I dropped onto one knee and lifted the shield over my head so it was almost flat above my helmet, and at the same moment I lunged the ax into the horse’s legs and let go of the haft.
The sword slammed onto my shield, skidded across the wood, clanged against the boss, and just then the horse, the ax tangled in its rear legs, whinnied and stumbled. I saw blood bright on a fetlock, and I was already standing as the horseman slashed again, but he and his horse were off balance and the stroke screeched harmlessly off the iron rim of my shield. Aldhelm shouted at men to help his champion, but Finan, Sihtric, and Osferth were already out of the convent’s gate, mounted and armed, and Aldhelm’s men hesitated as I took a pace toward the horseman. He slashed again, still hampered by his horse’s skittishness, and this time I let my shield glance the blow downward and simply reached out and grasped the horseman’s wrist. He shouted in alarm, and I pulled hard. He fell from the saddle, crashed onto the damp street and, for a heartbeat, looked dazed. His stallion, whinnying, twisted away as the man stood. His shield, looped onto his left arm, was streaked with mud.
I had stepped back. I drew Serpent-Breath, the blade hissing in the scabbard’s tight throat. “What’s your name?” I asked. More of my men were coming from the nunnery, though Finan held them back.
The man rushed at me, hoping to throw me off balance with his shield, but I stepped aside and let him go past me. “What’s your name?” I asked again.
“Beornoth,” he told me.
“Were you at Fearnhamme?” I asked, and he gave a curt nod. “I didn’t come here to kill you, Beornoth,” I said.
“I’m sworn to my lord,” he said.
“An unworthy lord,” I told him.
“You should know,” he said, “you breaker of oaths,” and with that he attacked again, and I raised my shield to take the stroke and he dropped his arm fast, taking the sword beneath my shield and the blade slammed into my calf, but I have always worn strips of iron sewn into my boots because the stroke beneath the shield is such a danger. Some men wear leg armor, but that display will deter an enemy from the stroke beneath the shield, while hidden strips of iron make the legs look vulnerable and invite the stroke, which opens the enemy to destruction. My strips stopped Beornoth’s sword dead and he looked surprised as I rammed Serpent-Breath’s hilt to hit him in the face with my gloved fist that was closed about the sword’s handle. He staggered back. My left leg was aching from his blow, but he was bleeding from a broken nose and I slammed the shield into him, forcing him back again, then I bullied him again with the shield and this time he fell backward and I kicked his sword arm aside, put a foot on his belly, and placed Serpent-Breath’s tip at his mouth. He stared up at me with hatred. He was wondering if he had time to sweep the sword up at me, but he knew there was no time left. I had but to move my hand and he would be choking on his own blood.
“Stay still, Beornoth,” I said softly, then looked at Aldhelm’s men. “I didn’t come here to kill Mercians!” I shouted. “I came here to fight Jarl Haesten!” I stepped away and took my sword from Beornoth’s face. “Get up,” I told him. He stood uncertainly, not sure whether the fight was over or not. The hatred was gone from his eyes, now he was just staring at me with puzzlement. “Go,” I said.
“I am sworn to kill you,” he said.
“Don’t be a fool, Beornoth,” I said wearily, “I just gave you your life. That makes you mine.” I turned my back on him. “The Lord Aldhelm,” I shouted, “sends a brave man to do what he dares not do! Would you be led by a coward?”
There were men here who remembered me, not just from Fearnhamme, but from the attack on Lundene. These were warriors, and all warriors want to be led by a man who brings them success. Aldhelm was no warrior. They knew that, but they were still confused and uncertain. All of these Mercians were sworn to Aldhelm and some had become wealthy from his gifts. Those men kicked their horses close to their lord and I saw their hands reaching for sword hilts.
“At Fearnhamme,” a voice called from behind me, “the Lord Aldhelm wished to run away. Is he the man to protect us?” It was Æthelflæd, mounted on my horse and still wearing her drab convent clothes, though with her bright hair uncovered. “Who was it that led you to the slaughter?” she demanded, “who protected your homes? Who protected your wives and your children? Who would you rather serve?”
Someone from among the Mercian warriors shouted my name, and a cheer followed. Aldhelm had lost and he knew it. He shouted at Beornoth to kill me, but Beornoth stayed still and so Aldhelm, his voice desperate, ordered his supporters to cut me down.
“You don’t want to fight each other!” I shouted, “you’ll have real enemies enough soon!”
“God damn you,” one of Aldhelm’s men snarled. He drew his sword and spurred his horse, and his action broke the uncertainty. More swords were drawn and it was suddenly chaos.
Men made their decisions, either for or against Aldhelm, and the vast majority were against him. They turned on his guards just as the man attacking me slashed with his sword. I deflected the blow with my shield as the horsemen swirled around me in a clash of blades. Finan took care of my attacker. Osferth, I noted, had put his horse in front of Æthelflæd so he could protect his half-sister, but she was in no danger. It was Aldhelm’s men who were being hacked down, though Aldhelm himself, in pure panic, managed to kick his horse free of the sudden and savage fight. His sword was drawn, but all he wanted was to escape, but there were men all around him and then, seeing me, he realized his advantage, that he was on horseback and I was not, and he drove his spurs back and came to kill me.
He attacked with the despair of a man who did not believe he could win. He did not gauge me, as Beornoth had, but just came as fast as he could and hacked with his sword as strongly as he was able, and I met the massive blow by holding Serpent-Breath upright. I knew that sword, I knew her strength, I had watched as Ealdwulf the Smith had forged the four rods of iron and three of steel into one long blade. I had fought with her, I had killed with her, and I had matched her against the blades of Saxons, Danes, Norsemen, and Frisians. I knew her and I trusted her, and when Aldhelm’s sword met her with a clang that must have been heard far across the river, I knew what would happen.
His sword broke. It shattered. The broken end, two thirds of the blade, struck my helmet and fell to the mud, then I was pursuing Aldhelm who, holding a stump of sword, tried to flee, but there was no escape. The fight was over. The men who had supported him were either dead or disarmed, and the warriors who had sided with me formed a circle that ringed the two of us. Aldhelm curbed his stallion and stared at me. He opened his mouth, but could find no words. “Down,” I told him, and when he hesitated, I shouted it again, “down!” I looked at Beornoth who had recovered his horse. “Give him your sword,” I ordered.
Aldhelm was unsteady on his feet. He had a shield and now he had Beornoth’s sword, but there was no fight in him. He was whimpering. There was no pleasure in killing such a man and so I made it quick. One thrust above his crossed-ax shield, which made him lift it and I dropped Serpent-Breath before the blade struck and cut instead into his left ankle with enough force to topple him. He fell to one knee and Serpent-Breath took him on the side of his neck. He wore a mail hood beneath his helmet, and the links did not split, but the blow drove him into a puddle and I struck again, this time breaking the neck-mail so that his blood misted and splashed across the nearest horsemen. He was shaking and crying, and I sawed the blade toward me until the blade’s point was in the ragged wound of blood and mangled mail, then I thrust her down hard into his gullet where I twisted her. He was quivering, bleeding like a pig, and then he was dead.
I threw his banner into the Temes, then cupped my hands and shouted at the men across the river. “Tell Alfred that Uhtred of Bebbanburg has returned!”
Only now I was fighting for Mercia.
Æthelflæd insisted that Aldhelm receive a Christian burial. There was a small church in the village, little more than a cattle by
re with a cross nailed to its gable, and around it was a graveyard where we dug six graves for the six dead men. The existing graves were badly marked and one of the spades sliced into a corpse, tearing the woolen shroud and spilling stinking fat and ribs. We lay Aldhelm into that grave and, because so many of the Mercians had been his men and I did not want to strain their loyalty any further, I let him be buried in his fine clothes and mail coat. I kept his helmet, a gold chain, and his horse. Father Pyrlig prayed above the fresh burials, and then we could leave. My cousin was evidently at his estate near Gleawecestre, and so we rode there. I now led over two hundred men, mostly Mercians and, doubtless, in my cousin’s eyes, rebels. “You want me to kill Æthelred?” I asked Æthelflæd.
“No!” She sounded shocked.
“Why not?”
“Do you want to be Lord of Mercia?” she retorted.
“No.”
“He is the chief Ealdorman of Mercia,” Æthelflæd said, “and my husband.” She shrugged. “I may not like him, but I am wedded to him.”
“You can’t be wedded to a dead man,” I said.
“Murder is still a sin,” Æthelflæd said gently.
“Sin,” I said scornfully.
“Some sins are so bad,” she said, “that a lifetime’s penance isn’t enough to redeem them.”
“Then let me do the sinning,” I suggested.
“I know what’s in your heart,” she said, “and if I don’t stop you then I am as guilty as you.”
I growled some retort, then nodded curtly to folk who knelt as we passed through their village that was all thatch, dung, and pigs. The villagers had no idea who we were, but they recognized mail and weapons and shields. They would be holding their breath till we had gone, but soon, I thought, the Danes might come this way and the thatch would be burned and the children taken for slaves.
“When you die,” Æthelflæd said, “you’ll want a sword in your hand.”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“So you’ll go to Valhalla. When I die, Uhtred, I want to go to heaven. Would you deny me that?”
“Of course not.”
“Then I cannot commit the awful sin of murder. Æthelred must live. Besides,” she gave me a smile, “my father would never forgive me if I were to murder Æthelred. Or allow you to murder him. And I don’t want to disappoint my father. He’s a dear man.”
I laughed at that. “Your father,” I said, “will be angry anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked for my help, of course.”
Æthelflæd gave me a curious look. “Who do you think suggested that I ask for your help?”
“What?” I gaped at her and she laughed. “Your father wanted me to come to you?” I asked in disbelief.
“Of course!” she said.
I felt like a fool. I thought I had escaped Alfred, only to discover that he had drawn me south. Pyrlig must have known, but had been very careful not to tell me. “But your father hates me!” I told Æthelflæd.
“Of course he doesn’t. He just thinks of you as a very wayward hound, one that needs a whipping now and then.” She gave me a deprecatory smile, then shrugged. “He knows Mercia will be attacked, Uhtred, and fears that Wessex won’t be able to help.”
“Wessex always helps Mercia.”
“Not if Danes are landing on Wessex’s coast,” she said, and I almost laughed aloud. We had gone to such trouble in Dunholm to keep our plans secret, yet Alfred was already preparing for those plans. To which end he had used his daughter to draw me south, and I thought first how clever he was, then wondered just what sins that clever man was prepared to tolerate to keep the Danes from destroying Christianity in England.
We left the village to ride through sunlit country. The grass had greened and was growing fast. Cattle, released from their winter imprisonment, were gorging themselves. A hare stood on its hind legs to watch us, then skittered away before standing and staring at us again. The road climbed gently into the soft hills. This was good country, well watered and fertile, the kind of land the Danes craved. I had been to their homeland and seen how men scratched a bare living from small fields, from sand and from rock. No wonder they wanted England.
The sun was sinking as we passed through another village. A girl carrying two yoked pails of milk was so scared by the sight of armed men that she stumbled as she tried to kneel and the precious milk ran into the road’s ruts. She began to cry. I tossed her a silver coin, enough to dry her tears, and asked her if there was a lord living nearby. She pointed us northward to where, behind a great stand of elm trees, we discovered a fine hall surrounded by a decaying palisade.
The thegn who owned the village was named Ealdhith. He was a stout, red-haired man who looked aghast at the number of horses and riders who came seeking shelter for the night. “I can’t feed you all,” he grumbled, “and who are you?”
“My name is Uhtred,” I said, “and that is the Lady Æthelflæd.”
“My lady,” he said, and went onto one knee.
Ealdhith fed us well enough, though he complained next morning that we had emptied all his ale barrels. I consoled him with a gold link I chopped from Aldhelm’s chain. Ealdhith had little news to tell us. He had heard, of course, that Æthelflæd had been a prisoner in the convent at Lecelad. “We sent eggs and flour to her, lord,” he told me.
“Why?”
“Because I live a stone’s throw from Wessex,” he said, “and I like West Saxons to be friendly to my folk.”
“Have you seen any Danes this spring?”
“Danes, lord? Those bastards don’t come near here!” Ealdhith was sure of that, which explained why he had allowed his palisade to deteriorate. “We just till our land and raise our cattle,” he said guardedly.
“And if Lord Æthelred summons you?” I asked, “you go to war?”
“I pray it doesn’t happen, but yes, lord. I can take six good warriors to serve.”
“You were at Fearnhamme?”
“I couldn’t go, lord, I had a broken leg.” He lifted his smock to show me a twisted calf. “I was lucky to live.”
“Be ready for a summons now,” I warned him.
He made the sign of the cross. “There’s trouble coming?”
“There’s always trouble coming,” I said, and hauled myself into the saddle of Aldhelm’s fine stallion. The horse, unused to me, trembled and I patted his neck.
We rode westward in the cool morning air. My children rode with me. A beggar was coming the other way and he knelt by the ditch to let us pass, holding out one mangled hand. “I was wounded in the fight at Lundene,” he called. There were many such men reduced by war’s injury to beggary. I gave my son Uhtred a silver coin and told him to toss it to the man, which he did, but then added some words. “May Christ bless you!”
“What did you say?” I demanded.
“You heard him.” Æthelflæd, riding on my left, was amused.
“I offered him a blessing, Father,” Uhtred said.
“Don’t tell me you’ve become a Christian!” I snarled.
He reddened, but before he could say anything in reply Osferth spurred from among the horsemen behind. “Lord! Lord!”
“What is it?”
He did not answer, but just pointed back the way we had come.
I turned to see a thickening plume of smoke on the eastern horizon. How often I have seen those great smoke columns! I have caused many myself, the marks of war.
“What is it?” Æthelflæd asked.
“Haesten,” I said, my son’s idiocy forgotten. “It has to be Haesten.” I could think of no other explanation.
The war had started.
THREE
Seventy of us rode toward the pyre of smoke that now appeared as a dark slow-moving smudge on the hazed horizon. Half the seventy were my men and half were Mercians. I had left my children in the village where Osferth and Beornoth were under orders to wait for our return.
/> Æthelflæd insisted on riding with us. I tried to stop her, but she would take no orders from me. “This is my country,” she said firmly, “and my people, and I need to see what is being done to them.”
“Probably nothing,” I said. Fires were frequent. Houses had thatched roofs and open hearths, and sparks and straw go ill together, but I still had a sense of foreboding that had made me dress in mail before we started this return journey. My first response on seeing the smoke had been to suspect Haesten and, though reflection made that explanation seem ever more unlikely, I could not lose the suspicion.
“There’s no other smoke,” Finan noted when we had retraced half our steps. Usually, if an army scavenges through a land, it fires every village, yet only the one dark smoke plume drifted skyward. “And Lecelad’s a far way from East Anglia,” he went on, “if that fire is in Lecelad.”
“True enough,” I grunted. Lecelad was a long way from Haesten’s camp in Beamfleot, indeed so deep in Saxon country that any Danish army marching straight on Lecelad was putting itself in danger. None of it made sense, unless, as both Finan and I wanted to believe, it was simply an errant spark and dry thatch.
The fire was indeed at Lecelad. It took some time to be certain of that for the land was flat and our view was obscured by trees, but we had no doubts once we were close enough to see the heat shimmering amidst the smoke. We were following the river, but now I turned away so that we could approach the village from the north. That, I believed, would be the direction in which any Danes retreated and we might have a chance to intercept them. Reason still said this had to be a simple house fire, but my instincts were also prickling uncomfortably.
We reached the northward road to see it had been churned by hooves. The weather had been dry, so the hoofprints were not distinct, but even at a glance I could tell they had not been left by Aldhelm’s men who, just the day before, had used this same track to approach Lecelad. There were too many prints, and those that pointed northward had mostly obliterated the ones going south. That meant whoever had ridden to Lecelad had already ridden away.
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