‘You’ll need it,’ I said, ‘so keep it.’
We did not wait long. Perhaps less than an hour passed before horsemen appeared on the eastern road. They were hurrying. ‘Sixteen,’ Finan said.
‘Seventeen,’ my son corrected.
‘They should have sent more,’ I told them, and watched the distant road in case more men appeared from the far woods. There would be more men coming, and soon, but these sixteen or seventeen had raced ahead, eager to find us and to report back to Cnut. We let them get close, then spurred the horses over the earthen rampart. Finan led twenty men hard to the east to cut off their retreat while I led the rest straight at the approaching men.
We killed most of them. It was not hard. They were fools, they rode rashly, they were not expecting trouble, they were outnumbered and they died. A few escaped southwards, then turned east in panic. I called to Finan to let them go. ‘Now, Wibrund,’ I said, ‘cut off their heads. Do it quickly.’
The axe fell eleven times. We threw the headless corpses into the fort’s old ditch, but arranged the heads across the Roman road with their dead eyes staring eastwards. Those dead eyes would greet Cnut’s men and, I suspected, suggest that something dire and sorcerous had been done. They would smell magic and they would hesitate.
Just give me time, I prayed to Thor, just give me time.
And we rode on south.
We caught up with the rest of my men and rode through the dawn. Birds were singing everywhere, that joyful song of a new day, and I hated the sound because it greeted the day on which I thought I must die. Still we rode on south towards distant Wessex and hoped against hope that the West Saxons were riding towards us.
And then we just stopped.
We stopped because the horses were tired, we were tired. We had ridden through low hills and placid farmland and I had found nowhere I wanted to fight. What had I expected? A Roman fort small enough to be garrisoned by my two hundred and sixty-nine men? A fort on a convenient hill? An outcrop of steep rock where a man could die of old age while his enemies raged about the rock’s base? There were just fields of stubble, pastures where sheep grazed, woods of ash and oak, shallow streams and gentle slopes. The sun rose higher. The day was warm and our horses wanted water.
And we had come to the river and so we just stopped.
It was not much of a river, more of a stream trying to be a river, and succeeding only in looking like a deep ditch, but it would cause problems for anyone trying to cross it. The ditch’s banks were steep and muddy, though those banks became shallow and gentle where the road crossed the water. The ford was not deep. The river or stream spread there and at its centre the slow-moving water scarcely reached a man’s thighs. The western bank was lined with pollarded willows, and still farther west was a low ridge where a few poor houses stood and I sent Finan to explore that higher ground while I roamed up and down the river’s bank. I could find no fort, no steep hill, but there was this sluggish ditch that was just wide and deep enough to slow an attack.
And so we stopped there. We put the horses into a stone-walled paddock on the western bank and we waited.
We could have pressed on southwards, but Cnut would catch us sooner or later, and at least the river would slow him. Or so I told myself. In truth I had little hope, and even less when Finan came down from the low ridge. ‘Horsemen,’ he said bluntly, ‘to the west.’
‘To the west?’ I asked, thinking he must have been mistaken.
‘To the west,’ he insisted. Cnut’s men were north and east of us and I expected no enemies from the west. Or, rather, I hoped no enemies would come from the west.
‘How many?’
‘Scout parties. Not many.’
‘Cnut’s men?’
He shrugged. ‘Can’t say.’
‘The bastard can’t have crossed this ditch,’ I said, though of course Cnut could have done just that.
‘That’s no ditch,’ Finan said, ‘it’s the River Tame.’
I looked at the muddy water. ‘That’s the Tame?’
‘So the villagers told me.’
I laughed sourly. We had ridden all the way from Tameworþig to find ourselves back on the headwaters of the same river? There was something futile about that, something that seemed fitting to this day on which I supposed I would die. ‘So what do they call this place?’ I asked Finan.
‘Bastards don’t seem to know,’ he said, amused. ‘One man called it Teotanheale and his wife said it was Wodnesfeld.’
So it was either Teotta’s dell or Odin’s field, but whatever it was called it was still the end of our road, the place where I would wait for a vengeful enemy. And he was coming. The scouts were visible across the ford now, which meant horsemen were north, east and west of us. At least fifty men were on the Tame’s far bank, but still a long way from the river, and Finan had seen more horsemen to the west and I supposed Cnut had divided his army, sending some men down the west bank and some down the east.
‘We could ride south still,’ I said.
‘He’ll catch us,’ Finan said bleakly, ‘and we’ll be fighting in open country. At least here we can retreat to that ridge.’ He nodded to where the few hovels crowned the low hill.
‘Burn them,’ I said.
‘Burn them?’
‘Burn the houses. Tell the men it’s a signal to Edward.’
The belief that Edward was close enough to see the smoke would give my few men hope, and men with hope fight better, and then I looked at the paddock where the horses were gathered. I was wondering whether we should ride west, beat our way through the few scouts who lurked in that direction and hope to reach still higher ground. It was probably a futile hope, and then I thought how strange it was that the paddock had a stone wall. This was a country of hedges, yet someone had gone to the immense trouble of piling heavy stones into a low wall. ‘Uhtred!’ I bellowed at my son.
He ran to me. ‘Father?’
‘Take that wall apart. Get every man to help, and fetch me stones about the size of a man’s head.’
He gaped at me. ‘A man’s head?’
‘Just do it! Bring the stones here, and hurry! Rolla!’
The big Dane ambled over. ‘Lord?’
‘I’m going up to the ridge, and you’re putting stones into the river.’
‘I am?’
I told him what I wanted, watched him grin. ‘And make sure those bastards,’ I pointed to Cnut’s scouts who were waiting well to the east, ‘don’t see what you’re doing. If they come close just stop work. Sihtric!’
‘Lord?’
‘Banners, here.’ I pointed to where the road led west from the ford. I would plant our standards there to show Cnut where we wanted to fight. To show Cnut where I would die. ‘My lady!’ I called to Æthelflaed.
‘I’m not leaving,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Did I ask you to?’
‘You will.’
We walked to the low ridge where Finan and a dozen men were shouting at the villagers to empty their cottages. ‘Take everything you want!’ Finan told them. ‘Dogs, cats, children even. Your pots, your spits, everything. We’re burning the houses!’ Eldgrim was carrying an old woman from a house as her daughter screamed in protest.
‘Must we burn the houses?’ Æthelflaed asked.
‘If Edward’s marching,’ I said bleakly, ‘he has to know where we are.’
‘I suppose so, yes,’ she said simply. Then she turned to gaze eastwards. The scouts were still watching us from a safe distance, but there was no sign yet of Cnut’s horde. ‘What do we do with the boy?’
She meant Cnut’s son. I shrugged. ‘We threaten to kill him.’
‘But you won’t. And Cnut knows you won’t.’
‘I might.’
She laughed at that, a grim laugh. ‘You won’t kill him.’
‘If I live,’ I said, ‘he’ll be fatherless.’
She frowned in puzzlement, then saw what I meant. She laughed. ‘You think you can beat Cnut?’
; ‘We’ve stopped,’ I said, ‘we’ll fight. Perhaps your brother will come? We’re not dead yet.’
‘So you’ll raise him?’
‘Cnut’s son?’ I shook my head. ‘Sell him, probably. Once he’s a slave there’ll be no one to tell him who his father was. He won’t know that he’s a wolf, he’ll think he’s a puppy.’ If I lived, I thought, and, truly, I did not expect to survive that day. ‘And you,’ I touched Æthelflaed’s arm, ‘should ride away.’
‘I …’
‘You’re Mercia!’ I snapped at her. ‘Men love you, they follow you! If you die here then Mercia loses its heart.’
‘And if I run away,’ she said, ‘then Mercia is cowardly.’
‘You leave so that you can fight another day.’
‘And how do I leave?’ she asked. She was gazing westwards and I saw the horsemen there, just a handful, but they were also watching us. There were six or seven men, all of them at least two miles away, but they could see us. And there were probably others who were closer. If I was to send Æthelflaed away then those men would follow her, and if I sent her with an escort large enough to fight through whatever enemy she found then I just made my own death more certain. ‘Take fifty men,’ I told her, ‘take fifty men and ride south.’
‘I’m staying.’
‘If you’re captured …’ I began.
‘They’ll rape and kill me,’ she said calmly, then put a finger on my hand. ‘It’s called martyrdom, Uhtred.’
‘It’s called stupidity.’
She said nothing to that, just turned and looked north and east and there, at last, were Cnut’s men. Hundreds upon hundreds of men darkening the land, coming south down the road from the Roman fort where we had left the severed heads. Their leading horsemen had almost reached the turn in the road that led west to the ford where my men laboured in the shallow water. Rolla must have seen the enemy because he called the men back to the river’s western bank where we would make our shield wall.
‘Did you ever hear of Æsc’s Hill?’ I asked Æthelflaed.
‘Of course,’ she said, ‘my father loved to tell that tale.’
Æsc’s Hill was a battle fought long ago, when I was a boy, and on that winter day I had been in the Danish army and we had been so confident of victory. Yet the frosted ground had been warmed by Danish blood and the cold air had been filled with Saxon cheers. Harald, Bagseg and Sidroc the Younger, Toki the Shipmaster, names from my past, they had all died, killed by the West Saxons who, under Alfred, had waited behind a ditch. The priests, of course, ascribed that unlikely victory to their nailed god, but in truth the ditch defeated the Danes. A shield wall is strong so long as it stays intact, shield against shield, men shoulder to shoulder, a wall of mail, wood, flesh and steel, but if the wall breaks then slaughter follows, and crossing the ditch at Æsc’s Hill had broken the Danish wall and the Saxon foemen had made a great slaughter.
And my little shield wall was protected by a ditch. Except the ditch was broken by the ford, and it was there, in that shallow water, that we would fight.
The first cottage burst into flames. The thatch was dry under its moss and the flames were hungry. Rats scrambled from the roof as my men carried the fire to the other houses. I was sending a signal to whom? To Edward? Who might still be cowering behind his burh walls? I stared south, hoping against all hope to see horsemen approaching, but there was just a falcon riding the high wind above the empty fields and woods. The bird was almost motionless, wings flickering, then it stooped, wings folded, streaking down to kill. A bad omen? I touched my hammer. ‘You should go,’ I told Æthelflaed, ‘go south. Ride hard, ride fast! Don’t stop at Gleawecestre, but keep going to Wessex. Go to Lundene! Those walls are strong, but if it falls you can take a ship to Frankia.’
‘My banner is there,’ she said, pointing to the ford, ‘and where my banner is I am.’ Her banner showed a white goose clutching a cross and a sword. It was an ugly flag, but the goose was the symbol of Saint Werburgh, a holy woman who had once frightened a flock of geese away from a cornfield, a feat that had earned her sainthood, and the goose-frightener was also Æthelflaed’s protector. She would have to work hard this day, I thought.
‘Who do you trust?’ I asked her.
She frowned at that question. ‘Trust? You, of course, your men, my men, why?’
‘Find a man you trust,’ I said. The fire of the nearest house was scorching me. ‘Tell him to kill you before the Danes capture you. Tell him to stand behind you and make the stroke on the back of your neck.’ I pushed a finger through her hair to touch her skin where the skull meets the spine. ‘Just there,’ I said, pressing my finger. ‘It’s fast, it’s quick and it’s painless. Don’t be a martyr.’
She smiled. ‘God is on our side, Uhtred. We shall win.’ She spoke very flatly, as if what she said was beyond all contradiction, and I just looked at her. ‘We shall win,’ she said again, ‘because God is with us.’
What fools these Christians are.
I went down to my death-place and watched the Danes approach.
There is a way of battle. In the end the shield walls must meet and the slaughter will begin and one side will prevail and the other will be beaten down in a welter of butchery, but before the blades clash and before the shields crash, men must summon the nerve to make the charge. The two sides stare at each other; they taunt and insult each other. The young fools of each army will prance ahead of the wall and challenge their enemy to single combat, they will boast of the widows they plan to make and of the orphans who will weep for their fathers’ deaths. And the young fools fight and half of them will die, and the other half strut their bloody victory, but there is still no true victory because the shield walls have not met. And still the waiting goes on. Some men vomit with fear, others sing, some pray, but then at last one side will advance. It is usually a slow advance. Men crouch behind their shields, knowing that spears, axes and arrows will greet them before the shields slam together, and only when they are close, really close, does the attacker charge. Then there is a great bellow of noise, a roar of anger and fear, and the shields meet like thunder and the big blades fall and the swords stab and the shrieks fill the sky as the two shield walls fight to the death. That is the way of battle.
And Cnut broke it.
It began in the usual way. My shield wall stood at the very edge of the ford, which was no more than twenty paces across. We were on the western bank, Cnut’s men were arriving from the east and, as they reached the crossroads, they dismounted. Boys took the horses and led them to a pasture while the warriors unslung their shields and looked for their battle-companions. They were arriving in groups. It was plain they had hurried and were strung out along the road, but their numbers grew swiftly. They gathered some five hundred paces from us where they formed a swine’s horn. I had expected that.
‘Confident bastards,’ Finan muttered.
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘Probably,’ he said. Finan was to my left, my son to my right. I resisted the temptation to give Uhtred advice. He had practised the shield wall for years, he knew all I had to teach him, and to repeat it now would only betray my nervousness. He was silent. He just stared at the enemy and knew that in a few moments he would have to face his first battle of the shield walls. And, I thought, he would probably die.
I tried to count the arriving enemy and reckoned the swine’s horn held about five hundred men. So, they outnumbered us two to one, and still more men were coming. Cnut and Sigurd were there, their banners bright above the shields. I could see Cnut because he was still mounted, his pale horse somewhere deep in the big wedge of men.
A swine’s horn. I noticed that not one man had come forward to look at the ford, which told me they knew this stretch of country, or someone in their army knew it. They knew about the ditch-like river and they knew that the west-leading road had a shallow ford that would be easy to cross and so they did not need to make any exploration. They would just advance, and Cnut had formed them into t
he swine’s horn to make that advance irresistible.
The shield wall is usually straight. Two straight lines that crash together and men struggle to break the opposing line, but a swine’s horn is a wedge. It comes fast. The biggest and bravest men are placed at the point of the wedge and their job is to smash through the opposing shield wall like a spear shattering a door. And, once our line was broken, the wedge would widen as they hacked along our lines and so my men would die.
And to make sure of that Cnut had sent men to cross the river north of us. A boy rode down from the ridge where the houses burned to bring me that bad news. ‘Lord?’ he asked nervously.
‘What’s your name, boy?’
‘Godric, lord.’
‘You’re Grindan’s son?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘Then your name is Godric Grindanson,’ I said, ‘and how old are you?’
‘Eleven, lord, I think.’
He was a snub-nosed, blue-eyed boy wearing an old leather coat that had probably belonged to his father because it was so big. ‘So what does Godric Grindanson want to tell me?’ I asked.
He pointed a tremulous finger north. ‘They’re crossing the river, lord.’
‘How many? And how far away?’
‘Hrodgeir says there are three hundred men, lord, and they’re still a long way north and more of them are crossing all the time, lord.’ Hrodgeir was a Dane whom I had left on the ridge so he could keep watch on what the enemy did. ‘And, lord …’ Godric went on until his voice faltered.
‘Tell me.’
‘He says there are more men to the west, lord, hundreds!’
‘Hundreds?’
‘They’re among trees, lord, and Hrodgeir says he can’t count them.’
‘He hasn’t got enough fingers,’ Finan put in.
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