The Flame Bearer

by Bernard Cornwell

  Æthelstan had brought his horse to the foot of the corpse-littered steps. He had opened his cheek-pieces and stood in his stirrups with his blood-stained sword held high. ‘I am your prince!’ he shouted. ‘Go into the church and you live!’ Æthelhelm gaped at him. ‘I am your prince!’ Æthelstan shouted again and again. His grey horse was dappled red with blood. ‘Go into the church and you live! Drop your weapons! Go into the church!’

  Hrothard stepped in front of Æthelhelm. Hrothard! He was bellowing like me, his sword was reddened, his shield splintered with a sheet of blood spattered across the leaping stag. ‘He’s mine!’ I shouted, but my son shouldered me aside and ran at the tall man, who rammed his shield forward and lunged his sword under the shield to strike my son’s legs, but Uhtred lowered his shield fast, deflecting the blow, and slashed at Hrothard, who parried it, and the clash of swords was like a bell sounding. Hrothard was spitting curses, my son was smiling. The swords clashed again. Men were watching. Red-cloaked men had dropped their weapons, were holding their hands out to show they yielded, and they watched as the blades moved so fast it was impossible to count each stroke, two craftsmen at their work, then my son staggered. Hrothard saw the opening and lunged and Uhtred turned inside the lunge, the stagger a feint, and he was behind Hrothard now and his sword was at Hrothard’s throat and it sliced. The air misted with blood and Hrothard fell.

  Father Herefrith was shouting at Æthelhelm’s men to fight on. ‘God is with you! You cannot lose! Kill them! Kill the pagan! Christ is with you! Kill the pagan!’ He meant me.

  Æthelhelm and his daughter were gone. I did not see them run. A man made a feeble thrust at me with a spear and I swept it aside with my shield, stepped close and drove Wasp-Sting deep. He gasped into my face, sobbed, and I cursed him as I ripped the blade upwards, gutting him, and he made a mewing noise as he fell.

  And Herefrith, seeing my seax trapped in the dying man’s guts, charged me. My son stopped him, using his shield to throw the priest back against the church wall. My son was a Christian, or so he claimed, and to kill a priest would condemn his soul to eternal flames, so he was content just to thrust the big priest away, but I had no fear of the Christian hell. I let go of Wasp-Sting and picked up the spear that the dying man had thrust so feebly. ‘Herefrith!’ I shouted, ‘meet your god!’ And I ran at him, spear levelled, and his sword’s parry did not deflect the blade by a hand’s width and the spear went through his robe, through his mail, and into his belly and through his spine until the spear’s point jarred and bent against the church’s stone wall that was smeared, streaked, and running with his blood. I left him with the spear still inside him, left him there to die. ‘They’ve broken!’ My son was at my side. ‘They’ve broken, father!’

  ‘They’re not beaten yet,’ I snarled. I tugged Wasp-Sting from the corpse and looked back down the ramp to see my cousin was watching, not fighting. He saw Finan’s shield wall waiting for his attack and he saw his ally’s men broken and running. His men were halfway up the ramp, and they had seen our savagery, and the fear was beating in them like the wings of a captured bird. ‘Lord Prince,’ I said to Æthelstan, who was still at the foot of the steps behind Finan’s men.

  ‘Lord Uhtred?’

  ‘Keep twenty men.’ My voice was hoarse, my throat sore from shouting. ‘Guard this place. And stay alive, damn you. Stay alive!’

  And the battle-rage was in me. I had so nearly lost this fight. I had been careless at the opening, almost losing the Sea Gate, and I had been lucky. I gripped Wasp-Sting’s hilt and thanked the gods for their favour, and now I would do what I had sworn to do so many years ago. I would kill the usurper. ‘Finan!’

  ‘Lord?’

  ‘We’re going to slaughter these bastards!’ I strode to the top of the ramp, to the top step that was red with blood, just as the western sky was drenched with the scarlet of day’s end. I was shouting so that my cousin’s men could hear me. ‘We are going to soak this rock with blood! I am Uhtred! I am the lord here. This is my rock!’ I went down the steps, pushing through Finan’s tight ranks. ‘This is my rock!’ I thrust Wasp-Sting at Rorik, and drew Serpent-Breath. I reckoned this last and bigger shield wall would not stand. From now it would be a slaughter, and Serpent-Breath was thirsty.

  I stood beside Finan in what had been our rear rank and was now our front rank. My cousin was on horseback, some six or seven ranks behind his own leading men, and those men saw me smile. I had unlaced my cheek-pieces, let them see the blood on my face, see the blood on my mail, the blood on my hands. I was a man of gold and of blood. I was a lord of war and I was filled with the rage of battle. The enemy were ten paces away and I walked five of those paces so that I stood alone, facing them. ‘This,’ I snarled at them, ‘is my rock.’

  None moved. I could see the fear in them, smell it. ‘Steady,’ I heard Finan call, ‘steady!’ His men were edging forward, yearning to kill.

  ‘I am Uhtred,’ I told my enemy, ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg.’ They knew who I was. My cousin had scorned me for years, but these men had heard the whispered stories of faraway battles. Now I was in their face, and I lifted Serpent-Breath to point her blade at my cousin. ‘You and me,’ I shouted.

  He did not answer.

  ‘You and me!’ I called again. ‘No one else needs die! Just you and me!’

  He just stared at me. His helmet, I saw, had a wolf’s tail hanging from the crown. There was gold at his neck and gold on his bridle. He was plump, the mail coat stretched tight over his belly. He might dress as a lord of war, but he was frightened now. He could not even open his mouth to order his men to attack.

  So I ordered mine. ‘Kill them!’ I shouted, and we charged.

  I tell my grandchildren that confidence wins battles. I do not wish them to fight, I would rather make Ieremias’s world a reality and so live in harmony, but there is always some man, and it is usually a man, who looks with envy on our fields, who wants our home, who thinks his rancid god is better than ours, who will come with flame and sword and steel to take what we have built and make it his, and if we are not ready to fight, if we have not spent those tedious hours learning the craft of sword and shield and spear and seax, then that man will win and we will die. Our children will be slaves, our wives whores, and our cattle slaughtered. So we must fight, and the man who fights with confidence wins. A man called Ida had come to this shore almost four hundred years before. He had landed from the sea, leading ships full of cruel men, and he had taken the crude fortress built on this rock, he had slaughtered the defenders, used their wives for his pleasure, and made their children his slaves. I was Ida’s descendant. His enemies, who were now the Welsh, called him Flamdwyn, the Flamebearer. Did he really burn his enemies off this rock? Perhaps, but whether the song of Ida tells true or not, one truth is certain, that Ida the Flamebearer came to this crag and had the confidence to make a new kingdom on an old island.

  Now I trod in the Flamebearer’s footsteps to drench the rock with blood again. I had been right. My cousin’s men did not stand. They had no confidence. Some dropped their shields and swords, and those men stood a chance of living, but any who tried to fight was given his wish. I too had dropped my shield, not needing it because the enemy was giving way, retreating, some fleeing down the ramp. The bravest of my cousin’s men formed a shield wall around his horse, and we attacked it. I hacked at shields, forgetting that a sword will not beat down an enemy in a well made shield wall, but rage will. Serpent-Breath cut the iron rim of a shield and split the helmet of the man holding it. He sank to his knees. A man rammed a spear at me, it tore my mail, pierced my side, and Serpent-Breath took one of his eyes, and my son stepped past me to kill the man. Finan was coldly efficient, Berg was screaming in his native Norse, Cerdic was breaking shields with his axe. The rock steps were slippery with blood. My men were shrieking, howling, killing, carving their way through defeated men, and my cousin tried to push his horse back through his rear ranks, and Cerdic shattered one of the horse’s back legs with
the axe, and the screaming animal went onto its haunches, and Cerdic sliced the axe into its neck and dragged my cousin out of his fleece-lined saddle. Men were surrendering, or trying to surrender. A priest was screaming at me to stop. Women were screaming. My son grabbed a helmet-less man by the hair and pulled him onto his seax and twisted the blade in his gut, tossed him aside and rammed the sword into another man’s belly.

  Then the horn sounded.

  One long, clear note.

  The sun had set, but the sky was still bright. It was red in the west, purpling in the east, and no stars showed yet. The horn sounded again to herald Æthelstan, who walked his horse down the long stone ramp. He had ordered Rorik to sound the horn, demanding an end to the killing. ‘It’s over, Lord Uhtred,’ he called when he reached us, ‘you’ve won.’

  There were men on their knees. Men who had pissed themselves. Men who watched us in terror. Men weeping because they had met the horror, and it was us. We were the wolf pack of Bebbanburg and we had taken back what Ida the Flamebearer had first won.

  ‘It’s over,’ Æthelstan said again, quieter now. Ravens were flying from the hills. On the summit behind us there were dogs lapping blood. It was over.

  ‘Not quite over,’ I said. My cousin still lived. He stood, shaking slightly, guarded by Cerdic. His sword had fallen on the rock, and I picked it up from beside the corpse of his horse and gave it to him, hilt-first. ‘You and me,’ I said.

  He shook his head. His plump face was red, his eyes scared.

  ‘You and me,’ I said again, and again he shook his head.

  So I killed him. I hacked him down with Serpent-Breath and went on hacking and no one tried to stop me, and I only stopped hacking when his body was a mess of blood, cloth, splintered bone, broken mail, and butchered flesh. I cleaned Serpent-Breath on his cloak. ‘Cut off his head,’ I ordered Rorik, ‘and the dogs can eat the rest of him.’

  I had come home.

  Epilogue

  Einar proved to be unfortunate. Along with the crew of the Trianaid, his men defeated what was left of Æthelhelm’s force in front of the Sea Gate, but Einar took a spear in the belly and died that night. The Scots had wanted to assault the gate, but a few rocks hurled down by Gerbruht’s men had dissuaded them, and Einar’s men, after their lord was wounded, had no stomach for another fight. They plundered Æthelhelm’s ships, took the golden dowry that had accompanied Ælswyth north, and that was victory enough for them.

  The Scots did not attack the Low Gate. My cousin had left thirty men to hold that formidable bastion, and with thirty men I could hold that gate until chaos ends the world. In the morning I opened the gate and rode out with my son, with Finan, and with Æthelstan. The four of us waited on the narrow path where Einar had started to build a palisade, and finally Domnall came to meet us. He was an impressive man, dark-eyed, black-haired, broad in his shoulders, and elegant in the saddle of an impressive black stallion. He said nothing, just nodded a curt greeting. He came alone.

  ‘Tell your master,’ I said, ‘that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is lord here now, and that the borders of my land are as they were in my father’s time.’

  He looked past me at the Low Gate that was decorated with skulls my cousin had put there as a warning to invaders. I had added two heads, the shattered and bloody remnants of my cousin’s skull and the head of Waldhere. ‘It doesn’t matter who rules here,’ Domnall spoke surprisingly mildly, but then he was a warlord who did not need insults to instil fear, ‘we’ll still besiege the place.’ He looked back to me.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘you won’t.’ I shifted in the saddle to relieve the ache in my side. I had been wounded there, but the cut was not deep, nor was the slash in my thigh. ‘I am not my cousin,’ I told Domnall, ‘I won’t just sit behind these walls.’

  ‘You terrify me,’ he said drily.

  ‘So give King Constantin my greetings,’ I went on, ‘and tell him to be content with the lands of his father, as I am content with my father’s land.’

  ‘And you may tell him something more,’ Æthelstan had pushed his horse forward to stand beside mine. ‘I am Æthelstan,’ he said, ‘Prince of Wessex, and this land is under my father’s protection.’ That was a bald claim and one I doubted King Edward would have agreed with, but Domnall did not argue. Besides, he knew that Sigtryggr was less than a half-day’s march away with a large force of horsemen. I did not know that yet, but Domnall did, and he was no fool. He knew Bebbanburg had been reinforced, and knew that he would be badly outnumbered once Sigtryggr reached us.

  So the Scots were gone by nightfall, taking their share of Æthelhelm’s gold, all of Bebbanburg’s cattle, and anything else they could carry with them. ‘In two days’ time,’ I told my son, ‘we’ll take sixty horsemen north and ride our boundary. If we find any Scottish warriors on our land we kill them.’ I would let Domnall and his master know that Uhtred of Bebbanburg was now lord here.

  Sigtryggr kept his promise, just as I had kept mine. I had promised he would lose no men, because all I had asked of him was to bring an army into Bebbanburg’s land that would threaten the Scots. Domnall had been forced to send men to watch that army, thus weakening the force that besieged Bebbanburg. I doubted he would have ordered an assault, but Sigtryggr’s threat had made such an assault even less likely, and that afternoon my son-in-law led more than a hundred and fifty men across the narrow isthmus, through the gate of skulls, and up into Bebbanburg.

  Æthelhelm lived. He, like many of his men, had taken shelter in the church where they laid down their weapons and sent a priest to negotiate their surrender. I had wanted to kill him, but Æthelstan forbade it. He had spent a long time talking with the ealdorman, then came to me and decreed that Æthelhelm would live. ‘You’re a fool, lord Prince,’ I told him, ‘your father would kill him.’

  ‘He will support my father,’ Æthelstan said.

  ‘He promised that? What makes you believe he’ll keep the promise?’

  ‘Because you’re keeping his daughter as a hostage.’

  That surprised me. ‘I’m keeping Ælswyth?’

  ‘You are,’ Æthelstan said, then smiled, ‘and your son will thank me for that.’

  ‘Damn what my son wants,’ I said, thinking what a sordid mess that relationship would cause, ‘do you really think Æthelhelm wouldn’t exchange a daughter for a kingdom?’

  Æthelstan acknowledged the point by nodding. ‘He’s a powerful man,’ he said, ‘with powerful followers. Yes, he’ll sacrifice Ælswyth for his ambitions, but if he dies then his eldest son will want revenge. You just exchange an ageing enemy for a younger one. This way Æthelhelm owes me.’

  ‘Owes you?’ I scoffed. ‘You think he’s grateful? He’ll just hate you the more.’

  ‘Probably. But you’ll keep him here until he pays a ransom,’ he smiled, ‘to you. He’s a rich man, and you, my friend, have spent much gold to take this rock. By the time he’s paid the ransom he won’t be a rich man any longer. That way we weaken him.’

  I growled to hide my pleasure in that thought. ‘One day I’ll kill him,’ I said, reluctantly conceding the argument.

  ‘Probably you will, lord, but not today, and not till he has refilled your coffers with gold.’

  And that night we had a feast. It was a poor feast, mostly fish, bread, and cheese, but there was plenty of ale, and that made it a feast. And those few of my cousin’s men who we trusted, mostly the young ones, feasted with us. The rest we had pushed out to be masterless men in the hills. The survivors of Æthelhelm’s red-cloaked guards were in the lower courtyard, between the Low and High Gates. I would send them south in the morning, letting one man in three carry a weapon to defend themselves on their long walk home. Æthelhelm himself sat at the high table as his rank deserved. He was as genial as ever, though his eyes looked haunted. I saw my son pouring ale for his daughter, so pretty and pale, and she laughed when my son leaned close and whispered in her ear. Æthelhelm heard the laughter and caught my eye. We stared at each other for a
moment, enemies still, then a gust of cheering from the lower tables gave us both an excuse to look away. I missed Eadith, but one of Æthelhelm’s ships was still seaworthy, and in the morning I would send Berg and a small crew south to bring our women and families to their new home.

  My cousin’s harpist played the song of Ida. My men sang. They danced. They boasted of their prowess, they told stories of their fight, and they did not confess to the horror. There were too many wounded men lying in a smaller hall. We had collected cobwebs and moss, torn up my cousin’s banners to make bandages, and tried to staunch their wounds, but I saw one of my cousin’s priests, a young man, giving the Christians his church’s last rites. Others lay gripping a sword hilt or a seax. Some had the weapon tied to a hand, determined to meet me one day in Valhalla.

  And that night I stood with Finan on the rock ledge outside the hall. The moon was long on the water. Its reflection made a shimmering path, the same path that Ida the Flamebearer had followed to make his new home on a strange coast. And there were tears in my eyes to blur that long bright path.

  Because I was home.