Sword of Kings

by Bernard Cornwell

  No ship was tied to the stone wall and so I pushed the steering-oar over and the tired rowers dragged their last strokes. ‘Oars in!’ I called, and Spearhafoc slid gently against the massive stone blocks. Gerbruht threaded the bow line through one of the vast iron rings set in the wall and waited as Spearhafoc coasted the last few yards. Her stern thumped against the stone and Berg seized another of the rings. I tossed him the stern line and our ship was hauled in to grate her hull against the wall. When I had kept a ship here before I had packed canvas sacks with straw to cushion the hull, but that was a task that could wait for the morning.

  A narrow flight of steps was inset into the stone to allow folk to climb the wall at low tide. ‘Wait,’ I told my crew and passengers, then Finan and I jumped onto the steps and climbed to the wide river terrace where, on evenings when the wind came from the north to blow away the Temes’s stench, Gisela and I had liked to sit. Night was falling fast now and the house was dark except for a dim light behind one of the shutters and the glimmer of flames in the central courtyard. ‘Someone’s living here,’ Finan said.

  ‘The house belongs to the king,’ I said. ‘Alfred always gave it to the garrison commander, though most never used it. I did.’

  ‘But which king?’

  ‘Æthelstan’s now,’ I said, ‘but the West Saxons will want it back.’ Lundene was valuable, the city’s customs dues alone could finance a small kingdom, and I wondered if Edward, in his will, had declared which of his sons, Ælfweard or Æthelstan, was to rule here. In the end, of course, it was whichever half-brother could muster the most spears.

  The house door opened.

  Waormund walked out.

  I did not recognise him at first, nor did he recognise me. Behind him the passage that led to the courtyard was lit with torches, so his face was in shadow, while I was probably the last person he had ever expected to see in Lundene. At first all I was aware of was the man’s size; a huge man, a head taller than myself, broad-shouldered, shaggy haired, with booted legs like tree trunks. Light from the torches flickered off the links of a mail coat that fell to his thighs. He was eating meat that he tore off the bone with his teeth. ‘You can’t leave your poxy ship there,’ he growled, then went utterly still. ‘Christ!’ he said, threw the bone away and drew his seax, then leaped at me with a surprising speed for such a huge man.

  I had not brought Serpent-Breath from the ship, though my own seax, Wasp-Sting, hung at my waist. I stepped fast to my right, away from Finan so that Waormund would have an enemy on two sides, and dragged the short-sword from her scabbard. Waormund’s first slash missed me by a finger’s breadth, I ducked the second, a wild swing aimed at my head, and parried the third with Wasp-Sting, catching his blade at the root of the short-sword. The blow jarred up my arm. His strength was prodigious. Like me, Finan only had a seax, but he moved behind Waormund, who somehow sensed the Irishman’s approach, turned and swept his short blade to drive Finan back. I went to my right, stepping past Waormund and dragging Wasp-Sting’s blade across the back of his left leg. I was trying to slice his hamstring, but Wasp-Sting was a short stabbing weapon, not made for cutting, and the blade hardly pierced his tall leather boot. He turned on me, roaring, and I stepped back, lunged Wasp-Sting to strike and pierce his thigh, then fell sideways to avoid his savage response. Wasp-Sting had wounded him, I had felt the blade pierce, but Waormund did not seem to notice the injury. He turned back, snarling, as Finan attacked again to distract him, but we were like terriers assaulting a boar, and one of us, I knew, must be gored soon. Waormund had driven Finan back and now came for me, launching a massive kick that should have crushed my ribs. I was still getting to my feet, raised Wasp-Sting and, by luck or by the favour of the gods, she parried Waormund’s blade that he had hacked down at me. Once again the shock of the impact seared up my arm. Finan stabbed at Waormund, and the huge man again had to turn away from me, back-handing his sword, but Finan was lightning fast and danced back. ‘This way!’ he called to me.

  I had scrambled to my feet. Finan was still shouting at me to go towards Spearhafoc, but Waormund prevented that by running at me. He was roaring. There were no words, just a bellow of rage and a stench of ale on his breath. I stepped to my right, towards Finan, Waormund reached with his free hand and grabbed the neck of my mail coat and hauled me towards him. I saw him grin, teeth missing, knew I was about to die, felt his enormous strength as he dragged me effortlessly into his close embrace and I saw his seax coming from my right, the blade’s point aimed at the base of my ribs. I tried to tear myself free and could not. But Finan was just as fast and his lunge at Waormund’s back must have wounded the big man because he roared again and twisted away to drive Finan back. He still held my coat and I sliced at his arm with Wasp-Sting. She did not break his mail, but the force of the blow made him let go of me and I back-handed Wasp-Sting across his neck. The blade’s edge hit the base of his skull, but he was still moving, which robbed the blow of almost all its force and, for all the good it did, I might as well have stroked his neck with a feather. He turned back, his scarred face a grimace of rage, and suddenly a spear flashed across my sight, the blade reflecting the small flame-light, and it struck Waormund’s blade and glanced off. My men had come from Spearhafoc. A dozen were running towards us and more were coming up the narrow stone steps.

  Waormund might have been in a rage, he might have drunk too much ale, but he was no fool when it came to a fight. He had stood in too many shield walls, had felt the shadows of defeat and the imminence of death too often, and so he knew when to retreat. He spun away from me towards the house where, just as my men came from the ship, three of his companions burst through the door with their long-swords drawn.

  ‘Back!’ Waormund bellowed. He was suddenly outnumbered and he and his men went through the door, which they slammed shut. I heard the locking bar drop into place.

  ‘Dear God,’ Finan said, ‘he’s a brute. Are you wounded?’

  ‘Bruised,’ I said. It had been stupid to approach the house so lightly armed. ‘I’m not hurt,’ I went on as Berg handed me Serpent-Breath, ‘you?’

  ‘I’m alive,’ he said dourly.

  Alive, but in confusion. Every person we had spoken to had been certain that Æthelstan’s troops occupied Lundene, yet here was one of Æthelhelm’s most feared warriors at the very heart of the city. I went to the house door, knowing it would not pull open, nor did it. A woman screamed from somewhere inside. ‘Get an axe,’ I ordered.

  I knew the house all too well, and knew there was no way in from the river terrace except by this door. The stone walls were built to the very edge of the masonry platform, so there was no way to walk down the sides of the house, while the windows were guarded with iron bars.

  Beornoth brought the axe and struck a giant blow that made the stout door shudder. A woman screamed again. I could hear other noises inside the house, footsteps and muttered words, but what they meant I could not tell. Then the axe fell again with another mighty blow and the noises beyond the door faded away. ‘They’ve gone,’ Finan said.

  ‘Or they’re waiting to ambush us,’ I answered.

  Beornoth’s axe crashed through the thick wood. I stooped to peer through the hole and saw the passageway beyond was empty. Torchlight still flickered in the courtyard at the passageway’s end. ‘Keep going,’ I told Beornoth, and two more blows were enough to let him reach through the shattered door and lift the locking bar.

  The house was empty. The great rooms, closest to the river, had six straw mattresses, some cloaks, a litter of ale pots and half-eaten bread, and an empty scabbard. Waormund or one of his men had kicked over a pail of shit and piss that was smeared across the tiled floor of the room where Gisela and I had once slept. The servants’ rooms, across the courtyard, still had a simmering cauldron of bean and mutton stew and a heap of firewood stacked against one wall, but no servants. I went to the front door, opened it cautiously, and stepped onto the street with Serpent-Breath in my hand. There was no one in
sight.

  Finan pulled me back into the house. ‘You stay here,’ he said. ‘I’ll go talk to the sentries at the bastion.’ I began to protest, but Finan cut me off. ‘Stay here!’ he insisted, and I let him take a half-dozen men along the dark street. I locked the door and went back to the larger rooms where Eadgifu was spreading her own cloak on one of the mattresses. Edmund, her eldest son, was peering into the other room with its stinking floor, but I dragged him away and thrust him back to his mother. Father Aart, who had vomited helplessly for almost all of Spearhafoc’s voyage, had recovered, and opened his mouth to protest at my treatment of the prince, but one look at my face persuaded him to stay silent. He was frightened of me.

  ‘The straw has fleas,’ Awyrgan complained.

  ‘Lice too, probably,’ I said. ‘And don’t be in too much of a hurry to make beds.’

  ‘I’m not making a bed,’ Eadgifu said, ‘just a place to sit. We’re going to the palace, surely? In Lundene I always stay in the palace!’

  ‘We’ll go to the palace, my queen,’ Awyrgan reassured her.

  ‘Don’t be a bloody fool,’ I snarled at him. ‘Those were Æthelhelm’s men. If we’re wrong and they’re still occupying the city, then we leave. We leave tonight. Finan’s gone to discover what’s happening.’

  Awyrgan stared at me. ‘Leave tonight?’

  It would be difficult. The Temes was wide, and though the current would help us downstream there were shoals in the river that would make it a perilous journey in darkness. But if Æthelhelm’s men were still holding the city we would have no choice. ‘How long do you think we’ll all live,’ I asked Awyrgan with a patience I did not feel, ‘if Æthelhelm’s troops are here?’

  ‘Maybe they’re not?’ Eadgifu asked.

  ‘Which is what Finan is finding out, my lady,’ I said, ‘so be ready to leave in a hurry.’

  One of the babies began crying and a maidservant hurried the child out of the room. ‘But if Æthelstan’s men are here,’ Eadgifu pleaded, ‘we can go to the palace? I have clothes there! I need clothes!’

  ‘Maybe we’ll go to the palace,’ I said, too tired to discuss it. If the city was safe then I would let her find her luxury, but till then she could scratch her flea-bites.

  I went back to the river terrace to escape the stench of the house and there sat on the low wall that fronted the Temes and gazed down as Berg and two men turned Spearhafoc so that her prow was pointing downstream. They did it efficiently, made her fast again, and so ready to leave the city in a hurry if Finan brought bad news, then all three settled into the ship’s wide belly. They would guard the ship from the night thieves who could strip rigging and steal oars.

  I watched the river swirl and tried to make some sense of the day. I reckoned Waormund must have sailed straight back to Lundene when he saw our ships destroying his small fleet off the Northumbrian coast, but if Æthelstan controlled the city, as we had been told, then why was Waormund still here? Why had the big West Saxon not left with the rest of Æthelhelm’s men? And why only six warriors? I had seen four men, but there had been six straw beds, and that too was strange. Why would six men quarter themselves in this riverside house when presumably the rest of Æthelhelm’s men would be lodged in the old fort or guarding the palace at Lundene’s north-western corner?

  Night had fallen now. There were buildings on the Temes’s south bank, and the torch flames that lit the entrance to a church flickered their shimmering reflections on the river. A three-quarter’s moon slid behind a cloud. The ships moored at the nearby wharves groaned in the wind, their halliards slapping lazily against masts. I heard men laughing from the Dead Dane, a nearby tavern.

  The house door opened and I turned, expecting Finan, but it was Roric, my servant, who brought a flaming torch that he put into a bracket by the door. He glanced at me, seemed to be about to speak, then thought better of it and went back into the house, first holding open the door for a hooded figure who walked slowly and carefully towards me carrying two beakers. One of the beakers was held towards me. ‘It is wine.’ It was Benedetta who offered me the drink. ‘It is not good wine, but it is better than ale.’

  ‘You don’t like ale?’

  ‘Ale is sour,’ she said, ‘and so is this wine.’

  I sipped it. She was right, it was sour, but I was used to sour-tasting wine. ‘You like sweet wine?’ I asked.

  ‘I like good wine,’ she sat beside me. ‘This vinegar was found in the kitchens of the house. Maybe they cook with it? It stinks!’

  ‘The wine?’

  ‘The river.’

  ‘It’s a city,’ I said. ‘All cities make their rivers stink.’

  ‘I remember this smell,’ she said.

  ‘Hard to forget it.’

  Benedetta sat to my left and I remembered the heavy wooden bench where Gisela and I would sit, with Gisela always on my left. ‘The queen is not happy,’ Benedetta said, ‘she wants her comfort.’

  I grimaced. ‘She wants a mattress filled with feathers?’

  ‘She would like that, yes.’

  ‘She asked for my help,’ I said harshly, ‘and I gave it to her. When I get her to a safe place she can have all the damned feathers she wants, but till then she can suffer fleas like the rest of us.’

  ‘I shall tell her,’ Benedetta said, sounding as if she looked forward to giving that piece of bad news. ‘You think Lundene is not safe?’

  ‘Not till I know who controls the city,’ I said. ‘Finan should be back soon.’ I had heard no shouts in the night, no sound of running feet, no clash of swords. That lack of sounds suggested that Finan and his men had met no enemies.

  Benedetta had half pushed back her hood and I gazed at her in the night. She had a strong-boned face with large eyes that looked bright against her bronze-darkened skin. ‘You are looking at me,’ she said flatly.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Men look at women,’ she went on, ‘and take what they want.’ She shrugged. ‘But I am a slave, so what can I expect?’

  ‘You serve a queen. You should demand respect.’

  ‘I do demand it! But that does not make me liked or make me safe.’ She paused. ‘Edward looked at me too.’ I said nothing, but I suppose the question was written all over my face. She shrugged. ‘He was kinder than some.’

  ‘How many men do I have to kill for you?’

  She smiled at that. ‘I killed one myself.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘That one was a pig, a porco! He was on top of me, and I put a knife into his ribs while he was grunting like a pig.’ She turned to look at me. ‘Will you really let me kill Gunnald Gunnaldson?’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘That would be good,’ she said wistfully. ‘But how can I kill the porco if you send us to your home in the north?’

  ‘We don’t know what we’re doing yet.’

  ‘If Gunnald Gunnaldson lives,’ Benedetta went on, ‘then I think it is not far from here. It is by the river, I know, because the smell was always there. A big building, dark. It had a private place where their ships tied up.’

  ‘A wharf.’

  ‘A wharf,’ she repeated the word, ‘with a wooden wall. And two ships were kept there. And there was a courtyard with a fence, another wall. He would show the slaves there, or his father would show us. I thought I was in hell. Men would laugh as they fingered us.’ She stopped abruptly. She was staring towards the house and I saw the glint of a tear. ‘I was just a child.’

  ‘Yet the child went to a palace,’ I said gently.

  ‘Yes.’ She stopped after that one word and I thought she would say no more, then she spoke again. ‘Where I was a toy till the queen wanted me to serve her. That was three years ago.’

  ‘How long ago—’ I began, but she interrupted me.

  ‘Twenty-two years, lord. I count the years. Twenty-two years since the Saraceni took me from my home.’ She looked upriver to where the gaunt storehouses stood above the wharves. ‘I would enjoy killing him.’
<
br />   The house door opened again and Finan appeared. Benedetta started to stand, but I put a hand on her arm to keep her seated. ‘Finan,’ I greeted him.

  ‘Æthelstan’s men are here,’ Finan said.

  ‘Thank the gods for that.’

  ‘But Æthelstan isn’t. They think he’s still in Gleawecestre, but they’re not sure. Is that ale?’

  ‘Wine.’

  ‘Devil’s piss,’ Finan said, ‘but I’ll drink it.’ He took the beaker from me and sat at the angle of the wall. ‘Your old friend Merewalh commands here.’

  And that news was a relief. Merewalh was indeed an old friend. He had led Æthelflaed’s household warriors, he had fought beside me many times, and I valued him as a sober, sensible and reliable man.

  ‘Only he’s not here either,’ Finan went on. ‘He left yesterday. He took most of his men to Werlameceaster.’

  ‘He took them to Werlameceaster! Why?’ It was as much a protest as a question.

  ‘God alone knows why,’ Finan said. ‘The fellow I talked to just knew Merewalh was gone! Didn’t know why he left, but it was all done in a hurry. He left a man called Bedwin in command here.’

  ‘Bedwin,’ I repeated the name. ‘Never heard of him. How many men did Æthelstan take?’

  ‘Over five hundred.’

  I swore, briefly and uselessly. ‘And how many did he leave here?’

  ‘Two hundred.’

  Which was not nearly enough to defend Lundene. ‘And most of those,’ I said bitterly, ‘are probably the oldest and weakest men.’ I gazed up, seeing a star wink between two hurrying clouds. ‘And Waormund?’ I asked.

  ‘The devil only knows where that bastard is. I saw no sight or sound of him.’

  ‘Waormund?’ Benedetta asked with alarm in her voice.

  ‘He was in the house when we arrived,’ I explained.