The Pagan Lord

by Bernard Cornwell

  But why should I care? The Christians had spurned me and burned my estate. They had driven me from Mercia and outlawed me to this barren sand dune. I owed them nothing. If I had any sense, I thought, I should go to Cnut and offer him my sword, and then carry it through all Mercia and all Wessex, carry it clear to the southern coast and crush the pious fools who had spat in my face. I would have the bishops and abbots and priests kneeling to me and begging for my mercy.

  And I thought of Æthelflaed.

  And knew what I must do.

  ‘So what do we do?’ Finan greeted me next morning.

  ‘Food,’ I said, ‘enough for three or four days at sea.’

  He stared at me, surprised by the decisiveness in my voice, then nodded. ‘There’s plenty of fish and seal-meat,’ he said.

  ‘Smoke it,’ I ordered. ‘What about ale?’

  ‘We’ve enough for a week. We took two barrels out of Reinbôge.’

  Poor Blekulf. I had left him, his son and his crewman at Bebbanburg. He wanted to salvage the Reinbôge, but I told him to abandon it. ‘Come with us,’ I had said.

  ‘Come with you where?’

  ‘Frisia,’ I had answered, and immediately regretted saying it. I had not been certain that Frisia would be my destination, though I could think of nowhere else to seek refuge. ‘Sooner or later,’ I had tried to cover my stupidity, ‘we’ll go to Frisia. I’m more likely to go to East Anglia first, but you can always get passage on a ship to Frisia from there.’

  ‘I’ll salvage Reinbôge,’ Blekulf had insisted stubbornly, ‘she’s not stranded too high.’ So he had stayed and I doubted he would have had time to refloat Reinbôge before my cousin’s men found him, nor did I doubt that Blekulf would reveal that I was heading towards Frisia.

  We could have sailed that day, or at least the next day if we stocked Middelniht with enough food, but we needed two or three days to recover from the storm. Weapons and mail had got wet and needed to be scoured with sand to grind away the last specks of rust, and so I told Finan we would leave after three nights.

  ‘And where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘To war,’ I said grandly. ‘We’ll give the poets something to sing about. We’ll wear their tongues out with singing! We’re going to war, my friend,’ I slapped Finan’s shoulder, ‘but right now I’m going to sleep. Keep the men busy, tell them they’re going to be heroes!’

  The heroes had to work first. There were seals to kill, fish to catch, and wood to collect so that the meat of both, cut into thin strips, could be smoked. Green wood is best for smoking and we had none, so we mixed the parched driftwood with seaweed and lit the fires and let the smoke smear the sky.

  Middelniht had to be pampered. I had little enough material to make any repairs, but she needed little, and so we checked all her lines, sewed a rent in her sail, and cleaned her hull at low tide. It was during the same low tides that I took a dozen men and planted withies in the sandbanks. That was hard work. We had to dig holes in sand that was covered by shallow water, and as soon as we dug a pit the water and sand flowed back in. We kept digging, scrabbling with bare hands and broken boards, then thrust a pole as deep as we could before filling the hole with rocks to hold the withy upright. There were no rocks among the dunes and islets, so we used ballast stones from Middelniht, so many that we replaced the stones with sand. She would float a little high, but I reckoned she would be safe. It took two days, but then the withies showed above water even at high tide and, though a handful canted in the current and a couple floated away altogether, the rest showed a path through the treacherous shallows to our island refuge. A path for an enemy to follow.

  And an enemy did come. It was not Thancward. He knew we were back, and I saw his ship pass a couple of times, but he wanted no trouble and so ignored us. It was on our last day, a fine summer morning, that the ship arrived. She came just as we were leaving. We had burned the shelters, heaped our dried meat on board Middelniht, and now we hauled the anchor stone, put oars in tholes, and there she was, a ship come to fight.

  She came from the west. We had been watching her approach and had seen the high, bright beast-head at her prow. The wind was westerly so she came under sail and as she drew nearer I saw the eagle pattern sewn into the thick sailcloth. A proud ship, a fine ship, and crammed with men whose helmets reflected back the sunlight.

  To this day I do not know what ship that was or who commanded her. A Dane, I assume, and perhaps he was a Dane who wanted the reward my cousin promised to any man who killed me. Or perhaps he was just a passing predator who saw an easy capture, but whoever he was he saw our smaller ship and saw that Middelniht was trying to leave the islands, and he saw us row into the landward end of the channel I had marked with the rock-bolstered withies.

  And he had me trapped. He was coming fast, driven by the wind in that rope-reinforced eagle-flaunting sail. All he needed to do was sail into the channel and slash his big hull down one of our flanks, snapping our oars, or else crash into us, hull against hull, and release his warriors into Middelniht’s belly where they would overwhelm us. And so they would, for his ship was twice the size of ours and his crew had more than twice our numbers.

  I watched him come towards us as we rowed, and he was a fine sight. His dragon head was touched with gold, his eagle sail was woven with scarlet thread, and his banner on the masthead was a furl of sun-touched blue and gold. The water broke white at his prow. His men were mailed, armed, carrying shields and blades. He came for the kill, and he entered the marked channel and he could see we had no escape and I heard the roar of his men as they steeled themselves to our slaughter.

  And then she struck.

  The withies had led him onto a sandbank, which was why I had placed them so carefully.

  She came, she struck, and the mast cracked and broke, so that the sail collapsed onto the bows and with it fell the heavy yard and splintered mast. Men were thrown forward by the impact as the heavy hull ground into the sand. One moment she had been a proud ship hunting prey, and now she was a wreck, her prow lifted by the sand and her hull filled with men struggling to their feet.

  And I turned Middelniht’s steering oar so that we left the marked channel for the real channel, circling south around the sandbank where the proud ship was stranded. We rowed slowly, taunting that thwarted enemy, and as we passed her, just out of spear range, I waved a morning greeting to them.

  Then we were at sea.

  Ingulfrid and her son were close by me, Finan was beside me, my son and my men were at the oars. The sun shone on us, the water sparkled, the oar-blades dipped and we were gone.

  Gone to make history.

  Seven

  The wheel of fortune was turning. I did not know it because most of the time we do not feel the wheel’s motion, but it was turning fast as we sailed away from Frisia on that sun-bright summer’s day.

  I was going back to Britain. Going back to where the Christians hated me and the Danes mistrusted me. Going back because instinct told me the long peace was over. I believe instinct is the voice of the gods, but I was not so certain that those gods were telling me the truth. Gods lie and cheat too, they play tricks on us. I worried that we could have been sailing back to find a land at peace and that nothing had changed, so I was cautious.

  If I had been certain of the gods’ message I would have sailed north. I had thought about doing that. I had thought of sailing around the northern edge of the Scottish land, then south through the harsh islands and so down to the northern coast of Wales and east to where the rivers Dee and Mærse empty into the sea. It is only a short journey up the Dee to Ceaster, but though I suspected Haesten was concealing Cnut’s family, I had no proof. Besides, with my small crew, what hope would I have against Haesten’s garrison that was behind the Ceaster’s harsh Roman walls?

  So I was cautious. I sailed west, going to what I hoped would be a safe place where I might discover news. We had to row Middelniht, for the wind was against us, and all day we kept a slow oar-beat,
using just twenty rowers so that men could take turns. I took my turn too.

  That night was clear and we were alone beneath uncountable stars. The milk of the gods was smeared behind the stars, an arch of light reflected from the waves. The world was made in fire and when it was finished the gods took the remnant sparks and embers and splashed them across the skies and I have never ceased to wonder at the glory of that great bright arch of milky starlight. ‘If you’re right,’ Finan had joined me at the steering oar and broke my reverie, ‘it could all be over.’

  ‘The war?’

  ‘If you’re right.’

  ‘If I’m right,’ I said, ‘then it hasn’t started yet.’

  Finan snorted at that. ‘Cnut will chop Æthelred into scraps! It won’t take him more than a day to fillet that gutless bastard.’

  ‘I think Cnut will wait,’ I said, ‘and even then he won’t attack Æthelred. He’ll let him get tangled in East Anglia, he’ll let him rot in the marshes, and then he’ll march south into Mercia. And he’ll wait for the harvest to be gathered before he marches.’

  ‘There won’t be much to harvest,’ Finan said gloomily, ‘not after this wet summer.’

  ‘But he’ll still want whatever he can steal,’ I said, ‘and if we’re right about Haesten, then Æthelred thinks he’s safe. He thinks he can fight in East Anglia without Cnut moving against him, so Cnut will wait just to convince Æthelred that he really is safe.’

  ‘So Cnut attacks Mercia when?’ Finan asked.

  ‘A few days yet. It must be harvest time. Another week? Two?’

  ‘And Æthelred will have his hands full in East Anglia.’

  ‘And Cnut will take southern Mercia,’ I said, ‘then turn on Æthelred and keep a watch on Edward.’

  ‘Will Edward march?’

  ‘He has to,’ I said with a vehemence that I hoped reflected the truth. ‘Edward can’t afford to let the Danes take all Mercia,’ I went on, ‘but those piss-brained priests might advise him to stay in his burhs. Let Cnut come to him.’

  ‘So Cnut takes Mercia,’ Finan said, ‘then East Anglia, and marches on Wessex last.’

  ‘That’s what he wants to do. At least that’s what I’d do if I was him.’

  ‘So what are we doing?’

  ‘Pulling the bastards out of the shit,’ I said, ‘of course.’

  ‘All thirty-six of us?’

  ‘You and me could do it alone,’ I said scornfully.

  He laughed at that. The wind was rising, heeling the ship. It was veering northwards too and if it continued to turn we would be able to raise the sail and pull the oars inboard. ‘And what about Saint Oswald?’ Finan asked.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Is Æthelred really trying to put the poor man back together?’

  I was not sure about that. Æthelred was superstitious enough to believe the Christian claim that the saint’s corpse had magical powers, but to get the corpse Æthelred would need to march into Danish-held Northumbria. So far as I knew he was willing to start a war with the East Anglian Danes, but would he risk another against the Northumbrian lords? Or did he believe that Cnut would never dare fight while his wife was held hostage? If he believed that then he might well risk a foray into Northumbria. ‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ I said.

  I gave the steering oar to Finan and left him to guide the ship while I picked my careful way through sleeping bodies, and past the twenty men who rowed slowly in the star-lightened darkness. I went to the prow, put a hand on the dragon post and gazed ahead.

  I like standing at the prow of ships, and that night the sea was a spread of reflected starlight, a glittering path across the watery dark, but leading to what? I watched the sea wrinkle and sparkle, and listened to the water break and seethe on Middelniht’s hull as she rose and dipped to the small waves. The wind had veered enough to push us southwards, but as I had no clear idea where I wanted to go I did not call Finan and ask him to change course. I just let the ship follow that path of glittering light across the starlit sea.

  ‘And what happens to me?’

  It was Ingulfrid. I had not heard her come down the long deck, but I turned and saw her pale face framed by the hood of Ælfric’s cloak. ‘What happens to you?’ I asked. ‘You’ll go home with your son when your husband pays the ransom, of course.’

  ‘And what happens to me at home?’

  I was about to answer that it was none of my concern what happened to her at Bebbanburg, then understood why she had asked the question, and why she had asked it in such bitter tones. ‘Nothing,’ I answered, knowing it was a lie.

  ‘My husband will beat me,’ she said, ‘and probably worse.’

  ‘Worse?’

  ‘I’m a disgraced woman.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘And he’ll believe that?’

  I said nothing for a while, then shook my head. ‘He won’t believe it,’ I said.

  ‘So he’ll beat me, and then in all likelihood he’ll kill me.’

  ‘He will?’

  ‘He’s a proud man.’

  ‘And a fool,’ I said.

  ‘But fools kill too,’ she said.

  It crossed my mind to say that she should have thought of all those consequences before insisting on accompanying her son, then saw she was crying and so kept my words unsaid. She made no noise. She was just sobbing silently, then Osferth came from the rowers’ benches and put an arm around her shoulders. She turned to him and leaned her head on his chest and just cried.

  ‘She’s a married woman,’ I said to Osferth.

  ‘And I am a sinner,’ he said, ‘cursed by God because of my birth. God can do no more harm to me, because my father’s sin has already doomed me.’ He looked at me defiantly and, when I said nothing, gently led Ingulfrid aft. I watched them go.

  What fools we are.

  We made landfall two mornings later, coming to the coast in a silvery mist. We were rowing, and for a time I followed the shore that was a dull line to my right. The water was shallow, there was no wind, only thousands of sea-birds who flew from our approach to ruffle the flat sea with their wing-beats.

  ‘Where are we?’ Osferth asked me.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Finan was at the prow. He had the best eyes of any man I ever knew and he was watching that flat, dull shore for any sign of life. He saw none. He was also watching for sandbanks and we were rowing slowly for fear of going aground. The tide was carrying us, and our oars did little else than keep the ship steady.

  Then Finan called that he had seen markers. Withies again, and a moment later he saw some hovels among the sand dunes and we turned towards the shore. I followed the channel marked by the withies, and it was a real channel that took us into the shelter of a low sandy headland and so to a small harbour where four fishing boats were grounded. I could smell the fires that smoked the fish and I ran Middelniht up onto the sand, knowing that the incoming tide would float her off, and so we came back to Britain.

  I was dressed for war. I wore mail, a cloak, a helmet, and had Serpent-Breath at my side, though I could not imagine meeting any enemies in this bleak, mist-wrapped loneliness. Yet still I put on my battle-glory and, leaving Finan in command of Middelniht, took a half-dozen men ashore with me. Whoever lived in this tiny village on this desolate shore had seen us coming, and they had probably run away to hide, but I knew they would be watching us through the mist, and I did not want to overwhelm them by landing more than a handful of men. The houses were made of driftwood and thatched with reeds. One house, larger than the rest, was framed by the ribs of a wrecked ship. I ducked under its low lintel and saw a fire smoking in a central hearth, two rush beds, some pottery, and a big iron cauldron. In this place, I thought, such objects counted as wealth. A dog growled from the shadows and I growled back. There was no one inside.

  We walked a short way inland. An earthen wall had been made at some time, a bank that stretched either side into the mist. The years had smoothed the earth wall and I w
ondered who had made it and why. It did not seem to protect anything, unless the villagers feared the frogs of the marsh that stretched bleakly north into the lightening mist. Wherever I looked I saw only bog land and reeds and damp and grass. ‘Heaven on earth,’ Osferth said. It was his idea of a jest.

  My instinct told me we were in that strange bay that pierces the eastern flank of Britain between the lands of East Anglia and Northumbria. It is called the Gewæsc and is a vast bay, shallow and treacherous, edged by nothing but flat land, yet it sees many ships. Like the Humbre, the Gewæsc is a route into Britain and it had tempted scores of Danish boats, which had rowed up the bay to the four rivers that drained into the shallow waters, and if I was right then we had landed on the Gewæsc’s northern shore and so were in Northumbria. My land. Danish land. Enemy land.

  We waited a few paces beyond the old earth wall. A track led north, though it was little more than a path of trampled reeds. If we did nothing hostile then eventually someone would show themselves, and so they did. Two men, their nakedness half covered by sealskin, appeared on the track and walked cautiously towards us. They were both bearded and both had dark, greasy and matted hair. They could have been any age from twenty to fifty, their faces and bodies so grimed with dirt that they looked as though they had crept from some underground lair. I spread my hands to show I meant no harm. ‘Where are we?’ I asked them when they came into earshot.

  ‘Botulfstan,’ one of them answered.

  Which meant we were at Botulf’s stone, though there was no sign of anyone called Botulf, or his rock. I asked who Botulf was and they seemed to suggest he was their lord, though their accent was so mangled that it was hard to understand them. ‘Botulf farms here?’ I asked, this time in Danish, but they just shrugged.

  ‘Botulf was a great saint,’ Osferth explained to me, ‘and a prayer to Saint Botulf will protect travellers.’

  ‘Why travellers?’

  ‘He was a great traveller himself, I suppose.’