Sword of Kings

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Go inside, join Bedwin!’ The last thing I needed was nervous half-trained men trailing me. The bells announced that there would be killing in the city this night, and I needed to reach Spearhafoc. I shouted at my men to follow me down the hill, but before we were halfway to the river I saw horsemen pouring from a nearby street, the points of their spear-blades catching and reflecting the light of a torch. I was still holding Benedetta’s arm and she gasped in alarm as I veered sharply right to dive into an alley. I would have preferred to go left, to head eastwards towards Spearhafoc, but there was no alley or street close enough.

  I stopped in the alley and swore again, and it did no more good than the first curse. ‘What is it?’ Beornoth asked.

  ‘The enemy,’ Vidarr Leifson answered for me.

  ‘Coming from the east by the look of it,’ Finan said quietly.

  ‘I told the fool to send scouts,’ a voice said, ‘but he refused! He said he had too few men, but he’ll have even fewer now.’

  The alley was dark and I could not see the speaker, but his Danish accent betrayed him. It was Father Oda. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked harshly.

  ‘Seeking safety,’ he answered calmly, ‘and I trust you to protect me, lord, more than I trust that fool Bedwin.’

  For a moment I was tempted to order him back to the palace, then relented. One more man would make no difference to us, even if the man was a Christian priest and carried no weapon. ‘This way!’ I said. I still went downhill, but now using backstreets and alleys. The sound of the horses’ hooves was muffled, but I heard a scream, then heard the clash of sword on metal. We kept running.

  The horsemen I had seen had been coming from the east. The riverside house where I had left Berg, the rest of my men and Eadgifu were all to the east, and the house was not far from the city’s easternmost gate. Waormund, I thought, must have attacked that gate to let in the approaching troops who now spread through the city. Worse, Waormund would know exactly where to find me, and he had doubtless led men straight to the house. So had Berg managed to escape? If he had, then he would have taken Spearhafoc into the river’s centre and would be holding her there, but as we stumbled down the alleys I wondered how we would ever reach her.

  ‘Down here, lord!’ Oswi called.

  Oswi was young, clever, and a good warrior. I had met him when he was an orphan haunting the streets of Lundene and making a living by theft. He had tried to steal from me, had been caught and, instead of giving him the whipping he deserved, I had pardoned him and trained him as a fighter. He knew the city, and he must have known what was in my mind because he led us downhill through a maze of alleys. The footing was treacherous in the dark and I almost fell twice. Father Oda was guiding Benedetta now, the rest of us all had drawn swords. The noise in the night was louder, the roar of men, of screaming women, of howling dogs and the hammer of iron-shod hooves, but no enemy had yet pierced these narrow alleys in the western part of the city.

  ‘Stop!’ Oswi held up a hand. We had reached the street that ran just inside the old river wall, and the bridge was close to our left. We were hidden by dark shadow, but the approach to the bridge was lit by torches and there were men there, too many men, men in mail and helmets, men with shields, spears and swords. None wore the dull red cloak of Æthelhelm’s men, but nor did any of them carry Æthelstan’s symbol on their shields.

  ‘East Anglians?’ Finan asked me.

  ‘Who else?’

  The East Anglians were barring our way eastwards, and we shrank back into deep shadow as dozens of horsemen came into sight. They came from the east, were led by a man wearing a red cloak, and were carrying long spears. I heard laughter, then a command to go uphill. The hoofbeats sounded again as we shrank into the alley, hidden there by shadow and fear.

  I swore for the third time. I had hoped to get down to the tangle of wharves and work my way along the river bank to the house, but that had always been a forlorn ambition. Berg and his men had either been overwhelmed and slaughtered, or else they had reached Spearhafoc and were even now out in the river’s darkness. But had this East Anglian army come by boat too? That seemed unlikely. It would take a seaman of uncanny ability to negotiate the seaward twists of the Temes in the moon-shrouded darkness, but one thing was sure; the eastern part of the city, the part I needed to reach, was swarming with the enemy.

  ‘We go north,’ I said, and knew I was trying to lead us out of a mistake. There had never been a real chance of reaching Spearhafoc and in taking my men and Benedetta down the hill I had gone in the wrong direction.

  ‘North?’ Oswi asked.

  ‘If we can leave the city,’ I said, ‘we have a chance to reach the road to Werlameceaster.’

  ‘We have no horses,’ Father Oda pointed out calmly.

  ‘Then, damn it, we walk!’ I snarled.

  ‘And the enemy,’ he went on, still speaking calmly, ‘will send horsemen on patrol.’

  I said nothing, nor did anyone else speak until Finan broke the silence. ‘It is always wise,’ he said drily and using the words I had spoken to Bedwin not long before, ‘to listen to a Dane when he talks of warfare.’

  ‘So we won’t stay on the road,’ I said. ‘We’ll use the woods where the horsemen can’t find us. Oswi, get us to one of the northern gates.’

  The attempt to reach the northern city wall also failed. Whoever led the East Anglian army was no fool. He had sent men to capture and then guard each of the seven gates. Two of those gates pierced the walls of the Roman fort built at the city’s north-western corner and, when we drew close, we heard the sound of men fighting. There was an open space in front of the fort and to the west of the ruined amphitheatre, and a score of bodies lay on that paved square that was lit by the torches burning on the palace walls. Blood had run on the stone and trickled into the weed-thick gaps between the old paving slabs where men in red cloaks were stripping the corpses of mail. The fort’s southern gate, one of the two that led into the city, was wide open, and six horsemen came through the arch. They were led by an imposing man who rode a great black stallion, wore a white cloak, and had a mail coat of brightly polished metal. ‘That’s Varin,’ Father Oda whispered.

  ‘Varin?’ I asked. We were again hidden in the deep shadow of an alley.

  ‘An East Anglian,’ Father Oda explained, ‘and one of Lord Æthelhelm’s commanders.’

  ‘Varin is a Danish name,’ I said.

  ‘He is a Dane,’ the priest said, ‘and like me he is a Christian. I know him well. We were friends once.’

  ‘In East Anglia?’ I asked. I knew that Father Oda’s parents had settled in East Anglia, sailing there from their home across the North Sea.

  ‘In East Anglia,’ Father Oda said, ‘which is as much a Danish land as it is Saxon. A third of Lord Æthelhelm’s East Anglian troops are Danes. Maybe more than a third?’

  That should not have surprised me. East Anglia had fallen to the Danes before Alfred had come to the throne and had long been ruled by Danish kings. Their sovereignty ended when Edward’s West Saxon army defeated them and, though many had died in the fighting, the Danes who survived had known which way fate’s wind was blowing and so had converted to Christianity. They then swore loyalty to the new Saxon lords who took over the wide estates. Æthelhelm the Elder, who had died while my prisoner, had been given vast tracts of East Anglia and had raised an army of hard-bitten Danes to defend it. Those were the men who, with their Saxon comrades, had come to Lundene this night.

  ‘We’ll not be getting out of the city this way,’ Finan said sourly.

  Varin’s men had captured the gates, the bridge, and the Roman fort, which meant Lundene had fallen. Merewalh had been lured northwards, Bedwin had failed to guard the eastern roads, and now squads of Æthelhelm’s warriors began to probe into the deep alleys and streets of the city to end any hope of resistance from Bedwin’s defeated troops. We were trapped.

  And I had made a second mistake that night. The first was the vain attempt to reach Spe
arhafoc, the second was to try to leave by a northern gate, and my best hope now was to find a boat and escape downriver. ‘Get us back to the wharves,’ I told Oswi, ‘east of the bridge.’ I wanted to be downriver of the bridge, which had perilous narrow gaps between the stone piers where the water seethed, churned, and had capsized many a smaller boat.

  ‘Bastards were swarming down there,’ Finan warned me.

  ‘Then we hide!’ I snarled. My anger was with myself, not with Finan. I felt like a rat trapped by terriers; still fighting but with no place to run.

  No place to run, but there were places to hide, and Oswi knew Lundene like a rat knows a stable yard. He led us quickly, keeping to the small alleys that the enemy had not yet reached. We went eastwards now and, though we had still not met the enemy, we could hear them. We could hear shouts and shrieks, the clash of blades, the laughter of men enjoying an easy victory. Some people had fled to the churches to seek sanctuary and, as we skirted one wooden church, I heard a woman wailing and a baby crying.

  We had to cross the wide street that led from the bridge to the big market square at the top of the hill. Torches burned on either side of the street, spewing dark smoke into the troubled air. There were groups of men beneath the flames, their swords sheathed and their shields stacked against walls. One group had rolled a barrel from the Red Pig tavern and an axeman stove in the lid to provoke cheers. A woman screamed, then abruptly went silent. Lundene had fallen and the captors were enjoying the spoils, but then a red-cloaked horseman spurred up from the river. ‘To the palace, lads!’ he called. ‘Leave that ale, there’s plenty more!’

  The street emptied slowly, but it was still dangerous. I peered downhill and saw there were men guarding the bridge and some of them began to climb towards us. I guessed that this main street would stay busy all night, yet we had to cross it if we were to find a ship on the wharves to the east of the bridge. ‘We just stroll across,’ I said.

  ‘Stroll?’ Father Oda asked.

  ‘We don’t run. We don’t look frightened. We just stroll.’

  So we did. We walked across the street slowly, as if we had not a care in the world. Benedetta was still with Father Oda, and one of the men coming from the bridge saw her. ‘You found a woman?’ he shouted.

  ‘A woman!’ a half-dozen voices echoed.

  ‘Share her!’ the first man called.

  ‘Keep going,’ I said, and followed Oswi through a half-broken arch that led into another alley. ‘Now hurry!’ I called, but hurrying was treacherous because it was pitch dark, the alley was narrow, and its footing nothing but earth and broken stone. I heard our pursuers shout again. They had reached the arch and were following us into the darkness. ‘Finan,’ I said.

  ‘A pleasure,’ he answered grimly, and the two of us let the others go past.

  ‘Bring her here!’ a man shouted. He received no answer, he could hear nothing but stumbling footsteps. ‘You bastards!’ he called again. ‘Bring the bitch here!’

  Again he received no answer and so he came towards us, followed by four men. We could see them outlined against the small light from the main street, but they would have seen little of us because their looming shadows obscured our drawn swords. ‘Bring her here!’ the man bellowed again and then made a mewing sound as Serpent-Breath pierced his mail, tore through the muscles of his belly, and then twisted in his guts. He collapsed into me, his sword clattering on the ground, his right hand clutching at my mail coat. I brought my right knee up into his chin and the scream that had just begun became a bloody gurgle. I stepped back and wrenched Serpent-Breath free. Finan, with his usual lightning speed, had put his man down with no noise except for the hoarse bubbling gasp of a cut throat. I saw the blood spurt black across the alley and some splashed on my face as I stepped over the gut-slit man to thrust my blade into another. He tried to twist aside, but Serpent-Breath sliced across his ribs, tearing mail, then he tripped on the first dying man, and Beornoth, behind me, hammered down with his sword’s pommel to break the man’s skull open like an egg. Finan had taken a man’s eyes, and that man was screaming, hands clutched to his bloody face.

  The last man stopped, then fled from the alley. Finan started after him, but I seized his arm. ‘Back,’ I said, ‘back! Leave him!’ The fugitive had already reached the wider torch-lit street.

  We ran, looking for Oswi. I turned right into another alley, tripped, skinned my left hand on a wall, turned left again. Sudden shouts came as men discovered the carnage we had made. Finan tugged my sleeve and I followed him down three stone steps. The moon had come from behind cloud and I could see again, except that we were in the black shadow of gaunt stone walls. Ruins, I thought, then we crossed a moonlit space and turned into another alley. Where the hell was Oswi? I could hear shouts behind us. The last bell in the west of the city stopped tolling, then a voice called near us, ‘This way! This way!’ I saw a shadow within a shadow on top of a mound of broken stone. We clambered over and dropped down into bleak darkness. I trod on someone, Benedetta, who gasped, then I dropped beside her. ‘Quiet, lord!’ Oswi whispered. ‘Quiet!’

  Like hunted beasts we had gone to ground, but the hunters wanted more blood. One of our pursuers carried a flaming torch and the blundering shadows of big men were thrown onto a broken wall beside us. The hunters stopped, I held my breath and heard voices muttering. ‘This way!’ one said, and the shadows faded as the footsteps went further east. None of us moved, none of us spoke. Then a woman screamed terribly from not far away and men roared in triumph. She screamed again. Benedetta whispered something bitter. I did not understand a word, but I sensed she was trembling and I reached out to touch her and she seized my skinned hand and held it tightly.

  And so we waited. The noises subsided, but we could still hear the woman whimpering. ‘Pigs,’ Benedetta said softly.

  ‘Where are we?’ I whispered in Oswi’s direction.

  ‘Safe, lord,’ he murmured, though our refuge seemed anything but safe to me. We appeared to be in the ruins of a small stone house with no way out except to go back the way we had entered. Other houses nearby were still being used. I saw flame-light appear and vanish at a shuttered window. Another woman screamed and Benedetta’s hand gripped mine hard. Oswi whispered something and I heard Finan grunt in reply.

  Then flint struck on steel, there a puff of breath, another spark, and the small kindling from Finan’s pouch caught fire. The flame was tiny, but just enough to show what looked like a small cave mouth in the rubble at the base of the broken wall, the dark opening supported by a shattered and tilted pillar. Oswi crawled into the hole, Finan handed him a scrap of burning wood and the small flame vanished inside the hole. ‘This way!’ Oswi hissed.

  Finan followed, then one by one we wriggled into the cave. Finan had lit a larger piece of wood and in its light I saw we were in a cellar. I dropped down to a stone floor and almost gagged at the stench. The cellar had to be close to a cesspit. Benedetta held her scarf to her mouth and nose. Thick pillars of narrow Roman bricks supported the ceiling. ‘We used to hide here,’ Oswi said, then clambered through a gap in the stone wall on the cellar’s far side. ‘Be careful here!’

  Again Finan followed him. The flame of the makeshift torch flickered. Beyond the gap was another cellar, but deeper, and to my right was the cesspit. A narrow ledge led to a brick arch and it was through that last opening that Oswi vanished. A boy’s voice challenged him, more voices added to the sudden noise, then Finan handed the torch to Vidarr and drew his sword. He stepped through the arch and shouted for silence. There was immediate quiet.

  I followed Finan to discover a dozen children in the final cellar. The oldest might have been thirteen, the youngest only half that age. Three girls and nine ragged boys, all of them looking starved, their eyes big against pale, wild faces. They had beds of straw, their clothes were rags, and their hair hung lank and long. Oswi had lit a small fire, using straw and scraps of wood, and in its light I could see that one of the older boys held a knife. ‘Put it
away, boy,’ I snarled and the knife vanished. ‘Is this the only entrance?’ I asked from the brick arch.

  ‘The only one, lord,’ Oswi said, tending his fire.

  ‘He’s a lord?’ a boy asked. None of us answered him.

  ‘Who are they?’ I asked, though it was a stupid question because the answer was plain to see.

  ‘Orphans,’ Oswi said.

  ‘Like you.’

  ‘Like me, lord.’

  ‘Aren’t there convents?’ Benedetta asked. ‘Places to look after motherless children?’

  ‘Convents are cruel,’ Oswi said harshly. ‘If they don’t like you they sell you to the slavers on the river.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ the boy who had hidden the knife asked.

  ‘Enemy troops,’ I answered. ‘They took the city. You’d best stay hidden till they calm down.’

  ‘And you’re running from them?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked, and he said nothing. But I knew what he was thinking, that he could earn a small fortune by betraying us, which is why I had asked Oswi if there was another way out of this stinking, dark cellar. ‘You’ll stay here till we say you can leave,’ I added. The boy just looked at me and said nothing. ‘What’s your name, boy?’

  He hesitated, as if wanting to challenge me, then muttered his name. ‘Aldwyn.’

  ‘Aldwyn, lord,’ I corrected him.

  ‘Lord,’ he added reluctantly.

  I crossed to him, stepping over rags and straw. I crouched and stared into his dark eyes. ‘If you betray us, Aldwyn, the enemy will give you a shilling. Maybe two shillings. But if you do me service, boy, I will give you gold.’ I took a coin from my pouch and showed it to him. He stared at it, looked up into my eyes, and then back to the coin. He did not speak, but I could see the hunger in his gaze. ‘Do you know that man?’ I asked, nodding towards Oswi.

  He glanced at Oswi, then back to me. ‘No, lord.’

  ‘Look at him,’ I said. The boy frowned, not understanding, but obediently looked at Oswi who was lit by the flames of the small fire. Aldwyn saw a warrior with a trimmed beard, a fine mail coat, and a sword belt thick with embroidery and small silver panels. ‘Tell him who you are, Oswi,’ I commanded, ‘and what you were.’