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

by Bernard Cornwell

  Lyfing Gunnaldson was trying to get to his feet. I kicked him again and told Immar to stand guard on him. ‘Kill him if he tries to stand.’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  It was simple after that. We went on board, disarmed the crewmen, and prodded them up to the wharf. There was no fight in them, not even in the black-bearded man who had wanted to defy me. They still believed we were East Anglians who had taken over their city. One wanted to know when he would get his sword back and I just snarled at him to be silent. ‘And you all stay where you are!’ I called to the slaves on the rowing benches. ‘Vidarr?’

  ‘Lord?’

  ‘Make sure they stay!’ The rowers were shackled with iron rings about their ankles, the rings threaded by long chains that ran from the prow to the ship’s stern. The two chains had already been freed from their prow staples and the slaves could have escaped easily enough, but they were weary, they were frightened, and so they stayed. I left two men to make sure the rowers remained quiet, locked our new captives in the same cage as the other guards, then stood at the warehouse door and gazed at the ship. She looked new, her rigging was taut, and her furled sail unfrayed. I touched my hammer and sent a wordless prayer of thanks because I could take my men home.

  ‘Now what?’ Finan had joined me.

  ‘We get the oarsmen off the ship,’ I said, ‘and wait for dawn tomorrow.’

  ‘Dawn tomorrow?’ Finan asked. ‘Why not go now?’

  We were standing in warm sunlight. It was a calm day with no wind to speak of, certainly not the west wind I wanted, but the river was running fast, helped by an ebbing tide, so that even with tired rowers it would be a quick passage to the estuary, and the afternoon could well bring a breeze to take us northwards. And like Finan I wanted to go home. I wanted to smell Bebbanburg’s sea and rest in Bebbanburg’s hall. I had thought to leave in the dawn, shrouded from curious eyes by the remnants of darkness and a river mist, but why not leave now? The city seemed quiet. Jorund had told us the previous night that ships wanting to leave the docks were searched, but no East Anglian soldiers were taking any interest in our wharf. ‘Why not go now?’ I repeated.

  ‘Let’s just go home,’ Finan said forcibly.

  So we told everyone; the freed slaves, the children, Father Oda, and Benedetta to board the boat. We had cooked more shit-speckled cakes with the last of the oats and they were carried on board with whatever plunder we wanted from Gunnald’s yard. Among that plunder were four good large shields, a dozen mail coats, two boxes of coins and hacksilver, ten leather jerkins, and a heap of other clothing. The last cask of ale was loaded.

  The ship was crowded. There were children crammed in the stern, the freed slave girls huddled at the prow, and all of them staring fearfully at the oarsmen who were ragged-haired, filthy, and frightening. ‘I am your new master,’ I told those oarsmen, ‘and if you do what I ask you will all be freed.’

  There must have been men from several races because I heard muttering as my words were translated. One man stood. ‘You’ll free us?’ he sounded suspicious. ‘Where?’

  He had spoken in Danish and I answered in the same language. ‘In the north.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This week.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you are saving my life,’ I said, ‘so as a reward I will give you your life back. What’s your name?’

  ‘Irenmund.’

  I stooped to the deck and picked up one of the short-swords we had taken from the ship’s crew, then walked the passage between the slaves. Irenmund watched me suspiciously. He was still shackled, but he was a formidably strong young man. His hair, blonde and ragged, hung to his shoulders, his blunt face was fearful, but still defiant. He looked at the sword in my hand, then back to my eyes. ‘How were you captured?’ I asked him.

  ‘We were driven ashore in Frisia.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I was a crewman on a trading ship. Three of us, the master and two seamen. We managed to get ashore and were captured.’

  ‘And were sold?’

  ‘We were sold,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘You were a good seaman?’

  ‘I am a good seaman,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘Then catch,’ I said, and tossed the sword hilt first to him. He caught it and looked at me in bemusement. ‘That’s my pledge that I’ll free you,’ I said, ‘but first you have to get me home. Finan!’

  ‘Lord?’

  ‘Release them all!’

  ‘Are you sure, lord?’

  I looked back to the slaves and raised my voice. ‘If you stay here in Lundene you will remain slaves. If you come with me you’ll be free men, and I swear I will do my best to send you home.’ There was the sound of iron links rattling on the deck and clanking through the fetters as the long chains were pulled back.

  ‘We’ll need a smith to knock those manacles from their ankles,’ Finan said. ‘Remember ours? We had sores for weeks afterwards.’

  ‘I never forget,’ I said grimly, then raised my voice. ‘Irenmund! Are you released?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, lord!’ Finan corrected him.

  ‘Come here,’ I called.

  Irenmund came to the steering platform, the heavy metal rings attached to his ankle fetters clinking as he walked. ‘Lord?’ He said the word uncertainly.

  ‘I am a jarl,’ I told him, ‘and I want you to tell me about this ship.’

  He sneered. ‘She’s stern heavy, lord, and she yaws like a bullock.’

  ‘They didn’t move the ballast?’

  He spat over the side. ‘Lyfing Gunnaldson knows nothing about ships and I wasn’t going to tell him.’

  ‘Does the ship have a name?’

  ‘Brimwisa,’ he said with another sneer. The name meant ‘sea monarch’, and, whatever else she was, this ship was no ruler of the waves. ‘One more thing, lord,’ Irenmund said hesitantly.

  ‘What?’

  He hefted the short-sword. ‘Five minutes ashore?’

  I looked into his eyes, blue eyes in a face hurt by cruelty, and I was about to deny him, but then remembered my own feelings when I had been released from the shackles. ‘How many of them?’

  ‘Just the one, lord.’

  I nodded. ‘Just the one. Gerbruht! Oswi! Vidarr! Go with this man. Let him do what he wants, but make sure he does it quickly.’

  I moved the children into the bows to help balance the ship and, when Irenmund returned, still holding the sword, though now it was red with blood, we cast off the mooring lines and the tired oarsmen backed the ship gently into the river’s current. The stern was immediately swung downstream so that we were pointing westwards instead of downriver, but a few strokes of the steerboard oars turned the hull until our cross-decorated prow pointed towards the distant sea. ‘Slowly now!’ I called. ‘Take her gently! We’re in no hurry!’

  Nor was I in a hurry. It was better to leave slowly, raising no suspicion that we had cause to flee the city. The wind was no help to us so we rowed only enough to keep our headway, carried more by the ebbing tide and the river’s current than by the sweep of oars. Finan came to stand by me. ‘I’ve been in some mad places with you,’ he said.

  ‘Is this mad?’

  ‘A ship of slaves? In a city of enemies? Yes, I’d say it was mad.’ He grinned. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We get out of the estuary, we turn north, and we pray for a good wind. We should make Bebbanburg in three days, maybe four.’ I paused, watching swans on the sun-touched water. ‘But it means I’ve failed.’

  ‘Failed? You’re getting us home!’

  ‘I came to kill Æthelhelm and his rotten nephew.’

  ‘You’ll kill them yet,’ Finan said.

  The sun was warm. Most of the oarsmen were young, stripped to the waist, sunburned and sinewy. Word of Irenmund’s revenge had spread through the benches and the rowers were grinning even though they were tired. I had assumed Irenmund had wanted to kill Lyfing Gunnaldson, but instead it had been th
e burly black-ringleted man whose screams had reached the wharf. ‘He made a mess of him, lord,’ Vidarr had told me with indecent relish, ‘but he was quick.’ Now Irenmund was back on his bench, hauling the oar, but slowly. The current would carry us till the tide turned, then the hard work would begin unless the gods sent a friendly wind.

  Father Oda had been talking to the oarsmen and now joined us. ‘Mostly Saxons,’ he said, ‘but three Danes, two Frisians, a Scot, and two of your countrymen, Finan. And all of them,’ he added pointedly, looking at me, ‘Christians.’

  ‘You can pray with them father,’ I said cheerfully.

  We were passing the wharves on the northern bank. Shipping was thick there, though to my relief there were few warriors visible on the wharves. The day seemed lazy and quiet, even the river’s traffic was scanty. Nothing was coming upriver against the tide, but we passed a handful of smaller boats that ferried goods to the southern bank. The air smelled cleaner out in the river’s centre, though the Lundene stench of smoke and shit was still there, but by tonight, I thought, we would be in the open sea beneath the stars. I was going home and my only regret was that my oath was unfulfilled, but I consoled myself that I had done my best. Æthelhelm still lived and his vile nephew was now called King of Wessex, but I was taking my people home.

  We passed the Dead Dane and came in sight of my old home, the Roman house on its stone wharf at the river’s edge. Gisella had died there and I touched the hammer at my neck. In my heart I believed she was waiting for me somewhere in the realms of the gods. ‘Three days, you think?’ Finan interrupted my thoughts.

  ‘To get home? Yes. Maybe four.’

  ‘We’ll need food.’

  ‘We’ll call into a harbour in East Anglia. Take what we need.’

  ‘There’ll be no one to stop us,’ Finan said with amusement, ‘the bastards are all here!’

  He was staring at the house, my old house where we had taken refuge when we first arrived in Lundene. A ship was moored there, a long, low ship moored to face upstream, with a high prow on which a cross was mounted. Her mast was raked, giving her a predatory appearance. I guessed she was twice as long as the Brimwisa, which made her a much faster ship, and for a heartbeat I was tempted to steal her, but rejected the idea when I saw men come from the house onto the terrace. There were a dozen men, half of them in mail, and they watched as we slid past. I waved to them, hoping the gesture would convince them that we were no threat.

  Then one man, taller than the others, came from the house and pushed through his companions. He stood at the edge of the stone wharf and stared at us.

  And I cursed. It was Waormund. I stared at him and he stared at me, and he recognised me. I heard his bellow of rage, or perhaps of challenge, and then he was shouting at the men around him and I saw them running towards the lethal-looking ship. I swore again.

  ‘What?’ Father Oda asked.

  ‘Speed the rowers,’ I told Finan.

  ‘Speed them?’

  ‘We’re being pursued,’ I said. I looked up at the sky and saw that darkness was still many hours away.

  And we were no longer safe.

  The ebbing tide was nearing low water, which meant it was running faster and gave us some help as, with the river’s current, it swept us downriver. Finan was hammering the time with a stave and he quickened it, but the oarsmen were too tired after rowing upriver against the ebb. The current, of course, would help our enemy as much as it helped us, but I hoped it would take Waormund a long time to assemble sufficient oarsmen, but hope is never something to rely on in warfare. My father had always said that if you hope the enemy will march east, then plan for them marching west.

  We passed the old Roman fort that marked the eastern extremity of the old city and I looked back and saw my father had been right. The ship was already pulling away from the wharf, her rowers turning the longsleek hull to follow us. ‘It’s not a full crew,’ Finan said.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Maybe twenty-four oars?’

  ‘They’ll still catch us,’ I said grimly.

  ‘That’s a big ship for just twenty-four oars.’

  ‘They’ll catch us.’

  Finan touched the cross at his neck. ‘I thought someone said this was a fast ship?’

  ‘For her size, she is.’

  ‘But the longer a ship, the faster she is,’ Finan said unhappily. He had heard me say that too many times, but had never understood why that was true. I did not understand it either, yet I knew the pursuing ship must inevitably catch us. I was steering Brimwisa to follow the huge horseshoe bend in the river that would sweep us southwards before curving north. I was using the outside of the bend, which was a longer row, but there the current was fastest and I needed all the speed I could find. ‘There are men at her prow,’ Finan said, still staring behind.

  ‘They’re the ones who’ll board us,’ I said.

  ‘So what do we do? Go ashore?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  The current was racing us southwards. The river was low, with wide stretches of glistening mud on each bank, and beyond them little but desolate marshland where a few hovels showed where folk made a living from trapping eels. I turned and saw our pursuer was gaining on us. I could see the mailed men in the prow, see their shields with Æthelhelm’s leaping stag, and see the afternoon sun glinting from spearheads. Those men planned to jump down onto the Brimwisa’s deck. ‘How many in the prow?’ I asked Finan.

  ‘Too many,’ he said grimly. ‘I reckon he has forty men at least.’

  So Waormund had roughly half his men rowing and the other half armed and ready to overwhelm us. ‘They’ll ram us,’ I said, ‘and board us.’

  ‘And what do we do? Die?’

  ‘We outrun them, of course.’

  ‘But you said they’ll catch us!’

  ‘They will!’ I could feel the water vibrating through the loom of the steering-oar. That meant we were going fast, but we needed to be faster. ‘If you want to be free men,’ I shouted at the oarsmen, ‘then row as you’ve never rowed before! I know you’re tired, but row as if the devil is at your heels!’ Which he was. ‘Row!’

  They put their feeble strength into the oars. Four of my men had taken the places of the weaker oarsmen, and they called the time as the strokes quickened. We had gone around the vast southern bend and were heading northwards now. The pursuing ship was a little more than three hundred paces behind us and her rowers, fresher than ours, were pulling faster. I saw the river break white at her cutwater, saw how each pull of the oars surged her a pace nearer. ‘If we go ashore,’ Finan began nervously.

  ‘They’ll hunt us in the marshes. It won’t be pretty.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we don’t go ashore,’ I said, deliberately confusing him.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Yet,’ I finished.

  He gave me a weary look. ‘So tell me.’

  ‘We won’t reach Bebbanburg, at least not for a while.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘See those trees ahead?’ I pointed. About a mile ahead of us the river turned east again towards the sea, but on the northern bank was a prominent clump of trees. ‘Just beyond those trees is a river,’ I went on, ‘the Ligan, and it takes us north into Mercia.’

  ‘It takes them north too,’ Finan said, nodding astern.

  ‘Half a lifetime ago,’ I went on, ‘the Danes took their ships up the Ligan and Alfred built a fort to block the river. They lost all their ships. That was a fight we missed.’

  ‘We didn’t miss many,’ Finan said grumpily.

  I turned to look behind and saw that the big ship was now a little more than two hundred paces away. I could see Waormund too, looming above the other men in the prow. He turned and evidently shouted at his oarsmen to row faster. ‘That ship may be longer than ours,’ I told Finan, ‘and she’s certainly quicker, but she draws more water. The Ligan is shallow, so if we’re lucky,’ and I touched the hammer, ‘she’ll go aground.’

&nb
sp; ‘And if we’re unlucky?’

  ‘We die.’

  I had never sailed the Ligan. I knew the river was tidal for a few miles upstream, and deep enough beyond the tidal head to take boats almost as far as Heorotforda, but I also knew it was a difficult river. The Ligan’s last few miles flowed through dense marshland where the river divided into a dozen shallow streams that changed their courses over the years. I had seen ships using those channels, but that had been years before. And we were very close to the tide’s ebb, when the water would be at its shallowest. If I was unlucky we would go aground and then there would be blood in the Ligan.

  Our rowers were weakening, our pursuers were nearer, and once we turned into the Ligan we would be rowing against the current. ‘Pull!’ I shouted. ‘Pull! Your lives depend on it! You can rest soon, but pull now!’ I could see that the freed slave girls, crouched in the bows with the children, were crying. They knew just what they could expect if the bigger ship caught us.

  We were close to the end of the northern reach, but Waormund’s ship was now only a hundred paces behind. I prayed he had no bowmen on board. I watched the river’s northern bank appear as we began the eastwards turn. Trees grew in the marshes and the Ligan’s channels threaded those trees. ‘Poplars,’ I said.

  ‘Poplars?’

  ‘Just hope the mast doesn’t catch on a branch.’

  ‘Mary, mother of God,’ Finan said, and touched his cross.

  ‘Pull! Pull! Pull!’ I shouted and heaved the steering-oar over, and the Brimwisa turned across the river’s current and headed for the Ligan. She slowed immediately, no longer helped by tide or river, and I bellowed at the oarsmen again. The big ship was following us, close enough now for a man to try throwing a spear that fell into our feeble wake just a few paces short. ‘Pull!’ I bellowed. ‘Pull!’