Sword of Kings

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Next week!’ the under-steward said. He gave a shilling each to the two soldiers, kept two for himself, then all four walked away.

  I closed and barred the gates. ‘What was that about?’ I asked.

  Finan made a noise of disgust. He had levered the lid from one barrel that was two thirds full of cloudy ale. He dipped a finger and tasted. ‘Sour,’ he said, ‘tastes worse than badger piss.’

  ‘You’d know?’ Vidarr asked.

  Finan ignored that, opening the second barrel and recoiling as the stench in the yard worsened. ‘Sweet Jesus! We paid silver for this?’

  I crossed to the two barrels and saw that the second one was half full of meat, which I thought was pork, though this pork was riddled with rancid fat and crawling with maggots. ‘Gunnald did say he fed them meat,’ I muttered.

  ‘Is that tree bark?’ Finan was bending over the barrel and poking the rotten meat with a finger. ‘The bastards mixed this with bark!’

  I rammed the lid back into place. ‘Where do they get this filth?’

  The answer was given by one of the captured guards who told us that Gunnald had an arrangement with the palace steward who sold unused ale and food to feed the slaves. ‘The women cook it in the kitchen,’ he said.

  ‘They won’t cook that,’ I said and ordered the barrel’s contents to be pitched into the river. The captured guard told us more, that Gunnald’s son had taken slaves to Frankia and that the ship had been gone now for three days. ‘Did he go to buy slaves too?’ I asked.

  ‘Just to sell them, lord.’ The captured man’s name was Deogol. He was younger than the other three captives and eager to please. He was a West Saxon who had lost a hand fighting when Edward had invaded East Anglia. ‘I couldn’t work at home,’ he had explained, lifting the stump of his right arm, ‘and Gunnald gave me work. A man has to eat.’

  ‘So Gunnald’s son is selling slaves?’

  ‘War isn’t good for trade, lord, that’s what they say. Prices are low in Lundene so he’s selling the best across the water. All except for …’ he paused, decided to say nothing, but I saw him glance to where the stairs began.

  ‘Except for the girls who were upstairs?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘Why isn’t he selling those? They look valuable to me.’

  ‘They’re his girls, lord,’ Deogol said miserably. ‘His father’s girls really, but they share them.’

  ‘Gunnald Gunnaldson and his son?’ I asked, and Deogol just nodded. ‘What’s the son’s name?’

  ‘Lyfing, lord.’

  ‘Where’s his mother?’

  ‘Dead, lord.’

  ‘And who rows his ship?’

  ‘Slaves, lord,’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Just twenty oars,’ Deogol said, ‘ten a side.’

  ‘So a small ship?’

  ‘But it’s fast,’ he said. ‘That old one,’ he jerked his head towards the wreck on the wharf, ‘needed twice as many men and she was always a pig.’

  So Gunnald had bought a smaller, lighter vessel that needed fewer men on the oars and, if our captive was right, was fast enough to escape most Frisian or Danish raiders looking for easy prey. And that lighter ship might return any day, but meanwhile I had nineteen freed slaves, four captive guards, a dozen children, my seven men, a priest, Benedetta, and the two horses in the stable to feed. Luckily there were a dozen sacks of oats in the kitchen, a mound of firewood, a stone hearth that still had glowing embers, and a great cauldron. We would not starve. ‘But it’s a pity about the mouse droppings,’ Finan said, looking at a handful of oats.

  ‘We’ve eaten worse.’

  Benedetta, the bloodstains dry on her gown, found her way to the kitchen that was a grimy shed built alongside the wharf. She brought Alaina, an arm around the girl’s shoulder. ‘She’s hungry.’

  ‘We’ll boil some oats,’ I said.

  ‘I can make oatcakes,’ Alaina said brightly.

  ‘Then we need some lard,’ Benedetta said, starting to hunt through boxes and jars stored on a shelf, ‘and some water. Salt, if there is any. Help me search!’

  ‘I like oatcakes,’ Alaina said.

  I looked at Benedetta questioningly and she smiled. ‘Alaina’s doing well,’ she said, ‘she’s a good girl.’

  ‘And you’ll find my mama?’ Alaina asked me earnestly.

  ‘Of course he will!’ Benedetta answered for me. ‘Lord Uhtred can do anything!’

  Lord Uhtred, I thought, would need a miracle to find the child’s mother, let alone escape from Lundene, but for the moment all I could do was wait for the slave ship to return. I ordered the dead bodies brought to the wharf and heaped against the western wall where they were hidden from any inquisitive guard on the bridge. The dead would all be tipped into the river after dark. Gunnald’s fat, pale, and blood-streaked corpse was dragged down the stairs, his grimacing eyeless head bumping on each step. I searched his attic lair and found a sturdy box full of money. There were West Saxon and Mercian shillings, Danish hacksilver, and Northumbrian gold, besides Frisian, Frankish, and other strange coins, some inscribed with letters of an alphabet and language I had never seen before. ‘These are from Africa,’ Benedetta told me, fingering a big round silver piece. ‘They are Saraceni coins. We used them in Lupiae.’ She put it back with the rest of the money. ‘How safe are we?’ she asked.

  ‘Safe enough,’ I said, trying to reassure her and hoping I told the truth. ‘The East Anglians will think we all escaped on Spearhafoc. They won’t be searching for us.’

  ‘And Spearhafoc,’ she stumbled over the unfamiliar name, ‘is where?’

  ‘Well on her way home by now, I hope.’

  ‘And will your people send help?’

  ‘They won’t even know whether we’re alive,’ I said, ‘so if they’ve any sense they’ll shut the fortress doors, guard the ramparts, and wait for news. That’s what I’d do.’

  ‘And what do we do?’

  ‘We capture Gunnald’s second ship,’ I said, ‘and follow Spearhafoc home.’

  ‘So we stay here till then?’

  ‘Better that than the cellar next to the cesspit.’

  ‘Lord!’ Beornoth called from the foot of the stairs. ‘You’ll want to see this!’

  I went back down to the wharf and followed Beornoth to the end of the westernmost pier where Finan was waiting. The Irishman jerked his head downstream. ‘Enough of the bastards,’ he said.

  Four ships were being rowed upriver. They looked to be Saxon ships, big and heavy, and all four had crosses on their prows. The tide was ebbing, which made the water seethe through the spaces between the bridge piers, but none of these ships was trying to go upstream because all four had masts crossed by spars on which sails were furled and none of their crews was trying to lower those masts. They began to turn towards the downstream wharves, their oarsmen struggling against tide and current, and as they turned I saw the ships’ big bellies were crammed with men and many of those men wore the dark red cloak that was Æthelhelm’s mark. ‘The reinforcements,’ I said bleakly.

  ‘Enough of the bastards,’ Finan said again.

  My only consolation as I watched my enemy bringing more men to the city was that Spearhafoc was not being towed or rowed with them. Not that four such heavily-loaded ships would have had a chance of outrunning and capturing my ship, but it suggested Berg and his crew had slipped past them and were on their way north. That thought made me wonder about Bebbanburg and the rumours of plague. I touched my hammer amulet and said a prayer to the gods that my son was safe, that his prisoners were securely held, and that Eadgifu and her children would not sicken. I had saved her sons from Æthelhelm’s spite, but had I sent them instead to an agonising death from the plague?

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Finan had seen me touch the hammer.

  ‘That we hide here,’ I said, ‘we wait, and then we go home.’

  Home, I thought wistfully. I should never have left it.

  All we
could do was wait. The ship commanded by Gunnald’s son could return at any moment which meant I had to have men watching on the wharf, and other men guarding the courtyard gate, and still others in the warehouse where we had chained the captured guards in one of the slave pens. The slaves themselves were neither chained nor penned, but forbidden to leave because I dared not risk one of them betraying our presence.

  We had tipped the naked corpses into the river at night. The falling tide and the current would have taken them eastwards, though I did not doubt the bodies would be stranded on a mudbank long before they reached the distant sea. No one would take note. There would be enough corpses this summer as men struggled to take the throne of Wessex.

  More ships brought more men to Lundene. They brought reinforcements for Jarl Varin, who still commanded the garrison on Æthelhelm’s behalf. We knew that because after two days there was a proclamation bellowed throughout the old city that folk could walk safely after dark and, despite Finan’s dour warning, I went that night to a big riverside alehouse called Wulfred’s Tavern, though everyone called it the Dead Dane because a falling tide had once revealed a Danish warrior impaled on one of the rotting stakes of an old wharf. For years the dead man’s hand had been nailed to one of the tavern’s doorposts and everyone who entered would touch a finger. The hand had long gone, though a crude picture of a corpse still decorated the sign hanging above the door. I pushed inside, followed by Father Oda and Benedetta.

  Oda had suggested he accompany me. ‘A priest commands respect,’ he had claimed, ‘not suspicion. And Benedetta should come too, as my wife.’

  I had almost bridled when he spoke of Benedetta as his wife, but had the sense to hide my irritation. ‘It’s not safe for women,’ I said.

  ‘Women have walked the streets all day,’ Oda said calmly.

  ‘Benedetta should stay here,’ I insisted.

  ‘The East Anglians,’ Oda said patiently, ‘must suspect there are fugitives still hiding in the city. They will be looking for young men, not for a priest and his wife. You want news, yes? So let us come. Strangers will trust a priest.’

  ‘Suppose you’re recognised?’

  He had shaken his head. ‘I left East Anglia as a beardless youth. No one will know me now.’

  I was swathed in a big, dark cloak. I had ransacked both Gunnald’s attic and the room beneath where his son lived, and discovered the cloak with its hood. I wore it and belted the cloak with a length of rope, then borrowed a wooden cross from Gerbruht and hung it around my neck. I carried no sword, only a knife concealed beneath the big cloak. ‘You look like a monk,’ Finan had said.

  ‘Bless you, my son.’

  We found a table in a dark corner of the tavern. The room was almost full. There were some local people, women as well as men, sitting at tables to one side of the large room, but most of the customers were troops, almost all wearing swords, who watched us with curiosity, but looked smartly away when Father Oda sketched the sign of the cross towards them. They were here to drink, not to hear a sermon. Some were here for more than a drink and climbed the wooden staircase that led to the rooms where the tavern’s whores did their trade. Everyone who climbed the stairs received a chorus of cheers and jeers from their companions, raucous sounds that earned frowns from Father Oda, though he said nothing.

  ‘The men going upstairs—’ Benedetta began.

  ‘Yes,’ Oda said curtly.

  ‘They’re young men,’ I said, ‘far from home.’

  A drab girl came to our table and we asked for ale, bread, and cheese. ‘Is Wulfred still alive?’ I asked her.

  She peered at me, seeing nothing under the deep shadow of my hood. ‘He died, father,’ she said, evidently mistaking me for another priest.

  ‘Pity,’ I said.

  The girl shrugged. ‘I’ll bring you a rushlight,’ she said.

  I made the sign of the cross towards her. ‘Bless you, my child,’ I said, and earned a disapproving intake of breath from Oda.

  The East Anglians began singing as the evening wore on. The first song was in Danish, a lament by seafarers for the women they had left behind, but then the Saxons in the alehouse drowned the Danes with an old song that was plainly intended for our ears, and Father Oda, hearing the words, frowned into his ale. Benedetta took longer to understand, then gazed at me wide-eyed. ‘It’s called the “Tanner’s Wife”,’ I said, beating my hand on the table in time with the song.

  ‘But the song is about a priest?’ Benedetta asked. ‘No?’

  ‘Yes,’ Father Oda hissed.

  ‘It’s about a tanner’s wife and a priest,’ I said. ‘She goes to him for confession and he says he doesn’t understand what she’s confessing so he tells her to show him.’

  ‘To do it with him, you mean?’

  ‘To do it with him,’ I said, and to my surprise she laughed.

  ‘I thought we were here to learn news,’ Father Oda growled at me.

  ‘The news will come to us,’ I said, and sure enough a moment later, when the rowdy troops had moved to a new song, a middle-aged man with a cropped grey beard brought an ale-jug and a beaker to our table. He wore a sword with a well-worn hilt and had a slight limp that suggested a spear-thrust taken in a shield wall. He looked quizzically at Father Oda, who nodded permission, and the man sat on a bench opposite me. ‘I apologise for that song, father.’

  Oda smiled. ‘I have been with soldiers before, my son.’

  The man, who looked old enough to be Oda’s father, raised his beaker. ‘Then your good health, father,’ he said.

  ‘I pray God it is good,’ Oda answered carefully, ‘and yours too.’

  ‘You’re Danish?’ the man asked.

  ‘I am Danish,’ Oda confirmed.

  ‘Me too. Jorund,’ he introduced himself.

  ‘I am Father Oda, this is my wife and my uncle.’ Oda was speaking Danish now.

  ‘What brings you to Lundene?’ Jorund asked. He was friendly, with no suspicion in his voice, but I did not doubt that the East Anglians had been warned to look for enemies in the city, but, just as Oda had claimed, a priest and his wife looked the most unlikely of enemies and Jorund seemed merely curious.

  ‘We seek a ship to carry us across the sea,’ Oda said.

  ‘We are going to Rome,’ I put in, telling the tale we had agreed on.

  ‘We are pilgrims,’ Oda explained. ‘My wife ails.’ He reached out and put a hand over Benedetta’s hand. ‘We seek the blessing of the Holy Father.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your wife, father,’ Jorund said sincerely and, watching the priest’s hand, I felt another pulse of jealousy. I looked at Benedetta and she looked back, her eyes sad, and for a moment we held each other’s gaze. ‘It’s a long way you have to travel,’ Jorund went on.

  ‘A long journey indeed, my son,’ Oda answered, looking suddenly startled because Benedetta had drawn her hand sharply away. ‘We seek a ship here,’ the priest went on, ‘to cross to Frankia.’

  ‘There are plenty of ships,’ Jorund said, ‘I wish there weren’t.’

  ‘Why?’ Father Oda asked.

  ‘That’s our job. Searching them before they leave.’

  ‘Searching them?’

  ‘To make sure no enemy escapes.’

  ‘Enemy?’ Father Oda pretended surprise.

  Jorund took a long drink of his ale. ‘There was a rumour, father, that Uhtredærwe was in Lundene. You know who he is?’

  ‘Everyone knows.’

  ‘Then you know that they don’t want him as an enemy. So find him, they tell us, find him and capture him.’

  ‘And kill him?’ I asked.

  Jorund shrugged. ‘Someone will kill him, but I doubt it will be us. He’s not here. Why would he be here? It’s just a rumour. There’s a war coming and that always means rumours.’

  ‘Isn’t there already a war?’ Father Oda asked. ‘There was fighting here, I’m told.’

  ‘There’s always fighting,’ Jorund said morosely. ‘I mean a proper war, father,
a war of shield walls and armies. And it shouldn’t be, it shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be?’ Oda enquired gently.

  ‘It’s not so far off harvest time, father. We shouldn’t be here, not now. We should be at home, sharpening sickles. There’s real work to be done! Wheat, barley, and rye don’t harvest themselves!’

  The mention of barley made me touch my hammer, only to find the wooden cross. ‘You were summoned here?’ I asked.

  ‘By a Saxon lord,’ Jorund said, ‘who won’t wait for harvest.’

  ‘Lord Æthelhelm?’

  ‘Coenwald,’ Jorund said, ‘but he holds land from Æthelhelm so yes, it’s Æthelhelm who summoned us and Coenwald has to obey.’ He paused to pour ale from the jug.

  ‘And Coenwald summoned you?’ I asked.

  ‘Didn’t have much choice did he? Harvest or no harvest.’

  ‘Did you have a choice?’ Oda asked.

  Jorund shrugged. ‘We swore fealty to Coenwald when we converted.’ He paused, perhaps reflecting on how the Danish settlers of East Anglia had lost their war to keep a Danish king. ‘We fought against him and we lost, but he let us live, he let us keep our land and he lets us thrive, so now we have to fight for him.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe it’ll all be over by harvest.’

  ‘I pray so,’ Oda said quietly.

  ‘Maybe there’ll be no war?’ I suggested.

  ‘When two men want one chair?’ Jorund asked scathingly. ‘Good men will have to die just to decide which royal arse warms the damned thing.’ He turned as angry voices sounded, then a woman’s shriek made me shiver. ‘Oh god,’ he groaned.

  The angry shouts had come from the upper floor. There was a yelp and then a man was hurled down the stairs. He was a young man who crashed against the steps, bounced and collapsed on the floor. He did not move. Men stood, either to help him or to protest against the violence, but then all of them went very still.

  They went still because a man was coming down the stairs. A big man. The first we saw were his boots, then massive thighs, and then he came into view, and I saw it was Waormund. He was bare chested, his clothes over his arm. He carried a sword belt with a sheathed sword; a big blade for a big man. There was not a sound in the tavern except for those heavy boots on the stairs. He paused after a few steps and his harsh face, blank-eyed and scarred, looked around the room. Benedetta gasped, and I put my hand over hers, warning her to keep silent.