Kings of the North

by Kings of the North (retail) (epub)

  Getting this far had taken longer than he had expected. All the while the doubts had grown on him like moss: that he would never see England again, never wear his crown, never rule, that Raef had been a trick of his mind, his promises lies.

  Twisting around, he looked behind him at the great fleet scattered across his wake. Odd had brought half his father’s fleet, the big Tronde ships streaming after Knut’s. Beyond them, the Swedish ships sailed all together, led by his cousin Ulf Thorleifsson; in the North, it seemed everybody was his cousin. Around them the rest of the Danes kept no particular order. Thorkel had stayed in the Jomsburg, where Knut preferred him anyway.

  There were three ships from East Anglia also, which Eadric Streona had sent, with an offer that Knut had ignored. The ships belonged to danskermen, and he gathered them in.

  Bringing this fleet together had been hard, and keeping it together harder still. Of the two hundred ships he had been promised, at one time or another, fewer than one hundred and thirty followed him now. His brother had worked against him, and the weather had gone bad for months. He kept running out of stores. People got bored and went home. People got in fights and went home.

  But now he had come again to England – that long, flat beach there was England. On either side of him, his own crewmen sat on their benches, talking, passing skins of water, and pointing toward the land. All the men who had been with him at the siege of London had followed him here. Broom-Orm had decided he would rather be Knut’s man than Harald’s. Some of his father’s own oarsmen had joined him. He was getting something of a name, although he wasn’t sure what he had done to earn it.

  The ship slipped along the waves, her checked sail full, the slipped water chuckling along her hull. The wind was driving her into the narrow sea. In another day, they would have to start rowing again. In less than a month, he would reach the Severn and attack.

  He had planned this for months, every night, storying out to himself what might happen – this unforeseen obstacle, that fatal disaster. He had only been a boy when Sweyn’s and Thorkel’s great armies had burned the whole place and starved themselves out of the war, but he remembered it. To avoid that he wanted to take everything in one quick fight.

  Raiding the southern coast might bring Edmund out. If not, coming ashore through the Severn, into the heart of Wessex, certainly would. If Knut could force him to battle, he could take the kingdom into his hands in a few months.

  Unless Edmund beat him. He made himself consider that, but then his mind always leaned on what Raef had said. He would win. It might take longer. But he would win. Across the glittering water the pale sand shone, behind it, the green meadows and the distant forest. England – his kingdom, his fate. He felt suddenly light and high with love.

  * * *

  Edmund reined in his horse at the edge of the cliff, shading his eyes with his free hand. “Sweet Jesus. There are so many.”

  Uhtred hurried in importantly. “Danes, mostly, my lord. There are a lot of Tronde ships. You can always tell them, they’re bigger and their hulls are black. No Jomsvikings. No red sails. A lot of smaller ships. Not the big royal fleet. No crowns on the sails, no gilded dragonheads.”

  Edmund made a soft sound in his throat. He watched the parade of the dragons glide past Dover into the narrows. France was close here; a keen-eyed man could see it on the far side, the first rise of land out of the sea, the gnawed beach of Normandy. He knew Richard of Normandy would do nothing to stop the Danes.

  At least he would not help them. Edmund had refused to let Emma leave England. The boys were in Normandy, but as long as Edmund held his sister, the duke would likely keep out of this.

  “Is it Knut?”

  “There’s no way to tell, my lord.” Uhtred’s horse pawed the ground, catching its rider’s eagerness. Streona was coming up to them, trailing some carls and a few other lords. Uhtred said quickly, “Will you summon the fyrd, my lord?”

  Edmund knew the lord of Northumberland wanted to keep Streona and the others out of this. Everybody wanted to be first with Edmund. All the great men loved him now, fawned and begged for orders – even those who, when Ethelred was still alive, had fawned and begged for orders from Sweyn. Edmund said, “No. It’s too soon.” He glanced over his shoulder toward Godwine, waiting behind him.

  The other men rode up among them, shouted, called, pointed out at the distant, shadowy stream of ships. Edmund turned his horse and went off through them, back down to the road.

  Godwine followed him and their train of pages and guards. The younger man’s face was stiff, his lips thin, but, when Edmund looked at him, his gaze was direct.

  “A lot of ships,” Edmund said. “More than a hundred, I think.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Godwine said. “There are a lot of them, the Danes. What do you think they will do?”

  “Burn up the coast for a while,” Edmund said. “I’ve sent off warnings.” He doubted the little villages along the coast, harried for years, would put up any resistance, even forewarned. Likely they would just all retreat inland. Godwine’s gaze stayed on him.

  “You want to know why I don’t call out the fyrd,” Edmund said. “As Uhtred says.”

  Godwine said, mildly, “It had passed through my mind.”

  “The trouble with the fyrd is they’re always counting their days. They are farmers, tough and strong; they can fight; and there are a great many of them, a lot more than there are Danes, if I can get them all together. But they only serve for two or three months. We have to start gathering them right when we can use, which means when he comes to land. I don’t think he will do that soon. I think he’ll raid, where he can, and try to draw me out that way first.”

  Godwine was nodding. He said, “That sounds good to me,. You’re sure it’s Knut Sweynsson? Here comes the lord Uhtred.”

  Edmund shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Knut or someone else, it’s all the same.” The lord Uhtred galloped up beside them.

  “My King, let me be of some use here.” Uhtred was aging, but he was still broad-shouldered, square-chested, and hardeyed, his long hair grey and his eyes deep in wrinkles. Over his green jacket he wore crossed baldrics and a cloak pinned up in the new fashion at the shoulder. He said, “I have an army in the South. I can attack the damned Danes while you raise the fyrd. I’m ready to snip some Viking noses.” He had brought three hundred of his green jackets down from Northumberland; he was still burning over the damage done to cousins who had been among the hostages at Sandwich. “Give me the honor of an order, King Edmund.”

  “Go, then. But you cannot take your army out to sea, and I don’t think he will put into land just yet. You can watch him along, and when he does land, hit him. Be careful. I’ll catch up with you with the main army.”

  Uhtred’s eyes flashed. “I shall, my lord. Thank you.” He maneuvered his horse out of the pack forming around Edmund and called for his second in command. Into the space he left, another Saxon pushed, another eager face, mouth open, well-groomed head bobbing up and down. Everybody would have a suggestion, an opinion, a comment, a scheme. Every man would want Edmund to listen only to him. Edmund wished he could get off by himself. Godwine rode up on his left side, fencing him off that much at least from the nattering mob. Godwine never had any schemes. That made him more useful than anybody else. Edmund lifted his horse into a lope, toward the road.

  * * *

  Emma lay in her bower, and day by day went by. The summer withered away. As the days shortened and the news came of the approach of the Danes, the Lady knew that the war was upon them again. She would feed again. She stirred, hungry, and Emma grew restless and chattered about going to Normandy, but the Lady had no interest in Normandy.

  * * *

  At the end of the summer Knut led his fleet into the Severn toward Avonmouth. Along the shore the little fishing villages looked empty, their boats hauled in and turned over, no smoke rising from the hovels. There was a bigger village with a stone church, just up the river from the estuary, and th
e men swarmed off the ships and attacked it, stealing everything they could lift and killing some pigs and cattle. Knut ran with the rest, wild to be off the ship, looking for somebody to fight, but all the people were gone.

  In the church they turned over the altar and found beneath it the little gold cups and plates, the fancy cloths and books the Christians treasured. Somebody else had already put the torch to the village, and they carried the loot back to the ships and rowed on upstream.

  A few miles inland, where the river narrowed down into a gorge through the hills, they came on a farmstead by the water. This too was deserted; the people had left in a hurry, running off their beasts into the forest, and Knut’s men managed to round up several horses. They camped there overnight, roasting the pigs and cattle they had killed.

  In the morning they hauled the ships out and packed up what gear they needed. Knut put Odd and some of his men on the horses and sent them out ahead to scout, and then they set fire to the village and walked off into the hilly country to the east.

  The high bluffs along the river forced them south. On the shrubby hillsides the leaves were already turning orange. Where the forest began, the oaks were still dark and thick. They saw no fresh sign of people. They came on cattle wandering loose and gathered them and drove them along ahead of them; they caught more horses. Knut found one with a broad, flat back; made a bridle of rope; and rode up in front, where everybody could see him. The horse was a big black, a cart horse, not used to being ridden or going fast, and Knut whacked it a few times with the rope end to make it trot. When it kicked out, wanting to go faster, he patted its neck.

  Odd went off again in the morning to ride scout, and Knut followed along a worn rutted road in toward a pass through the hills. Midway through the morning, somebody shouted, and he looked up ahead and saw a single horseman on the saddle of the pass, waving his arms wildly.

  “Go!” Knut reined his horse around and charged up the overgrown road. The rest of the army streamed after him, yelling.

  They flooded along the rutted stony track and into the pass, and as he came down the other side, Knut saw a wide, dark plain spreading out before him. A river wound, gleaming in the distance. Down there, his back to a wind-fallen tree, a single Dane on foot was fighting three horsemen.

  The Dane was Odd. Knut bellowed and sent his horse at a dead gallop down the hill. The big black stretched out. Knut drew his sword. The rest of the Danes roared down from the pass after him.

  The horsemen attacking Odd looked up, saw the Danes coming, and turned to run. As they fled, Odd stepped forward from the shelter of the fallen tree, gripped his sword backward, and hurled it flat through the air like a knife, straight into the back of the last rider.

  The man slumped off his horse. The others raced on, down toward the river. Knut galloped up beside Odd and jumped down.

  “Good throw,” he said.

  “I need the horse,” Odd said. His own horse lay dead on the grass near the fallen tree.

  “What happened?” The other Danes were swarming down around them.

  Odd went over toward the fallen man, sprawled on the ground with the sword sticking straight up from his back. “There’s an army down across the river. Couple of hundred men. We were looking it over, and then some of them saw us. I sent Grim on and tried to hold them off until you came.” Odd put his foot on the corpse and drew his sword out.

  The sword came out in a gush of blood all over the dead man’s green jacket. Knut hissed through his teeth. “It’s Uhtred’s army.” His heart began to gallop. He had hated Uhtred for a long time. “Is Edmund with him?”

  Odd shook his head. “It’s only a few hundred men – there’s no sign of anything bigger for miles.”

  “Good,” Knut said. He was rethinking his plans. Uhtred had betrayed Sweyn and given the kingdom to Edmund, and Knut was going to pay him back. Odd was off catching the loose horse, which spooked away from him, wary. A couple of the others went to help him. Knut turned to the big black and vaulted onto it. Odd rode up alongside him.

  “Where are we going now?”

  “If Uhtred is down here,” Knut said, “then who’s keeping Bamburgh? We’re going north.”

  * * *

  From the cover of the trees along the river, Uhtred watched the Danish army coming down out of the pass. He had thought that they would keep on straight down into Wessex and that he could raid their flank.

  But they were turning. The whole long flow of men, some mounted, most on foot, with herds of cattle and sheep among them, reached the bottom of the pass and swung to the north. Uhtred pressed his lips together. He twisted his head toward the horseman beside him.

  “How far off is Edmund?”

  “We will be here within three weeks,” said Godwine of Wessex. He was a reedy boy, son of an outlawed thegn, who had been Edmund’s shadow since before Uhtred had begun paying attention. It infuriated Uhtred that this somehow made Edmund warmer to Godwine than to him, the lord of the North, especially when Uhtred had made Edmund King.

  “Three weeks,” Uhtred said. “That’s not soon enough.” In three weeks Knut would be halfway to Bamburgh. He turned to his horse. His second in command, his son Eadred, was just behind him, and he jerked his head at him. “Get the men ready to march.”

  Godwine said, “My lord, the King wants you to stay here until he joins you.”

  Uhtred lurched toward him, suddenly angry, the more angry because he was afraid. “He’s going north, do you see that? He’s going to attack Northumberland. That’s my country. You tell Edmund to come after me as fast as he can move.” He vaulted into his saddle, yanking his horse around. “Come, Eadred.”

  * * *

  Edmund rode along into the west, sending the heralds ahead of him to call each company of the fyrd to their meeting places. In crossroads, churchyards, village commons, and open fields he told the crowds of men who met him always the same thing.

  “The Danes are fighting for vainglory, for bloodlust, and for loot. We are fighting for our land, our fathers’ graves, our wives and children, our homes, our hearths. We are fighting for England. We cannot lose. But we must all strive, or we cannot win.”

  They answered him, cheering and yelling, and they followed him, first scores, then hundreds of men, all armed, most in leather armor, many mounted. They poured on down the high road into the west, every day gathering more.

  Godwine said, “Edmund, nobody thinks of England but you.”

  Edmund said, “What are you carrying that for?” He was staring down the road ahead of them. He never stopped looking forward.

  Godwine lifted his eyes to the banner above them. The Wessex dragon still hung in the hall in Winchester. It was the long blue pennant that fluttered out above them, bright in the sun, the yellow lance on it rippling. Godwine had brought it from London. He held the butt of the staff firm in his stirrup, his hand on the haft. He said, “I like it.”

  Edmund was smiling. “So you think of England too.” He nudged his horse on.

  * * *

  Moving north, Knut crossed a river he thought might be the one that ran through London. There he sent half his army off under their own captains to raid the villages and farms along the riverbank, and then to follow him to the north to come together at the full moon.

  With the rest of his men he went quickly across the flat midcountry, chasing the people into the few little cities, and stealing everything the men could carry, and burning what they could torch. They ate roasted meat and drank good ale every night. He found himself a saddle and got more and more of his men on horseback. He found some bows and a large cache of arrows.

  He had left two men back at the river to keep watch, and after a few days they caught up to him with news: Uhtred was marching on their trail. Knut slowed down so that Uhtred would keep coming.

  They rode into the first broken shoulders of the hills. He sent most of the men still with him to push on north another few days and then stop, west of the hilltops, and wait for Uhtred to c
atch up. With Ulf Thorleifsson and Odd and their crews, Knut himself went east through the wild country. It was starting to rain. Already, at night, the wind blew sharp and cold.

  * * *

  Uhtred went gratefully into the lean-to. The rain thundered on the roof above him. He rubbed his hands together to get them warm. Some shepherd had built this shelter, up here on the tree-covered rise, overlooking the broad sweep of the meadow below. More even than the roof, the hillside behind kept the rain off. He turned to the man beside him.

  “The scouts should be coming in. There’s a higher valley, just north of here – that’s where we should spend the night. Go get me something to drink. God knows how a man goes thirsty when the rain falls.”

  The man saluted and left. Uhtred turned his gaze back to the sweep of old grass below him. It stood waist high, all the sheep gone, driven off well ahead of the coming of the Danes.

  Damn him, he thought. He knew Knut was attacking him because of what he had done in Winchester. He was glad of that. He was glad of Edmund being King. But in the cold and the rain he knew he had to get to Northumberland before Knut did, call out his people, and defend his country, or he would lose everything.

  Uhtred’s horse lifted its head, looking out into the rain. Sheets of water dripped off the edges of the lean-to. Uhtred knew he should get moving, but he was tired. It was a long way on to Bamburgh, a long way in fact to anyplace he could fort up. He thought of the valley where he had sent the scouts. An old road ran south through there. If he swung toward it – if he got Knut going north, and then he and his army turned south— he might be able to meet up with Edmund and hit the Danes from behind.