Much of the rest of the story is based on truth. There was a determined Viking attack on Rochester (Hrofeceastre) in Kent that ended in utter failure. That failure vindicated Alfred’s defensive policy of ringing Wessex with burhs that were fortified towns, permanently garrisoned by the fyrd. A Viking chieftain could still invade Wessex, but few Viking armies travelled with siege equipment, and any such invasion thus risked leaving a strong enemy in its rear. The burh system was immaculately organised, a reflection, I suspect, of Alfred’s own obsession with order, and we are fortunate to possess a sixteenth-century copy of an eleventh-century copy of the original document describing the burh’s organisation. The Burghal Hildage, as the document is known, prescribes how many men would be needed in each burh, and how those men were to be raised, and it reflects an extraordinary defensive effort. Ancient ruined towns were revived and ramparts rebuilt. Alfred even planned some of those towns and, to this day, if you walk the streets of Wareham in Dorset or Wallingford in Oxford you are following the streets his surveyors laid out and passing property lines that have endured for twelve centuries.
If Alfred’s defensive scheme was a brilliant success, then his first efforts at offensive warfare were less remarkable. I have no evidence that Æthelred of Mercia led the fleet that attacked the Danes in the River Stour, indeed I doubt that foray was any of Æthelred’s business, but other than that the tale is essentially true and the expedition, after its initial success, was overwhelmed by the Vikings. Nor do I have a shred of evidence that Æthelred ever subjected his young wife to the ordeal of bitter water, but anyone fascinated by such ancient and malicious sorcery can find God’s instructions for the ceremony in the Old Testament (Numbers 5).
Alfred the Great, as Sword Song ends, still has some years to reign, Æthelflaed of Mercia has glory to find, and Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a fictional character, though based on a real man who happens to be one of my paternal ancestors, has a long road to travel. England, in the late ninth century, is still a dream in the minds of a few visionaries. Yet dreams, as the more fortunate of my characters discover, can come true, and so Uhtred and his story will continue.
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2007
Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2007
Map © John Gilkes 2007
Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Ebook Edition © December 2010 ISBN: 9780007279654
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THE BURNING LAND
The Burning Land
BERNARD CORNWELL
The Burning Land
is for
Alan and Jan Rust
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Place-names
Map
Family Tree
Part One: THE WARLORD
Not long ago …
Morning, and I …
The first thing …
Next day was …
Part Two: VIKING
I stayed furious …
I snatched open …
I tried to …
I had told …
Part Three: BATTLE’S EDGE
The deep winter …
A storm came …
Seventy of us …
Next day Ealdorman …
Æthelflæd joined me …
For a moment …
HISTORICAL NOTE
Copyright
PLACE-NAMES
The spelling of place names in Anglo Saxon England was an uncertain business, with no consistency and no agreement even about the name itself. Thus London was variously rendered as Lundonia, Lundenberg, Lundenne, Lundene, Lundenwic, Lundenceaster and Lundres. Doubtless some readers will prefer other versions of the names listed below, but I have usually employed whichever spelling is cited in either the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names or the newer Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names for the years nearest or contained within Alfred’s reign, AD 871–899, but even that solution is not foolproof. Hayling Island, in 956, was written as both Heilincigae and Hæglingaiggæ. Nor have I been consistent myself; I have preferred the modern form Northumbria to Nor hymbralond to avoid the suggestion that the boundaries of the ancient kingdom coincide with those of the modern county. So this list, like the spellings themselves, is capricious.
Æsc’s Hill Ashdown, Berkshire
Æscengum Eashing, Surrey
Æthelingæg Athelney, Somerset
Beamfleot Benfleet, Essex
Bebbanburg Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland
Caninga Canvey Island, Essex
Cent Kent
Defnascir Devonshire
Dumnoc Dunwich, Suffolk (now mostly vanished beneath the sea)
Dunholm Durham, County Durham
East Sexe Essex
Eoferwic York
Ethandun Edington, Wiltshire
Exanceaster Exeter, Devon
Farnea Islands Farne Islands, Northumberland
Fearnhamme Farnham, Surrey
Fughelness Foulness Island, Essex
Grantaceaster Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
Gleawecestre Gloucester, Gloucestershire
Godelmingum Godalming, Surrey
Hæthlegh Hadleigh, Essex
Haithabu Hedeby, southern Denmark
Hocheleia Hockley, Essex
Hothlege Hadleigh Ray, Essex
Humbre River Humber
Hwealf River Crouch, Essex
Lecelad Lechlade, Gloucestershire
Liccelfeld Lichfield, Staffordshire
Lindisfarena Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Northumberland
Lundene London
Sæfern River Severn
Scaepege Isle of Sheppey, Kent
Silcestre Silchester, Hampshire
Sumorsæte Somerset
Suthriganaweorc Southwark, Greater London
Temes River Thames
Thunresleam Thundersley, Essex
Tinan River Tyne
Torneie Thorney Island, an island that has disappeared – it lay close to the West Drayton station near Heathrow Airport
Tuede River Tweed
Uisc River Exe, Devonshire
Wiltunscir Wiltshire
Wintanceaster Winchester, Hampshire
Yppe Epping, Essex
Zegge Fictional Frisian island
The Royal Family of Wessex
PART ONE
The Warlord
Not long ago I was in some monastery. I forget where except that it was in the lands that were once Mercia. I was travelling home with a dozen men, it was a wet winter’s day, and all we needed was shelter, food and warmth, but the monks behaved as though a band of Norsemen had arrived at their gate. Uhtred of Bebbanburg was within their walls and such is my reputation that they expected me to start slaughtering them. ‘I just want bread,’ I finally made them understand, ‘cheese if you have it, and some ale.’ I threw money on the hall floor. ‘Bread, cheese, ale, and a warm bed. Nothing more!’
‘The latrines haven’t been licked clean,’ I told him, ‘and you look idle.’
So the older monk went quiet and I looked over the shoulders of the ink-stained copyists. One, a slack-faced youth with fat lips and a fatter goitre on his neck, was transcribing a life of Saint Ciaran, which told how a wolf, a badger and a fox had helped build a church in Ireland, and if the young monk believed that nonsense then he was as big a fool as he looked. The second was doing something useful by copying a land grant, though in all probability it was a forgery. Monasteries are adept at inventing old land grants, proving that some ancient half-forgotten king has granted the church a rich estate, thus forcing the rightful owner to either yield the ground or pay a vast sum in compensation. They tried it on me once. A priest brought the documents and I pissed on them, and then I posted twenty sword-warriors on the disputed land and sent word to the bishop that he could come and take it whenever he wished. He never did. Folk tell their children that success lies in working hard and being thrifty, but that is as much nonsense as supposing that a badger, a fox and a wolf could build a church. The way to wealth is to become a Christian bishop or a monastery’s abbot and thus be imbued with heaven’s permission to lie, cheat and steal your way to luxury.
The third young man was copying a chronicle. I moved his quill aside so I could see what he had just written. ‘You can read, lord?’ the old monk asked. He made it sound like an innocent enquiry, but the sarcasm was unmistakable.
‘“In this year,”’ I read aloud, ‘“the pagans again came to Wessex, in great force, a horde as had never been seen before, and they ravaged all the lands, causing mighty distress to God’s people, who, by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, were rescued by the Lord Æthelred of Mercia who came with his army to Fearnhamme, in which place he did utterly destroy the heathen.”’ I prodded the text with a finger. ‘What year did this happen?’ I asked the copyist.
‘In the year of our Lord 892, lord,’ he said nervously.
‘So what is this?’ I asked, flicking the pages of the parchment from which he copied.
‘They are annals,’ the elderly monk answered for the younger man, ‘the Annals of Mercia. That is the only copy, lord, and we are making another.’
I looked back at the freshly-written page. ‘Æthelred rescued Wessex?’ I asked indignantly.
‘It was so,’ the old monk said, ‘with God’s help’
‘God?’ I snarled. ‘It was with my help! I fought that battle, not Æthelred!’ None of the monks spoke. They just stared at me. One of my men came to the cloister end of the passageway and leaned there, a grin on his half-toothless face. ‘I was at Fearnhamme!’ I added, then snatched up the only copy of the Annals of Mercia and turned its stiff pages. Æthelred, Æthelred, Æthelred, and not a mention of Uhtred, hardly a mention of Alfred, no Æthelflæd, just Æthelred. I turned to the page which told of the events after Fearnhamme. ‘“And in this year,”’ I read aloud, ‘“by God’s good grace, the lord Æthelred and the Ætheling Edward led the men of Mercia to Beamfleot where Æthelred took great plunder and made mighty slaughter of the pagans.”’ I looked at the older monk. ‘Æthelred and Edward led that army?’
‘So it is said, lord.’ He spoke nervously, his earlier defiance completely gone.
‘I led them, you bastard,’ I said. I snatched up the copied pages and took both them and the original annals to the brazier.
‘No!’ the older man protested.
‘They’re lies,’ I said.
He held up a placatory hand. ‘For forty years, lord,’ he said humbly, ‘those records have been compiled and preserved. They are the tale of our people! That is the only copy!’
‘They’re lies,’ I said again. ‘I was there. I was on the hill at Fearnhamme and in the ditch at Beamfleot. Were you there?’
‘I was just a child, lord,’ he said.
He gave an appalled shriek when I tossed the manuscripts onto the brazier. He tried to rescue the parchments, but I knocked his hand away. ‘I was there,’ I said again, staring at the blackening sheets that curled and crackled before the fire flared bright at their edges. ‘I was there.’
‘Forty years’ work!’ the old monk said in disbelief.
‘If you want to know what happened,’ I said, ‘then come to me in Bebbanburg and I’ll tell you the truth.’
They never came. Of course they did not come.
But I was at Fearnhamme, and that was just the beginning of the tale.
Morning, and I was young, and the sea was a shimmer of silver and pink beneath wisps of mist that obscured the coasts. To my south was Cent, to my north lay East Anglia and behind me was Lundene, while ahead the sun was rising to gild the few small clouds that stretched across the dawn’s bright sky.
We were in the estuary of the Temes. My ship, the Seolferwulf, was newly built and she leaked, as new ships will. Frisian craftsmen had made her from oak timbers that were unusually pale, and thus her name, the Silverwolf. Behind me were the Kenelm, named by King Alfred for some murdered saint, and the Dragon-Voyager, a ship we had taken from the Danes. Dragon-Voyager was a beauty, built as only the Danes could build. A sleek killer of a ship, docile to handle yet lethal in battle.
Seolferwulf was also a beauty; long-keeled, wide-beamed and high-prowed. I had paid for her myself, giving gold to Frisian shipwrights, and watching as her ribs grew and as her planking made a skin and as her proud bow reared above the slipway. On that prow was a wolf’s head, carved from oak and painted white with a red lolling tongue and red eyes and yellow fangs. Bishop Erkenwald, who ruled Lundene, had chided me, saying I should have named the ship for some Christian milksop saint, and he had presented me with a crucifix that he wanted me to nail to Seolferwulf’s mast, but instead I burned the wooden god and his wooden cross and mixed their ashes with crushed apples, that I fed to my two sows. I worship Thor.
Now, on that distant morning when I was still young, we rowed eastwards on that pink and silver sea. My wolf’s-head prow was decorated with a thick-leaved bough of oak to show we intended no harm to our enemies, though my men were still dressed in mail and had shields and weapons close to their oars. Finan, my second in command, crouched near me on the steering platform and listened with amusement to Father Willibald, who was talking too much. ‘Other Danes have received Christ’s mercy, Lord Uhtred,’ he said. He had been spouting this nonsense ever since we had left Lundene, but I endured it because I liked Willibald. He was an eager, hard-working and cheerful man. ‘With God’s good help,’ he went on, ‘we shall spread the light of Christ among these heathen!’
‘Why don’t the Danes send us missionaries?’ I asked.
‘God prevents it, lord.’ Willibald said. His companion, a priest whose name I have long forgotten, nodded earnest agreement.
‘Maybe they’ve got better things to do?’ I suggested.
‘If the Danes have ears to hear, lord,’ Willibald assured me, ‘then they will receive Christ’s message with joy and gladness!’
‘You’re a fool, father,’ I said fondly. ‘You know how many of Alfred’s missionaries have been slaughtered?’
‘We must all be prepared for martyrdom, lord,’ Willibald said, though anxiously.
‘They have their priestly guts slit open,’ I said ruminatively, ‘they have their eyes gouged out, their balls sliced off, and their tongues ripped out. Remember that monk we found at Yppe?’ I asked Finan. Finan was a fugitive from Irelan
d, where he had been raised a Christian, though his religion was so tangled with native myths that it was scarcely recognisable as the same faith that Willibald preached. ‘How did that poor man die?’ I asked.
‘They skinned the poor soul alive,’ Finan said.
‘Started at his toes?’
‘Just peeled it off slowly,’ Finan said, ‘and it must have taken hours.’
‘They didn’t peel it,’ I said, ‘you can’t skin a man like a lamb.’
‘True,’ Finan said. ‘You have to tug it off. Takes a lot of strength!’
‘He was a missionary,’ I told Willibald.
‘And a blessed martyr too,’ Finan added cheerfully. ‘But they must have got bored because they finished him off in the end. They used a tree-saw on his belly.’
‘It was probably an axe,’ I said.
‘No, it was a saw, lord,’ Finan insisted, grinning, ‘and one with savage big teeth. Ripped him into two, it did.’ Father Willibald, who had always been a martyr to seasickness, staggered to the ship’s side.
We turned the ship southwards. The estuary of the Temes is a treacherous place of mudbanks and strong tides, but I had been patrolling these waters for five years now and I scarcely needed to look for my landmarks as we rowed towards the shore of Scaepege. And there, ahead of me, waiting between two beached ships, was the enemy. The Danes. There must have been a hundred or more men, all in chain mail, all helmeted, and all with bright weapons. ‘We could slaughter the whole crew,’ I suggested to Finan. ‘We’ve got enough men.’
‘We agreed to come in peace!’ Father Willibald protested, wiping his mouth with a sleeve.
And so we had, and so we did.
I ordered Kenelm and Dragon-Voyager to stay close to the muddy shore, while we drove Seolferwulf onto the gently shelving mud between the two Danish boats. Seolferwulf’s bows made a hissing sound as she slowed and stopped. She was firmly grounded now, but the tide was rising, so she was safe for a while. I jumped off the prow, splashing into deep wet mud, then waded to firmer ground where our enemies waited.
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