your help?’

  ‘Because she knows I’m the enemy of her enemy.’

  ‘Æthelhelm.’

  ‘Who hates her,’ I said.

  That hatred was easy to understand. Edward had met Eadgifu while he was still married to Æfflaed, Æthelhelm’s sister and Ælfweard’s mother. The new, younger and prettier woman had won that rivalry, usurping Æfflaed’s place in the king’s bed and even persuading Edward to name her as Queen of Mercia. To make Æthelhelm’s hatred even more intense she had given Edward two more sons, Edmund and Eadred. Both boys were infants, yet the eldest, Edmund, had a claim on the throne if, so some believed, Æthelstan was illegitimate, and, as many realised, Ælfweard was simply too stupid, cruel and unreliable to be the next king. Æthelhelm understood that danger to his nephew’s future, which was why Eadgifu, in her desperation, had sent the priest to Bebbanburg.

  ‘She knows what Æthelhelm is planning for her,’ I told Finan.

  ‘She knows?’

  ‘She has spies, just as he does, and she was told that as soon as Edward dies Æthelhelm plans to carry her off to Wiltunscir. She’s to be placed in a nunnery and her two boys are to be raised in Æthelhelm’s household.’

  Finan gazed across the summer sea. ‘Meaning,’ he said slowly, ‘that both boys will have their throats slit.’

  ‘Or else die of a convenient illness, yes.’

  ‘So what are we going to do? Rescue her?’

  ‘Rescue her,’ I agreed.

  ‘But, Christ! She’s protected by the king’s household troops! And Æthelhelm will be watching her like a hawk.’

  ‘She’s already rescued herself,’ I said. ‘She and her children
went to Cent. She told her husband she was going to pray for him at the shrine of Saint Bertha, but in truth she wants to raise troops who’ll protect her and the boys.’

  ‘Dear God,’ Finan looked appalled. ‘And men will follow her?’

  ‘Why not? Remember that her father was Sigehelm.’ Sigehelm had been the ealdorman of Cent until he was killed fighting the Danes in East Anglia. He had been wealthy, though nothing like as rich as Æthelhelm, and Sigehelm’s son, Sigulf, had inherited that wealth along with his father’s household warriors. ‘Sigulf probably has three hundred men,’ I said.

  ‘And Æthelhelm has double that, at least! And he’ll have the king’s warriors too!’

  ‘And those warriors will be watching Æthelstan in Mercia,’ I said. ‘Besides, if Eadgifu and her brother march against Æthelhelm then others will follow them.’ That, I thought, was a slender hope, but not an impossible one.

  Finan frowned at me. ‘I thought your oath was to Æthelstan. Now it’s to Lavender Tits?’

  ‘My oath is to Æthelstan,’ I said.

  ‘But Eadgifu will expect you to make her son the next king!’

  ‘Edmund is too young,’ I said firmly. ‘He’s an infant. The Witan will never appoint him king, not till he’s of age.’

  ‘By which time,’ Finan pointed out, ‘Æthelstan will be on the throne with sons of his own!’

  ‘I’ll be dead by then,’ I said, and touched the hammer again.

  Finan gave a mirthless laugh. ‘So we’re sailing to join a Centish rebellion?’

  ‘To lead it. It’s my best chance to kill Æthelhelm.’

  ‘Why not join Æthelstan in Mercia?’

  ‘Because if the West Saxons hear that Æthelstan is using Northumbrian troops they’ll regard that as a declaration of war by Sigtryggr.’

  ‘That won’t matter if Æthelstan wins!’

  ‘But he has fewer men than Æthelhelm, he has less money than Æthelhelm. The best way to help him win is to kill Æthelhelm.’ Far to the east a speck of sail showed. I had been watching it for some time, but saw now that the distant ship was travelling northwards and would come nowhere near us.