The Flame Bearer

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘You did what?’ I asked, astonished.

  ‘I gave the emerald to the church,’ she said. She had possessed a rich emerald set in a gold ring that had been given to her by Æthelred who had been my enemy and her lover. She never wore it, and I knew she kept it, not out of any sentimentality, but because its value offered her some security in a dangerous world.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘I did not tell the priest why,’ she said, ‘but I asked him to pray for us.’

  ‘He’ll build himself a new house instead,’ I said, amused.

  ‘So long as he prays he can build himself a mead hall.’ She shivered as she gazed at the moon’s long reflection. ‘The flag is finished, and the horsehair.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’ll come back!’ she said fiercely.

  I thought how I had always wanted to die at Bebbanburg. But not yet, not yet. ‘More likely I’ll send for you,’ I said. ‘Look for the ships in two, maybe three weeks from now.’

  ‘I won’t stop praying.’

  I turned and drew her away from the harbour. I needed sleep. To bed, and tomorrow we would sail towards battle.

  The estuary was calm in the summer’s dawn. The water was the colours of silver and slate, and they moved slowly, as if the sea-goddess was breathing in her sleep. On the wharf it was all confusion as men tossed shields, mail coats and weapons onto the three ships that were already heavy with supplies. There were barrels of ale, barrels of salted herrings, barrels of twice-baked bread, barrels of salt pork, and dozens of empty barrels. There were heaps of sacks stuffed with straw and all lashed down in the ships’ shallow bellies. All three ships had crosses on their prows; gaunt, high crosses made of newly split wood. My son commanded the Stiorra, Finan was master of the Hanna, and I would board the Eadith. ‘Say your goodbyes,’ I shouted along the wharf. ‘The day’s wasting!’ The sun was almost above the horizon, touching the silver and slate with shivers of gold.

  Finan was no seaman, so I had given him Berg who, like all Norsemen, knew how to steer a ship and weather a storm. I had rather Finan had been on the Eadith with me, we had been together ever since we met, but in these next days we would fight in three groups, and it was better that he stayed with his men throughout. ‘I hope it stays calm,’ he said.

  ‘I want a fierce southern wind,’ I answered, ‘so say your prayers.’

  He touched the cross hanging at his breast. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘we’ve been dreaming of this moment for years.’

  I impulsively embraced him. ‘Thank you for staying,’ I said.

  ‘Staying?’

  ‘You could have returned to Ireland.’

  He grinned. ‘And not see the story’s end? Sweet Jesus, of course I stayed.’

  ‘It’s not the end of the story,’ I said, ‘I gave Æthelflaed a promise to look after her daughter.’

  ‘God, you’re a fool!’ he laughed.

  ‘And Æthelstan is unfinished business.’

  ‘So life won’t be dull after this,’ he said, ‘I was getting worried.’

  ‘Go,’ I told him, ‘we’re leaving.’

  Now I held Eadith in my arms. She was crying softly. Other men were saying similar farewells to their women or to their children.

  I stroked Eadith’s red hair. ‘I’ll send for you,’ I promised her.

  Then it was time to board and the mooring lines were cast off and men thrust with oars to push the ships away from the wharf. There was a clatter as the oars were threaded through holes in the hull, or, on my ship, dropped between the tholes. I pointed to the men on the three forward bæcbord benches and shouted at them to give a couple of strokes to swing the Eadith’s bows towards the open water. I saw Renwald watching from the Rensnægl, and waved to him and he waved back. Eadith called a farewell, her voice almost lost among the cries of the gulls, and the ship named for her rocked slightly as the hull turned. I touched the hammer at my breast and prayed to the gods that they would be good to us, then I took hold of the steering-oar. ‘Together now!’ I called and all the oar-blades swung forward and waited poised above the harbour’s calm water. ‘Row!’

  And so our three ships headed into the estuary, their high bows breaking the still waters. We rowed with long strokes, not hurrying, just driving the hulls down the channel between the withies, then curving east towards the rising sun. There were no other ships in sight.

  We passed the Raven’s Beak, that long treacherous spit of sand that guards the Humbre’s mouth, and there we turned north, and a whisper of south-western wind gave me hope that we could soon raise a sail. Men tired by rowing do not fight as well as unwearied men.

  We were three ships in a summer’s dawn, and we were going to war.

  Ten

  The voyage took longer than I had anticipated and much longer than I hoped. We had left Grimesbi in a calm, but by midday the whisper of south-west wind had veered to the north-west, and risen to half a gale. That was a bad omen. Then, some time that afternoon, we rowed through a patch of white-topped waves littered with oars and shattered timbers. They were the remnants of a broken ship, and as plain a warning as any I have ever received from the gods. Had the crosses on our bows angered Ran, the sea-goddess? I had no beast to sacrifice, so while Gerbruht steered the Eadith I opened a vein in my right arm, my sword arm, and dripped blood into the sea and told Ran that the crosses were only on the ships’ prows so that I could win a victory that would bring the gods pleasure.

  I thought her anger had not been assuaged because we had difficulty finding shelter that night. We rowed close to the land, near enough to hear the seethe of angry waves assaulting the shore, and as the light faded I feared we must head east into open water and weather the heavy seas through the darkness, but in the very last light Ran showed us a creek, and our three boats nosed carefully into a wind-fretted anchorage. There were no lights ashore, no fires, no smell of woodsmoke, just endless reeds and mudflats. At low tide during that restless night the Eadith’s keel bumped on sand or mud. The air was cold, brought by the malevolent north wind, which also gave us rain.

  The second day was almost as bad, except in the afternoon the wind backed as suddenly as it had veered the day before. It still blew hard, churning the seas, but at least it blew in a direction that helped us and we could raise the sails and run before the new wind. The three prows shattered the waves, and my men, resting from their oars, had to bail the ships constantly. By evening we were sailing in a more westerly direction, following Northumbria’s coast, but all day we had stood well offshore so that anyone glimpsing our sails through the squalls would think we were heading for Scotland or even further north towards the lands of the Norsemen. We saw few ships, just some fishing craft working close to land.

  I had hoped to reach my destination on the third day, but the weather had slowed us, and on that third evening, by which time I had thought to have fought our first skirmish, we found shelter in the mouth of the River Wiire. On the river’s northern bank stood a fine stone building that had been an abbey church before the Danes came, and I could remember the day that Ragnar’s fierce warriors had slaughtered the monks, ransacked the treasury, and burned the monastery. The church, being stone, resisted the fire, though the roof had fallen in to leave scorched walls and the stump of a bell tower. As we rowed into the river’s mouth I saw that a new roof had been made for the church, and that smoke was coming from the hole at its ridge. More smoke blew in the gusting wind from the straggle of small houses that crouched around the old church, while eight small fishing craft were either moored in the river or else had been hauled onto the shingle where still more smoke rose from the fires that dried herrings on the foreshore. Two small children whose job was to keep the gulls away from the herring racks fled when we arrived, but were beaten back to their work by a man who then stood and stared at us. Other folk watched from the small settlement. The crosses on our prows would persuade them we were neither Danes nor Norse, but even so they must have been nervous. I wave
d to them, but none responded.

  Then, just before the sun disappeared behind the western hills, a small boat pushed off from the beach. Two men rowed, and a third sat at the stern. The Eadith was closest to the shore and so the boat headed for us. I had ordered all my pagans to hide their hammers, and told those who had inked faces to pretend to be sleeping beneath the benches. I wore a cross, but feared I would be recognised, and so I crouched in the cramped space beneath the helmsman’s platform at the stern, and pulled a cloak’s hood over my head while Swithun, who had proved himself a clever young man during the visit to Dumnoc, waited to receive the visitors. I had given Swithun my gold chain to wear, and a fine woollen cloak trimmed with otter fur.

  ‘The peace of God be upon this ship,’ the boat’s passenger hailed us. He was dressed as a priest, though I doubted he had been ordained by the church. ‘I’m coming aboard!’ he called as his small craft came alongside, and then, without any invitation, he clambered over the Eadith’s side. ‘And who in Christ’s name are you?’ he demanded.

  The River Wiire marked the southernmost boundary of Ieremias’s land, and any priest here was liable to have been appointed by the mad bishop, who claimed his authority came directly from the nailed god rather than from Contwaraburg or Rome. This priest was a short man with a mass of brown curls, a beard in which a heron could have nested, and a wide grin which showed he had three teeth left. He did not wait for anyone to answer his question, but went on to demand payment. ‘If you’re staying through till dawn you must pay the fee! Sorry about that. It isn’t our rules, but God’s law.’

  The priest spoke in Danish, and Swithun, who could struggle by in that language, pretended he did not understand. ‘You want something?’ he asked in English, speaking very slowly and a little too loudly.

  ‘Money! Coin! Silver!’ The priest used a grubby finger to mime counting coins into his palm.

  ‘How much?’ Swithun asked, still speaking very slowly.

  ‘You haven’t told me who you are!’ the priest protested, and I muttered a translation from the shadows.

  ‘Does the fee depend on the answer?’ Swithun demanded, and again I offered a translation.

  The priest grinned. ‘Of course it does! If you’re some piss poor East Anglian hailing from a fly-ridden river bog with a cargo of dog turds and goose shit, then it’s cheaper than if you’re a god-damned West Saxon who’s carrying Frankish mail and Neustrian wine! Are you West Saxon?’

  ‘He is,’ I provided the answer, ‘and you are?’

  ‘Father Yngvild, and your lord owes me a shilling a ship. Three shillings for a night’s shelter,’ he smirked, knowing it was an absurd demand.

  ‘Three pennies,’ Swithun, who was following the conversation well enough, offered.

  I translated, and Yngvild frowned at me. ‘Who is that?’ he asked Swithun. He could not see me because I was in shadow and well cloaked.

  ‘My harpist,’ Swithun said, letting me translate, ‘and he’s ugly so he must stay out of sight.’

  ‘Three pennies is not enough,’ Yngvild said, evidently satisfied with Swithun’s explanation, ‘make it six.’

  ‘Three,’ Swithun insisted.

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Three!’

  ‘Done.’ Yngvild grinned again because he had bargained in English and evidently believed he had tricked us in some way. ‘Now who are you?’ he demanded.

  Swithun straightened and looked stern. ‘I am Prince Æthelstan,’ he announced grandly, ‘son of Edward of Wessex, Ætheling of the West Saxons, and sent here by my father and by his sister, Æthelflaed, Lady of Mercia.’

  Yngvild stared at him with an expression of pure awe. He opened his mouth to speak, but just stammered helplessly. I had told Swithun to tell the lie confidently, and he had, and now he stood tall and commanding, gazing the shorter priest in the eye. ‘You are …’ Yngvild at last managed to say something.

  ‘You call me lord!’ Swithun snapped.

  ‘You call him lord,’ I growled menacingly.

  Yngvild glanced about the ship, but saw nothing except tired warriors wearing crosses. In truth no prince of Wessex would have sailed this far north without counsellors, priests, and a fearsome guard of household warriors, but Yngvild of the Wiire had no experience of princes, and I had long learned that the most outrageous lies were often the most readily believed. ‘Yes, lord,’ he said, cowed.

  ‘We travel to the land of the Scots,’ Swithun said loftily, ‘where we are commanded to consult with King Constantin in an attempt to bring peace to the island of Britain. Do you serve Constantin?’

  ‘No, lord!’

  ‘So we’re not in Scotland yet?’

  ‘No, lord, you must keep going north!’

  ‘Then who is your lord?’

  ‘The Bishop Ieremias, lord.’

  ‘Ah!’ Swithun sounded delighted, ‘the Lady Æthelflaed said we might meet him! Is he here? Can we greet him?’

  ‘He’s not here, lord, he’s,’ Yngvild gestured north, ‘he’s at Gyruum, lord.’ I felt a surge of relief and hoped Yngvild told the truth. I had feared that Ieremias might have gone to Bebbanburg, unlikely though that was if he was to conceal his treachery. ‘He would send greetings, I’m sure,’ Yngvild added hastily.

  ‘Is he close?’ Swithun asked. ‘We have a gift for him!’

  ‘A gift?’ Yngvild sounded greedy.

  ‘The Lady Æthelflaed is generous,’ Swithun said, ‘and has sent your lord bishop a gift, but we must hurry north!’

  ‘I can take it!’ Yngvild said eagerly.

  ‘The gift must be given to Bishop Ieremias,’ Swithun said sternly.

  ‘Gyruum lies not far north, lord,’ Yngvild said hastily, ‘a short voyage, lord, very short. It lies in the next river mouth.’

  ‘We may visit the place,’ Swithun said carelessly, ‘if we can spare the time. But do tell the Lord Bishop Ieremias that we are grateful for safe passage through his waters, and ask him to pray for the success of our mission. Boy!’ He snapped his fingers and Rorik hurried to his side. ‘Give me three pennies, boy.’ Swithun took the coins and handed them to Yngvild, adding a silver shilling that bore the image of King Edward. ‘A reward for your graciousness, father,’ he said condescendingly, ‘and a payment for your prayers.’

  Yngvild bowed deeply as he backed across the deck. He remembered at the last moment to sketch the sign of the cross and to mutter a blessing on our ship, then he fled to shore in his small boat, but I knew that in the morning, as soon as it was light, a messenger would hurry across the hills to Gyruum. It was no distance by land, though we faced a journey of some hours, so Ieremias would have plenty of warning that three strange ships were off his coast. Ieremias might or might not believe that we were West Saxon envoys on our way to Scotland, but he would be assured that we were Christians and that, I hoped, should be enough. His worst fear, of course, would be that we were survivors of Einar’s attack on Dumnoc who had somehow divined that Ieremias had scouted the harbour on the Norseman’s behalf and had come for revenge, but why would we put into the Wiire and thus give him warning? That was not the only reason I had risked talking to Yngvild. We could easily have told him to sheer off and mind his own business, but I had taken the opportunity to discover whether Ieremias really was at Gyruum. I had carefully instructed Swithun not to ask any obvious questions such as how many men Ieremias commanded there or whether there were any fortifications at the Tinan’s mouth. Ieremias would certainly want to know if we had asked such questions, and he would be reassured when he heard we had shown no curiosity. He would still be wary, but he would also be intrigued by the thought of a gift from distant Mercia.

  ‘And perhaps,’ I said to Finan and my son, who both joined me on the Eadith after sunset, ‘I’m thinking too much. Being too clever.’

  ‘He’s clever though, isn’t he?’ my son asked. ‘Ieremias, I mean.’

  ‘He is,’ I said, ‘he’s cunning clever, like a rat.’

  ‘And mad?’
r />   ‘Mad, cunning, sly, and dangerous,’ I said.

  ‘Sounds like Ethne in a bad mood,’ Finan put in.

  ‘What would he do if three strange ships just sailed into the Tinan?’ my son asked.

  ‘If he had any sense,’ I said, ‘he’d retreat to his fort.’

  ‘He still might do that tomorrow,’ my son said gloomily.

  ‘All that matters,’ I said, ‘is that he’s there, and Yngvild says he is. It’s better if he isn’t in his damned fort tomorrow, but if he is? So be it. We still get what we want.’

  Tomorrow.

  Gyruum’s old Roman fort lay on the headland south of the Tinan’s mouth. From the sea the fort hardly looked formidable, merely a bank of green grass on the headland’s summit, but I had ridden that height and seen the ditch and bank, both much smoothed by rain and time, yet still dangerous to any attacker. As far as I could see Ieremias had not added a palisade, though I could only see the seaward face, and any attacker would almost certainly assault from the landward side.

  It was mid morning as we rounded the headland. We had left the Wiire in the early dawn, rowing into a calm sea and windless air, and I had glimpsed a horseman riding north from the settlement and knew Ieremias would soon learn of our coming. He would also have sentries up on that high fort’s green rampart watching to discover whether our three ships would keep going northwards or, instead, turn into the Tinan.

  We turned. There was a fitful wind now, unable to decide whether it blew from the north or the west, but just enough to fret the sea. We rowed. We did not hurry. If we had been coming to attack Ieremias’s settlement then we would be heaving on the oars, dragging the hulls through the sea as fast as we could. We would be wearing helmets and mail, and the bows of our ships would be crammed with men ready to leap ashore, but instead we came slowly, no one wore a helmet, and our three ships bore crosses instead of dragons on their prows. I kept looking up at the fort, and, as far as I could tell, it was not manned. No spears showed above the green bank. There were a couple of men up there, but only a couple.