by Stuart Hill
An almost complete silence fell in the mead hall, so that I could hear the Yule log crackling and snapping in the great central hearth. By this time, most of the housecarles had managed to shake off some of the sleepiness caused by the beer, and they slung their shields on their arms and levelled their spears at the huge double doors.
Screams and shouts could now be heard clearly, and suddenly my father shook his head as though to clear it and then leapt over the top table and gave a great shout that called his thegns and soldiers to attention.
“TO ARMS! TO ARMS! THE DANES ...”
But his voice was drowned out by a great splintering crack as the mead hall’s doors were broken open and Vikings poured through in an unstoppable gushing rush of axes, swords and spears!
The housecarles charged, locking shields and trying to hold back the enemy. But it was impossible; they were smashed aside and then my father took the kind of instant decision that had made him such a good king. He ran to where we children were and somehow managed to pick three of us up bodily while Ara dragged Edward along by his arm. Father seemed to have the strength of ten as the massive panic and raging fear engulfed the Christmas celebrations.
He ran for the small door that was hidden behind a tapestry at the far end of the hall. He leapt on the top table, knocked over his chair, roared at my mother to run and kicked open the door.
In the mead hall everything was in chaos. People screamed in fear and agony as the Danes rampaged on, killing and maiming as they surged through the room. All the housecarles were dead, and the guests were trying to fight back using whatever came to hand. I watched one old thegn smash his tankard into the face of a Viking, and then stab another with a meat skewer. But it was hopeless; we’d been taken completely by surprise. The palace and town were already lost.
Behind us I could see Ara and also Cerdic Guthweinson, who had a sword and shield he must have picked up from a dead housecarle and was managing to run backwards at an amazing speed as he covered our retreat.
We burst out into the icy, clear night. The stars glittered above us giving all the light we needed as Father kicked his way into the nearby stables. He leapt on to a horse without saddle or bridle, shouted at my mother to do the same and then dragged Edward and me up with him. He watched as Cerdic put Aethelgifu up with Mother and then, after Ara had mounted and taken Aethelfryth up with her, the old soldier finally climbed on to a horse himself.
We erupted into the night like a cavalry charge. The Danes were already in the yard and rushing towards us. Father rode down two, and then we were through the precinct gates and into the town.
Everything was in flames, a choking stench of burning thatch and worse was everywhere, and the streets were heaving with Danes. Father had also picked up a sword and he used it to hack and slash a path through the roaring, raging faces that thrust up before us.
I didn’t have time to be afraid. I just wished I had a sword too! Time seemed to slow as our horses ploughed their way through the chaos of fighting bodies and blazing buildings. Then at last the gates of the town loomed before us and our horse reared and struck down a Viking warrior with its hooves. The gates had been smashed open so we shot out into the night, and now the horses had a clear road they galloped forward at great speed.
I looked around me and could see Mother and Ara still riding with us, and each had their small passenger with them. I was amazed to see that Mother had a spear and its blade was bloody, but then the moon rose up over the horizon, bathing the dark world in its subtle cold light, and I saw her face. I realised and remembered then that she was a warrior too, a warrior queen from the ancient Royal House of Mercia. Like all noble women of both Wessex and Mercia, she would have been trained to use weapons just like the men. Though a queen was rarely expected to use them.
We galloped on through the night, the wind roaring in my ears and drowning out the sound of the dying town behind us. At last, after what seemed like half a night of riding, the horses could carry on no more and Father waved us to a stop. The Danes hadn’t followed us and we could hear nothing but the horses’ snorts as they gulped down air. We all dismounted and, while Father, Mother and Cerdic immediately began to discuss the terrible situation we found ourselves in, we children gathered together in a twittering knot.
“What’s going to happen now?” Edward demanded. “Everything’s gone!”
He was right. Every certainty we’d ever known had been swept aside. Our home was lost to the Vikings. We’d seen people killed in the streets; we’d watched Chippenham burning as we fled. And though we were young, we knew enough of the dangerous world we lived in to understand that Father was no longer king ... at least he was no longer a king with any power. We didn’t even know if Wessex still existed as a separate land in its own right.
As the eldest I felt I had to say something to give us all hope. “Everything may be lost, Edward, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get it back. It’s now that we begin to fight.”
I don’t think I really believed what I was saying, but at least it sounded good. I did my best to look determined and angry rather than scared.
“How the strong are made weak,” Aethelgifu said quietly. “Only this morning we were celebrating Christmas in the Royal Chapel, prince and princesses of the kingdom of Wessex, and now we have nothing but the clothes we’re wearing and the horses that brought us to safety. Only God is unchanged in this changeable world.”
We all fell silent as though we only now understood the terrible situation we were in. “So where was God when this happened?” Edward suddenly asked. “Why didn’t he stop it? And why didn’t he save Chippenham from the pagan Danes?”
Aethelgifu looked at him steadily. “No one can understand the plans of God,” she said.
The only certainty in all that chaos was Ara. She stood with us in that freezing night, an unchanging presence who’d been with us for as long as any of us could remember. Her black clothing hid most of her form in the shadows, but we could feel her presence like heat beating in pulses into the cold air. I looked at her face as she glared back down the road we’d just ridden along. I was reminded of a piece of carved stone that had been weathered by so many long, harsh winters that the original shape could hardly be seen, and I tried to guess just how old she was.
But then we heard the sound we’d been dreading: galloping hooves!
“Quick, into the trees,” Father ordered, and we scrambled off the road and into the shadows of the woods.
Cerdic and Father wrapped cloaks around their left arms to act as rough shields and as one we stared back along the road, which was brightly lit by the full moon. But Ara raised her head to the sky and sniffed, like a hunting dog. “I smell only Saxon blood in living veins. The enemy is too busy looting your palace, Alfred King of nothing but shadows.”
We all of us knew that Ara was one of those who still followed the old religion: for her, Christ was a latecomer who was trying to take Woden’s crown as king of the gods. We also knew that she had certain ... powers that she could sometimes use when they were needed.
Father looked at her sharply, but before anything could be said, the horses thundered into view. One of our own mounts let out a whinny before we could stop it and the group of riders skidded and slid to a halt on the frozen road. They all carried drawn swords and some had shields. If they weren’t Saxons we were dead!
“Who’s there?” one of them shouted in our language and we sighed with relief. Ara had been right!
My father stepped out of the trees. “Alfred of Wessex. Identify yourselves.”
There was an immediate scrambling from the horses and the men knelt with bowed heads. “My Lord, we thought you dead.”
“Not yet, and by God’s will, not for some years. How many are you?”
The men didn’t know, but after a quick head count we established that there were twenty-five altogether. One or two were actually thegns who’d managed to fight their way out of Chippenham, but most were young housecarles who’d fo
ught for as long as they could and then when they saw the situation was hopeless had fled.
Father said nothing against them about this: after all that was exactly what we’d done. To stay and fight against such overwhelming numbers would have meant certain death. Far better to retreat and live to fight back when you were prepared and ready.
But now we had to decide what to do and where to go. This didn’t actually take long because everyone who lived under the threat of the Danish Great Army had plans for escape if they attacked. Anyone who didn’t have such plans would die.
II
Soon we were back on the road, and this time the pace was a brisk trot to save the horses. It had been decided to go to Athelney, an island in the marshes of Somerset. Its name means the island of ‘aethlings’ or princes. It was a small royal hunting estate where my father and his brothers had spent a lot of their boyhoods netting wildfowl and fishing. The Danes wouldn’t know it and it was so well hidden amongst the reed beds, streams and rivers of the marshlands that only a few locals knew the single causeway that would take you safely through the treacherous mud and waters to its firmer ground.
Ara thoroughly approved of this hideout. She saw the marshes and other wild places of the land as the refuge of the old gods. Here she believed their power was undimmed, hidden from the searching light of the new god from the east.
We trotted on through the night, the clear sky causing the temperature to drop like a stone. A thick rime of frost covered every twig on every tree and coated the already snow-covered ground with deeper layers of ice. The horses’ breath smoked on the air and we shivered in our totally impractical best party clothes.
Cerdic had thought to grab blankets from the stables when we’d taken the horses, but there were nowhere near enough to go round. Some of the young housecarles had cloaks and were kind enough to give them to my mother and to us children. But even so, we were still cold.
The horses kept up the pace all night and we ate up the road in front of us. Luckily the icy temperatures meant that any mud on the roads was frozen solid and we made good progress. When the sun rose on the new day, we were miles away from Chippenham, and there was still no sign of pursuit.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the glittering glory of that winter’s dawn. As the sun rose over the distant horizon of the flat lands we were riding through, a great shimmer and sparkle seemed to rise up from the earth to greet it. Across the wide sweep of frozen land brilliant rainbows, struck from the ice crystals of frost and snow, rose in a cold cascade of colours. And the sky was a wide sweeping wash of blues and pinks and golds that were more beautiful even than the illuminated manuscripts that were made by the holy brothers of the monasteries my father had built.
We stopped for breakfast, but had to wait while some of the housecarles went to get it. Two or three of them had small hunting bows and they crashed off through the reeds that were already beginning to line the road. At some point during the night, we’d crossed the border into Somerset and, not long after, the trees that had been there throughout our journey began to give way to reed beds and a network of streams and small rivers. We stood on the very edge of the great marshes that would be our hiding place.
As we waited Father, Mother and two of the older thegns agreed it was safe to light a fire, as long as we weren’t actually on the road itself, and we withdrew into the reeds until we found a small area of fairly dry and flat ground.
Ara shepherded us children along and made sure we had a good place as close to the warming fire as was safe.
“The last time we saw fire it was burning Chippenham to the ground,” said Edward miserably.
“Well that was then and this is now, and these flames are warm and friendly,” I answered, determined to show my brother that I was stronger than him, and also to be positive for as long as I could.
“This is a test, you know,” Aethelgifu suddenly said. She looked at us with the sort of expression she sometimes got when in church and the priest’s voice mingled with the incense and the singing in a way that made your head spin. “God’s testing our faith, and we must show Him how strong we are by facing this misfortune without complaining.”
“If you like,” I said, happy to accept anything that would give us the ability to keep going.
“Well I’m complaining,” said Edward. “I’m cold and hungry and homeless. Yesterday I was prince of one of the most powerful kingdoms in the country, and now I’m just a tramp wandering the roads!”
Aethelfryth began to snivel as Edward moaned. The cold and the shock of what we’d been through in the last few hours was just too much for such a little girl to bear. But before I could say or do anything to try and cheer her up, Ara swept down on us and glared at her fiercely – and then produced from somewhere under her ragged clothes Aethelfryth’s favourite doll. The little girl screamed in delight and hugged the doll close.
“Look after Edith, little one,” Ara said in a voice like a calling raven. “She’s frightened and not as strong as you. You must keep her safe.”
Aethelfryth immediately dried her eyes and then nodded determinedly. She had someone else to think about now, and so was less frightened than she had been.
I looked closely at our ancient nurse. How long had she had the doll? When did she find the time to pick it up in the scramble to escape Chippenham? But before I could ask any of these questions, Ara had withdrawn from my little sister as though something more important was pressing. At first I was afraid that she sensed the Danes were nearby, but there was no real atmosphere of danger about her and I quietly watched as she stood alone at the edge of the reed beds, staring up at the sky. I knew that something strange was going to happen. I could almost feel the air changing around the old woman as she suddenly raised her arms and then threw them wide so that she looked even more like a raven; the black rags of her clothing were like feather-covered wings in the early-morning light.
After a few moments I realised that Ara was quietly chanting, the whispering words blending and tangling with the softly sighing wind that moved through the reeds. Slowly the sound grew until her voice began to wind itself around the campfires. Everyone stopped to stare and my father stood as though he was going to stop whatever was going on. But my mother gently laid her hand on his arm and he paused and instead watched the old woman intently.
I followed Ara’s eyes to where they were staring into the cold blue sky and there I saw two tiny black specks. They were so far away I thought they were just birds flying off to begin their day of food-finding. But as I watched, their forms grew larger and clearer and suddenly I knew they were flying directly towards us.
Ara now raised her voice and shouted into the freezing air, “Raarken! Ranhald! Come to me!”
I gasped: they were the names of two wild ravens that sometimes came to her call. They were as black as a moonless midnight and their eyes glinted like polished jet when they caught the light. Once I’d secretly watched Ara standing over a brazier whose smoke seemed to coil and roll into the shapes of living, moving animals as she muttered under her breath, and her ravens had stood on her shoulders and softly croaked and mumbled as though helping with the spell. They were obviously magical birds, but surely even they couldn’t have followed us from Chippenham ...
The two birds were so close now that we could hear their raucous cries, and soon they circled high above us in a slowly descending spiral. At last the female raven, Ranhald, landed on the ground before Ara’s feet, and Raarken, the male, settled on her shoulder in a rattling clatter of wings. He gently nibbled her ear and crooned softly to her. He was easily the tamest of the two, and when I’d mentioned this in the past to Ara she’d said with a small superior smile:
“Males are always more biddable.” But then she’d paused before adding, “And more loyal. Remember that.”
I didn’t agree with her then, and I still don’t. But it has to be said that Raarken was the most friendly. I looked now at the raven as he continued to croon in her ear, almost
as though he was giving her information. And perhaps he was, because Ara suddenly turned to where my father stood watching and said, “The Danes aren’t bothering to look for you, Alfred, King of no land. They think you’re beaten and finished, and won’t waste time and effort on trying to capture you.”
I could see the rage in my father’s eyes as she said this and I still don’t know to this day whether it was directed at his old nurse or the enemy.
“It’s up to you to prove them wrong, Alfred, once King of Wessex.”
Ranhald and Raarken now rose up into the air calling raucously and the soldiers who’d been watching in silence all stood and turned to look at my father.
“We ride for Athelney,” he said with quiet force. “From there will begin the first steps of our return.”
This simple statement was greeted with an accepting quiet. The king had made his pronouncement. It would be fulfilled.
Not long after that we were dousing the fires and heading back to the road. Once again the horses kept up a swift trotting pace that ate up the miles. Soon we left the last forests and woodlands behind as we travelled deeper into the Somerset Levels. Trees here, when you saw them at all, lined the rivers and ditches and had few branches. Instead they had tangles of long twigs at the top of short trunks so that they looked like bushes growing on top of sticks. Ara told me they were ‘pollards’ and that people had cut them like that so they could use the wood for fuel and for making things without actually killing the tree.
Apart from that, I don’t remember many other details of that journey, only the cold and the fact that we slept under the stars more often than under a roof. We were like the tribes I’d been told about who spend their entire lives travelling, never staying long in one place before moving on to the next. But they lived in lands that were hot and without water, or so I’d been told by teachers my father trusted, so I believed it to be true. I couldn’t quite believe that I’d ever be warm again and I envied those travellers and their deserts of burning sands.