Shield Maiden

by Stuart Hill

  Ethelred looked at me and grinned. I smiled back knowing such things are lucky before a battle. Somewhere high in the sky I could hear a lark’s song, piercing through the deep voices of the Danes in a tumbling, trilling thrill of joy. I shouted aloud for the ferocious elation of battle that then suddenly rose up through me, and as Ethelred raised his sword we all leapt forward in a charge.

  The steep embankment of the defences seemed to fall away as we ran, the Yellow Wyvern banner of Mercia snapping and rattling in the wind of our speed. We were heading for the widest breach in the palisade that topped the embankment. Here there was a dense row of stone-filled barrels and behind them stood the enemy, their shields tightly overlapping and deadly with spears and axes.

  There was no time to think and we hit them with a roar. Ethelred leapt up on to the barricade of barrels and I immediately followed, my sword flashing and flickering as I killed again and again. Mouse leapt forward and over the line of shields, bringing down the Viking warriors and causing panic and alarm. Behind us the Mercians pressed forward bearing us up and over the barricade. We were in! We were in the city already!

  The Great Army fell back in disciplined ranks, fighting a strong withdrawal as they backed down the steep embankment into the city proper. But now we had the advantage of high ground and we beat on their shields with everything we had. I called Mouse back and he took up his position protecting my left side.

  Then even over the huge crescendo of our fighting we heard a great roar rise up into the air and we knew that the army of Wessex was attacking the main gates. We answered the sound with a powerful pulsing beat of our war chant:

  “OUT! Out! Out!

  “OUT! Out! Out!

  “OUT! Out! Out!”

  The simple syllable spat with fury and venom made the enemy give back one slow step at a time, though their discipline still held and they fought stubbornly making us pay for every step they gave us.

  We were now in the streets of the city and suddenly the Danes melted away, falling back at speed before reforming their shield wall across the roadway that opened before us. Their line was anchored by the houses that stood on either side of the road, and I knew they’d be as stubborn to move as a limpet on a rock.

  We hit them with a storm of swords, axes and spears but here they held their position and refused to give ground. Their voices rang out in a fierce battle-song once more and they pushed back against us. Their strength held us at bay and though we rallied and charged again and again, still they stood, defiant and mighty. But then I was suddenly aware of a black fury standing beside me and from it came the angry cawing of ravens. It was Ara, of course.

  Her long skinny arms were raised above her head and her hands and fingers curled like claws as she spat words at the Danes. Her eyes were rolled back in her head so only the whites showed and saliva ran down her chin in a constant stream.

  The enemy’s singing stopped and they began to waver, but then a huge man leapt forward, a massive war hammer in his hand and a symbol of the thunder hammer around his neck. Here was a fighting priest of Thor and he smashed at our line with a massive fury and power, felling our soldiers like young saplings before the axe.

  Now he stood before Ara herself and raising his hammer he ran forward, but the wise woman turned the whites of her eyes upon him, pointed a clawed finger and spat a word that exploded from her mouth in a shower of spit and blood. Immediately the man stopped and doubled up as though a blade had been driven into his guts. With a roar of defiance he straightened and raised his hammer again and this time Ara raised her hands and then suddenly snapped them down into a doubled fist. The man fell to his knees and the ravens flew in and drove their massive beaks into his eyes before rising up on a black flame of beating wings over the line of the Danes. The man fell forward on to his face and didn’t move again.

  Now the enemy began to give back, though still they maintained their wall and fought for every piece of ground. Ara marched with us, Ranhald and Raarken flying above her and her face contorted into a mask of fury and dark power.

  In desperation the Danes began to throw flaming torches on to the roofs of the houses they passed so that soon the streets were filled with choking smoke and flying pieces of burning thatch.

  We wrapped wet rags about our mouths and advanced, hacking down the enemy as we went. Ethelred still marched beside me, his face black with smoke and his teeth white and gleaming. I realised I must have looked as ludicrous and found myself laughing aloud in the midst of mayhem. Mouse was as smoke black as a ‘shuck’, the devil dog of legend, and as he ran in to attack, the line of the enemy’s shields buckled as they fell back before his snarling threat.

  At one point some of the Danes tried to outflank us by slipping through the side streets and suddenly appearing behind us, but raising my sword I took Mouse and led a charge against them, while the main body of our fighters continued to advance. We smashed through their shield wall as cleanly as a sharpened blade and cut them down in a brief blazing fury of fighting before joining our comrades again.

  But now we had reached a wide square that I think must have been the ‘moot’, the great meeting place of the city. And then on the far side I saw the White Dragon banner of Wessex. I shouted aloud for joy. Father had breached the gate and was now driving the enemy before him!

  We pushed the Great Army back into the square where once again they proved the greatness of their name by refusing to surrender, forming a massive shield wall and singing out their defiance. We fought for the rest of the day until at last we breached their wall and they began to fall in their hundreds before our swords and spears. Father then called out for a truce and offered terms. But still they refused to surrender and fought on desperately, falling in huge numbers to lie in the lake of blood that was slowly seeping into the soil of the city.

  Again Father called on them to lay down their arms and at last a silence fell and the warriors of both sides stepped apart. Now it was that I saw Guthrum in the flesh for the first time. He was a giant of a man with yellow hair and beard that were streaked with grey, but despite his size and power, when he stepped out of the Great Army’s ranks and Father pointed at the ground before him, this king of the Norsemen knelt and offered up his sword hilt first in final surrender. Then the rest of the Great Army did the same, falling to their knees and dropping their shields and weapons to the ground. A great cheer rose up from us filling the air with our fierce joy. THE GREAT ARMY WAS HUMBLED, THE GREAT ARMY WAS DEFEATED!

  I turned and hugged Ethelred who still stood beside me and grinning broadly he suddenly kissed me. For a moment I forgot even Guthrum’s surrender as my senses swam. But I am a fighting shield maiden of the Cerdingas, not some swooning girl, and I turned back to watch the Danes’ capitulation. Even so, I linked my arm through Ethelred’s. Sometimes it is necessary to claim one’s own.

  The enemy was allowed to march out of London and cross over the borders into the lands they called Danelaw. Hostages were given to ensure the peace and the Great Army was also made to leave behind all their weaponry, helmets, shields and mail shirts. When we watched them walking away through the wide valley of the Thames, they looked like a huge gathering of peasant farmers in their shirtsleeves, perhaps on their way to gather in the harvest. But they had no scythes or sickles.

  Ara disappeared after the battle had been won, but I had no doubt she’d be back when least expected. Our casualties were heavy, with many dead, but the victory had been decisive. We would have peace ... for a while at least.

  Edward had been wounded fighting to break through the main gates of the city, and had a deep scar just beneath his left eye. But he didn’t mind: it was an honourable wound and made him look like the warrior he was. He’d fought on throughout the battle, his face a fearsome mask of blood. When I told him he was one of the bravest fighters I knew, he grinned happily and thanked me.

  After that he joined me and Ethelred and the rest of our army in wild celebrations that lasted throughout the night. />
  XIII

  Peace is a strange thing. In times of war you’re desperate for it and pray for it every day. But when we finally had it in the year of our Lord 886, I’m ashamed to say that I felt bored. I think most intelligent people would be shocked if they knew how I felt, but here and there amongst the housecarles and soldiers I saw others who obviously felt the same as me.

  I missed the excitement of the fighting. I missed my comrades in the shield wall, I missed the sense of power the battlefield gave me, and I missed the way the fear just fell away as the joy of combat filled me to the brim! I know all of this makes me sound like some sort of warmongering madwoman. In fact it makes me sound as bad as the worst sort of ­land-grabbing, home-burning pirate. I’m sure Guthrum himself would say exactly the same as me. But I wonder if he also felt the horror of seeing towns and villages in flames, and I also wonder if he felt bitter grief when friends died of battle wounds. Perhaps if the towns and villages were those of his own people he would feel horror. And perhaps if his friends died in battle he’d weep as much as I did for Cerdic, Father’s old commander and war leader who I’d known since I was a little girl and who was killed in the battle for London.

  This is war: a curse for any land and people, a destroyer of lives and civilisations, a completely evil and destructive force. But it’s also a place where warriors find fame, where the deepest friendships and bonds are forged and where the very sense of what a country and a people actually are is made. From this war with the Danish Great Army, my father had made an idea of a new land, a land not of many small kingdoms, but one country with a shared language and culture. It wasn’t made yet, and though the process had begun it wouldn’t be finished for many years. But when it was, I was determined that it would be a country where everyone within it shared the same idea no matter where they or their families had originally been born.

  It may be that I will help to make this land ... maybe. But at the moment there’s peace and I am just Aethelflaed Cerdinga once more. I may train in the shield wall with my father’s housecarles, but there’s no war to test me to the very limits of my strength and bravery. I may keep myself battle-ready and alert, but I have no close comrade with whom I can share the danger of war and the joy of victory. And this isn’t only because the war has ended, for now, but also because Ethelred has returned to his land of Mercia and he seems to have taken half of who I am with him. And now I’m left here in Wessex to be a daughter of the king in a time of peace.

  Books filled some of my time, as did training and Mouse, but it was a relief when one morning I was summoned to meet Father in one of the council chambers. I thought that perhaps I was going to be allowed to sit in on some meeting about the building of another defensive burgh somewhere, or perhaps about improvement to the fyrd’s training. But when I arrived the place was completely empty apart from Father who was sitting at a small table in the middle of the floor.

  He looked up when I walked in, but then returned to the papers he was reading and waved to the chair that stood next to his. I sat in silence and waited. The room seemed larger somehow without the ealdormen and advisors sitting on the benches that lined the walls, and I spent some time quietly watching flies circle in the shafts of sunlight that spilled through the small windows and from the vents in the roof.

  “ ... don’t you think, Aethelflaed?”

  “What?” I said, taken by surprise. Father had obviously been talking for some time and equally obviously I hadn’t been listening.

  “I said that now we have a time of peace for a while we ought to decide what you’re going to do with your life,” he explained patiently.

  “Oh ... yes ... I suppose so,” I answered.

  “Normally your mother would have had this discussion with you, but unfortunately she’s away in Mercia visiting relatives ... and also Ethelred.”

  The young ealdorman’s name sharpened my senses and I concentrated more fully. “I suppose she’ll be staying with him in the Mercian palace in Tamworth.”

  “Yes,” Father agreed. “In fact, she’s gone to lay a proposition before him, one that I know he’ll accept and be pleased with.”

  A dog barked down in the courtyard below and I automatically looked towards the window and laid my hand on Mouse’s collar as he got ready to reply.

  “Aethelflaed, are you listening to me?”

  I turned to face him squarely. “Yes, Father, please carry on.”

  “Good, because it’s been decided that you should marry Ethelred and seal the alliance between Mercia and Wessex.”

  “Yes, Father, I know.”

  “You know?”

  “Yes. It’s the obvious thing to do and I’m the obvious choice to do it with. Handing London over to Mercian control after we’d liberated it from the Danes was a master stroke of diplomacy on your part and I’m the cream that makes the apple pie complete, if I may say so.”

  Father’s eyes were as round as the new coins showing him in battledress that he’d recently had minted. But then he threw back his head and laughed until his voice echoed throughout the chamber.

  “And how do you feel about this, my young mistress of diplomacy?” he eventually asked.

  I thought for a while, then said, “Satisfied and contented. Ethelred’s a good man, an equally good ruler and a great soldier. It also helps that he’s young and easy on the eye. Once the alliance is cemented, the borders will be safe for generations to come ... at least ours will be. I’m saying nothing about those of so-called Danelaw. Besides, I’ve decided I love Ethelred, and I think he loves me. But if he doesn’t, then I’ve also decided that he soon will. So what else can come of this marriage but good things for the people of Wessex and Mercia and for Aethelflaed and Ethelred?”

  Father looked ready to laugh again, but he controlled himself and merely smiled. “Good. Then we can look forward to a wedding as soon as may be.”

  “We can,” I agreed.

  After I left the chamber I went to the stables and had my horse saddled, then I rode out into the countryside that surrounds Winchester, the capital of Wessex. When I was clear of the usual carts, wagons and other traffic that flowed to and from the city, I kicked the horse to a gallop and thundered along the road singing for joy and laughing aloud while Mouse added his huge barks to the noise and weaved from side to side across the road ahead of me.

  But then I spied a dark figure standing in the exact centre of the route and I slowed to a trot. When I was near enough Ara stepped forward and looked into my face.

  “You’re pleased with your fate then, Aethelflaed Cerdinga?”

  “Yes,” I answered simply.

  The wise woman nodded. “Your life will be one of fighting and fame. Are you ready for it?”

  “Yes,” I said again and suddenly the sky was filled with the calling voices of ravens and the black fire of their wings as Ranhald and Raarken leapt into flight.

  Historical Note

  The precise dating of Anglo-Saxon history is fraught with difficulty. Often the original sources don’t bother with exact dates at all or, if they do, they may contradict those given by other supposedly authoritative texts.

  The date for the Danish attack on Chippenham that drove King Alfred and his family into exile, for example, varies between AD 876 and AD 878. The same can be said for the birth date of the principal character of our tale: Aethelflaed, the daughter of the king. This meanders between AD 868 and AD 872. In fact, I found one reference to her being born in AD 864 – which was actually before her parents were married. This would have been a very unlikely happening at the time!

  However, we can be confident in the facts of Aethelflaed’s later life. She married Ethelred of Mercia and, after her father died, she campaigned against the Danes, along with Edward her brother – who became King of Wessex after Alfred the Great’s death – and Ethelred. Together they re-conquered the Viking lands known as Danelaw. Then, when Ethelred was no longer able to rule Mercia (either because of illness or because of injuries sustain
ed in battle; again, the sources are unclear), she ruled in his stead as ‘The Lady of the Mercians’, becoming Queen in all but name.

  In AD 918, the powerful Danish rulers of Jorvik (now known as York) sent peace envoys to her, acknowledging her as their overlord. Before they arrived, though, she died – some say of wounds received in battle just days before.

  Bonus Bits!

  Who’s who?

  Can you match the name of each character with their role? (The answers are at the end of this section – no peeking, though!)

  1.Aethelflaed a.King of Wessex

  2.Edward b.Commander of guards

  3.Ara c.King’s eldest daughter

  4.Alfred d.King’s only son

  5.Aethelfryth e.King’s youngest daughter

  6.Cerdic Guthweinson f.Royal nursemaid

  Who was King Alfred the Great?

  Alfred the Great was an Anglo-Saxon king between AD 871 and AD 899. He defended England against a Danish invasion and founded the first ever English navy.

  He was also responsible for the creation of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of historical records written in Old English. This helped to revive learning and encouraged the use of the English language at a time when most records were written in Latin or ancient Greek. The book also ensured that Alfred’s achievements were recorded, so we know more about him than about any other Anglo-Saxon king.

  Who were the Anglo-Saxons?

  The Anglo-Saxons were warriors who were also farmers. They came from north-west Europe and first began to invade Britain when the Romans were in control.

  They were great fighters and were very fierce if you were unlucky enough to be up against them. They were also very good at hunting, farming, making cloth and working with leather.

  And who were the Danes – or the ‘Vikings’?

  The name ‘Viking’ means ‘pirate raid’. The Vikings were often Danes: many came from Denmark, while others were from Norway and Sweden. The Vikings invaded Britain and Ireland and tried to take Anglo-Saxon land and treasures.