She hoped she was wrong. She wanted to ask but she didn’t dare. Because what she was seeing suggested things were now going very badly for her indeed.
The two things that Leofric thought would happen did happen, and at almost the same moment. The first was the Northmen’s ships hitting the wrecks sunk in the channel. The other was Cynewise’s men breaking and running.
Leofric was just finding his voice again. “What have you done?” he demanded of Nothwulf. “You left the wrecks in the channel?”
“Of course!” Nothwulf shouted over the noise of the battle. “I guessed that was what you wanted! I couldn't imagine you really meant to let the heathens sail off with all the plunder of Christchurch! And Cynewise’s danegeld!”
Leofric was about to reply to this when he heard the sudden burst of shouting, panicked cries, cries of rage and at least once voice apparently yelling out in pain. Not from the battle, but from behind him, from the other side of the wall, and he knew that Thorgrim had just found out that he had been betrayed. Leofric recalled the savage, cunning, lethal undercurrent that seemed to float just below Thorgrim’s stoic surface. A good ally, a frightening enemy, he had thought. They had experienced him as the first, now they would meet him as the second.
“Think of how fine a thing it will be to have the danegeld Cynewise paid the Northmen,” Nothwulf said.
“Yes, but first you must take it,” Leofric said. “And the taking will not be so easy.”
Nothwulf reached over and clapped Leofric on the shoulder as if to reassure him. “Fear not, old friend,” he said with a smile. “We beat them once, we’ll do it again!”
Leofric was about to remove Nothwulf’s hand from his shoulder, he was about to tear Nothwulf’s arm off and beat him on the head with it, when a cheer rose up from the fighting men at their front and drew their attention. It was not clear what was happening, hard to see through the press of warriors standing shoulder to shoulder. But something had changed. Whereas a moment before Leofric and Nothwulf’s men had been holding their ground, going blow for blow with Cynewise’s men, now some of them seemed to be running. Not in flight but in pursuit. Which meant Cynewise’s line had broken and now they were fleeing for their lives.
“Huzzah! See here, we’ve won!” Nothwulf yelled in triumph, but celebration was not foremost in Leofric’s mind. He pushed Nothwulf aside and hurried after his men.
“Stop running! Stop running!” he shouted. “Stand your ground! Ailmar, stop those men, keep them in place!”
Most of the men were beyond earshot and they continued to run, but many were not, and they obeyed. Ailmar, younger than Leofric, was more energetic in pushing his way through the men and forcing them to listen. Those who heard him stopped and lowered their weapons. Leofric could see them gasping for air, happy and thankful no doubt to stop running.
The rest continued on, but as they ran they seemed to realize that many of their number were not with them. One by one they slowed and looked back, and seeing the pursuit was not universal they, too, came to a stop. And finally it was only Leofric and Nothwulf’s men standing and sucking air and Cynewise’s men running off, fast as they could, and the many dead and wounded scattered about.
“Leofric! What are you doing!” Nothwulf yelled. He ran up beside Leofric, pointing with his sword across the field. “Now’s our moment!” he said. “They’re on the run, we can go after them and cut them down like wheat! We can kill ever man who was stupid enough to stand with Cynewise!”
Leofric looked at the young man and did not like what he saw. Nothwulf had been growing bolder by the day. He had managed to pen the Northmen in at Christchurch and outwitted Cynewise by marching his men off before she could betray him. He had come up with the notion of trapping the Northmen in the channel and convinced the others that it was a good idea. And it had worked out almost as well as Nothwulf had hoped, even if he had not completely considered the outcome—that the Northmen would be trapped in the bay where they could still cause trouble.
Nothwulf was pleased with himself, very pleased, that was clear, and it was giving him more confidence than was warranted, by far. What’s more, the thought of the riches to be had in killing the Northmen was in the young man’s head, and the ealdormanship in his sight. Greed and hubris. Leofric had seen their effects before, on other men. It did not generally end well.
“Cynewise and her army are no threat,” Leofric said. “They’ve run off, and they’ll be in no position to attack again, not for some time. But now, thanks to you, there are four hundred or more angry Northmen just on the other side of this wall. I think that is a more immediate concern.”
Nothwulf made a dismissive gesture. “Their ships are hung up on the wrecks in the middle of the channel. We have time enough to collect our archers and light fires and finish them off as we did the first time. When the tide goes out and the crabs and the gulls are feasting on their corpses we’ll retrieve all the riches they stole from us.”
“Honestly, Nothwulf, you arrogant little bastard—yes, I called you a little bastard and I don’t give a damn if you are to be ealdorman—you should learn you must kill a man before you declare that the crabs and gulls will eat him.”
With that Leofric turned and headed off toward one of the ladders still leaning up against the wall. “Where are you going?” Nothwulf called. He tried to make his voice sound as if he demanded obedience, but Leofric could hear the worry in it.
“I’m going to see just how stuck the Northmen actually are,” Leofric called over his shoulder. He grabbed the rough rungs of the ladder and climbed, twenty feet up, then stepped off onto the wall itself. He looked out across the water and saw pretty much what he expected to see.
Near mid-channel all six of the Northmen’s longships were piled up against the underwater obstructions. The tide was running out, the current moving fast and pinning the ships in place. The lower the water became, the more stuck they would be.
The ladder shook a bit and then Nothwulf stepped out into the wall beside him. For a moment the two men were silent, watching the Northmen on their ships, a couple hundred yards away. The ships were motionless but the heathens were not. They swarmed over the vessels, doing something, but what it was Leofric could not tell.
“There, what did I tell you?” Nothwulf said. “They’re stuck, just as I knew they would be, and now they’ll be as easy to kill as a hart cornered by hounds.” His voice did not sound as confident as his words suggested.
“Indeed?” Leofric said. He was furious with Nothwulf and what he had done. It was stupid for many reasons. Worse, it was dishonorable. Worse still, it was he, Leofric, who would seem to Thorgrim to be the treacherous one.
“Yes, indeed,” Nothwulf said. “Where can they go? They’re within arrow shot and they’re stuck fast.”
“See here,” Leofric said, pointing toward the tangle of ships. The one closest to them was Thorgrim’s ship, of that Leofric was nearly sure. And far from being stuck fast, it was beginning to move. Slowly, torturously, it was inching its way along the wall of submerged wrecks. How they were doing it, Leofric could not tell. Using the oars to push off and move themselves ahead, he guessed. But whatever they were doing, it was working. Slowly, but it was working.
“Now what are those heathen bastards doing?” Nothwulf asked.
“I don’t know,” Leofric said. “But if I were to guess, I’d say they’re moving that ship up to the bank of the channel. So they can get ashore, there at our feet. Thorgrim strikes me as the sort who’ll want vengeance before he wants escape.”
“One ship? What do they hope to do with the men from one ship?” Nothwulf asked. “We’ll kill them as they come.”
“Look,” Leofric said. The ship just behind Thorgrim had a smaller vessel lashed alongside, and the two of them were inching along behind Thorgrim’s ship. He could see movement in the ship behind those two as well.
“You think they mean to come ashore? To fight?” Nothwulf asked.
“Fight, yes,”
Leofric said. “Or plunder, if there’s no one to fight.”
“Oh, there will certainly be someone to fight,” Nothwulf said. “We just beat Cynewise’s army, and now we’ll stand ready to beat them. Slaughter them. Moving their ships to the shore? That will just make getting at their plunder easier than I thought.”
“We’ll slaughter them?” Leofric said. “No. Not ‘we’. You, perhaps, but I won’t be part of this. I won’t sacrifice my men for your folly.”
“What?”
“I won’t fight with you. This is your doing.”
“But…” Nothwulf stammered, the words struggling to find a way out. “I am ealdorman. I just defeated Cynewise and I am ealdorman now. You know right well you have an obligation to me for military service. I demand you honor it.”
“Demand? Please,” Leofric said. “I’ve stood with you all through this debacle, through every stupid thing you’ve done, even when you had no idea what was going on. But now you’ve sullied my honor. Be glad I don’t demand satisfaction for that.” Then Leofric turned and went back down the ladder to rejoin his men—half of Nothwulf’s army—waiting there.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Bravery in the world
against the enmity of fiends,
daring deeds against devils,
thus the sons of men
will praise him afterwards,
and his fame will eternally
live with the angels.
The Seafarer
Ninth Century English Poem
At first it was not clear to Cynewise what was going on. Both Eadwold and Oswin said that more of Nothwulf’s men had arrived on the field, from where, no one knew, and suddenly what had looked like an easy victory was now in doubt. She studied the fighting in the distance and she thought she understood what they were talking about, but it was very hard to make any sense of the confusion.
And then her men turned and ran in panicked flight, and that she understood immediately as she found the stench of defeat reaching her nose.
“Are they running? My men-at-arms, are they running?” Cynewise asked, unwilling to believe what she was seeing with her own eyes.
“Yes, Lady Cynewise,” Eadwold said. “Yes, they are.” Eadwold sounded nervous as he spoke. As well he might. His chief duty was protecting her, and now he was watching her own army stampeding toward them, the enemy right on their heels.
“Now, lady, we really must fly from here,” he said next. “Nothwulf’s men are coming after ours and they’ll be on us directly.”
“No,” Cynewise said. She was her father’s daughter, not a timid sort, and now her rage smothered any spark of fear she might have felt. She kicked her spurs into her horse’s flanks, but rather than turn and flee as Eadwold wished, she rode right at the men coming toward her.
In no time she was among them, sword drawn, pointing toward Nothwulf’s army and shouting, “Turn and fight! You damned cowards! Turn and fight!” She slashed at the men close at hand as they streamed around her prancing mount. They did not turn and fight. They did not even acknowledge her.
Behind them all came Aegenwulf, mounted on his white horse. He was not racing away from the field of battle, frightened and beaten. Rather, he was riding slowly, just keeping up with the running soldiers, like a man simply resigned to what had happened.
“Aegenwulf, what the devil is going on?” Cynewise demanded as she reined up beside him. Aegenwulf stopped his horse and turned it in a half-circle so that he could look back over the battlefield. Then he turned back to Cynewise.
“Seems Nothwulf is not giving chase,” Aegenwulf said. “I wonder why? Well, whatever the reason I guess it’s our good fortune. First we’ve had today.”
“This is intolerable!” Cynewise said, struggling to avoid shouting. “How did this happen?”
“Nothwulf had men in reserve, it seems. I don’t know where they came from. Leofric’s men were still on the other side of the channel as of last night. We checked, you’ll recall. Either they got over somehow, or there were more on this side than we thought. In any event, they sprung their trap and sent our men to flight.”
“Well, collect the men up and get back and continue fighting!” Cynewise demanded.
Aegenwulf shook his head. “No, Lady Cynewise, it’s over, I fear. No fight left in those men.”
“It’s not over, damn you…”
“No, truly, it is,” Aegenwulf said. “When your father’s men abandoned us it took a lot of the spirit out of the others. The fyrd, the men-at-arms. Even the thegns. They did not like the odds against them. But they were willing to fight anyway. But now they’ve been beat, and they won’t be willing to fight again.”
For a long moment they just held one another’s eyes while Cynewise flailed around for the right words. She considered reminding him that she was ealdorman, and as such she could insist on him fulfilling his military obligation to her. But in truth her being ealdorman was now in question. She had no leverage over Aegenwulf. Actually, as the most powerful thegn to side with her, and the commander of the largest faction of men-at-arms, and a dear friend of the king, Aegenwulf was the one with the leverage here.
So, commanding him was not in order. But neither could she look weak. “We must be careful, Aegenwulf,” she said. “These are dangerous times. If Nothwulf becomes ealdorman he won’t look with favor on those who opposed him. I think we must see this business through, or it will be the ruin of us all. You and me, and the other thegns as well.”
Aegenwulf looked unmoved. Then he sighed. “If Nothwulf becomes ealdorman he’ll know that half of Dorsetshire opposed him, and he’ll know that his hold on the seat is very precarious indeed. He’ll be too in need of friends to start looking for enemies.”
And he was right. Cynewise knew it. “So what would you have me do?” she asked.
“You still have soldiers in the field,” Aegenwulf said. “Nothwulf does not yet know how few are left.” He turned in his saddle and nodded toward Nothwulf’s men, most of whom had now returned to the wall and were standing about, not doing anything in particular.
“I suggest,” Aegenwulf continued, “that you take your hearth guard and ride over there. Seek out Nothwulf and see if you two can’t come to some sort of accommodation, while you still have something with which to bargain.”
He turned back, gave his reins a shake, and walked away in the direction that his men had run off, leaving Cynewise alone on the field.
Damn the old man. I didn’t need him before and I don’t need him now, Nothwulf thought. He climbed a few rungs up the ladder so that he could address the men from there. His men and the thegns who supported him were gathered around in loose ranks near him. Leofric’s men and the thegns in his camp were also standing in a loose group, fifty feet away and quite purposefully separate from Nothwulf’s.
“You men did fine, damned fine!” Nothwulf shouted. “Butchered Cynewise’s men and sent them running. Showed them how real men fight!”
Nothwulf had expected a cheer, but it didn’t come and that unnerved him a bit. There were smiles and murmurs of appreciation at those remarks, certainly, but the men were too exhausted and too uncertain to yell with any gusto.
“So now that we’ve vanquished one enemy we’ll vanquish another! The Northmen we drove off the other day, they’re back now, and once again the fools have run up on the wrecks we sunk in the channel.”
The pleased look on the men’s faces faded to confusion with those words. The murmuring spread and redoubled. Even Bryning, captain of Nothwulf’s hearth guard, was taken by surprise, and he alone of the men dared to speak up.
“Lord Nothwulf, the heathens are caught on the wrecks? Now?”
“Yes, Bryning, now,” Nothwulf said, but Bryning still did not look as if he understood.
“You mean, lord, just the other side of this wall are the heathens and their ships? I thought they meant to sail away, lord, after setting Leofric’s men ashore.”
“Yes, Bryning, they meant to, but
we would be fools to let them, wouldn’t we?” Nothwulf said. He could see how stunning this news was to them, and no wonder. Here they had been thinking they won a great and final victory, only to find there was another enemy just on the far side of the makeshift wall.
“Will we do for them with arrows, lord, like last time?” one of the others chimed in.
“No, no time,” Nothwulf said. “They’ll be coming ashore directly. We’ll wait behind the wall, and once they begin to land, while most are still aboard their ships, then we’ll fall on them and cut them down. We’ll attack when we still outnumber them three to one!”
Nothwulf tried to infuse the words with confidence, as if this had been the plan all along and not something he was concocting as he spoke, which it was. He hoped the notion of greatly outnumbering the heathens would give the men heart, because they seemed to very much need it.
“And Leofric and his men?” another asked “They’re with us?”
“No, not initially,” Nothwulf said. “When the moment is right, then they’ll join in. As they did with the fight against Cynewise’s army.”
He hoped that was true. Leofric had in fact made it clear that he would not join Nothwulf in this. But if things were going against him, Nothwulf figured that the old man could not help but come to his aid.
He couldn’t just watch as we all get butchered, could he? Nothwulf wondered. He didn’t think so, but then, he didn’t think Leofric would have been so angry about his leaving the channel blocked.
“Let’s divide up, divide up with your captains, half to the north end of the wall, half to the south,” Nothwulf called. “We’ll keep out of sight, and once I give the word both divisions will attack at once, come at ‘em from both sides. Do you follow?”
Heads nodded. The minor thegns and their captains began to gather their men and lead them north or south to the ends of the wall. Nothwulf climbed up the ladder just high enough that he could see over it and stopped there.
Kings and Pawns Page 37
