Sword of Kings (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 12)

by Bernard Cornwell

  The wind died in the darkness, then came again with the dawn, only now it was a west wind, brisk and warm. I wanted to leave, wanted to be sailing Spearhafoc north along the East Anglian coast, wanted to leave Wessex and its treachery far behind, but Benedetta asked me to wait.

  ‘Why wait?’ I asked her.

  ‘We have things to do,’ she said distantly.

  ‘So do I! A voyage!’

  ‘It will not take long, lord.’ She still wore the grey cloak and hood, her face shadowed from the sun that rose behind her to gloss the Swalwan Creek with a shimmer of red gold.

  ‘What won’t take long?’ I asked irritably.

  ‘What we must do,’ she said stubbornly.

  I understood then. ‘There’s privacy under the steering platform,’ I told her, ‘and buckets.’

  ‘Eadgifu is a queen!’ Benedetta said with a touch of anger. ‘Queens do not crouch in a stinking space over a dirty bucket!’

  ‘We can wash the buckets,’ I suggested, but received nothing in reply but a scornful look. I sighed. ‘You want me to find her a palace?’

  ‘I want you to give her some privacy. Some dignity,’ Benedetta said. ‘She is a queen! We can go to the alehouse, yes?’ she pointed across the creek.

  ‘That harbour will be full of Æthelhelm’s troops,’ I said. ‘Better to piss in a bucket than fall into their hands.’

  ‘Then the reeds will do,’ she said stiffly, ‘but your men must stay away.’

  Which meant I had to order two of the rowing benches to be loosened and fashioned into a makeshift gangplank, then post sentries to guard the reeds from anyone approaching whatever place the women chose, and finally threaten death by dismemberment if any of those sentries were within sight of the women. Then we waited. I talked to Awyrgan as the sun rose higher, but he could tell me little of what had happened in Fæfresham the previous day. He had posted his men as guards on the road that led to Lundene, then been surprised by Æthelhelm’s horsemen who had attacked him from the south. ‘We fled, lord,’ he confessed.

  ‘What of Sigulf?’

  ‘I don’t know, lord.’

  ‘The last I heard,’ I said, ‘they were negotiating.’

  ‘Which only bought them time to take her ladyship from the convent,’ Awyrgan said bitterly.

  ‘Then you’re fortunate I was here,’ I said.

  He hesitated, then nodded. ‘Indeed, lord.’

  I looked across the reed beds, wondering what on earth took the women so long, then back over the creek. At first light the harbour had appeared deserted, but now I could see men there, red-cloaked men. I pointed to them. ‘Æthelhelm’s men,’ I told Awyrgan, ‘which suggests Sigulf lost. And they can see us. They’ll be coming for us.’

  ‘You burned their ships, lord.’

  ‘But I didn’t burn their fishing boats, did I?’ I cupped my hands and bellowed at the reeds, ‘My lady! We have to go!’

  And it was then I saw the ship. A small ship, coming from the west, rowing down the Swalwan Creek. I could not see the hull, which was hidden by the tall reeds, but there was a cross on the prow, and the distance between that cross and the high mast suggested it could not hold more than ten or twelve benches on each side. The approaching ship’s crew had lowered their sail, presumably for fear that a sudden gust of wind might drive them onto a mudbank and leave them waiting for the tide. Oars were slower, but much safer. ‘Gerbruht!’ I bellowed.

  ‘Lord?’

  ‘We have to stop that ship! Get us under way!’

  ‘The women!’ Awyrgan protested.

  ‘We’ll come back for them. Oars! Hurry!’

  I threw off the only mooring line, which we had tied to a massive log that had drifted ashore, then men began poling the ship out of the narrow inlet. ‘Mail!’ I called, meaning that men should don their armour. I pulled my own mail coat over my head, holding my breath as the stinking leather liner scraped my face. I buckled Serpent-Breath to my waist. The bow oars were in clear water now and Spearhafoc lunged ahead. I shoved the steering-oar over, held my breath again as the hull touched mud, but a heave of the oars pulled her free. We turned westwards and more oars found purchase as we slid into deeper water. I could see the approaching ship now and see she was half the size of Spearhafoc and with fewer than twenty men aboard. I had suspected she might be a trading ship, but she had a lean hull and a high prow, a ship made for swift passage. Her oars checked as they saw us and I could see a man in a red cloak shouting from the stern, perhaps wanting his oarsmen to turn the ship so they could flee, but Spearhafoc was too close and too threatening. ‘Put on red cloaks!’ I shouted at Finan who had assembled a group of mailed and armed men at Spearhafoc’s bows. He waved in reply and called for a man to bring the cloaks. ‘Don’t kill the bastards!’ I bellowed. ‘I just want to talk to them!’

  I had asked Finan’s men to wear the red cloaks so that the approaching ship would believe that we, like them, served Æthelhelm. I did not think they would fight us, we were too big, but they could have veered into the southern bank and fled across the marshes if they thought we were enemies. The pretence must have worked because the ship began rowing towards us again, their panic over.

  ‘Lord!’ Vidarr Leifson, who was standing on one of the rowing benches closest to the stern, called to me. He pointed behind and I turned to see that a fishing boat crammed with red-cloaked men was being laboriously rowed from the harbour entrance. I glanced across the reed beds, but could see neither the stranded women nor the five sentries we had posted. A pair of cranes flew from the reeds, their huge wings beating laboriously and the red feathers of their heads bright in the morning sun. They slowly gained height, long legs trailing, and one of the men on the fishing boat hurled a spear at the closest bird. It missed and plunged harmlessly into the creek. A good omen, I thought. ‘We’ll deal with that fishing boat soon,’ I told Vidarr, hoping that the men on that boat had no idea that the women and children they had come to recapture were almost unguarded on Sceapig, then I called to the oarsmen to stop rowing as Spearhafoc’s prow loomed above the smaller ship. We coasted for a few paces, then I felt a quiver in the hull as we touched her. Finan and two men jumped onto the stranger’s deck. ‘Hold her here,’ I told Gerbruht, meaning he should try to keep Spearhafoc next to the smaller ship, then I went forward to see that Finan was arguing with the red-cloaked man. No swords had been drawn. ‘What is it?’ I called down.

  ‘A hired boat,’ Finan answered laconically, ‘bringing messengers from Æthelhelm.’

  ‘Bring them on board.’

  ‘This fellow doesn’t like that idea,’ Finan said with a grin. ‘He doesn’t believe I serve that piece of shit Æthelhelm!’

  The red cloaks had at least made them believe we were friends until Finan and his men boarded their small ship. ‘You have a choice,’ I snarled at the man facing Finan. ‘You either come aboard my ship or we practise our sword-skill on you. You choose.’

  ‘And you are?’ he demanded.

  ‘Uhtredærwe,’ I said, and was rewarded with a visible shudder. Reputation is sometimes enough to end a confrontation, and the red-cloaked man, whoever he was, had no desire to add his death to my reputation. He clambered up onto Spearhafoc’s prow, urged on by a slap from Finan, and was followed by a priest. I judged both men to be middle-aged, while the one who had argued with Finan was richly dressed and had a silver chain at his neck. ‘Throw your oars overboard!’ I called to the smaller ship’s master. ‘Finan! Cut his halliards!’ The twenty oarsmen watched sullenly as Finan slashed through every line he could find. By the time he was done the smaller ship could neither row nor sail, while the flooding tide would take it gently away from Fæfresham. ‘When we’re gone,’ I called to the master, ‘you can swim for your oars and splice your lines.’ His only answer was to spit overboard. He was unhappy and I could not blame him, but I did not want him returning to Lundene to spread news of my arrival in Wessex.

  I let Gerbruht turn Spearhafoc, a tricky task in the n
arrow and shallow channel, but one he did with his usual skill as I went forward and confronted our two visitors. ‘First, who are you?’

  ‘Father Hedric,’ the priest answered.

  ‘You’re one of Æthelhelm’s sorcerers?’

  ‘I serve in his household,’ the priest answered proudly. He was a small tubby man with a wisp of white beard.

  ‘And you?’ I asked the well-dressed man who wore the silver chain. He was tall, thin, with a long jaw, and dark, deep-set eyes. A clever man, I thought, which made him dangerous.

  ‘I am Halldor.’

  ‘A Dane?’ I asked, his name was Danish.

  ‘A Christian Dane,’ he said.

  ‘And what does a Christian Dane do in Æthelhelm’s household?’

  ‘I serve at Lord Æthelhelm’s wishes,’ he answered icily.

  ‘You have a message?’ They were both silent.

  ‘Where to, lord?’ Gerbruht called from the stern.

  I saw that the fishing boat was waiting. She was too small and the number of men aboard too few to dare challenge us, but even as I watched I saw a second and equally heavily laden boat come from the harbour. ‘Pick up the women!’ I called to Gerbruht. ‘We’ll deal with those boats after.’ I turned back to our two prisoners. ‘You have a message?’ I demanded a second time.

  ‘King Edward is dead,’ Father Hedric said, then made the sign of the cross. ‘God rest his soul.’

  ‘And King Ælfweard reigns,’ Halldor the Dane added, ‘and may God give him a long and prosperous reign.’

  The king was dead. And I had come to kill the new king. Wyrd bið ful ãræd.

  PART TWO

  City of Darkness

  Five

  Eadgifu, her women, and her three children must all have been waiting for us because they were crouched with the sentries just inside the tall reeds at the creek’s edge, hidden from Æthelhelm’s men, who rowed clumsily to confront us. We steered Spearhafoc into the muddy bank, feeling the hull touch bottom. ‘Come on!’ I called to the women. ‘Hurry!’

  ‘We’ll get wet!’ Eadgifu protested.

  ‘Wet is better than dead, my lady, now hurry!’

  She still hesitated until Awyrgan leaped overboard then waded ashore and held out his hand. I saw her smile as she took it, then Awyrgan, along with the sentries, helped them all into the creek. Eadgifu squealed as the water came over her waist, but Benedetta calmed her. ‘Lord Uhtred is right, my lady. Better to be wet than dead.’ Once at the ship’s side we unceremoniously lifted Eadgifu into the ship. She scowled as she reached the deck. ‘Your husband’s dead,’ I told her with deliberate brutality.

  ‘Good, may he rot in peace,’ was her curt answer, though I suspect her anger was delivered more towards me for soaking her rich clothes than at her husband. She turned and offered a hand to help Awyrgan into the boat, but Beornoth gently edged her aside and lifted the man by himself. Then Eadgifu saw Halldor and the priest at the stern of the boat and she spat towards them. ‘Why are they here?’

  ‘Prisoners,’ I said curtly.

  ‘Kill the Dane,’ she said.

  ‘He has to answer questions first,’ I told her, then reached down and took one of the babies from Benedetta’s grasp.

  ‘Bastards are coming!’ Finan warned me from Spearhafoc’s stern.

  The two small fishing boats crammed with Æthelhelm’s men were rowing towards us, though they were still a long way off. They were rowing hard, but their boats were clumsy, heavy and sluggish. We pulled the last woman and child aboard, then poled Spearhafoc off the bank and out into deeper water. ‘Oarsmen! Pull!’ I shouted. ‘Finan! Put the bird on the prow!’

  That made my men cheer. They liked it when our sleek sparrowhawk carving crested the prow, though in truth she looked more like an eagle than a sparrowhawk because her beak was far too long, but she had savage eyes and a menacing presence. Finan and two other men slotted her into place and hammered home the two pegs that held her firm. The crews of the two fishing boats, seeing us coming eastwards towards them, had stopped rowing and were now standing with spears in their hands. But either the sudden appearance of the sparrowhawk’s feral head or the sight of the small waves beginning to break white and quick at Spearhafoc’s cutwater persuaded them to sit and pull desperately for the southern shore. They feared a ramming. ‘Pull!’ I bellowed at the oarsmen.

  The rowers dragged on the oars’ looms, thrusting Spearhafoc still faster. Gerbruht and two other men hauled on the main halliard to hoist the sail. The fishing boats were still trying to escape us and I heard a man scream at his oarsmen to pull harder. I was steering towards them, and, as the sail caught the wind, our ship seemed to leap ahead, but then, just before we reached spear-range, I hauled the steering-oar towards me, and Spearhafoc turned to slide past them on the creek’s further side. We could easily have sunk both fishing boats, but instead I would avoid them. Not because I feared them, but in the closing moments before we rammed the first boat we were likely to be assailed by spears, and I had no wish for a single man of Spearhafoc’s crew to be wounded or worse. We had escaped and that was victory enough.

  A dozen spears were hurled as we passed, but all fell far short, and then we were coursing eastwards towards the open sea. We brought the oars inboard and lashed them down. Gerbruht had tied down the sail’s last sheet and so I gave him the steering-oar. ‘Just follow the creek,’ I told him, ‘then steer north. We’re going home.’

  ‘God be praised,’ he said.

  I jumped down from the steering platform. Our two prisoners, the tall, well-dressed Dane and the smaller priest, were under guard by the mainmast. Awyrgan, his clothes soaked, had been joined by the two men who had escaped pursuit with him, and was standing over the prisoners with a drawn sword. He was taunting them. ‘Leave us,’ I told him.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Leave us!’ I snarled. He irritated me.

  He went to join Eadgifu and her ladies at the stern, and I drew the short knife from my belt. ‘I don’t have time to persuade you to answer my questions,’ I told the two men, ‘so if either of you don’t answer straightaway I’ll blind you both. When did the king die?’

  ‘A week ago?’ the priest, shivering with fright, answered quickly. ‘Maybe six days. I’ve lost count, lord.’

  ‘You were with him at the end?’

  ‘We were in Ferentone,’ the Dane said stiffly.

  ‘Where he died,’ the priest added quickly.

  ‘And Æthelhelm was there?’

  ‘Lord Æthelhelm was with the king to the end,’ Halldor said.

  ‘And Æthelhelm sent you south?’ The priest nodded. The poor man still looked terrified, and no wonder. I was holding the short knife near his left cheekbone and he was imagining the blade slicing into his eye. I twitched it. ‘He sent you south to do what?’ I demanded.

  The priest whimpered, but Halldor answered. ‘To remove the Lady Eadgifu and her children to a place of safety.’

  I left that lie unchallenged. Eadgifu might have been safely walled up in a convent, but the two boys would be lucky to see another autumn. The girl, who had no claim to the throne, might have lived, but I doubted it. Æthelhelm would probably wish to cull the whole brood. ‘And the king,’ I said, ‘divided the kingdom?’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ the priest muttered.

  ‘Æthelstan is king in Mercia?’ I asked. ‘And that piece of weasel shit, Ælfweard, rules in Wessex?’

  ‘King Ælfweard rules in Wessex and East Anglia,’ the priest confirmed, ‘and Æthelstan is named King of Mercia.’

  ‘But only if the Witan confirms the king’s dying wishes,’ Halldor said, ‘which they will not.’

  ‘They won’t?’

  ‘Why would they consent to the bastard being King of Mercia? Ælfweard must be made king of all three kingdoms.’

  And that, I thought, was probably true. The West Saxon and East Anglian Witans, both firmly under Æthelhelm’s influence, would never vote to accept Æthelstan as a rival king in Me
rcia. They would claim all three kingdoms for Ælfweard.

  ‘So you don’t feel bound by the king’s last wishes?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you?’ Halldor asked belligerently.

  ‘He wasn’t my king,’ I said.

  ‘It is my belief,’ Halldor said, ‘that King Edward was of unsound mind when he dictated his will. So no, I do not feel bound by his final wishes.’

  I agreed with Halldor that Edward had been a lackwit when he divided his kingdoms, but I was not going to admit that. ‘Where was King Æthelstan when his father died?’ I asked instead.

  Halldor bridled at my calling Æthelstan a king, but managed to suppress his indignation. ‘I believe that Faeger Cnapa was still in Ceaster,’ he said coldly, ‘or maybe in Gleawecestre.’

  ‘Faeger Cnapa?’ I asked. He had said it as a name, but it means ‘pretty boy’. Faege, though, also means ‘doomed’. Whatever he meant it was plainly an insult.

  Halldor looked at me coldly. ‘Men call him that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s handsome?’ Halldor suggested.

  His answer had been fatuous, but I let it pass. ‘And Æthelhelm?’ I asked. ‘Where is he now? Lundene?’

  ‘God, no,’ the priest answered with a shudder, earning a scowl from the tall Dane.

  ‘No?’ I asked, and again neither man replied so I touched the knife’s sharp tip onto the priest’s left cheek, just beneath the eye.

  ‘Mercian forces occupied Lundene,’ the priest said hurriedly. ‘We were lucky to escape unnoticed.’

  Gerbruht shouted orders from Spearhafoc’s stern. We were leaving the Swalwan Creek, turning northwards, and the ship pounded into the first of the wide estuary’s larger waves. ‘Loosen that sheet!’ Gerbruht pointed to the windward sheet. ‘And haul in on that line!’ he pointed to the other sheet, and the sail turned to drive the boat north. The wind was freshening, the sea sparkled with reflected sunlight, and our white wake spread as we left Wessex behind and headed northwards. Father Aart, the priest who accompanied Eadgifu, suddenly lurched to the ship’s leeward rail and vomited. ‘There’s only once cure for seasickness, father!’ Gerbruht bellowed from the stern. ‘Sit under a tree!’