The Burning Land sc-5

by Bernard Cornwell

  Edward said nothing, but Father Coenwulf pounced. “Might?” he demanded indignantly.

  “Might indeed,” I said airily. I was goading them, reminding Edward that he had a cousin, Æthelwold, who had more right to the throne than Edward himself, though Æthelwold, Alfred’s nephew, was a poor excuse of a man.

  My words silenced Edward for a while, but Father Coenwulf was made of sterner stuff. “I was surprised, lord,” he broke the silence, “to discover the Lady Æthelflæd here.”

  “Surprised?” I asked, “why? She’s an adventurous lady.”

  “Her place,” Father Coenwulf said, “is with her husband. My lord the Ætheling will agree with me, is that not so, lord?”

  I glanced at Edward and saw him redden. “She should not be here,” he forced himself to say and I almost laughed aloud. I realized now why he had ridden with us. He was not much interested in seeing a few miles of East Anglia, instead he had come to carry out his father’s instructions, and those instructions were to persuade Æthelflæd to her duty. “Why tell me?” I asked the pair.

  “You have influence over the lady,” Father Coenwulf said grimly.

  We had crossed a watershed and were riding down a long and gentle slope. The path was edged with coppiced willows and there were glimpses of water far ahead, silver sheens bright beneath the pale sky. “So,” I ignored Coenwulf and looked at Edward, “your father sent you to reprove your sister?”

  “It is a Christian duty to remind her of her responsibilities,” he answered very stiffly.

  “I hear he is recovered from his illness,” I said.

  “For which God be praised,” Coenwulf put in.

  “Amen,” Edward said.

  But Alfred could not live long. He was already an old man, well past forty years, and now he was looking to the future. He was doing what he always did, arranging things, tidying things, trying to impose order on a kingdom beset by enemies. He believed his baleful god would punish Wessex if it were not a godly kingdom, and so he was trying to force Æthelflæd back to her husband, or else, I guessed, to a nunnery. There could be no visible sin in Alfred’s family, and that thought inspired me. I looked at Edward again. “Do you know Osferth?” I asked cheerfully. He blushed at that and Father Coenwulf glared as if warning me to take that subject no further. “You haven’t met?” I asked Edward in pretended innocence, then called to Osferth. “Wait for us!”

  Father Coenwulf tried to turn Edward’s horse away, but I caught hold of the bridle and forced the Ætheling to catch up with his half-brother. “Tell me,” I said to Osferth, “how you would make the Mercians fight.”

  Osferth frowned at the question, wondering just what lay behind it. He glanced at Edward, but did not acknowledge his half-brother, though the resemblance between them was startling. They both had Alfred’s long face, hollow cheeks, and thin lips. Osferth’s face was harder, but he had lived harder too. His father, ashamed of his own bastard, had tried to make Osferth a priest, but Osferth had turned himself into a warrior, a trade to which he brought his father’s intelligence. “The Mercians can fight as well as anyone,” Osferth said cautiously. He knew I was playing some game and was trying to detect it and so, unseen by either Edward or Coenwulf who both rode on my left, I cupped a hand to indicate a breast and Osferth, despite having inherited his father’s almost complete lack of humor, had to resist an amused smile. “They need leadership,” he said confidently.

  “Then we thank God for the Lord Æthelred,” Father Coenwulf said, refusing to look directly at Osferth.

  “The Lord Æthelred,” I said savagely, “couldn’t lead a wet whore to a dry bed.”

  “But the Lady Æthelflæd is much loved in Mercia,” Osferth said, now playing his part to perfection. “We saw that at Fearnhamme. It was the Lady Æthelflæd who inspired the Mercians.”

  “You’ll need the Mercians,” I told Edward. “If you become king,” I went on, stressing the “if” to keep him unbalanced, “the Mercians will protect your northern frontier. And the Mercians don’t love Wessex. They may fight for you, but they don’t love you. They were a proud country once, and they don’t like being told what to do by Wessex. But they do love one West Saxon. And you’d shut her up in a convent?”

  “She is a married…” Father Coenwulf began.

  “Oh, shut your mouth,” I snapped at him. “Your king used his daughter to bring me south, and here I am, and I’ll stay here so long as Æthelflæd asks. But don’t think I’m here for you, or for your god, or for your king. If you have plans for Æthelflæd then you had better count me as a part of them.”

  Edward was too embarrassed to meet my eyes. Father Coenwulf was angry, but dared not speak, while Osferth grinned at me. Father Heahberht had listened to the conversation with a shocked expression, but now found his timid voice. “The hall is that way, lords,” he said, pointing, and we turned down a track rutted by cart wheels and I saw a reed-thatched roof showing between some heavy-leaved elm trees. I kicked ahead of Edward, to see that Thorstein’s home was built on a low ridge above the river. There was a village beyond the hall, its small houses straggling along the bank where dozens of fires smoked. “They dry herring here?” I asked the priest.

  “And they make salt, lord.”

  “Is there a palisade?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  The palisade was unmanned and the gates lay open. Thorstein had taken his warriors with Haesten, leaving only a handful of older men to protect his family and lands, and those men knew better than to put up a fight they must lose. Instead a steward welcomed us with a bowl of water. Thorstein’s gray-haired wife watched from the hall door, but when I turned to her she stepped back into the shadows and the door slammed shut.

  The palisade enclosed the hall, three barns, a cattle shed, and a pair of elm-timbered slipways where the two ships had been hauled high above the tideline. They were trading ships, their fat bellies patched pale where carpenters were nailing new oak strakes. “Your master is a shipbuilder?” I asked the steward.

  “They’ve always built ships here, lord,” he said humbly, meaning that Thorstein had stolen the shipyard from a Saxon.

  I turned on Osferth. “Make sure the women aren’t molested,” I ordered, “and find a wagon and draft horses.” I looked back to the steward. “We need ale and food.”

  “Yes, lord.”

  There was a long low building beside the slipways and I went to it. Sparrows quarreled beneath the thatch. Once inside I had to let my eyes adjust to the gloom, but then I saw what I was seeking. Masts and spars and sails. I ordered my men to carry all the spars and sails out to the wagon, then walked to the shed’s open end to watch the river swirl past. The tide was falling, exposing long steep slicks of mud.

  “Why spars and sails?” Edward asked from behind me. He was alone. “The steward brought mead,” he said awkwardly. He was frightened of me, but he was making a great effort to be friendly.

  “Tell me,” I said, “what happened when you tried to capture Torneie.”

  “Torneie?” Edward sounded confused.

  “You attacked Harald on his island,” I said, “and you failed. I want to know why.” I had heard the story from Offa, the dog-man who carried his news between the kingdoms, but I had not asked anyone who was there. All I knew was that the assault on Harald’s fugitives had ended in defeat and with a great loss of men.

  He frowned. “It was…” He stopped, shaking his head, perhaps remembering the men floundering through the mud to Harald’s palisade. “We never got close,” he said bitterly.

  “Why not?”

  He frowned. “There were stakes in the river. The mud was thick.”

  “You think Beamfleot will be any easier?” I demanded, and saw the answer on his face. “So who led the attack on Torneie?” I asked.

  “Æthelred and I,” he said.

  “You led?” I asked pointedly. “You were in front?”

  He stared at me, bit his lower lip, then looked embarrassed. “No.”
r />   “Your father made certain you were protected?” I asked, and he nodded. “What about Lord Æthelred?” I went on, “did he lead?”

  “He’s a brave man,” Edward said defiantly.

  “You haven’t answered me.”

  “He went with his men,” Edward said evasively, “but thank God he escaped the rout.”

  “So why should you be King of Wessex?” I asked him brutally.

  “I,” he said, then ran out of words and just looked at me with a pained expression. He had come into the shed trying to be friendly and I was raking him over.

  “Because your father’s the king?” I suggested. “In the past we’ve chosen the best man to be king, not the one who happened to come from between the legs of a king’s wife.” He frowned, offended and uncertain, voiceless. “Tell me why I shouldn’t make Osferth king,” I said harshly. “He’s Alfred’s eldest son.”

  “If there is no rule to the succession,” he said carefully, “then the death of a king will lead to chaos.”

  “Rules,” I sneered, “how you love rules. So because Osferth’s mother was a servant he can’t be king?”

  “No,” Edward found the courage to answer, “he can’t.”

  “Luckily for you,” I said, “he doesn’t want to be king. At least I don’t think he does. But you do?” I waited and eventually he responded with an almost imperceptible nod. “And you have the advantage,” I went on, “of having been born between a pair of royal legs, but you still need to prove you deserve the kingship.” He stared at me, saying nothing. “You want to be king,” I went on, “so you must show you deserve it. You lead. You do what you didn’t do at Torneie, what my cousin didn’t do either. You go first into the attack. You can’t expect men to die for you unless they see you’re willing to die for them.”

  He nodded to that. “Beamfleot?” he asked, unable to disguise his fear at the prospect of that assault.

  “You want to be king?” I asked. “Then you lead the assault. Now come with me, and I’ll show you how.”

  I took him outside and led him to the top of the river bank. The tide was almost out, leaving a slippery slope of gleaming mud at least twelve feet high. “How,” I asked him, “do we get up a slope like that?”

  He did not answer, but just frowned as though considering the problem and then, to his utter astonishment, I shoved him hard over the edge. He cried aloud as he lost his footing, then he slipped and floundered on his royal arse all the way down to the water where at last he managed to stand unsteadily. He was mud-smeared and indignant. Father Coenwulf evidently thought I was trying to drown the Ætheling, for he rushed to my side where he stared down at the prince. “Draw your sword,” I told Edward, “and climb that bank.”

  He drew his sword and took some tentative steps, but the slick mud defeated him so that he slithered back every time. “Try harder,” I snarled. “Try really hard! There are Danes at the top of the bank and you have to kill them. So climb!”

  “What are you doing?” Coenwulf demanded of me.

  “Making a king,” I told him quietly, then looked back to Edward. “Climb, you bastard! Get up here!”

  He could not do it, cumbered as he was with heavy mail and with his long sword. He tried to crawl up the bank, but still he slid back. “That’s what it’s going to be like,” I told him, “climbing out of the moat at Beamfleot!”

  He stared up at me, filthy and wet. “Do we make bridges?” he suggested.

  “How do we make a bridge with a hundred farting Danes throwing spears at us?” I demanded. “Now come on! Climb!” He tried again, and again he failed. Then, as his men and mine watched from the top of the bank, Edward gritted his teeth and hurled himself at the greasy mud for one last determined attempt, and this time he managed to stay on the slope. He used his sword as a stick, inching higher and the men cheered. He kept slipping back, but his determination was obvious, and every small step was applauded. The heir to Alfred’s throne was plastered with mud and his precious dignity was gone, but he was suddenly enjoying himself. He was grinning. He kicked his boots into the mud, hauled on the sword, and at last managed to scramble over the bank’s edge. He stood, smiling at the cheers, and even Father Coenwulf was beaming with pride. “We have to climb the moat’s bank to reach the fort,” I told him, “and it will be just as steep and slippery as this slope. We’re never going to make it. The Danes will be raining arrows and spears. The bed of the moat will be thick with blood and bodies. We’re all going to die there.”

  “The sails,” Edward said, understanding.

  “Yes,” I said, “the sails.” I ordered Osferth to unfold one of the three sails we were stealing. It took six men to unwrap the great sheet of stiff, salt-caked cloth. Mice scampered out of the folds, but once it was spread I had men drape the sail down the mudbank. The sail itself offered no footholds because sailcloth is fragile, but ropes are sewn into it and thus every sail is a crisscross of reinforcing ropes, and those latticed lines would be our ladders. I took Edward’s elbow and he and I walked down the sail to the water’s edge. “Now,” I said, “try again. Full speed. Race me!”

  He won. He ran at the bank and his boots caught on the sail ropes and he reached the top without using his hands once. He grinned with triumph as I came behind, then he had a sudden idea. “All of you!” he called to his bodyguard. “Down to the river and climb back up!”

  They were suddenly enjoying themselves. All the men, mine as well as Edward’s, wanted to try the network of sail ropes. There were too many men, and eventually the sail slid down the bank, which is why I was taking the spars. I would thread the lattice of ropes onto the spars, then lash the spars into place so that the makeshift rope ladder would be stiffened by the spruce frame and, I hoped, stay in place. On that day we just pegged the sail to the bank and ran races, which Edward, to his evident delight, won repeatedly. He even found the courage to talk briefly with Osferth, though they discussed nothing more important than the weather, which the half-brothers evidently found agreeable. After a while I ordered the men to stop scrambling up the sail, which had to be laboriously refolded, but I had proved it would work as a means of climbing out of the fort’s moat. That would just leave the wall to cross, and those of us who did not die in the moat would almost certainly die on the ledge of land beneath the wall.

  The steward brought me a small horn cup of mead. I took it and for some reason, as my hand closed on the cup, the bee sting, which I had thought long vanished, began to itch again. The swelling was entirely gone, but for a moment the itching was back and I stared at my hand. I did not move, I just stared, and Osferth became worried. “What is it, lord?”

  “Get me Father Heahberht,” I said and, when the priest arrived, I asked him who made the mead.

  “He’s a strange man, lord,” Heahberht said.

  “I don’t care if he’s got a tail and tits, just take me to him.”

  The sails and spars were loaded on the wagon and escorted back to the old fort, but I took a half-dozen men and rode with Heahberht to a village he called Hocheleia. It looked a peaceful and half-forgotten place, just a straggle of cottages surrounded by big willow trees. There was a small church, marked by a wooden cross nailed to the eave. “Skade didn’t burn this church?” I asked Father Heahberht.

  “Thorstein protected these folk, lord,” Heahberht told me.

  “But he didn’t protect Thunresleam?”

  “These are Thorstein’s people, lord. They belong to him. They work his land.”

  “So who’s the Lord of Thunresleam?”

  “Whoever is in the fort,” he said bitterly. “This way, lord.” He led me past a duck pond and into a thicket of bushes where a small cottage, thatched so deep that it looked more like a pile of straw than a dwelling, stood in the trees’ shadows. “The man is called Brun, lord.”

  “Brun?”

  “Just Brun. Some say he’s mad, lord.”

  Brun crawled from his cottage. He had to crawl to get beneath the thatch’s edge. He
half stood, saw my mail coat and golden arm rings, and fell back to his knees and scrabbled with dirt-crusted hands in the earth. He mumbled something I did not hear. A woman then emerged from beneath the thatch and knelt beside Brun and the two of them made whimpering noises as they bobbed their heads. Their hair was long, matted and tangled. Father Heahberht told them what we wanted and Brun grunted something, then abruptly stood. He was a tiny man, no taller than the dwarves that are said to live underground. His hair was so thick that I could not see his eyes. He pulled his woman to her feet, and she was no taller than him and certainly no prettier, then the pair of them gabbled at Heahberht, but their speech was so garbled that I could hardly understand a word. “He says we must go to the back of the house,” Heahberht said.

  “You can understand them?”

  “Well enough, lord.”

  I left my escort in the lane, tied our two horses to a hornbeam, then followed the diminutive couple through thick weeds to where, half hidden by grass, was what I sought. Rows of hives. Bees were busy in the warm air, but they ignored us, going to and from the cone-shaped hives that appeared to be fashioned from baked mud. Brun, a sudden fondness in his voice, was stroking one hive. “He says the bees talk to him, lord,” Heahberht told me, “and he talks back.”

  Bees crawled up Brun’s bare arms and he muttered to them. “What do they tell him?” I asked.

  “What happens in the world, lord. And he tells them he’s sorry.”

  “For the world’s happenings?”

  “Because to get the honey for the mead, lord, he must break the hives open, and then the bees die. He buries them, he says, and says prayers over their graves.”